Wood Elves Durthu

So I got this fellow for my birthday and was eager to paint him and just as eager not to mess it up.  Obviously putting  paint on the figure was a good start on the way to messing it up so I was a bit torn.  At a $113 doing a poor job would be a disappointment difficult to accept.  Anyway having it sit in a box forever would also be a shame so I stuck it together and primed it.

I recently changed my superglue from some rubbish GW stuff to some traditional salleys glue.  The later sticks fast on contact and is super strong unlike the GW stuff which has become weak and tacky.  Unfortunately this meant that when I stuck it together I didn’t have much time to position it and alas the sword and the head aren’t quite where I would have like them to be.  Rectifying this mistake would have required a saw and some greenstuff, and I wasn’t prepared to go there in light of my desire not to mess the figure up, wimp I know.

it is a beautiful model very three dimensional which made it tricky to paint, although not as bad as I thought it might be.  It’s also surprisingly durable, though I still managed to break of a bit of a branch and the longer of the two splintered pieces of wood sticking out his elbow.

I’ve tried to faithfully reproduce the paint scheme even though I have few of the colours and was constantly mixing paint as a result.  Wasn’t sure about the blue, still not to be honest.  Was tempted to make the blue mostly grey but struggled to get it right so just went with the blue.  Anyway very happy with the result, it is a stunning piece and whatever you think of the colour scheme it is a striking piece and I believe/hope that I’ve done it justice.

(hmm I think the blue looks even bluer in the picture too :-\)

Orc & Goblin Savage Orc Boar Boyz

These were given as a present two or three years ago.  I painted up the boars and set them aside.  Recently (by which I mean about a month ago maybe a bit more) I painted them.  Like usual, pretty much painted according to the box.  Again my photography skills let the side down a bit, they seem to highlight all the worst aspects and reduce the overall effect.  Still they’re better than any attempt I might make at describing them.  Overall very happy with them particularly their colourful crests.  Oh yeah and one image is tiny because I resized it wrong and overwrote the original.  .

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Warhawk Riders

These guys are recently painted (three – four months ago, lol ok not that recent).  Bought them second hand and have been sitting, primed in my cupboard for five years or so.  When I read the new wood elf book I figured these were probably something I’d want painted up.  When ever I’ve taken hawks in the past they’ve always been high achievers, but it always seemed to be good luck rather than my ability to use them or their inherent characteristics.  In the new book though they are monstrous cavalry, meaning the naked toughness 3 elf is not a 3 wound toughness four model.  On top of that the hawk and the elf are strength 4 on the charge with armour piercing (hawk has killing blow), elf has an asrai longbow and they’re skirmishing fast cav.  All for a slight cost increase effectively a better great eagle for 5pts less (although a great eagle is a single model so still has it’s place).

Regarding the paint/modelling, really hated doing these guys, not sure why to be honest, thought they’d be fun struggled to enjoy painting them.  Still not totally convinced with some of the choices I made even though like usual I modelled them on games workshops ones.  Part of it may have been the hawks are so heavy that the spindly stand really struggles to support it.  So many times I broke the stands.  I was quite over it by the time I finished.  The photos probably won’t show it but some of the stands have a pin in them now with heavy gauge wire (which I use for pins usually) wrapped around the plastic stem to help support the very thin plastic at the end that holds the pin.  Works well but just serves to remind me of how fragile they are and what I inevitably have to look forward to when they break again in the future.