2021 Review and 2022 Preview

"When writing these lines a strange and crazy year lies behind us and it looks like this will accompany us far into the new year." These were my first lines of my Review/Preview one year ago. It looks like these were still valid and a good opener for my first posting in 2022. My first posting in 2022 and it is mid of April 2022. The reasons are simple and the same as for sparse blog activity in 2021... a lot of diseases. While our kid enjoyed his day care location and his new infection community he spread nurgles blessing every two to three weeks at home. I can´t remember a phase in my life I was so often ill. Consequently, my job had became very very busy. Spare time was rare and my energy and motivation often low. All this while fighting through the second year of the Corona-pandemic. It wasn´t easy to get some hobby progress but from time to time I enjoyed some time at my workbench. Let´s take a look on the results of the old year and see how my plans look for 2022.

Painting my Dark Elves 

The first miniatures I painted and finished in 2021 were some Cold One Knights, which waited abandoned since a very long time on my workbench. They were part of my armyshot I presented in my last Review/Preview. I decided that I would finish the whole unit of Cold One Knights which were no less than 10 miniatures. At this time point I did not know that this will became an odyssey accompanying me for the whole of the year. Yes, I painted no more no less on my Dark Elves army than this only unit... and the last Knight is still missing. However, the result became a stunning sight. I published a preliminary result in mid of october.

My Cold One Knights regiment with command and general in my october 2021

After that three miniatures were still missing inclusing the Battle Standard Bearer. The latter took me was my biggest project in 2021. He was converted as close as possible to the original studio conversion. The painting of the whole miniature took all my spare time during two and a half months. An article with this story will follow. Until then enjoy some first teaser picture.

4th/5th Edition Dark Elves Battle Standard Bearer conversion

The result was an awesome sight and I was very proud, when I had this miniature finished on my workbench. Half a year later I still enjoy looking at him in my cabinet leading my Dark Elves Army. He motivated me to finish a further Dark Elves Cold One Knight and a further Cold One in December 2021. However, the motivation faded afterwards and the last knight is still work in progress on my workbench. That is how the year ended for my Dark Elves Army. But that was not all I had painted in 20021. I had some other small projects.... 

From my shelve of shame

One day in February I decided to finish one piece from my shelve of shame. It was a Daughters of Khaine Death Hag I sarted and abandoned some years ago. She was a reinterpretation of the famous Mark Gibbons Witch Elves Artwork from 1994. I had plans to base her on Morthis base but her step lenght was larger than the step. It was necessary to convert the whole plastic bit of the base and with that and starting my 4th Edition Dark Elves Army I lost my motivation. However, I felt Lady Gibbons angry glance and her evil stare bacame more and more threatening the more time has gone by. Therefore, she was my first choice to finish as an entry for The Miniatures Open Painting Competition. I was very happy finishing her and to unleash her beauty in this Online Painting competition. Isn´t she a lovely fury?

Daughters of Khaine Death Hag in referece to the famous Mark Gibbons Witch Elves Artwork

The competition was a very very tough one and unfortunately she was not able to win a trophy. However, I am more than happy having her finished after all those years waiting on my shelve of shame.

 

The call of Slaanesh

Beside Dark Elves I love Games Workshops Chaos armies. Through the ages I have collected large armies and started different projects for the different Chaos fractions. Beside wonderful army projects, dozens of unfinished miniatures fill my shelve of shame. After a loss of motivation painting Cold One Knights in March/April I decided to paint a further miniature from my Shelve of Shame. already on the path of Slaanesh through some collecting activities, I took a Champion of Slaanesh I started painting in 2009 and never finished. It was a project I enjoyed a lot and so I painted a couple of deamonettes to join their Champion.

Small Slaanesh Warband I painted in preparation for an upcoming army project

It was a lot of fun to paint this small Warband and test some colour shemes. I love these old Citadle Realm of Chaos miniatures and they are a pleasure to paint. Luckily, I have collected a respectable collection of these and I am looking forward to paint them in a future project.

