Dark Elves ; Presentation Tray Part 1

Lately i got a bit burnt out from painting (after less than 10 witches, its a bit frightening), so i did other things, like playing XCom and Dota 2. That get old fast so i started another part of the project to ignite a new spark ; my presentation tray.

My goal is pretty simple ; either the Dark elves are about to invade a very quiet little city in the middle of nowhere, or they just left it ablaze, not sure yet.

First thing first, placing the different building ;

I wanted some kind of city on a cliff, so went for a 3 level city, containing 4 building ;
a windmill
2 hourse
a forge

I never really managed to get much done with styrofoam, so i did some quick test on how i wanted to do the cliff

Basically big rocks. I'll add small one to fill in the hole, but that's about it. doesnt look like much, but once a bit more is done, it's starting to take shape!

I'm still undecided if i want to keep the tray ,as its very big, so it's stalling for now, but i'm hoping to finish at least building it in the next 2 weeks.

Dark Elves : Cauldron of Blood WIP

Spent roughly 10 hours on the model so far, and i can say its about 60% done. My airbrush's needle finally gave up on me, so i got a major setback to finish the rest.

I tried to use as much of the current army color as possible, without adding a new one. So far? So good. As you will see, the color i used on my NMM (can it be even called NMM anynore) is... um... i don't know, i think the blue and the white are a bit too contrasting on large surface. But still, i'm happy with the result, its all that count!

Dark elf : Witches #2 finished!

Today is a good day. I'm realizing that i really like painting that kind of NMM and end up spending hours without even realizing it. It's always fun when that happens.

So today i finished my second Witches, and i'm once again thrilled with the final result.

Exact same look as #1

Dark Elf ; First Witch done !

Last night i painted until very, very, very late, and managed to finish my first witches. I have to say, i'm pretty happy with the result. At first i wasnt sold on the NMM, but after adding some edge highlight on the weapon, it really helps pop the blue out of the weapon.

The Metal Bra came out pretty nice too. It doesn't really look that much like metal, so it might not annoy painting judge too much.

Sorry for the blue tint, i can't get that out of the picture without changing too much the color

Dark Elf ; NMM Part 2

That test was just a tease for myself, i HAD to try it on a model, and i did.

I have to admit, from afar, i wasn't sure, but its very quickly growing on me. On this next model,  i did the shoulder pad, the weapon and her crown. the crown is very lightly highlighted, still undecided if i want to go lighter or not.

Dark Elf ; NMM Part 1

Today, i finally had enough time to sit and try the color i wanted to use for my NMM. I wanted to try a "cold" NMM, going for dark blue up to white. The effect is imho not so bad, for my first attempt at that type of NMM.

First attempt. its not 100% perfect, but if i could pull that quality for my 35 witches, i'd be happy.

Weapon test #1. Obviously, its not perfect ; the transition is just average, and the white line dividing the two is pretty wavy. But from a safe distance (say, a feet), it looks perfect. Especially when you consider i'll be painting all my witches metal that way (Weapon, crown, and yes, Bra and Panties).

.... wait, bra and panties?

Yes, bra and panties. Sound weird to paint them that way, but seriously, those witches are some weird pissed off girls, so it would just barely surprise me if they had their private parts locked in metal panties.

Part that will be NMM painted are basecoated, and a quick cut'n'paste job ;

Dark Elf ; color testing

Past few days, i worked on my Dark Elves. Mainly what i did is lay out the different color on the model, to give me an idea of where i'm going with this, since, well, yeah, i have nothing really planned right now.

First thing first, i didn't work on the skintone. I'm still about 4 highlight from ready to call it finished.

Lets look at the model ;

Dark Elf ; Skintone and colors

Past few days, i started painting my first block of 10 witches. And i need to stop right here to state two things ;

First, i hate the fact they are all jumping with one leg in the air. Especially since there's only 5 possible pose. That means that on my 35 units, there'll be 7 of each pose. Gonna be painful to find a way to make them all different.

Second, In the white dwarf, it seems simple enough to paint them while completely assembled. In real life, its a whole different story. Their 80s hair style is a PITA to deal with when it comes to pain their back, and i can't imagine how paintful it will be to paint their hair anything but white.

Now that this is out of the system, lets talk about the skintone i'll be using.

Dark Elves ; A list

A pretty long time ago, i started playing Ogres Kingdoms. It was back in 7^th ed, when they were so bad and so hard to play, that it was near impossible for someone new to win consistently with them. After many, many loss, I decided to start a new army to learn how to win, and that army was the Dark Elves.

I really loved the army, but never got around to actually paint the whole thing to a high standard. I did paing some models, like crossbow man, Cold One Knights, a f ew characters and the Cauldron of Blood, but that was about it. The new Ogres book was released, and I simply forgot about the Dark Elves, only to play them once in awhile when my Ogres were tired. Then, when my ogres were finished, I moved onto my Dark Eldars (which I never finished), then my Nurgle Carnival, then my Grey Knights, then…

Dark Elf ; a new beginning

With the new book just around the corner, its time to start thinking about which way to go with my Dark Elf, because yes, i want to start them again. When i stopped playing them, i had about 10 Cold One painted, a Cauldron of blood, a handful of corsairs, and a sorceress. Every one of them is on the shelves, and i'm starting fresh.

Still love them, but the new model looks so much more dynamics....

First thing first, like i did with my Daemons, is to think about what i want to do with this army, what theme i want to use, what color i want to go for, and so on. Basically, the aesthetic above all else. For some reason, i have alot of trouble thinking about a presentation tray that would really interest me. For my ogres, my not-yet-started Vampire and my Daemons, its was quite simple ; a simple tray, add a few building, and voila! But for dark elves, its hard just to pop a few building and call it done. To me, they are stuck on their island, fighting the High elves and no-one else. So that pretty much rules out Snow and sand.