The Disgraced & Dethroned; A Dark Elf, Chaos & General Warhammer log by lilloser

[lilloser2010]

Like most people, I’ve become rather taken with the 8th. Getting swept up in all the excitement, I decided to revisit my first love, the Druchii. With dreams of conquest, riches and slaughter, Cynath Ch’Ill, or Kynathis Ch'hll (pronounced Kai-Nath-Is) the Bastard Prince of Naggarond sallies forth at the head of his household.

Cynath Ch'ill, the Disgraced Prince of Naggarond. W.I.P

The basis of this model was the first Dark Elf model I bought and has been my general for over twelve years. This is my fourth version of the Black Prince and is nearly complete. I wanted to convey a sense of pomposity, superiority and arrogance. The pose is based from this painting of Napoleon...

...although Cynath does not share the same level of tactical acumen. Throughout the years he has led his house noble Cold One’s on raids all across the Warhammer world and is more than a little reckless when it comes to accepting a challenge (he has a fairly decent record as well, slaying Grimgor and Valten on foot in single combat, no doubt impostors). However, I have lost a butt load of games with my dark elves (I started playing them when they were rubbish). Since the Black Prince’s favourite tactic is charging as fast as he can toward the enemy and letting his household catch up with him, it seemed only natural that his impudent nature would see him disgraced somewhere down the line.

So where do the fell scions of Chaos come into this? I got back into the hobby through creating a selling truescale WOC (warriors of chaos) chosen on foot over a year ago. I liked the outcome so much, I decided to develop my skills my sculpting Korpus Festerheart, which developed into a thread all on his own. The thread has been left stagnant for a while and i’ve decided to scrap it and relocate the work here with better photographs. I’ll post up the content I wrote for that blog again, so please bear with me if I seem like I’m repeating myself.

I hope you enjoy my work, and if you enjoy the blog please leave a comment.

LilLoser

[lilloser2010]

Why not kick things off with a double post?

Although I quite like the current dark elf plastic warrior kit, I always try to do something different with my armies.

Here's a quick knock up of what I have planned:

My idea for my warrior kit is a mixture of the current clack guard legs and arms, corsair breastplates, Cold One Knight heads and ornamentation. I want my guys to have a very sleek look to them like the Chris Fitzpatrick line, but with some of the old Chaos Elf savagery from old Dark Elf range. I'm looking forward to getting big blocks of Dark Elves together just because big blocks of infantry look very impressive. I'm a little uncomfortable buying units in hordes though as it does not seem right for a race as scarce as Dark Elves to appear in hordes!

I've also written up a design brief for how I want the army to look

*Armour & weapons

Black armour, NMM, (I'm still quite inexperienced with this technique. Painting 40+ warriors will give me some practice).

NO pure black surfaces (i'll explain this when I write up a tutorial).

TMM weapons.


*Clothing

Black clothing, highlighted with bleached bone - no pure white. (By highlighting the cloth with bleached bone, I hope that it will highlight the difference between the black armour and black cloth). NO pure black surfaces.

*Skin & hair

Pale skin, shadowed with blue/grey, and purple lips (No warm human skin pigment washes - I want my eleves to look inhuman).

Silver / white hair. NO brown, blonde, etc hair. May be a problem further down the line.

*Purple and gold Spot colours (If I decide to introduce any colour at all).

* And, most unusually of all, carmine (a deep wine red) eyes.


I knew from the very outset that my dark elves would have blue tinted skin and carmine eyes. I wanted my elves to look otherworldly, daemonic, and unlike any other dark elf army out there.

I can already anticipate that by mixing TMM and NMM on the same model may lead to a very confusing overall appearance. And, I don't think that everyone will dig my black armour and black cloth approach. I'm not entirely convinced it will work either. I want to complete a few metal test models below I ruin my converted warriors proper.

I'm sure that was interesting for everybody to read... yeah right. I like coming up with little design tenets at the start of project and see how unfeasible they are in real world application. I wonder how far I'll deviate from the plan.

Any comments or thoughts on what I have discussed would be greatly appreciated, especially if you could provide examples to illustrate your points. Please feel free to post up images that you may feel helps convey your argument, or just examples of your own work if they follow the same lines of thought.

LilLoser

[Memnon]

Very nice start, your general is suitably imposing- he looks very "follow me dogs!". The warrior is a nice start too, very nice homage to the old plastics.

Keep it up, I'll be watching!

Memnon

[lilloser2010]

Very nice start, your general is suitably imposing- he looks very "follow me dogs!". The warrior is a nice start too, very nice homage to the old plastics.

Keep it up, I'll be watching!

Memnon

Thank you. Cynath is almost complete. I've really rushed back into my Dark Elves. I'm getting all the old nostaligc stirring you get when you return to your first army. I have a Morathi (My favorite special character) and Kouran under construction as well. I really hope I haven't taken on more than I can chew.

