KaiZie - Dark Elf Painting Blog

[KaiZie]

So here we are, a new book and a new army for me, as I'm sure a lot of you.

I thought I'd start this little painting blog/project diary to share with you my hobby, as to keep a visual record for myself. So here goes!

Lets start off with my first ever box of Dark Elves. I went for a core box, which seemed pretty sensible.
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I thought it might be worth giving you guys an idea of what's in the box. I was really impressed with the transfer sheet. I must confess, I do enjoy using transfers and I think I;ve cracked a good way to make them look great, but more on that at a later date.
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Note to everyone out there, NEVER LET YOUR BLADE GET A BEATEN UP AS MINE! The blade on the left has been in service for well over a year, how it got black I don't know!
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Never the less I got busy and built up the unit. I went for crossbows as all my other Fantasy armies have been Melee based, Warriors of Chaos and Vampire Counts.

The kit in itself was not what I'm used to. As many of you would have found out, the arms only go in one way, the heads are already sculpted to the body, it was all a bit strange. The reason for this that I can see, is so that they rank up easier. I'm sure we've all had it in the past where you've built some really cool, dynamic minis for your big block and realised that they don't rank up at all. I know I have. As far as I can see, the limited modelling of these guys mitigates that.
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ANd here's a better picture of the Unit Champion and a few arm variants.
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Top points of this kit;
1)Easy to build, I mean, really easy.
2)No ugly joint lines anywhere at all! Beautiful.
3)I thought the transfer sheet was very well presented with every major city covered with enough to get every mini something.

Low points;
1)Limited customisation options.
2)The head spike is a bit fiddly to clean up. Where it joins to the sprue is right in the middle on the thinnest part. Nearly lost a finger a few times trying to clen them up.
3)Not a fan of the way the Champions sword arm sits with the crossbow. Easily fixed with a bit of chopping and some green stuff but I wanted to go right out of the box on this one.

Right, that's all for this one. Many more to follow.

Until next time!

-KaiZie

[Bigred]

Did you get a Kharibdyss/Kraken kit?

I really want to see one of those built...

[KaiZie]

Once These guys are done, he will be my reward. I like to paint in bits like that. Do some chaff, then something cool, 10 more chaff, something cool and so on. It helps me to focus my efforts more and it makes those 40 crossbowmen fly by knowing that after 10, I get to work on something more satifying

[angrybear]

I am going to follow this, someday soon I will start with my dark elf force. I really like the crossbowmen.

[KaiZie]

Glad to hear it AngryBear. By the end of this week I will be throwing up my WIP on how they are getting on. Im really impressed with how they are looking actually. If I manage to get a few solid hours at my desk I don't see why I shouldn't have them done this week....assuming nothing silly happens between now and Friday

[KaiZie]

Here we go, some Midweek hobby has occured!

SO, for these guys, and the army as a whole, I've decided to go with a Khanite force, forcusing on Har Ganeth. Colours wise, this to me looks like a lot of deep reds and gold. To that end, I set about how to paint my first ever unit of Dark Elves.

Flicking through White Dwarf gave me some great ideas and I actually decided to use the "How to Paint" as a guideline and build from there.

Here's what I have so far.
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I threw down Cadian Fleshtone for the basis of the skin and went from there. I started with the skin first because it's the deepest part of the model (the face) and if I don't do it first, I'll struggle later on.

Next I hit the armour hard with a thin edge line of Khorne Red. I haven't painted like this in a long long time so it was definately a challenge for me to keep it neat.
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Then, the skin was hit with reikland fleshshade, followed by Kislev flesh and reikland again to tie it together. Taking advice from WD, i spot highlighted the Khorne red with cadian fleshtone, which brings us up to this point.

Next I'll be adding a Bloodletter glaze over the armour to tie the black into the red and tone the highlights into the red. Wish me luck!

Unit next time,

- KaiZie

[Cap'nSmurfs]

Looking very nice so far, that's also a colour scheme I really like. I'll be doing mine more overtly red. Looking forward to the next steps!

[KaiZie]

The aim is to have them completed by Friday Night! Game on!

There isn't much left really. Bit of silver and gold, highlights here and there. I'm trying to keep the core stuff fairly simple to paint becuase I've fallen foul many-a-time to over complicating rank and file and find myself 30 hours into an army and only 10 blokes to show for it

[angrybear]

Nice beginning, a shame I don't have a steady hand to paint lines like that:rolleyes: Are you planning to use many witches considering your theme?

