Sturgeon’s Elves

Greetings everyone, Sturgeon here. Welcome to my hobby blog! I’ve always been more of a closet painter than a gamer. Unfortunately, that means I rarely feel pressured to finish anything! I was recently looking at my elf army I started several years ago (originally made for Warhammer 8th edition) and was disappointed by my progress. Hopefully this blog will galvanise me into painting more minis!

As a teaser of what is to come I though I’d start off by posting some of my completed miniatures.

3 regiments of forest shamblers (I know, they aren’t elves!)

Sea guard

Palace guard

Mage 1

Mage 2

Stormwind (half of them)

Lord on Drakon

That’s it for now. I’ll update later with some hobby goals for the next 6 months and a WIP of some Hunters of the wild (going to be my first multibased unit(s)!)

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Those are really lovely looking elves! Excellent paintjob!

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Awesome army with awesome painting!! :smiley:

Reminds me of the ol’ Warhammer days of my youth, but never seen one with such detailed and painting on the table back in those days. :wink: Choice of color is also really great, really good contrast and the colors really “pop”. :slight_smile:

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The isle of blood elves are so much fun! I like the contrasting colors on the Drakon Lord’s wings.

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Thanks @ThaneBobo, @Mikes, and @wilberforce!

The unfortunate thing is I never got a game of 8th edition in with these elves. Finally finished a 1,000pt force and end times happened!

The island of blood elves are a real joy to paint. Too bad they are so rare these days.

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Hobby goals and first WIP

Time to make a public declaration on my hobby goals for the rest of the year!

  1. Complete x2 troops of hunters of the wild (multibase).

  2. Paint a tree herder.

  3. Paint a lord on dragon.

  4. Make scenic movement trays for my existing infantry.

  5. Paint 8 more palace guard and sea guard to make x4 hordes of 24 miniatures each (60% full).

That’s 5 goals for 5 months!

Anyway, enough of the boring stuff, time for the WIP! I’m starting with the Hunters. I’ll be using GW dryads (not the most original) and I want 6 or 7 per troop base. I have now painted 2 test models and decided on what to go with.

Here is the first test model. I was trying to cut corners by making the head blue bark, but I didn’t like the result.

Here is the second one I’ve decided to go with. Painted just like the forest shamblers.

Both of them together

Now I just need to paint 13 more. No problem :grin:

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Brilliant paintjob, as always. I just don’t like the Shambler models. The whole new GW wood elves aren’t very ‘woodlike’. The old elve models though, really nice to get this ‘blast from the past’.

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Thanks @KptKeno!

I understand what you mean about the new sylvaneth (think that’s spelt right) range from GW. I see them more as elf “fairy” than “woods come to life”. I’m still a big fan though!

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True, definatly more fairy than ‘woody’. It comes down to a matter of taste, I guess.

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Small update

I’ve painted all the base colours onto the hunters of the wild.

Not the most interesting update, but progress nonetheless!

I hope to have them finished in the next few days.

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These tree people are taking a lot longer than I thought. Good thing this is a hobby blog so I can post WIPs!

I just finished the blue bark highlights, which was a lot of fun. For anyone whose interested, I do an extreme highlight method.

  1. base coat in dark blue
  2. do a dark wash all over the bark
  3. highlight the edges of the bark with a lighter blue
  4. do an “extreme” highlight with 50:50 light blue and white. Just do this along the edges or ends of the previous highlights. If the highlight is not on a hard edge, do it in the middle. You want to cover about 20-25% of the previous line.
  5. dot highlight on the sharpest points with pure white.

Here are some blurry pics.

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So close to finishing the Hunters of the wild, just have to add the “war paint” over the eyes and varnish them.

Next up the multi-base!

Just to confirm, I want a 125mmx50mm base for a troop of Hunters of the wild? I get paranoid about new things!

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Nice work!

Correct on the multibase size.

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Thanks @MarkG !

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I am pleased to announce that the first item on the list for completion in 2021 is complete. I present to you my multibased troops of Hunters of the wild!

I also managed a few bonus points for doing 3 troops instead of 2. This was because I was originally going to put 7 models on each base, but it just didn’t look right to me, so I painted an extra mini.

I really enjoyed the multibasing. I’m even considering rebasing the whole army in some state of madness. If anyone can tell me the best way to clip out slotta base models I’d be grateful.

Time to finish with a sneak peek of the future.

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Nice! Those bases look amazing - plenty of detail but nothing that detracts from the minis.

I think @FredOslow had a method for leaving them based and filling the gaps, but that might be more appropriate for a more regimented army.

Cool pose on the Tree Herder and well done getting him to fit on the base!

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On several of my Twilight Kin units I simply glued the slottabases onto a flat multibase, then filled the spaces in between either with some cork first and then spackle/filler, or in some cases just filler.
You can see the start of the units in THIS thread.

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Exceptional colors!

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Thanks @MarkG! I was hoping the Tree Herder would fit on the 50mm without any assistance, but it was nothing a little cork couldn’t fix.

I think I’m going to do something similar @FredOslow. I remember a few tutorials focused on turning GW square based minis into rounds for AoS that I’m going to try and replicate.

Their answer to the slotta base question won’t work for MDF though. Good thing the minis I want to do this on don’t have metal tabs!

Glad you like them @wilberforce!

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Wow! That’s a beautiful combination between High Elves and Sylvaneth, though I may be biased as the spiteful forest pixies are my second favourite range of GW miniatures.

How long did it take to highlight the Drayds to that level? Just thinking about the concentration required makes my eyes water…

Great stuff

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