Golden Demon series - 6th Edition - Dark Elves Corsairs 2004

Time to write about my second Golden Demon Trophy. I won this Silver Trophy for my Dark Elves Corsair regiment at the Golden Demon Competition in 2004 in Germany. The regiment was originally part of my first 6th Edition Dark Elves Army which I painted between 2001 and 2003. The Command crew consisting of the Musician, Standard Bearer, Champion and Malus Darkblade on foot had already a first but unsucessful performance at the Games Day 2002 in Germany. Two years later I gave the unit a second try in in Golden Demon Competition in the newly introduced Warhammer Unit category. The category was new and I gambled that not many good painters were able to paint a complete unit in minimum unit strength.  I should be right and was awarded with a further Golden Demon trophy. Read the full story here.

 

Colour test for the Corsairs

Musician of the Corsairs

I remember painting a Corsair as a test miniature for my new colour scheme in December 2001. In the following I painted quickly two further miniatures before I had the courage to paint my first miniature from the command crew - the musician.

The latter was finished in the end of February 2002. Then I took a break from the corsairs and painted my Dark Elf General riding a Demon Creature. This miniature was planned as an entry for the monster category at the German Golden Demon competition in late summer of 2002. I decieded to paint a further entry and chose a corsair command group accompanied by a hero miniature as an entry for the Battle Squad category. The musician for that project was already done. 

The first small warband of my group of Corsairs

Limited Edition Malus Darkblade

In April 2002 I painted the Malus Darkblade miniature on foot for this group. 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 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 the center symbol. The sword als got some special effect. It was inspired by a further Undead miniature I found in the expanses 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.

There is a bigger time gap in my memories and in my picture database between April and Juli. During that time I painted my stuff in parallel to my studies. Especially, during the exam period the brush rested for weeks and months. During the semester breaks I had to do some work to finance my studies. These periods were also busy but with more spare time to do some hobby. I remember I had some tough exams in my fourth year at university and I also remember working in the logistics in company which built housings for computers and electronic devices in the summer of 2002. This also fits togehter that I continued my work on this project in Juli 2002.   

6th Edition Corsair Standard Bearer

 

The standard bearer was finished in Juli. Beside of the banner he followed straight my colour scheme and is nothing special. The banners were very small in that miniature range so it was difficult to add a good recognizable central symbol. I decieded for a dragon design in some kind of tribal style which was a big thing in the early years of 2000. I painted the complete design and additional runes in white and glazed them with a lightning blue. This way the blues really poped out and the design is good recognizable on the dark background. The blue pearl on the standard top was painted the same way and shows nicely the quality of my blending skills at that early time point.

The Corsair Champion should have followed afterwards but my memories are vague for him. The deadline for the Golden Demon competition was always late August. The fact that I have no work in progress pictures and the first picture of him in my database is far after the Golden Demon event suggests he was finished just in time for the competition. However, somehow I finished everything and presented my two entries proudly at the Competition in 2002.

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 the event and finished this unit for my 6th Edition Dark Elves army. I painted for some further time in this style but I developed new skills in 2003 and my old stuff was more or less abandoned.

 

Two years later I gave this unit a second chance in the Golden Demon competition. 

 

The whole Corsair unit, free from dust and taken for new pictures in 2021

 

 

and was successful... partly due to some gambling. 

 

In 2004 the command unit category were gone and replaced by Warhammer Unit. The rules for the category state that a unit had to be the minimum size according to their armybook entry. That was in most cases 10 miniatures for infantry and 5 miniatures for cavalry. I suspect that the good and very good painters would not be able to paint so many miniatures in time for the event. Additionally, the most competition painters I knew had no interest in painting so many miniatures from the same type at all. I should be right and the new category had a bit lower quality level compared to single or monster. Therfore, I was able to win the second place and with that a silver demon for this two year old unit.

 

 

 

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.