 

Cleaning up my workbench and years end

It may sound surprising, but my biggest problem in miniature painting is the basing process. While I can transfer nearly every color scheme or idea on a miniature, it is hard for me to transfer my environment ideas on a base. Mostly it is a technical problem in combination with ambitious ideas. This results in a lot of unbased miniatures or on hold projects because I have problems to realize a basing idea. Therefore, when it comes to clean my workbench at years end I decided to solve some of these basing problems.... solve some of the bigger basing problems! I decided to base my two unreleased Chimeras. My initial idea was to place them on higher ground using parts of a collapsed High Elves column. I thought a long time how to realize that. Finally, I did some sketches, design the column, made a mold cast it in gypsum in broke it in pieces. That´s the short story. Here some teasers of the Chimera project I am actually workin on

Both 4th Edition unreleased Chimeras based on my workbench

 Meanwhile, the first chimera is already painted and I do not want to keep back a first view on the result.

I am more than happy how she turned out. It was a great pleasure to paint this beautiful monster and to highlight this rare miniature. The second one is already work in progress an I hope to show the results and an article in the futre on this page. Stay tuned!

 

Outlook 2022

I don't want promise to much as I have learned that real life is hardly predictable at the moment and to often it makes it necesarry to reduce my activities. As you have seen above, I had some good progress through the last year but I hardly get the time and muse to write about it. I hope to be able to write some more in the upcoming months to show all the finished stuff and finish all my started articles. But be patient with me. If the real life gets hard my focus is always on the painting side to escape these troubled times.

Painting in 2022

In the moment I am looking forward to finish the chimeras. I would also love to finish my last Cold One Knight as well as standard troopers and finish some regiments for my Dark Elves to make the army  ready for a new army shot. Beside working on my Dark Elves army I will try to paint a couple of different things this year. I would also love to add a couple of further Slaanesh miniatures to my growing Realm of Chaos Warband. Additionally, I also want to paint more of my rare and unreleased stuff. Through my collecting activities I was able to get my hands on some very precious miniatures. I would love to paint some of these figures to pay respect to the honorable collectors who sold these rareties for my collection. 

My workbench in mid of April 2022 wit a Teaser of the second chimera.

Now it´s time to return to my workbench. I hope you enjoyed my little review and my further plans for the new year. Let me know what you think and what you are working on in 2022.

Kind Regards,

GeOrc

My first 6th Edition Army

The gang from the new Millenium

This year the 6th Edition Dark Elves Army release celebrates its 20th anniversary. The Armybook written by Gav Thorpe and illustrated by Dave Gallagher was mind blowing. Dave designed the Dark Elves from scratch and gave them a much darker more delicate appearance fitting perfectly into the new 6th Edition character. The new miniature range designed in majority by Chris Fitzpatrick and Juan Diaz herald a new era of miniature design. I was already a great fan of Chris Dark Elves Sorceress and his Dark Eldar miniatures. Therefore, he was a worthy successor to Aly Morrisons heir and the best what could happened to my beloved Dark Elves. During the years I painted two appreciable 6th Edition Dark Elves armies. My first try on these miniatures was a very dark and gothic like version. It brought me the nickname "Mr. 50 shades of Grey" long before this became the name of an awful novel and translation into much more awful movies. Actually, this chapter of my painting career would be long forgotten and unknown if not one unit of this army won Silver at the Golden Demon competiton 2004 in Germany. Oh wait... there is this Golden Demon series on this blog. Yes... and in preparation for the corresponding article for this unit it is useful to light this dark chapter of my miniature painting. Luckily it was a short phase with a doubtful results but also with teachings preparing me to become one of the best painters of the upcoming years.   

 

The Dark Elves of this millenium

The Army Dark Elves Armydeal of the 6th Edition

It was the year 2001 and the new Dark Elves army was already announced. Official and unofficial teasers were shared in the young internet and I could not wait to get my hands on all these new fantastic miniatures. I still remember when picking up my Dark Elves Army box containing most of the new stuff and also a limited Battle Standard Bearer. At home I dived deep into the new book. The dark illustrations from Dave Gallagher completly overwhelmed me. I was lost in a dark atmosphere, a world in black and white which worked completly without colours. At then end of this sinister path I found light at the last page of the book showing some example miniatures painted by the Eavy Metal team members. There was a Dark Elves Hag Queen painted by Neil Green showing that a Black and White painting scheme could work. Retrospectively, I think it was this combination of Daves atmosphere and Neils fantastic paint job trying to paint miniatures close to Black and White illustrations. I gave it a first try and painted a Witch Elf designed from Chris Fitzpatrick in Neils colour scheme. 