[KaiZie]

Yes, eventually. I'm slowly building up a list of "Whats Up next" which currently looks like (after these RXB's) a Kahrybdyss, followed by 10 more RXB's and then a scourge runner, though that maybe replaced with Witches, or slot in before 10 more RXB's

[KaiZie]

Well, it's Saturday and I still haven't finished them....Instead of painting into the small hours I went out for food with the Wifelette! Chinese all the way.

However, I did manage to throw some paint down while she was getting ready
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Some metal goodness! SImple really, Leadbeltcher, spots of runefang and then nuln oil. Nice and simple for rank and file blokes. I have however, since last night, line highlighted all the black cloth and such. I'm in the home stretch!

IF you've got any pointers or areas in which I could improve, please feel free to tell me!

-KaiZie

[angrybear]

Looking good! I like the colours. The only advice I would give is to not overload with leadbelcher because it can make the model a bit bland. Also some gold would look good with this scheme. Which colour are you going to use for the crossbow?

[KaiZie]

The models are now finished! Woot! I will be putting final pics up tomorrow. As I was going for quick and easy I left the crossbows black. All skulls and dangly charms etc are gold to break up the silver. I know what you mean about the leadbelcher but chainmail is chainmail :P All that is left is basing, which I will leave to you to decide :D

[angrybear]

The models are now finished! Woot! I will be putting final pics up tomorrow. As I was going for quick and easy I left the crossbows black. All skulls and dangly charms etc are gold to break up the silver. I know what you mean about the leadbelcher but chainmail is chainmail :P All that is left is basing, which I will leave to you to decide :D

Cool I am curious to see the results:D

[KaiZie]

So here we are, all built, painted and ready to go! What do we all think?

I wasn't overly keen on the way the glaze worked over black, and my edge lines could have been neater, but for rank and file I think they aren't too bad.
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As you cab see I've posted several different views to give a feel of the unit as a whole.
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Using cadian fleshtone to highlight khorne red was a bit odd but I actually like the end result with the glaze as a whole. It tints it nicely and ties into the flash as well.
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The gold accents on the army runes and pendants help add a much needed extra colour the the minis and stop the silver taking over too much.
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So all in all a good first unit I feel. These were easy to paint in the grand scheme of things both in terms of the model and the colour palette. As I'm going for a Khainite Har Ganeth force, the red and gold give this impression (hopefully) while the heavy use of black helps them not stand out as the main fighting force of the army, unlike Wiches or Exocutions which will focus heavily on reds and golds in the future of this project.

All that is left is to decide a basing scheme. What do you guys thing would work best?

All thoughts, feelings, comments and questions welcomed!

That's all for now. Next on the table is the new Kharibdyss/Hyrda kit. It's been ordered and is on it's way!

Til next time,

-KaiZie

[Brakkart]

Looking really nice there and I'm keen to see your take on the new big beastie. My only comment would be that your guys really could use having their eyes painted in as without them the faces are kinda bland.

[angrybear]

Looking good, a nice contrast between blue and red.

[KaiZie]

Looking really nice there and I'm keen to see your take on the new big beastie. My only comment would be that your guys really could use having their eyes painted in as without them the faces are kinda bland.

Agreed, I really should just man up and learn to paint eyes

[KaiZie]

Looking good, a nice contrast between blue and red.

Thanks, however I have some bad new, evidently the flash on my phone has made the grey highlights come out blue :( However I am using blues on leather for witches and a special addition to my army which will arrive tomorrow!

[KaiZie]

Here we go with an update. I've been both a busy bee and the victim of invasion! :O

I once had a perfectly quiet hobby room, just for me. It had all my paints, my own desk. A place to Keep my larp gear, read a book and unwind after a long day in the office with some painting. But then, I introduced my girlfriend to painting. I believed it to be an innocent act, show her my hobby, maybe she'll paint a model and e done with it. Little did i know that just below the surface lurked something dark, something....evil. We all have it. Every single member of this forum, including you, the reader. it was...

THE HOBBY GENE!!

That's right, my once quiet haven from the world has been invaded and held captive by my girlfriend and her ever growning quest to be a better painter than me. And she's not off to a bad start at all. Safe to say, I'm both impressed, and worried :p

This means 2 things;

A) Posts will slow down until I can get us a second desk
B) I have someone to chill and paint with 7 days a week....nice

I will however post the finished RXB's as the bases have been finised and a few additions made after some suggestions form you fine folk. Yes, I manned up and painted the eyes and mouths.

I will also throw up a picture of my SO's fine work on an old Dark Eldar Archon model I had lying around, she's keen to get some opinions and pointers.

So, until then, Happy Hobby

- KaiZie

[KaiZie]

The update!

Let's finish off one unit round up before starting another!
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Here's the finished unit, eyes attempted and all! As always, comments, critiques and ideas for areas of improvement always welcomed!