[lilloser2010]

Hooray for nasty W.I.P shots:

Kouran, Master of the Black Guard W.I.P

I created this guy while rummaging through my bitz box. Also came across this geezer:



COBRA!!!! ahem. This will make a nice little characterful sprite for one of my sorceress'. Very Pleased I found this guy again.


On another note, I think i've struck on a method of creating cheap effective warriors. What i'm thinking will be a little time consuming, but infinitely more legal than casting a load of black guard models in resin. Will update soon when I get the materials.


EDIT: Oh yeah, I almost forgot:



My interpretation of Morathi, the Hag Queen of Naggaroth.

[lilloser2010]

This is what i've been working on:

Morathi, Hag Queen of Naggaroth W.I.P

[Monsterzonk]

Some great conversions so far. I really like the old Dark Pegasus. It looks so much better and more sinister than the current one. Looking forward to seeing it painted up!

Cheers,
Monsterzonk

[mdiscala]

Always enjoy looking at your models, looking forward to seeing more.

[lilloser2010]

Some great conversions so far. I really like the old Dark Pegasus. It looks so much better and more sinister than the current one. Looking forward to seeing it painted up!

Always enjoy looking at your models, looking forward to seeing more.

Thank you both. @ Monsterzonk; I much prefer the old pegasus, but I was never keen on the old metal dragon wings. Even when pinned they broke easily. I was lucky that I had a set of these wings in my bits box.

I'm currently adding all manner of sprites and evil spirits to Morathi's base so that it looks more like this:



I have also completed my first mock test of the warrior kit i'm assembling. I want to sculpt chainmail onto him before I post up pictures.

LilLoser.

[azhagmorglum]

Hmmm quite interesting ideas in this log, can't wait to see the rest (that captain of the guard intrigues me, go on and finish him ^^)

[Mr.chair]

Great conversions. Simple and elegant.

[lilloser2010]

Hmmm quite interesting ideas in this log, can't wait to see the rest (that captain of the guard intrigues me, go on and finish him ^^)

Great conversions. Simple and elegant.

Thank you both. I do try to finish what I start in a timely manner, but my intentions never seem to translate into real world results.

Here is a very quick and dirty knock up of my proposed warrior kit.

And here is a test model for the colour scheme:

[lilloser2010]

My main concerns are with the skin colour and how the black armour and black cloth will work together.

I used VMC Black Grey and White to build up the armour highlights, and Black grey with bleached bone for the cloth area.

Looking at the photo and reflecting on the outcome, I'm a little disappointed with the outcome. The entire model, although technically good, looks a little washed out, and the flayed skin does not offer enough relief. I used the same grey to paint the armour when shading the flayed skin, thinking that i'd tie the entire model together. Alas, it did not work. I'm happy with the skin tone and I am convinced the techniques I used on the armour and cloth will work. I think the introduction of a third colour to satisfy the eye will do the trick.

I have a Black Guard all primed and ready so I can concentrate on improving the black. Painting a black guard will also give me the opportunity to see how to paint the shaft on my spearmen. Haven chosen to paint the model's primarily black, the eye will be naturally drawn to any other colour on the model, and I don't want the shaft to become a focal point. I'll have to figure out a way to blend the shaft's colour with the rest of the spearman/black guard.

Any suggestions, critique's, or comments would be great at this stage before I put paint to the spearmen. It's a lot easier stripping metal than plastic!

LilLoser.

[Armond]

I love where this is going!

[_toast_]

Hey!

Great work on the Dark elves so far! Its funny, i actually went through a very similar process in trying to re vamp the dark elves. I settled on just the heads, but i kinda wish i had done more now :P. The ones in my log are in fact the dark elves i traded you for. Hopefully I'm doing them justice. I cant wait to see more.

[Dayspringer]

These guys are looking fantastic!
I think I agree with the scheme looking a bit washed out. Looks great on a single figure, but on a whole army, it would probably end up a bit dull. You could maybe bring up the purples on the cloth bits (like, his loincloth perhaps?), and maybe add some brighter silver/gold to detail the armour.

Conversions are spot on. Are you going to make plastic black guard? If so they're going to have to be pretty spectacular to compete with your basic warriors!

[npow34]

I like the test model. The skin color is particularily Druchii like. I also think the skin tone for the man hide is great looking. How did you acheive these?

[Malorian]

The problem I have with Cynath Ch'ill, is that even though he looks extremely coo, he will also spend the entire battle looking away from the enemy when ranked up in a unit...

[Harry]

I don't know ... I'm liking the painting.
Aside from the cloak needing a bit more depth and the hair possibly ...
... I really like the very natural/neutral/realistic look you have going on there.
I am not sure I would busy it up with more colours?
It has something going on just as it is.

[orlanth1000]

Subscribed....loving the old pegasus!