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

Unreleased Dark Riders - Part II

 Unreleased Dark Riders - Part II

Today my Dark Rider Story continues with part 2 and a detailed report about my work on the command crew. If you have missed part 1 which deals with the troopers of this unit, click here. As I had already stated in my previous article these Dark Rider models are extremly rare. I know only a couple of collectors owning them and to my knowledge a full regiment has never been seen before. And in particular a command crew for them has never been seen before because none was designed back in the day. To make a long story short the Command Crew you see here on the left based on the ideas of Aly Morrison and was then converted/sculpted by myself. The story of this joint project will be the focus of this article and it will be a long one. Therefore, grab a cup of tea or coffee because a wall of text and dozens of pictures await you!

My first meeting with Aly Morrison

With starting the Dark Rider project a hundred question arises about their design, history and why they did not make the cut into the release schedule. Being a scientist I had quickly half a dozen of hypothesis I discusses with friends and acquaintances. One of these friends one day said, you should ask Aly. I asked how this would become possible and then he gets us in touch. That was the short story how I get in touch with Aly. It was also the start of our discussions, first only by messages and then we met the first time personally in February 2020 at the Tactica Event in Hamburg. Aly quickly liked the project and the painting of his old designs. He was joking that some of these miniatures were older than his colleagues at work. He helped me a lot, tried to answer all my bothering questions and tried to remember details which were 25 years in the past. I tried to puzzle everything together and to reconstruct his professional years in the mid 90s. I learned a lot from him, about his life, his old designs and how he is designing and sculpting miniatures. Needless to say, that he is a friendly, warmheated and handsome guy. You don´t belive me?... Check the picture on the left!

Planning the Command Crew
Aly and I discussed a lot the Dark Elves range he created in the mid 90s. On this time point I already had started to sculpt some replicas of some unreleased and very hard to find bits. Also I had sculpted whole miniatures in the past. Consequently, I took the decision to fill the gaps in the Dark Elves range by myself. I asked Aly if he would help me with this and that I would like to sculpt these miniatures by his ideas so that these miniatures fit seamlessly into his original figure range. I was more than happy when he agreed and the the Dark Rider Command Crew became our first joint project. Beside some sculpting advice how he builds up his miniatures in the past he had some ideas in mind for these two sneaky chaps:

I would make the champion with the hood down and make the circlet and crest more elaborate... or possibly even give them a helmet... a sword might be a nice weapon or possibly a double ended version of the spear.

The standard bearer could have a more elaborate crest ... as for the top of the standard pole... I think I would keep it simple... something more suited to light troops... the grinning skull would look good and maybe also a dismembered enemy head...or three. 

This in mind I started sculpting!

My Sculpting experiments and my curse of perfectionism

A look on how cavalery units were structured in the early and mid 90s revealed that in majority they consist of two leg and two body versions for the troopers. The Command Crew Models always consist of a Champion and a Standard Bearer which were conversion of the bodies from the trooper models. Fortunately, I had two recast of bad quality of the troopers left. These required some repair work but reduced the sculpting effort on sculpting the new bodies only. For reference I used the Ellyrion Reavers and the Cold One knights from Aly which show nicely the way he has choose to update a simple trooper into a Command miniature. 

I started to with cleaning the leg parts and added a wire armature as basis for my sculpting. I checked the armature very often to be in size with the modified troopers. Then I fixed the armature itself and its hold on the leg with some first layer of putty which get some rough proportions for body and head.

 

Armature of the Dark Rider Command bodies

After the putty was cured I bended the arms in position. I cut the wire, but by a hint from Aly I keep the longer as needed. Then I added the details to the body and some first proportions for the arms. I took care that the proportions were always a bit smaller because multiple layers of putty will let them grow quickly. There is only need to have a rough idea at this moment. 

 

Added proportions on the arms and details on the torso

In the next step I added the details to the arms. To clothes on body and arms were sculpted similar to the corresponding trooper miniatures. By copying Alys design I learnt a lot about his way of sculpting and how he was using the tools. 