 

I still like the sword from my Malus Darkblade figure. Maybe today I would have added a shield with some freehand work which would make him much more an eyecatcher. But at the time I wanted to keep his expensive purchase in an original state. 

Today I would also add more global light and would get out more 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 ancient army project seen from the painting perspective. Finally, I am very happy that this unit and with it the whole army project got a trophy and was honored with a Golden Demon trophy.

I hope you enjoyed this trip down the Memory Lane. Return here to my Golden Demon Gallery or stay a bit and put your thoughts in the comments. So long, train your blendings and happy painting,

GeOrc

Cold One Knights Odyssey

My Cold One Knight unit led by their General

Cold One Knights

Wow, I started this article in July 2019 to report about my progress on the Cold One Knights I made in March 2019. Since that a lot of things happend. First my work on the Cold One Knights were interrupted by painting the Warhydra for the #MakeaTrish painting Challenge in the Oldhammer FB group in April 2019. Second I realized that I miss a Cold One Knight lance type which turned out to be unreleased. I took the time to sculpt a replica of this lance in May 2019. Third, because I was into sculpting I decided to move on with my work on the unreleased Dark Riders. At this point the Cold One Knights were thus far below in my priority list that I skipped them everytime in favor of doing something else. I returned to my Cold One Knights in December 2020 when starting an initative cleaning my workbench of everything which was work in progress. In the first weeks of January I was able to finish two "work in progress" Knights and to rearrange the Cold One Kinghts Champion on his new Cold One. I quickly moved on with the next two Knights for which I had already finished painting the Cold Ones. This work was interupted again in February when finishing a contemporary "work in progress" Death hag for my Daughters of Khaine. End of February I had finished two more knights, but both still miss some work on the pennants and on their shields. Because my job was very exhausting at that time point I had no energy to finish these difficult tasks. Instead I went for the low hanging fruits and painted the Cold One for the Standard Bearer of the unit in March. When writing these lines we have mid of June and I am still working hard to finish my the second pair of Cold One Knights and the Standard Bearer . This would allow me having a full regiment counting six Cold One Knights. Lets see how far I have come and take a look at the details.  

Rearrangement of the Cold One Knights Champion

The Cold One Knights Champion was one of the first miniatures I had painted within this project. At that point the project was not that structured as today. Therefore, it was built with parts I had at hand. With more and more research in the Cold One Knights I wanted to rebuild the studio regiment. But, this required to switch the Champion to another Cold One. Some of you had probably read the article about the planing and initial steps of building that regiment two years ago. This process was performed so far that the Cold Ones changed the Bases but neithter were the bases finished and painted nor was the Cold One of the Champion finished. Additionally the former Cold One missed a new rider. The starting situation of my Cold one Knights regiment was even more chaotic. 

The Cold One Knight regiment on my Workbench in May 2019

Instead of finishing the started Knights with available Cold Ones I painted a further Cold One in May 2019. At this point I had four mostly finished Cold Ones without riders beside a nearly finished Champion on his new Cold One and two Knights work in progress. On each miniature some detail work was still needed. That was how I left this regiment in May 2019 when the lance problem occured.

 

The unreleased Cold One Knights Lance

When planing the Cold One Knights regiment I did a lot of research on the Studio army. I realized that there is a second Cold One Knight lance, which looks like it was released but was very hard to find. But until today I was not able to find one, neither on the marketplaces nor in anyones collection. Therefore, I think it was a rather unreleased bit, probably due to some casting problems. Already in spring 2019 I realized that this search could take a bit longer. Therefore, I started to sculpt a replica of it. The scultping wasn´t that difficult with having the reference pictures from the catalogue pages at hand. In the end it need a couple of days to have it finished in end of May 2019. 