Dark Elves Pristess painted by Neil Green (left) and Witch Elves test miniature painted in 2001 (right)

The result convinced me and I moved on painting my new army this way. The next miniature I painted was the Dark Paladin riding a Cold One. This miniature also won a price at a local painting competition and encouraged me to be on a good way. However, the more I moved on in this project the more critic I got and the community quickly got bored of the monotonous miniatures. However, I was very stubborn at that time and it need a couple of failed painting competitions and long nights looking enviously at the new style from the colourful Rackham miniatures which arrived in the painting scene to change my mind. After two years this phase ended with painting my Dark Elves Princes rinding a Cold One which get me my first Golden Demon Trophy. However, I was able to finish a couple of miniatures in these two dark years and taken together this was enough for a small Army. Lets take a closer look at these really, really Dark Elves.  

 

The dark side of the Force

I painted this Army from mid 2001 to mid 2003. After the Witch Elf I painted further test miniatures incluing a Corsair, a Cold One Knight and a Harpy. These helped me to adjust the colour scheme. I can´t remember exactly in which sequence I painted the remaining troopers of these units. I suggest I did the Cold One Knights first followed by the corsairs. Then I painted Harpies and Dark Riders. The Malus Darkblade on Cold One as well as further Malus miniature riding a winged beast were created and painted rather late 2002 and early 2003. The last miniature I painted in that style was definatly the mounted Sorceress, as she was already going into a new more colourful direction. You see an overview of the army below.

 

My 6th Edition Dark Elves Army from the early 2000+ years

    

In the following paragraphs will find more detailed information about the single regiments (the small bits I can rememeber and reconstruct from my old website) as well as more detailed pictures. 

 

Cold One Knights

Dark Paladin on his Cold One

The Cold One Knights were one of the first units I started for this army. I remember that the Cold Ones were a matter of a great discussion and they polarized the community in fans and haters. I stand a bit in between. I liked their Godzilla like heads and the fact that they get back to move more on four legs. Unfortunately, they got a bulky shape and the constraints for plastic miniatures did not allow to create them more delicate. However, the Knights from the talented hands of Chris Fitzpatrick made these some of the best miniature of the range. Especially, their helmets are great designs. A shame that my lousy colour sheme did not allow to get more out of these beauties. Having repeated that I want to point you to some highlights of my painting. My Finelineing was already very good as you can spot on the various runes I added to the shields and pennants. I also showed some good freehand skills that can be seen at the coiled snakes of the banner, the small dragon on one of the the shields and at the pattern on the trumpet.

I am also very proud of my faces and eye paintings on these miniatures. Beside fifty shades of grey you can also spot some rare colours like the dark green of the Cold Ones, the light green Cold One eyes, purple saddles and a bluish pet dragon. And you can also see some faults like the wrong transition on the gem and the matt vanish I used on my first Cold One knight I painted as a test miniature. I am sure you can spot him ;)

I still love these fantastic Knight miniatures. One day I will paint a further unit of these probably with some optimized Cold Ones working a bit more like the Baby-Godzillas from the Emmerich movie.     

 

Corsairs

Dark Elves Corsair Champion

I remember painting the Corsairs as the next regiment. I finished the Command Group and the the Malus Darkblade on Foot which I put together into the Golden Demon Competition in the Warhammer Fantasy Command entry in Germany 2002. Beside my Dark Elves Demonrider shown below this was my second entry. Unfortunately, I failed with both and drove home without a trophy. I was able to finish further miniatures of this regiment in the months after. Two years later I gave the unit a second chance in the Golden Demon competition and was successful... partly by some sneaky gambling. Read the full story about this event in one of upcoming articles in the Golden Demon section. 

Looking at the regiment now I have to admit that it work much better as the rest of the army. The advantage here is that the unit comes with much more coloured areas and the proportion of light/dark areas is much more balanced. The Standard Bearer and his banner is still today a respectable work and the light blue colours are a very nice eyecatcher. Today it would add more global light and would get more out of the scaled cloaks and weapons. These three points are some major drawbacks looking at them now. However, the unit is still the strongest part of this army seen from the painting perspective. 

