Warhammer Wood Elves Araloth pt.5

Well this ended up taking a hell of a lot longer than I was expecting.

Whilst it is true that I would have preferred this finished a couple of weeks ago it did end up being a positive experience. It definitely allowed me to get my head somewhat around the painting process again, I even totally destroyed a Rosemary & Co brush in the process - great brushes btw, probably my favourites now. The last 2 have taken a ridiculous amount of punishment and still managed to retain a point and good feel

Anyhow - back to the miniature. Glad it's finished - enjoyed much of the painting process (hated some of it) - learnt a lot - improved a lot - definitely feel that I'm heading back toward the standard I was painting at 6 or 7 years ago which is great - looking forward to starting on something a little more challenging, perhaps in a larger scale.

I'll take some better pictures in a couple of days and may write something more coherent about the painting process.

Warhammer Wood Elves Araloth pt.4

I really wish I hadn't chosen gold for the bulk of the miniature now... It's time consuming but in addition to that it's also getting a little boring. Once I get his bloody helmet finished though it'll be relatively smooth sailing so I'll keep doing a bit each evening after work regardless of how much I'd like to move on to something new.

Warhammer Wood Elves Araloth pt.3

I think I'm around 50% into the paintjob now and thought it was time to take another IP shot. Still not hating the new GW plastics - certainly a different beast but not terrible to paint and I think the end product will be okay.

I'm still trying to come up with a technique I'm happy with - I entertained the idea of revisiting my painting style from 6 or so years back ala-this guy but couldn't bring myself to - it was incredibly time intensive and the end result a little sterile. I think this might be a happy medium, it's not dissimilar to how I used to paint but I think a little more visually interesting. Time will tell I guess.

*edit - Just thought I'd mention that the gem is cack. The whole belt is to be honest. I'll definitely have to sort it before finishing.

Warhammer Wood Elves Araloth pt.2

This is my first experience with the new GW plastics and impressions are mostly positive. This particular 'kit' assembled very nicely and the only obvious joins were taken care of by a liberal application of plastic glue to the areas in question. There were some issues though - certain parts of the miniature are incredibly fine - to the point of being unsuitable for gaming. The second set of horns which attach to the centre of the headdress snapped either without any assistance from me or possibly when I removed them from the sprue and the area where the falcon meets the hand is another likely snapping point. The horns were fixed without difficulty but I'm not sure how practical plastics this fine are for gaming.

After assembly I primed using the zenithal technique (I'm sure someone's come up with a technical term with a fabulous acronym but I'm unfamiliar). The sequence was an airbrushed basecoat of Vallejo black primer, then a lighter coat of grey from the angle the light would be coming from and then lighter grey followed by white. Unfortunately the white spattered but it'll make little difference.

Warhammer Wood Elves Araloth

So I went into my first Games Workshop store in years today. Don't know why really, I have so many things to paint and a good few projects on the go, I guess I was curious as to the quality of the new plastics and had an hour to kill in the city.
After a quick browse I ended up walking out with Araloth and one of the Warhammer Vision magazines/booklets. The sprue looks promising - not terrible at all. Not sure I can say the same about 'Visions' but that subject might warrant a post of its own.

Elena pt.3

Still struggling along with this one. The issues with the sculpt are making it painful to paint. It seems to me that the sculptor had the makings of a fantastic sculpt and ended up rushing it for whatever reason. Just a thought - probably wrong but there you go.

Anyhow - got a little more done. Tried something different for the axe head, NMM-wise that is. I'll muck around with the technique to see if I can refine it somewhat. Not sure about the gold - technique and appropriateness but I'm not changing it now. Maybe it'll pull together once based. Will most likely put some more work into the inside of the cloak and the hair and then I'll have to paint the back - for some bizarre reason I basically finished the front but only blocked in colours on the back - don't think I've ever done it before.

Elena pt.2

This one's been a bit of a struggle. I still like the sculpt - design-wise I think it's quite cool but some aspects of the sculpting and casting are a little suspect. Things that I wish I'd noticed prior to priming but in the end with a bit of work both with paint and Vallejo plastic putty I'm getting it toward something I'm happy with. That said I am struggling with colours - the hair started light mauve (which looked terrible in the IP photos) and the red bits were originally a black/blue which also looked off in photos. I'm not 100% on the red either but I'll probably stick with it unless something else comes to mind.

Definitely looking forward to trying out some NMM on the axe head, it's been a while since I've gone all out using that particular technique so I'm interested to see what happens.