Sculptured replica of the unreleased lance in comparison to the released one

 

However, I needed at least two of these to copy its appearance in the studio regiment. Therefore, the casting of it would be necessary. But the casting process makes only sense, when you have enough stuff to fill the mold. It needed a whole year and a couple of further projects and its greens and bits to perform this step. In May 2020 I was ready to do the mold making. The lance was very large and I had problems to fit it into my small mold. It was possible but with a very flat angle. I already feared that the casting will become a problem and I should be right on this. I ran more than two dozen castings of the mold and finally get four complete lances from this session. However, that was enough to fulfill my task.

 

The return of the Cold One Knights       

Due to a lot of other work in progress miniatures it needed until end of the year 2020 before returning to the Cold One Knights. The end of the year is mostly the time I clean my workbench from unfinished stuff. In this regard I had first finished my work in progress Executioners. Then, I started again the work on the Knights. Two were lying around on my workbench half way painted. I started with the one who would carry one of my replica lances. The Knight and his lance were quickly painted. But, I had a lot of troubles with the lance pennants. First, they did not fit properly, then I cut out their fixations to long and had to fill the gap and then the runes in NMM gold did not work. It was a lot of try and error to make this work. I was more than happy, when this guy was finished January 5th. 

Cold One Knight still with gold rune colour

I moved on to the next Knight to reproduce what I had learned. I started with finishing the base of the formerly Champions Cold One which should become his new mount. The Knight was then quickly painted and also the missing parts of the saddle of the Champions Cold One were also finished so that these two miniatures were finished just five days later. It was the end of the first week in January and I had finished work on these three Cold One Knights now standing in front of me on my workbench.

 

That was a very good start into the new year and into the third year of my 4th Edition Dark Elves army project. Quickly, I moved on with painting the next two knight where I had already the Cold Ones for.

 

View on my Workbench at January 14th, 2021

But, in contrast to their colleagues their finish took some endless time. I had several breaks on them because I finished / painted other stuff and also private life and my job drained most of my energy. I was able to get one knight on his saddle until mid of march and also the the pennant was already prepared and fixed. But again a difficult time in my private life appeared on the horizon.

 

The Knights at March 22nd, 2021

During this time it was very hard to motivate myself painting the penannts and shields. Therefore, I continued the work on the other Knight. Motivation and the energy was low and in the rare cases I sat down on the workbench I looked for painting something simple. At that point the Cold One of the Standard Bearer sneaked into my view and took its chance. During this time I painted the Cold One or the remaining knight always in depandance how much energy was left. With the beginning of April I finished the Cold One first and in less distance the knight and put him on his saddle.

Painting the Standard Bearers Cold One and the remaining Knight in the beginning of April 2021

The smiling thirds

While the two unfinished knights still fight for my attention, the Standard Bearers and the next knight which is already part of the reinforcement get on my workbench. After some first painting sessions on both I quickly focused on the Standard Bearer. 

Continue painting the Standard Bearer and more Knights

I had a good start on him but here as well I quickly loose my motivation when life became that hard that I did not paint miniatures for weeks. When I returned to my workbench again I was a bit out of practice and decided to do something completly different. I finished a Realm of Chaos Slaanesh Champion which laid on my pile of shame since 2009 and a couple of Daemonettes for some excercise. One evening I grabbed for the Standard Bearer instead for the next Slaanesh Follower. I had a lot of fun painting all the NMM golds on this evening and I was again on fire. 

Painting the Standard Bearer in end of July 2021

With this experience I went to vacation on the Baltic Sea with my family. We had a very good and relaxing time there. With new energy I returned home and I could not wait to start painting again and to finish the Standard Bearer. Meanwhile it was already mid of July. It took me a couple of painting sessions, before I was able to put him on his Cold One in end of July. 

The finished Standard Bearer between his comrades

 

Banner please!

Now there was only one thing left to fnish this dude. The Banner of the Cold One Knights Standard Bearer. The Banner wich was designed from Neil Hodgson for the studio army is one of the most beautiful ones and is beside his Army Standard my favorite Banner design. The banner design was published in White Dwarf #190. There was need to transfer it to a line template. I used a scan and photoshop to create my template. I adjusted the contrast to very light and printed it. The template was sprayed with three layers of matt vanish to seal the surface. Then I started painting my beloved banner design. Time and motivation was on my side and I fnished the banner in only three sessions in a couple of days in the beginning of August. 

