Graxy's high elf paint log

[Graxy]

I'm going to start off by saying, I don't think I am a particularly great painter, in fact, the main reason for this log is to motivitate me to paint my high elves. Really, they're just sitting around asking to be painted, and I think that I should give the lovely models what they deserve. For the next couple of days, I'm going to be unable to paint anything due to renovations going on to my house so to start off with, I'm just going to put a few pictures of things that I already have painted up.

Let the painting montage begin!!!!


The phoenix guard were painted quite a long time ago so are kinda chipped especially across the handle of the halberds, need to touch up on that really.

The prince is really just a prince that I used for the dismounted prince of a star dragon rider (who I'll probably eventually get around to uploading a couple of pictures of it).

P.S. Sorry if the pictures are a little blurry, my camera isn't great

EDIT: replaced old pictures with better quality ones. Also no phoenix guard this post, look to the next post

[Graxy]

More pics of phoenix guard:
I'm using the BSB banner for their banner, since unfortunately, they lost their actual banner about a year ago it looks cool IMO but it makes me put the banner at the side of the unit


There's a pic of the rest of the unit above so unless somone actually asks, I'm not going to take more of the unit.

[Graxy]

Actually found a setting on the camera that works well, so here's a few more pics which are of caradryhan (normally used as phoenix guard champion):



EDIT: Oh wow, didn't even realise how much dust is on this moedel Please try to ignore that

[Graxy]

Few pics of my Caledorian BSB on foot. Made him a few days ago so is unpainted, but hopefullyy I can make him stand out sufficiently (without drawing attention to the huge ass banner). As far as conversions go, this is probably the most basic ever (if you even can call it a conversion), but hopefully conversions that I bring in the future are more interesting.

[Student]

Nice work. I like how you've painted Caradryhan's face, it looks more aloof and angry than other Caradryhans that I've seen.

[Graxy]

Nice work. I like how you've painted Caradryhan's face, it looks more aloof and angry than other Caradryhans that I've seen.

Thanks I've always pictured Caradryan being a lot more angry and aggresive than the background depicts him as, I don't know why,, I just have and it kind of refelcts on the paint job.

P.S. Should be getting more pics up later today of unpainted sea guard.

[Graxy]

As promised, heres some of my unpainted sea guard. Actually I sould be calling them by their proper title; Caledorian Drak guard (If no-one had guessed by my BSB, I like caledor)



More kit-bashing than anything as well as actually using models from other kits in the unit (prince as champion and RBT crewman as a normal rank and file model. A couple of hand swaps here and there as well as shortening all of the spears on the back. A couple of more boring ones that I didn't take pictures of in the further back ranks, and the close ups on specific models are really just ones that I ike more than others

I wanted to go for a more disorganised unit here to reflect the caledorian arrogance that would make them act more aggressively.

[Graxy]

The first painted Dragon Prince of the army here. Not a particularly great paint job on the model but I was testing the scheme and the new basecoat white (IMO, you can only really use it on flat surfaces, on clothing or cloth in general, you're better of with working up with the greys).



Also, a pic of my mounted BSB. Like the one on foot, more kitbashed than anything, just had to put a bit more work with the positioning in to this one. Honestly, I don't like the horse given in noble box set.. Really, it stands out a bit too much for my liking and it doesn't fit in as well as it should with the Dragon Prince models, so I just stuck him on a Dragon Prince horse and called it a day. No pics from other angles at the moment, since I just looked at them and they're way too blurry (even compared to my origional pictures), so I'll upload some when I feel like taking the pictures

[Graxy]

I've made progress!!! Not really considering this was the test model for the drake guard scheme, but nonetheless, it's still better than nothing. I'm not completely sure whether I like it or not, I kkinda don't think that there is enough blue on the model to tie it in with the rest of the army (I kinda went a bit crazy with the white since I'm probably the only person ever who enjoys painting white). The shield is supposed to have a dragon coming up over the mountains, but in all honesty, I'm a bit scared of even trying that freehand, so I'm just procrastinating in any way that I can. I'm kinda tempted to paint the bow bleached bone skull white 1:1 but then I'd fell a bit obliged to do that on the spear also, and I know that that won't look good at all so I'll leave that for now and come back to it later.

[McBoner]

Nice work. I really like the different look you've gone for on the Dragon Princes; much better than the "blue all over" scheme that GW use.

[lilloser2010]

Really like the dragon princes man. Great colour combination.

For the freehand, I always find sketching it out first to get it right in my head. Try sketching it on a piece of paper first them go for it.

All the best

Lilloser

[Graxy]

Nice work. I really like the different look you've gone for on the Dragon Princes; much better than the "blue all over" scheme that GW use.

Thanks mate although I've got to say I kinda like the blue all over scheme.......on the old models. Basically all of the new HE models are inferior to the old ones (we have anorexic S4 white lions, overweight S3 phoenix guard and dragon princes with an OTT obsession with dragons).

Really like the dragon princes man. Great colour combination.

For the freehand, I always find sketching it out first to get it right in my head. Try sketching it on a piece of paper first them go for it.