 

Final details on torso and arms

With the bodies finished there was need to add the cloaks. I rolled out some putty between some plastic wrap and cut out a rough shape of the cloaks. These I fixed this armature for the cloak on the bodies and sculpted the collar of them. With proceeded cure time I bend the putty in shape of the original cloaks and let these cure overnight. 

Armature for the cloaks

In a next step I added the details on the inside and outside of the cloak armature. Until this timepoint my designs looked very very similar to Alys original sculpts and I was very happy. 

Comparison of the sculpted cloak designs with their references

But then the drama started. The next step was to sculpt the heads and faces and I totally failed. Weel, I had sculpted whole miniatures before and also a lot of faces. But, their designs based mainly on the work of Chris Fitzpatrick and were from the mid 2000. Alys faces were much smaller and I had a lot of problems to get their proportions. 

 

Trying to copy Alys face design

After half a dozen trys I lost the motivation and put the project on ice. With some distance I realized that I need more practice and experience to get these faces done. To get that I needed more freedom in my designs. But the the Dark Rider project required copying Alys work. My perfectionism was in my way. Then I discussed with Aly the sculpting processes in the past and he told me that sometimes you get a box with broken greens from the moldmaking back. When checking all these pieces you get new ideas and started conversions based on these parts. I imagined myself getting a box with Dark Rider parts and decided to do conversions of them. These mock ups would also help to propably finish these greens some day.

Converting the Command Crew

With new motivation I returned to the Dark Rider project. I cleaned the body parts of my Dark Rider recasts and started with doing a lot of repair work. Unfortunately, I have not many work in progress pictures of my sculpting work on the riders, because these were done in March 2020 in a very short time. But I remember the rough process still very good. I started by removing the hood from the Trooper which should become the champion and all other elements not needed on both miniautres. The first thing I sculpted were both crests. For these I used brownstuff as it holds better the sharp edges. Then there was time to do the most difficult part, the repair of the face from the Champion. For that I followed the structures the face already had and completed it. Unfortunately, the face has become an asymmetrical look that way.  Looking back, I should have done this more freehand but at this time point I sticked very much to the original. However, I noticed this first while my painting and so it has was to late to correct it on the miniature. 

 

Conversion of the Dark Rider Champion

In contrast, sculpting the hair and hood worked very well. In parallel I added the scarf to the face of the Standard Bearer and treated him some hair extensions. For both I used Gary Morleys Dark Rider miniatures from 1998 as reference. The next step was adding details to the crest. Here I checked the Command Crews on foot for inspiration and added similiar details in greenstuff to their crests. 

 

 Conversion of the Dark Rider Standard Bearer

The most critical things were done now. Again I did some repair work on the some weak details on the clothes and cloaks. In case of the Champion I resculpted large part of the cloak and used the chance to add further details. 

Sculptured hair, hood and revised cloak with new details

Then it was time to add the weapon and standard respectively. For the Champion I wanted to copy the look of the Ellyrian Reaver Champion. Therefore, I looked for a big sword which shared the same characteristics. I found one in the typical Swordmen sword which was finally reused by Aly on the musician. I cut it off and added it to the Champions hand. There was need to correct the arm position a bit to get closer to my High elves reference. Then, I added some gems and a new hilt to complete this chap. The Standard Bearer was a bit more work. I added a 2 mm metal rod, the same size and position of the Ellyrian Reaver reference. Then I sculpted him a new hand and typical banner rod end pieces. The one on the lower end as jewelry and the upper end as connection for a banner top. For the latter I was very much in love with using Gary Morleys Banner top which I already had converted for this purpose. 

Repair work on the clothes and and the cloak

But, it didn´t feel right to use a bit from another sculpter in this unit of Aly Morrison figures. Therefore, I sat down and designed on by myself. I used a Spearmen spear, the Cold One Standard top and Beasdtlord Rakraths crest as reference and drawed a design. I made a putty copy of the spear using a simple stamp mold and for the jewelry part I cut of the design from a piece of plastic sheet. On this I sculpted all the details. With having everything finished I put the whole unit together to check the overall look.

