Dark Elves Sorceress riding Dark Pegasus - Part 2

Darl Elves sorceress riding Dark Pegasus

A further victim of a busy year. I had hoped to finish the final article about painting my Dark Elves Sorceress riding Dark Pegasus earlier. But as mentioned before, my real life required to reduce my spare time in 2021 and my hobby activities and this blog was the first thing I had to silence down. Consequently, I was not able to finish many articles in the last six months. However, things have become better and since a couple of weeks I am back. Time to finish some negelted articles and update some series. The first will be creating my banner for my Dark Elves Sorceress riding Dark Pegasus which I did around one year ago. If you missed the first part of this article, please check this Link here.

The Sorceress riding Dark Pegasus was already painted in January/February 2020. The only parts missing were her banner pole and the banner itself. I took a smal break from the miniature and finished my Dark Elves Warrior Command Crew. With its Standard Bearer I get some additional experience creating the paper banner and thought I was ready for the one of the sorceress. I started designing and painting her banner in the end of March 2020. But my firsdt approach failed and lost the motivation. I concentrated on my unreleased Dar Elves sorceress and Dark Elves Dark Riders instead. With finishing the Dark riders banner I got new motivation and returned to the Sorceress banner end of October 2020. After revision and optimaization of the sketch I painted and finished the Banner. The result was already visible in the picture of my Army Shot in the beginning of 2021. Read here now the detailed story of designing and creating the Banner and see the final pictures of the Sorceress riding Dark Pegasus.

Preliminary Considerations  

From White Dwarf #190

The original Sorceress riding Dark Pegasus came in a box released in White Dwarf #190 in September 1995. Beside the miniature the box also contained a self-adhesive banner which was probably designed by Alan Merrett and painted by Neil Hodgson as most of the Dark Elves shield and banner icons. While I like the majority of these banners a lot, the one from this Sorceress is the weakest in my opinion. I assume the old looking hairy skull should show a stylised hag before blood night. However, I think the icon did not fit for a sorceress and hair and stylised snake ending horns somehow look weird. On the other side the general idea of the skull looking at the brogen heart is nice. But, the banner miss the clarity of the rest of the banner range. Having in mind the parts I like on them I decided to adapt the parts I disliked and design a new version of it, fitting to the banner range. 

Dark Elves Battle Standard

For that I used the Medusa showing Battle Standard. This design became the banner of Ghrond and therefore the banner of the home of the Dark Elves Sorceresses later in Games Workshops Dark Elves history. This made it the perfect icon for a Sorceress. I took the idea of the skulled Medusa head and the original banner design from the Sorceress riding Dark Pegasus and sketched a new banner icon containing the ideas and designs I liked. I started with some simple pen sketches I did during my lunch breaks. After I got a feeling for the otiginal skull design from the Sorceress banner I added the snake hair and the horns from the medusa design. After I had a rough idea of the arrangement I painted one version into the original banner frame.

       

First sketches of the banner design ideas

 

I scanned that version and used photoshop to mirror the icon into the other side of the banner frame.

 

Using of Photoshop to mirror the design

 

This version was printed in a very light grey tones.

Very light print of the banner and its design used for painting

I cut out the banner design carefully and used it for a first try to paint it.

Banner ready for painting

 

 

First Approach

For the painting I cut out the banner as I did with my latest one for the Dark Elves Warriors and started adding colour. Unfortunately, I quickly ran into problems. The paper starts twisting and the colour application became very speckled. What was wrong? It was a different kind of paper I used here. In my previous version I used thicker very qualitative paper with a weight of 100 g because the banner was a one sided hanging banner with straps. The banner here was a double sided one. For that I used thinner standard paper as the banner will get thicker when glueing both sides together. That was the reason it was less stable against twisting. In addition the surface quickly absorbed the water from the colour leading to speckles.

First try and first fail to paint this version of the banner

Probably, with some patience I would be able to save the banner as adding more an more colour would seal the surface and stop further twisting. Moistering the backside and puting it between a thick book for a couple of days would bend it even. But when posting the work in progress banner into my painting group I got some serious critic for the design itself which makes me start thinking to start from scratch. This critic said the snakes of the Medusa head should look into the direction of the heart. It was quickly clear that this would change the whole quality of the banner, as this would increase the interaction between the elements and tell a more comprehensive story.
 