Harpies

 I started this regiment already in mid 2001 and my plan was to play a unit at the big DUZI Tournament in October 2001. Unfortunately, the painting was to time-consuming and I was not able to finish it in time. The painting scheme of them is not so special and is very close to the one of the Studio Army. Major differences are my paler skin tone and the missing purple eye shadow. I also added the bluish colour on the wing endings visible in the pictures from the Studio Army in the Armybook. I noticed later that the colour is missing in other pictures of these miniatues making it probably a (nice) artefact from taking the pictures. Back in the days I had planned painting a second unit. But thanks to the Dark Gods this will never happen. 

Dark Riders

The Dark Riders were the last unit I completed for this Army. As you can see in the pictures below I took these words DARK RIDER very, very serious. Some first miniatures of this unit were painted in October 2002. Further members of this dark gang followed in spring 2003 before this army project came to an end. There is not much to say about the painting. As you can see I maximized the possibility to paint 50 shades of black and grey. I remember not much about painting these but what I still have in mind is that it was terrible and frustrating painting these miniatures The final result surely has helped to distance from the idea of an Army in Black and White.

Characters

There is no Warhammer Army without their Leaders. The first Charakter I had finished for this Army was Malus Darkblade riding his Cold One Spite. This miniature fitted so nicely into my growing regiment of Cold One Knigths so that Malus was a must have to be painted. I added him already in October 2001 to my Cold One Knights long before the entire unit was finished. 

Malus Darkblade on his mount Spite painted in 2001

 

Malus is a nice mixture of elements from the Cold One Knights and the Corsairs. I really like his green sword, but I have no idea which demon bite me to paint it this way. If you can here me demon... thanks a lot! A major Drawback is the cut off head which just looks strange and unfinished. Definitely, something I would do better today... and a lot of other things too. 

 

Limited Malus on Foot painted in 2001

Malus twin brother on foot was introduced into my army in April 2002. This Limited Edition miniature was a Give Away during the Albion Roadshow and at this time point very rare. I remember paying 80 Euro for this guy which is still today a lot of money for such a rare miniature. 3 year later I got the same miniature for free as an event miniature at the Gaming Day in Vienna in 2005... and with me hundreds of other people. Definitely, one of my worser investments into rare miniatures. However, at the timepoint of purchasing this little bastard I was more than proud to have one and wanted to decorate him with a worthy paintjob. This meant during that time spending him some extra greys. Therefore, he get a loincloth and a sash full of skulls. The idea was from a Undead Necromancer who had the skulls sculpted into the clothes. Here I added them by freehand. I put one bigger skull into the center which was my favorite Dark Elves skull design released as an icon coming with the Tears of Isha campaign. Various smaller skulls I painted around thisone. The sword als got some special effect. It was inspired by a further Undead miniature I found in the widths of the internet, a vampire conversion which based on Aenur. His green sword remembered me on the greens of emeralds. A gem which fascinated me and which I often looked at in an geological exhibition in our institute where I studied chemistry at that time point. Today I am still very happy with this miniature and the challenges I mastered when painting him. The only thing which drives me totally crazy are his squinting eyes. The next time I will sit on the workbench I have to correct this or I go mad.  

In October 2002 I painted a further Character, the Sorceress miniature on foot from Chris Firtzpatrick also known as Morathi in reference to the famous Mark Gibbons Artwork. The miniature was already created in 1998 and beside the Dark Riders on of the few old miniatures which were transfered into the new miniature range. This Sorceress was my third version of this miniature I painted. Again I decided to spent a few extra greys on her. Because the girls of ther 00-years loved animal prints I went with the trend and painted her a snow leopard cloak.

She get some further decoration my adding finelings to the staff and on the inside of her cloak. The only drawback on her is that the pure white needed a bit more shading to make it a bit interesting but these times were far away from painting light sources into miniatures. I am still very happy with her and I have seen several copies of my painting floating around in the internet. What more you can expect as a painter than serving as inspiration for others.

The last character I added was the Sorceress riding a Cold One. This miniature was already a step into a more colourful direction and therefore she had already its appearance. Here full story can be read in my Articel about my first successful Golden Demon entry dealing with my Dark Elves Princess / Druchii Anointed on Cold One from 2003. 