Final design for the Dark Rider Standard Bearer

Looking back, to create my own banner top was a very good decision as thisone really stands out. Aly later told me he liked that design very much and that he can´t wait to see this unit painted. Very pround about his feedback it was time to move on and treat this chaps some colour.

Validation of the Dark Rider Command miniatures between their painted troopers

Painting the Command Crew

Before I started the painting, I put these two guys and their bits in a mold to create a personal copy in case I will ever do a second unit. Then I cleaned and primed the original conversions and one of my castings of the banner top. The following painting was then very straight forward to fit into my other Dark Riders. I started with the Champion and painted his face.

Covering some sculpting errors with my painting

I already saw after the priming that the face could be a bit problematic because of the asymmetric design of the eyes. I tried to minimize this effect by adapting both eyes to each other using shades and highlights. The result wasn´t perfect but I would work as long as you do not look eaxactly for it from a front view. I moved on with painting everything which was necessary to put leg and body part together. Then I finished the Champion step by step.

 Work in Progress on the Dark Rider Champion

In contrast all the new details were a lot of fun and I enjoyed to add much more colours to thisone compared to his troopers. Also, I could not resist to start the sword very early. I spent a bit more time on it and painted it with more attention to make this stand out. Luckily, I had painted his horse in advance so that I was able to put him directly on it after having him finished. With a lot of joy I moved him in his unit increaing its number to 5 and making it the first playable unit in my army.

 

Finished Dark Rider Champion within his regiment

Meanwhile it was end of August / beginning of September when I starte the work on the Standard Bearer. But, we had a lot of heat waves her in Germany which slowed down my painting. I had only a very slow progress and I was painting here and there for an hour without finishing elements completly and making it worth taking picutre. That´s the cause I have not much work in progress pictures of the Standard Bearer. The first ones I took in the end of September already show him finished without the Banner top. 

Work in Progress on the Dark Rider Standard Bearer

I finsihed the latter and his horse until the beginning of October and completed the unit. Proudly I took pictures of the whole unit.

Finished Dark Rider Command Crew within their regiment

The unit was already an impressive sight. I showed the Command Crew to Aly at this time point and he very much enjoyed the look of his ideas. Still his favorite was the Standard Bearer. The last thing missing was the Banner for him and it was time to make that chap even more impressive. 

Painting the Banner

Finally to complete the picture of a evil Elyrion Reaver version I wanted also to turn their banner into a dark counterpart. It was clear that the unicorn from the Banner has to be turned into a Dark Pegasus. That symbol also ties this unit to the sorceress riding the Dark Pegasus and therefore fits perfectly into my army concept. I did some research in the internet to look for inspiration and for ideas how to get the wings into that landscape banner. Unfortunately, all I found works better in a portrait format. Two nice examples are shown below. There was Morathis Banner of the Cult of Pleasure fraction from Total War Warhammer. Also a very nice Banner is the Ellyrion banner from the High Elf heraldry book released a couple of years ago. A shame that Dave Gallagher never did a version for the Dark Elves. 

 

Reference material used for creation of the Banner design

There was need to draw something by myself. For that I need perfect reference material and asked in the Middlehammer FB group for a scan of the WD which includes the Ellyrion Reavers Eavy Metal side. As always the group was very helpful! I get a scan, the right White Dwarf number #165 and a scan of the Banner sheet which inlcudes a 5th Edition version of this Banner. Finally, I bought the WD #165 on Ebay and had everything I needed. I started with copying the outlines of the Banner to get a similar size. Then I printed a 1:1 scan and cut off the horse above a layer of masking tape. With transferation of the the horse on the masking tape I had a template to transfer the horse outlines on the Banner. I changed and adapted the outlines a bit to adapt it a bit to my reference material. Then I added the wings freehand. I also added the clouds and and copied the lightning flashes. Finally, there was only a rune missing and I used one of the Dark Elves repertoire which perverted the original one best. The final design was scanned and mirrored into the left outline using Photoshop.