Revision of the Sketch and Final Version

After a couple of days thinking about the needed modifications I gave them a try and used photoshop to rearrange the head position. The new view direction worked fine but the empty space between head and fram further increased. Further modifications were necesarry to make this look good. Therefore, I filled the space with more snake hair and covered that neck part.  

Revised banner design with rearranged head and additional snake hair

 The final design worked well. However, the latest bad experience in banner painting were still in my head. Therefore, I lost my motivation to continue working on this version and put it asaide. It needed a couple of months and some more experience on creating and painting banners to start from scratch. That point was reached after I sucessfully painted my Dark Elves Black Riders Banner. Highly motivated and armed with some new techniques I started that banner anew. 

The Banner was a joy to paint and I had a very fast progress on it. In just one Session I painted a first rough version of the right side. The result looked good but it became clear that the empty space where the shoulder and neck would be situated still looked confusing. Again I used the Battle Standard as reference an added the red shoulder armour from the original design.

The additional element worked fine and served its purpose. However, because the black backgound was already painted on the right side, it became slightly darker on this side of the banner. Having everything together and working now I finsihed the whole banner by doing a lot of detail work in the final steps.

Finally, I compared my final version with my first try and was very happy how my skills developed during that year. That Banner was really a great design and I can´t wait to add it to the Sorceress banner pole.

Comparison of my final banner with the first approach

Final Pictures

As always I cut ou the banner and used PVA glue to add it to the banner pole. Still wet from the glue I bent it in waves to add some dynamic. After the banner had dryed for a day I added the golden edge and some additonal shading to the banner to adapt it to the light situation. Finally, I added some damage in the rear lower corner to give it a bit used look.

Then it was time to add the banner pole to the Sorceress. Carefully, I glued the pole to the backrest. For that I did not used the original knob because this does not fit without bending the banner pole. Instead I glued it on top allowing me to put the banner straight on the backrest without damaging the pole. After everything was done I sat a long time in front of this iconic miniature and starred at what I had created. The result impressed me very much and the miniature was the centerpoint of my Dark Elves Army. She look like a true Herohammer representative of her age, but judge yourself.  

 

This miniature really had a long journey. I still remember that the first one I painted back in 1998 became a victim of black undercoat instead of vanish. A fatal failure and thorn in my side leading to a bath of aceton a couple of years later. But instead of a new painting she was abandoned in a black box of 5th Edition miniatures. The try to make her a center piece of my 6th Edition army failed and she never was finished. I am more than happy that this shame is deleted in my long list of fails. Now she is having her deserved place in my cabinet leading an army of respectable Dark Elves.

I hope you like the final result as well. As always let me know what you think in the comments.

All the Best,
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

Unreleased Sorceress 2  - Part 3

Unreleased Dark Elves Sorceress 2

Sorry for the long silence on this blog. The last months were very chaotic for me and my little family. As my wife returns to her job and our little boy changed the child day care, our days have become very exhausting. Additionally, the heat waves here in Germany reduced my remaining energy and things in my beloved hobby slowed down. While I was able to paint from time to time I had neglected this blog and was not able to finish my articles. I started writing this finaly part of painting my unreleased Sorceress two months ago but did not get it finished neither in August nor in September. Now I am sitting here in a train back to Leipzig and will give it a next try. Therefore, welcome to the final part of this article series for painting the Unreleased Sorceress 2. Painting this miniature has developed into a very long journey which stretched for three parts now. In case you missed the history and preparation of the miniature click part 1 or the design of her little Cold One pet and the first painting click part 2. As already announced part 3 will be about painting the cloak with a focus on the freehand work I put on it.

 

Painting the cloak

For painting the cloak I put the cloak on a wooden stick from an ice lolly using Patafix. Then I started painting the surfaces. For the colours I oriented again on Dave Gallaghers artwork and used a bluish colour for the backside and a cold red for the furish inside. The latter was painted  in darker tones as it lies mostly in the shadows. Because the backside would be decorated with a lot of freehands I did not spend to much time and effort to achive perfect blendings. As a lot of correction work on the background would be needed, there would be plenty of time to clean these blendings after the freehand work. Here my result I started the freehand work with.

 

 

Preparing of the cloak, back view (left) and front view (right)

Planning the Freehand

The big surface of the cloak screamed Freehand all over it. Therefore, I spent a lot of time thinking about what I could put onto this cloak and what could fit to this miniature. Thankfully, there were already good examples of painted versions of this miniature trying to achive this. 