Thanks In reality its the same combination GW use, just with a more generous distribution of white. GW tried to copy and paste the colours from the last models, any other sane person adapts

In regards to the freehand tips (thanks again ), I tried that out, and came up with some......well...interesting drawings. I'll leave these to you to laugh at
Had the idea of having this dragon coming over the mountains
A better draiwng of pretty much a standard dragonHad the idea of just having some fire coming over the mountains to represent the rarity of dragons in these dark and desperate times. Plus it's easier than painting a whole dragon. A failed attempt of drawing a dragon
And just to top it all off, something that looks like a combination of the lockness monster and barnie (I think?). Either way, would appreciate feedback on which looks best (please kindly disregardin my appauling artistic skills )

[Graxy]

Well, went down to my local GW to ask around for opinions today. They majority of people said that the design with the outspread dragon breathing fire was the best one. Unfortunately however (or fortunately for my sanity), I realised that there wasn't enough space left after the mountains to scale it appropriatley, so I decided to go with the simple fire coming from the mountains with this as the result:

Not exactly the best freehand, but thats why we have a test model isn't it. I am going to try and put some of the other designs into the rest of the unit to add individuality to each model, but that's for the future.

[Kroq9Gar]

Nice work. Good to see another Caledor fanatic! I like the shield design and some of the drake guard conversions, along with your bsb on foot.

[Graxy]

Nice work. Good to see another Caledor fanatic! I like the shield design and some of the drake guard conversions, along with your bsb on foot.

Thanks man, always nice to know that there are more of my Caledorian bretheren out there

Last night, picked out 2 of the drake guard at random to paint and got these two:


Not too great an outcome, but considering I was doing these in horrible lighting, it's not too bad. The freehanded dragon does not look great att all but I'm actually quite pleased with the fire, so it's alright I guess. Forgot to mention before that 1 or 2 of the drake guard have silver helm shields, but I painted one anyway. I actually struggled with the built in flame on the shield more than my freehand on, but I dunno maybe I'mjust crazy.

[Graxy]

Quick update here, just showing the army's first instance of the famous High elf war skirt (RRP.£19.99).

I've painted that shield twice now and I'm really struggling to get my head around the design, so the paint job's not too great. Didn't go too into detail on the flame since it's such a small surface that if I tried, I'd be bound to make a mistake and would have to re-do the white.

[Graxy]

Hey everyone! No update for the last couple of days due to an exam, but that's over so should be able to get painting again

Haven't been able to make any progress on the elves, but I thought that I might put up a few pictures of models from my other armies to show my normal painting styles.


If you hadn't guessed by my picture, I like the greenies


Like I said before, I like to paint white. The banner didn't turn out how I expected it to at all but it's something that I'm very unlikely to go back to later.

[Graxy]

Well I got the model that is least likely to see daylight painted since he's pretty, so here is my mounted mage:

I'd painted the fire and the hair quite a while ago so it didn't turn out great. The horse was an absolute pleasure to paint (like I said, I LOVE painting white). The stars on the cloak don't look too bad from a distance, but up close they aren't amazing. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with it, considering I'll never use it in a game


EDIT: Oops, just realised that I missed out the outer rim on the jewel on the horses front and the mages back, so I probably will do them a bit later but not upload any pics of it, since you pretty much get the idea of the model.

[Graxy]

Long time no update, (Basically, I lied in the last post about updating more) but I had another exam, so what can you do? Well it's half term now anyway so hopefully I can bring myself to do more painting. Since the last update, I've done basically nothing, but I'll show the little progress I've made anyway. The 2nd most useless model in the army. Enter, THE HALF PAINTED DRAGON MAGE!!!


Thought I might as well upload some pics of my old lion chariot too. Unfortunately, tme has not been kind to it


Over time, It's come off of the base, it's base has lost all of the sand, and it's broken more times than I can count. But it's still (one of my favourite) parts of the army despite the bad pain job so it gets to be uploaded.

I'm not promising anything this time, since I ended up breaking my last one

[Graxy]

Well, while I was out today, I decided to pick up some magnets for my trays, so I decided to show a quick sample:

As you can see, pretty damn good magnets. A couple of painted swordsmasters on the tray, not going to upload pics of them until I have at least 12 of them painted. The champion and banner were painted a while ago and are re-paints, so the paint is really thick on them so their not great. Also, the musician's gone for walkies, but he'll probably turn up later.

On a COMPLETELY unrelated note, one of my main distractions from the Helves has been another project, some test models for a Dark elf army. Only been using some old models that I had lying aroundd to test on, but I thought I might as well upload some pics.

Corsair champion:


Went for a more piratey look than the normal models, with a lot more variety to the unit. They're supposed to look like barbarians, not like they're going to a pantomine. Been playing around with some of the hellions hellglaives on them also, so I might upload some test pics of them later.

Sorceress:


Since I'm trying to keep the army all the same size, I mad to convert up my own sorceress (since I don't like the plastic sorceress). Bit of a shame since the old model is really nice, but I'm not too fussed about putting a bit more work into the army.