   

Sorceress riding a Cold One painted in spring 2002

The Outcast

There was a third brother of my Malus Darkblade family... and if every family has this strange psychopathic member who ruins your family party. Here is mine. Make a long story short he disappointed me and was planned to get a complete rework. Finally, he ended as an outcast on my pile of shame and that is why you did not find him in the Army overview at the beginning. However, he has his a story to tell.

 

 His story started with release of the Melchior riding a winged nighmare. I liked that mount a lot and my idea was to use him in my army as a count as Dark Pegasus. I still like the idea and some mounted creatures in this direction were part of the Malus Darkblade comics, therefore not totally absurd. I spent a lot of work into his conversion. The nightmare get a head swap and with Spites head he looked muc more like a daemonic mount. On his back I added spikes and a chainmail armor. Malus himself get a self sculptured seadragon cloak with a hood as well as a halberd and reins. So far this conversion looked pretty nice but the problems started with paiting. At the beginning the miniature was painted the classic way of this army. But with the idea of a daemonic mount in my head and in discussions with others the idea of a mist/shadow daemon was born. I tried to add an effect which should look like the demon materializes out of a fog. Therefore, I painted swirls of fog onto the lower part of the mount and blended skin and fog into each other. Unfortunately, the effect was not self explaining. In my distress I sculpted some swirls of greenstuff and as these also not work I added a lot of cotton wool.

Detail pictures of highlights of this Character Conversion

Back in the day I thought all this was a good idea. I thought this idea was so brilliant to make this miniature an entry at the Golden Demon Competititon in the monster category in Germany 2004.As you might imagine, I totally failed. I never tried it a second time and the miniature was shelved. But with further development in my skills this miniature become more and more a thorn in my side. One day I ripped him in pieces with the goal to rework him completly and make him part of my second 6th Edition Army. The mount was resculpted and I started painting but the project was never finished and ended on my pile of shame. But there is hope! From time to time I grap miniatures from my pile of shame and finish them. Possibly, he will get a second chance one day.

 

Closing the cabinet

Time to put back this army into the cabinet. It really enjoyed to blow the dust from these miniatures, to take new pictures of them and dig through all the picture folders and my old website to gather a few information about what happend here 20 years ago. It was a busy time in which I started my studies, changed girlfriends and made a lot of Hobby. Beside painting I also learned sculpturing during that time and sculptured my first own miniatures. That all beside painting this army. Looking back I ask myself how I was able to paint so many miniatures during that busy time.

Sure, the colour scheme looks simple on first sight but is much more difficult when taking a closer look. All these black areas were highlighted towards dark or light grey and sometimes towards pure white. That is the maximum contrast you can paint and this contrast does not forgive you any mistakes. Taking togehter, painting all these Black and White transitions for two years trained me to paint very very accurate blendings. Therefore, this time was probably boring but not lost at all. All this helped me to become one of the most accurate technical painters in that time. And that outcast Malus on his winged Nightmare would become the last miniature which failed me in a Golden Demon contest for a long time. One other thing which remained was the pale Dark Elves skin tone which I became very famous for and which I use (slightly modified) until today for my Dark Elves.

I hope you enjoyed this trip down the Memory Lane. As always I would be happy to read your thoughts in the comments. So long, train your blendings and happy painting,

GeOrc

2020 Review and 2021 Preview

When writing these lines a strange and crazy year lies behind us and it looks like this will accompany us far into the new year. The COVID-19 pandemic has dominated most of our lifes in 2020 with all the changes and restrictions. I am happy that I and my family haven´t suffered much from all that and we are thankful for that we and our beloved ones are still healthy and spared by any crisis. We keep distance and concentrated on our little son and on ourselves. Therefore, 2020 wasn´t a bad year in collecting and painting Citadel Miniatures. I get into touch with fantastic people and received a lot of positive feedback for my project. Additionally, a lot of beautiful moments happend and I was witness of great generosity. Time to look back and be thankful again!