 

Final drawing of the banner design (top) and the final mirrored and edited version (bottom) using Photoshop

The complete design was then printed on a 100 g Paper and the paper sealed using Tamia Matt Vanish. The Vanish helps to close the paper surface and facilitate the painting with thinned colours. I started the painting by concentrating on the Pegasus first. I used the same colours as used on my Pegasus miniature including black for the horse and flesh colours for the wing membranes. The first sketch showed me that this central symbol will work very good. The dark Pegasus required a lighter background which directs the colour for the outer frame again on a dark colour. Therefore, I painted the frame of the Banner in again in black and repeated the colour of the Pegasus. 

First painting steps included painting the Pegasus and the banner outline

I did a lot of thinking about which background colour I should use. I discussed purple and red as two possible options fitting in the army context. Red would add a better contast but purple would make it fit better to the colour scheme of the unit. After discussion in my local painting forum I decided for the latter. The background was then painted using Liche Purple with a light to dark transition from top to the bottom. For the highlights I added some Bleached Bone and for the shades some Shading Mixture to the Liche Purple, respectively. In parallel,  I painted the clouds and the lightning bolts. The latter were a lot of work and required a lot of correction work between background and foreground. Finally I painted the rune in gold which contrasted nicely from the purple ground.

Roughly finished right side of the Banner

With one side painted completly it was time to start the other side of banner. It is always a bit boring painting something identical within such a short time, but there was no other way to get this finished. I repeated the steps above with some minor changes. This time I painted the lightning bolts before the background which helped a lot to reduce the correction work later.   

Final Banner ready for getting fixed on its banner pole

Finally, there was a lot of correction work. There was need to get a sharper definition of the lighting bolts, smoothening of the purple mcolours in the background transition, and some colour and blending adaptions. I also added soem fine lining to seperate the content of the banner from the outer frame using Russ Grey. With having the Banner finished it was time to fix it on the miniature and adapt it to its final shape.

Attached Banner and finished Standard

 I used PVA glue to fix the banner on the banner pole. This have to be done very carefully and quickly, as the PVA glue in combination with paper works like superglue. Once both sides are linked there is no step back. Therefore, there is need to do some testings without glue to get a feeling for the position. I glued the banner in two steps. first only the connection to the pole and the first cm of the banner area to get the link to the pole and the orientation of both sides perfectly right, second the rest of the banner area. After glueing I bended the banner slightly to give it some dynamic shape. After everything has cured and was really fixed I added the golden outline on the banner frame and adapted some colour transitions to its flow. 

Finished Standard Bearer carrying the Banner of his Mistress

Adding the banner was the most difficult part and I had a lot of trouble doing it right. Finally, I get it done but there was need to correct the cut of it. Some remaining minor errors disappeared with help of the golden outline. First I was very annoyed about the troubles I had but with some distance I was happy with the final result. The problems and errors were quickly forgotten when seeing the final result on my workbench.

  

Result and Outlook

I am very happy how these two miniatures turned finally out. It was a very long progress to get them done with a lot of ups and downs. But it was worth all the work and I was able to create something unique which has not been seen so far. 

Now its time to lean back for a moment and to enjoy the freedom of having finished this unit after more than 1.5 years. Here are some final pictures of the whole unit.

 

 

I tried my best to pay justice to Alys brilliant ideas and I am happy and feel honored to put this long forgotten miniatures from Aly into a worthy spotlight. Even if this unit had made me a lot of headaches and beside all the ups and downs I very much enjoyed working with Aly on this unit to finish what he had started 25 years ago. It has something really satisfactory to have filled this gap in his Dark Elves range. However, there are some more missing miniatures in Alys range which dropped from the schedule as time moves on and other armies get into the focus of Games Workshop. Therefore, stay tuned for further joint projects to complete this lovely miniature range from 1995.

I hope you enjoyed the read of this article. As always I am interested to read your thoughts in the comments!

Kind Regards,
GeOrc