Prepared print of the banner design ready to paint

First half done

Second half done

The finished Banner after adding some more details and corrections

However, two more weeks had gone by until I was able to fix it to the standard and give it its finish.

Freehand madness

Finishing the Standard Bearer was a great motivation. Especially, because the banner turned out that good was a big surprise as I had a lot of respect of its design. I thought it would be good to use the flow and continued with more freehand work. Time to paint one other point on my to do list of things I prefered to skive off... SHIELDS! They should carry also a skull design fitting to their pennant. I had already done one of these designs but I was a bit unhappy because the skull was slightly to large for my taste. This time I wanted to try a bit smaller design. The shields for three were already prepared and painted on their back side. This time I decided to paint them without mask and use freehand skills only.

I also decided to paint them ALL at ONCE to get a highly reproducible result. Therefore, the armory was very busy in the end of august with some Dark Elves shield mass production. The most important thing were the line sizes and arrangements in the beginning to get a reproducible result. Here I really used a ruler to check the correct size and location. Later lines and proportions were estimated. It is important to have a strategy what is drawn in which sequence to get the correct size and proportions. Later stages include corrections using foreground and background and vice Versa to shape the final design. Fine lining techniques were used to define the outlines and details. Blending techniques were used to create attractive areas with depth and details. I put the individual stages on different shields to demonstrate the process. I hope this helps you to get an idea what I had done there. 

Step by step process of the freehand development

One more finished and step by step development of the following

Three skulls finished, rough details on the forth and proportions on the fifth

All freehands finished and the golden edge was added

Finished shields with battle damage

My nemesis

Time to finish my nemesis. Time to finish the two remaining Knights. I started with the "low hanging fruits" and therefore with the Knight who misses only the finish on his pennant and base. The golden outline was added and the light situation on the pennant was adapted in depandance of the drapery. He also get one of my finished shields. At this point point it only takes one painting sessions to finish this guy. Insane that since half a year I was a couple of evenings away from finishing this Knight. But sometimes I have this blockade which need some distance to get through it. I moved on to the last Knight. I painted his pennant which was already prepared and ready for painting since a long time. It took me two small sessions to paint it and fixed it to his lance. Then I gave it its finish and added some more details to the base of the Cold One Knight. Finally, the Knight get also on of the finished shields and he completed my unit of six Cold One Knights.

 

 

 

These pictures just give an overview with the regiment in focus. I have planned to publish some more articles concentrating on single miniatures and groups of miniatures showing these knights more in detail. So far I hope these pictures give you a first impression and I hope you like the result. As always I would be happy to read your thoughts and your feedback in the comments. 

Outlook

People who know the Studios Dark Elves Army know that my unit does not cover it at all. There are some more Cold One Knights and Characters riding Cold Ones and I want them all! I want TEN Knights! That means two more Knights and the Battle Standard Bearer have to be included in this unit. While writing these lines a further Knight is already work in progress. He also will ride a bluish coloured Cold One which is already finished. The Knight is already half way done. The second Knight is ready to get painted. The conversion for the Battle Standard Bearer is finished and I am more than happy with this character. I can´t wait to paint this miniature and I am sure this Dude will become a centerpiece of this regiment and of this army. Here some teaser what will be on the workbench until end of the year.

 

 

 Two teaser pictures will show what will come next and that this regiment is not finished yet

Now I am at the end of this article. It is already clear that finishing this regiment swallowed most on my spare hobby time in 2021. Thanks for joining me on this trip. Thanks a lot for reading and I hope you enjoyed this wall of text and pictures. Stay tuned for the further progress on this mighty regiment.

 

Kind Regards,

GeOrc