Sorceress by Myles David

In this regard I like Myles work the most and going with one of the many versions of a grining skull should fit perfectly into the style of this age. Like Myles I checked the artworks of the armybook and sticked to the Tower artwork from Des Hanley. 

Artwork by Des Henley

The Black Guard helmet in this artwork shows some nice skulls which could still looking good when reduced in size for the freehand. Additionally I wanted to add some line work on the lower border which should show the typical spikes as well as some on the sides. I also wanted to add some gems serving as coloured eyecatchers which could be placed on the skull and in the center and in the corners of the line work. My initial planning also contained the idea to paint the lower jar of the skull as part of the lower line work combined with the gem as well as some runes between the jars. It becomes clear later that not everything could be realized as planned. But here you can see my 1:1 drawing I did as reference to start with.

 

Concept sketch for the planned Freehand

 

I discussed my ideas with some befriended painters, among them the Master of Freehands himself, Stephan Rath multiple Slayer Sword winner and known for his amazing freehands. He liked the design and told me to go with it. Because a freehand mostly developes with every element added I should be open to changes and bear in mind that most of his amazing stuff did not ended as they were planned or painted in the beginning. He should be very right about this. 

 

Painting the central element

For transfering the skull design onto the surface I used my already described masking tape technique shown here. In brief, I photocopied my sketch and fixed it on some layers of masking tape. Then I cut the symbol off and from this I cut off the eyes and noseholes. This mask should provide enough markers to transfer the design. I put it properly in place on the drapery of the cloak. Then I painted softly the outlines as well as the eye and nosehole markers with Screaming Skull. I removed the tape and corrected the lines and spots. Then I painted the the surface with XV-88 and painted the outlines and additional lines in black. Further markings and helping lines for details, teeth and the central gem were added. The final result was my initial sketch I started the detailing work with.

 

 

Transfer of the central freehand using a masking tape technique

I painted the skull in golden NMM with light bluish eyesockets. I quickly realized that the central gem was placed badly on the drapery and replacing won´t really work. Because the drapery added a lot of detail in this central area I dropped the idea of a gem on the skull. Even if I was forced to make some first changes to my concept I was very happy with the final result. 

Finished Skull Freehand

Lessons of Try& Error

For a first sketch of my line work I sticked closely to my initial concept. I quickly realized that I won´t have the same space between Skull and line work as planned on my sketch. Consequently, it was very early clear that I have to drop the idea of the glowing runes. Additionally, I started to dislike the idea of adding the lower jar as part of the line work. To test alternatives I used a actual picture and Photoshop to do some quick rearrangements.

 

Use of Photoshop to test some Freehand design changes

I discussed the ideas again with some other painters, put the cloak beside and spent some days in vacation with my family. With some new energy and motivation I returned to my workbench and decided to skip the jar idea and go with my latest photoshop concept.

 

Painting the line work

I started my next painting session on the line work with erasing and repainting some areas. Then, I added all the details of the gold NMM for the lines and painted the gems in purple. Because the gold tones of the skull with its big areas and the line work with its small areas looked differently, there was need to adapt the gold colours so that line work and skull better fit together.

 

Final Freehand Design

Putting the whole model together

I glued the finished cloak in place and it still fit perfectly on the Sorceress and the little Cold One. Checking the final results showed from the back view that the cloak did not goodly integrate into the miniature as the bluish colours of the cloak and redish ones of the collar contrasted to much resulting in seperation of both elements.

View on the assembled Sorceress miniature

 

Therefore, I added some red and purple colour to the top of the cloak to make a softer transition from the collar to the cloak. This optimization worked fine and the backview looked much more harmonic.  

Finished Unreleased Dark Elves Sorceress 2

Final Pictures

Finally, this journey had come to and end and I had my painted version of this amazing miniature in my hand. This girl really had cost me a lot of time but I enjoyed every minute painted this lovely masterpiece. The painting pulled me away and resulted in a miniature so full of character and different additional details.

 

 

 

 

I hope you enjoyed my journey paying this awesome Design from Aly Morrsion as well as the iconic armybook cover from Dave Gallagher justice. Let me know what you like the most on this evil lady and leave your thoughts in the comments.

Thanks for reading!

Kind Regards,
GeOrc