Painting my Dark Elves

2020 was a year I further concentrated on painting my 4th Edition Dark Elves Army. I finished the Sorceress riding the Dark Pegaus in February and her banner in November. Therefore, she is definitly a 2020 miniature. Then I painted the Command Crew for my Warriors in April. The summer was domiated by painting the unreleased Sorceress 2 and the replica of the unreleased Sorceress which keeps me busy several months. In autumn I was able to finish my unreleased Dark Rider unit. This was a project I work secretly for more than 1.5 years on including sculpting, conversions, casting and painting. I enjoyed this project a lot especially the work and all the conversation I had with Aly Morrison about it. Last but not least I cleaned my workbench in december and finished my Executioner Command Crew and some Cold One Knights. Taken together that was a lot of output for one year and I it was and is a joy to see the army in my cabinet growing. Time to show you current state. Here is the army shot so many of you asked for:

 

4th Edition Dark Elves Army by mid of January 2021

 There is still a lot to do and so man miniatures to paint. Thanks to the fantastic work of Aly, Trish and Colin from Marauder Miniatures this never gets boring. The next additions are already on my workbench to strengthen my ranks and add further dread characters. 

 

Collecting Citadel Miniatures

2020 was also a very successful year in collecting miniatures. I was able to receive a lot the rare and unreleased Dark Elves miniatures which was missing in my collection. It was a big joy to get the unreleased Sorceress 2 in the beginning of the year from Emiel which you can spot already painted in the army picture above. I got then totally crazy when I was able to get my hand on the three unreleased chimeras, Trishs unreleased prototype dragon and an unreleased 3rd Edition Dark Elves steed. A further highlight was receiving the replica of the unreleased Dark Elves Sorceress 1. 

Their painting motivated Bruce to sell me his original copy of the unreleased Sorceress 1 and with that I received my holy grail! I freaked out when she arrived at my place and for months I stared at her on my workbench in disbelief. Meanwhile this beauty is prepared and primed waiting for the perfect moment to get painted. Even if I can´t wait to start painting her I do not want to rush. Beside all these crazy miniatures, a lot of other stuff joined my collections. Some for my 3rd Edition Marauder Dark Elves army, some for my 3rd Edition Marauder Chaos army as well as some High and Wood Elves. Taken together enough materials for the next dozen projects after having finished this Dark elves Army.

 

 

Finally, I was able to get some original Dark Elves Artworks from Mark Gibbons and Des Hanley. Three artworks from the 4th Edition Armybook get into my collection, get framed and now decorate our entrance hall. It is a joy to look every day on these awesome masterpieces!

My three original Dark Elves Artworks from Mark Gibbons and Des Hanley decorating our entrance hall

 

Gentelmen and lovely people

Aly and myself in February 2020 in Hamburg

One Highlight in 2020 was for sure meeting Aly Morrison in February in Hamburg! I enjoyed our talks so much and it was great to get his feedback for painting his miniatures. Unfortunately, the pandemic will prevent a meeting in 2021. Hopefully, times will change and we will see again in 2022. Also a big thank you goes out to the gentle collectors who sold me their rareties to complete my collection. Without you the project in this depth wouldn´t be possible and you can be sure that all your precious miniatures get painted and will receive a special place in my cabinet and in my heart. A further thank you to the unknown artist who sculpted the replica of the unreleased Sorceress 1. It was a joy to paint this mniature and finally she helped me to receive copy of the very rare original... Thanks mate! A last Highlight in 2020 for me was the message I received from the exGW Eavy Metal painter Mark Leake. He was definiatly one of the painters who inspired me su much in the early days and I remember his work on the cauldron of blood totally blown me away when starting the hobby 23 years ago. His nice feedback and offers helping me with this project means a lot to me! Finally, my greetings and thanks go out to all the people who enjoy this blog, my painting and miniature art. Without your constant feedback and motivating words this would not be possible. Thank you all for your constant support.

 

Outlook 2021

2021 will be a further year of the Dark Elves. There is still some unfinished work in progress stuff on my workbench and further miniatures and units are already prepared awaiting their painting. Next will be definiatly two further Cold One Knights. Then I will paint my unreleased Dark Elves Sorceress 1. Then I would be happy to finish my units of Witch Elves and Executioners. For each of both regiments only 4 miniatures are missing to have a playable unit. Beside that, a unit of Spearmen and a unit of Repeating Crossbows are prepared to strengthen my army. Two unreleased chimeras and Rakarth wait to get their bases finished. You see there are already a lot of things on my schedule and I promise it won´t get boring.