I've gone on about one unit for far to long, so here we got with the dreaded..HYDRA! Originally I was going to build a Kharibdyss, however the temptation to build a hydra took over me, as well as some persuading from the wifelette!
Let's start off with the sprue!
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Hopefully you can see all the pieces well enough to get a good idea of "what's in the box!" What I really liked what the fact that their are seperate parts for a lot of the kit for each monster. The only thing that really stays the same is the body.

I kicked off with the handlers, and they went together really easy. Like the Crossbowmen, the kit was restirctive in positioning, only offering one way for them to go together
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However, it's almost a godsend with the size of the beastie and the footprint of the big guy.

The Hydra as a whole was another very eay kit to build. In typical Hydra style, it still needed some minor gap filling, mostly down to my poor building skills. Theres a couple areas in between necks the required the filling. A quick attack of LGS sorted this out in no time though.

What I did find interesting was that the front claw, something which quite a few people dislike, is only molunted to a tiny hole with body detail scuplted all around. It wouldn't be too hard to fill in and sculpt the skin lines into if you didn't want to have this part on the model.

I've reached the image limit on this one folks, so continue reading to know more!
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-KaiZie

[KaiZie]

I took a few pictures of the built Hydra to give an idea of the size and shape of the heads. I know a few guys that have said the heads look odd and I figured it was down to bad photography in White Dwarf. So here's a few for you guys to make your own decision.
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SO that's the Hydra build and ready to go. When the weekend rolls around I can get him sprayed and get painting, however when I finishw ork it's very dark and I don't like spraying in the dark and cold.

I also picked up this little beauty to use as a Supreme Sorceress!
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Raging heroes do some grand looking Dark Elf models. This one in particular comes with 3 heads (Vamps, Dark Elves and Chaos) 4 arms (Sword, shield, staff, spell book) and looks absolutely stunning. I don't know when she'll grace my painting table, but I'm looking forward to getting stuck into painting it.

Finally, the girlfriend, after hijacking my desk for the weekend has completed her second ever model. She's keen to get feedback so please, fire away! This is all her own work using White Dwarf guides I suggested and following a few step by steps I'd writen down for my own reference. What do you guys think!? She even mixed in some glitter into the snow to make it sparkle, though the photo doesn't show it all that well.
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As always guys, thoughts, ideas, comments, critiques, all are welcome! I'll answer any questions you have as well!

Until next time!

- KaiZie

[angrybear]

I really like your girlfriend elf. Some good looking colours. Maybe some more painting in the face? The hydra looks awesome, how do you find the claw coming out of its gut? Its the only thing I dislike about the model. The crossbowmen turned out well.

[Kirsten]

how do you find the claw coming out of its gut? Its the only thing I dislike about the model.

I don't like the claw either, and whilst the claw itself is pretty large, the actual connection point is very small, I left it off my hydra and there was only a very small square hole to fill with greenstuff, and a tiny but of rough texture to put into it with a sculpting tool, very easy.

[KaiZie]

I don't like the claw either, and whilst the claw itself is pretty large, the actual connection point is very small, I left it off my hydra and there was only a very small square hole to fill with greenstuff, and a tiny but of rough texture to put into it with a sculpting tool, very easy.
Yeah that pretty much sums it up. It does look as thougj it was designed to cover over easy if you didn't want chest spikes and mouths all over the gribbly thing. It does suggest somewhat gw had no faith in the sculptor and nade it so it was easily removable

[angrybear]

Managed to finish the hydra?

[KaiZie]

He's coming along ok thus far. I haven't had much time to crack on with him of late sadly, but my Naggaroth Warhost arrived the other day so there is sooooo much for me to be getting on with once Mr Stompy is finished. Here's a quick WIP for ya
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Most of the skin is done. It does need a fair amount of cleaning up though and I want to add some darker scales to his back. What do you think so far? What would you do next?

[angrybear]

He's coming along ok thus far. I haven't had much time to crack on with him of late sadly, but my Naggaroth Warhost arrived the other day so there is sooooo much for me to be getting on with once Mr Stompy is finished. Here's a quick WIP for ya
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Most of the skin is done. It does need a fair amount of cleaning up though and I want to add some darker scales to his back. What do you think so far? What would you do next?

I love the hydra colours. The green look amazing. The red is a nice contrast to the green. I feel the tail red can use a wash. I like the balance of colours. Looking forward to more.

[KaiZie]

I aimed for the "Classic" dragon type creature look. Since I've got a Har Ganeth theme, I thought the red would tie into the armour of the army, while the green would contrast to that. I've attempted to give him a nice pale underbelly as well. I've got a few free days coming up where I'll really crack on! I can't wait to get this guy finished!