Can you spot some of the crazy stuff which you can expect in 2021

Because the painting won´t evolve much I will further concentrate on gain new skills in basing and terrain making. Additionally, I am working on my skills taking pictures. A first results you can already see in the army picture above. I would also love to take new pictures of all my Golden Demon winning miniatures and present them with their stories here on this blog.

 

Now it´s time to return to my workbench. I hope you enjoyed my little review and my further plans for the new year. Let me know what you think and what you are working on in 2021.

Kind Regards,

GeOrc

Unreleased Sorceress I - Part I

Unreleased Sorceress I

Through all my years collecting and painting Games-Workshop Miniatures I knew that there were a lot of unreleased Dark Elves miniatures because somehow most of these popped up in official Games Workshop publications. But there were also a couple which were unknown and which I get knowledge of first by the work of Michael Garza aka Heldrake who put up the Dark Elves in the CCM Wiki and created the Dark Elves Collectors Guide. From Michael we learned about the two unreleased Dark Elves Sorceresses. While the Sorceress II can be seen in multiple collections in painted and unpainted versions, the Sorceress I is missing even in some of the most ambitious collections for unreleased Games Workshop miniatures out there. Asking around in the collectors scene you quickly get the feedback that this miniature is extremly rare. At that time I only know of three copies. For sure there will be some more but not that much. Therefore, this miniature is very hard to find and it has become that this special lady became my holy grail.

Hunting the Sorceress

With returning to my 4th Edition Dark Elves project in fall 2018 I also started to check Ebay and the Oldhammer and Middlehammer Trading places on Facebook very frequently looking for my missing pieces. Independently of the platform, "Buy it now" offers on Ebay and offers on the Facebook marketplaces required very quick reactions because first come first served. Therefore, I already spent a lot of time checking these sites each day triggered by the fear missing anything. The drama continued in June the 5th in 2019.

I get up early and as ususal the first I did was checking Ebay and the FB marketplaces. I found nothing and get up, starting taking care of our little son which was just three months old at this time point. When checking less than an hour later the sites again I can´t belief my eyes. 

 

Original picture of Brads identification and valuatio request

A guy named Brad from Canada posted the Unreleased Sorceress I on a Facebook trading group asking for an identification and valuation. So far no replies. I wrote as quickly as possible my interest and a personal message. Then I saw in an other group that Bruce, a Dark Elves collector from Australia had already posted the devestating words: "First in line for the Sorceress" 16 minutes ago and 15 minutes after Brad had posted his offer. I sat down and waited for Brads reply to my message. We changed some offers and I was informed that I was second. Brad also told me where he gets the miniature from: 

My bro died...I inherited his collection and found the mini mixed in with a large collection of dark elves. It was an odd figure..tried researching...found it on a site as unreleased and started asking...ppl messaged me and the battle was on.... Never posted it for sale

I was sad for Brads loss and hoped to get this miniature also to paint it in memorial of Brads bro. Make a long story short, Brad found himself in a bidding war and finally the miniature went to Australia into the Collection of Bruce. 

The unreleased Sorceress I; painted by SkitsMix Commissions for Brads Collection

I was very, very sad. I missed that chance by 16 minutes! The fear missing anything gets bigger and with time checking for updates on the marketplaces has become a bit of an obsession.  I do not know how much life time I has lost checking these sites, but it was a lot. I knew that I could relaxe first when having this collection completed. I realised that simple waiting won´t solve my problem quickly and I started to become more active. First, I moved on and painted more references for this project. Second, with having good references at hand I started asking in the Facebook groups. This way I get hold of the Unreleased Sorcerers II from Emiel in the beginning of 2020. I painted his unreleased evil lady a couple of months later and whenever I posted an update in the Facebook groups I noted that I am still looking for the Unreleased Sorceress I. The community quickly noticed that this particular Sorceress is my holy grail and that I am desperatly looking for this lady. 
     

The Replica

A very generous gift

In June 2020, one of my oldhammer friends asked for my address. One week later I received an anonymous envelope. You couldn’t imagine my face when this little evil lady fell out of it. 
I hold a casting of a beautifully sculpted replica of the unreleased Sorceress I in my hands. I received her with a picture of her green and the short notice:  

A gift for an inspiring collector . 

 

I felt very honored receiving this gift and I started to paint her immediately. She would be a nice addition to my collection and I hoped that her original reference will join her one day.

 

 

Painting the Replica

I wanted that this Sorceress joins my other sorceresses which share a Ghrond theme. Therefore, I decided for a purple colour scheme with white hair. While painting her I get the idea to paint her as a Morathi Prototype reflecting some of the elements Mark Gibbons used in his famous Artwork of the Dark Queen. For that there was need to add some additional decoration on her clothes by freehand. These were the gold linings on the bra and the spike pattern on her skirt. The latter also can be found on the skirt of the Sorceress riding the Dark Pegasus and is a nice detail linking these two. I started by preparing the miniature as usualy. My copy needed a bit of repair work and I had to rebuild some edges and repair her right eye. I used a simple basing for her as her two sisters already have very complex bases. Then the whole miniature was primed and was ready for some colour.

I painted her skin tones first with my typical light color scheme. You have to know, that the north of Naggaroth is not a sunny place and painting these Dark Elves with a very white skin tone helps to seperate them from their Caribian Cousins of Ulthuan. Next, I painted the clothes and the central juwelry. I spared the gloves because at this point I had no idea if these will follow the purple or black direction. I also added the freehand work to the skirt and used the skirt from the mounted Sorceress as reference.

First steps on painting the Unreleased Sorceress I replica

With completion of these elements I realized that the gloves would work best when repeating the colours of her boots. To break off the black I added some further freehand details. Here I used the Champion on foot as reference, painted the edge in purple and added some freehand gems on the back. 

The weekend in the end of July my wife and son visited my parents in law and I had a lot of spare time. I took the chance and tried to finish the Sorceress. First, I painted the sword and the staff. I decided to vary a lot between silver and gold to maximize the contrast. How to do the flame pattern on sword, staff and crest was a bit difficult question. The flames are a very dominating symbol on this figure but can also be found on other miniatures of this range. I had three options in mind, painting it as well in gold as a metalic element, in a more redish gold or in the corresponding army colour. Finally, I decided for the gold variant to mark this element as clearly decorative part of the metalic object. The result looked fine and painted in my NMM style the golden flame looked metalic but also hat a flame character with a light glowing inside. Then I painted the leather parts and scrolls.

Next I added the decorative gold elements on her bra. I used Mark Gibbons Morathi Artwork as reference and painted the curls freehand on the cloth. In the following I added most of the missing details and did a lot of corrections works. Finally, I painted her eyes which I had spared since the beginning.

Maximizing contrast on the metalic elements and the result of adding freehand curls to her bra

The last part on this miniature was the Base. I painted it in my typical light colours for High Elves ruins and added some grass and further details later.

Finally, I was able to finish the miniature on this weekend before the return of my family. In the end it was a bit a rush but painting was so much fun that I can´t stop. In general, painting this miniature was a lot of fun and a great honour. I moved on and posted her painted on the Facebook groups and told her story. The community enjoyed this miniature a lot and I get a lot of very kind feedbacks. I also used the attention with this posting to remember that I am still desperately looking for the unreleased original. But here the final pictures of the replica.

  

Happy Ending - Receiving my own copy

The 2nd of August I found a message from Bruce in my FB Mailbox I had to read twice:

Hey Mate
Shoot me a message when you get a chance. I've seen your recent posts and that inspired work you did on the unreleased sorceress #2. I think it might be time for you to have my Sorceress #1

I will never forget this day! I received my copy of the unreleased Sorceress! The same copy I missed two years ago by 16 min which was sold in the OTC to Bruce from Australia. The one of Brads dead Bro. Bruce was very touched by my recent work and my painting of the replica so he decided to sell her to me for no more than his own costs. That was very very generous, especially because he looked desperately for this miniatures for more than six years. I am more than happy and feel very honored.

My own copy of the unreleased Sorceress I after stripping the paint

Until today I am often sitting on my desk in front of this evil lady, looking in disbelief on her. She had observed how the Dark Riders get finished and waited patiently until some work in progress stuff was finished. Now she knows that her time has come. She get a proper cleaning, basing and a fine coating. Time to get dressed.

Stay tuned for the next part when I will paint my holy grail!  

As always I am interested to read your thoughts in the comments. And please do not ask about the sculpter of the replica because he decided to stay anonymou

Kind Regards,
GeOrc