Druchii.net

I started playing in 5th edition and my first army was darkelves.
In the mean time I played lizardmen for a while (see sig for pictures of that army).
Recently I dusted off my old darkelves although they've got nice models, I never succeeded at making them look nice. Thats why I started to re-invent my first army.

My first attempt at a revamp was for the cauldron of blood. It can be found here:

http://www.druchii.net/viewtopic.php?t=62049

My hydra is nearing completion too;







Now I want to add some snow to the bases.
I'm still trying to find a way that gives nice results.
Tips are welcome!

Allow me point out the obvious that nothing this colour looks scary. And Hydras SHOULD look scary. I'll also point out that you already have smurfy blue elves on your cauldron so having a blue hydra is waaaaaaaay over-kill on the blue. It's like Paris Hilton colour coordinating her dog to match her purse. Matching them up, no matter your intention, I think comes across as bad taste and a bit silly. My tip is to ditch the blue entirely. It looks a lot better here than on the elves but to me it doesn't fit this model either. Or at least not on this base. If you're going to leave the Hydra blue then it's underbody should be a different colour. Same for the horns and the scales. And the teeth look like he just came from the dentist - those could be dirtied up a bit. Also try either a different base or maybe adding snow.

If you want a model you can plunk down on the table and say "that's a Hydra" then you're already there and you can stop putting any more paint on it. If you want it to look (I can't think of a non-offensive word so I'll just say...) "better" then it needs some more work.

Good luck!

Thanks for the feedback Phierlihy!
The blue is a keeper.
I like the effect on the hydra and the hags. It gives them a bit of an unworldly atmosphere and I like that.
You're absolutely right about the base.
I'm still trying out some snow effects.
If you've got some tips to make good snow, let me know.
By the way, no offense taken, I like people that speak out their mind.

Here are 2 shades in a different color scheme.
Which color scheme should I stick too?

I personally like the red cloak and white hair. =) Both are well painted, nice job.

go with the red. Red complements (and gives contrast to) your blue skin.
going withthe blue cloaks would leave you with little to no contrast, leading to an overall very dull and boring looking scheme.

I agree with red, the blue melds into the skin too much.
Though for Shades, you might want to pick a different color for the cloak, as they have a lot of cloth on them.
Keep in mind that when you pick a scheme, you usually want to echo the colors across the units, so it has to be a scheme that looks good on both cloth-heavy models (like shades), metal heavy models (knights, warriors) or skin-heavy models (witch elves)

I actually like the blue better. The red provides too much contrast to the point of clashing for me.

Dyvim Tvar wrote:I actually like the blue better. The red provides too much contrast to the point of clashing for me.

I agree with Dyvim Tvar here. The red might work better if you toned it done a bit, and maybe painting some of the clothes in a different colours. Its definately too red at the moment.

As the Hydra, I quite like it actually. I think you have done a good job on it, though I dont like the basing atall. Having a second colour other than blue on it may be beneficial though.

Just out of interest, I find it odd to think that when I first saw the new Hydra I didnt think it look much different to the older one. After painting a couple of the new ones then coming back and looking at an older one just makes me think how horrendously wrong I was!!

I noticed something today. While I was painting the shades it became obvious to me that they've got some 'tinky-winky' features.
Let me explain.
They all wear earings, have long hair held together with some sort of hairband and their throwsers look like they came out of the movie 'Men in thights'...
Add to that that nobody said something along the lines of:
'hey scouts in a red dress, that isn't really shady, is it? Go for bleu if you want some die hard male like shady stalkers.'
So I went with the red color scheme.
Befits them well, shiny gold earings and a red dress

Any explination will do I guess. The real reasson I chose the red colorscheme is that it just looks better IMO.

Here's the result, 5 Shady stalkers, harbringers of death, ... in a red dress:

I forgot to post the handlers of the hydra, they where finished yesterday.
The handler on the left I got as a birthday present from a friend. He also painted it.
It's a bloodbowl model, but I don't play bloodbowl and wanted to give it a place in my army, so he'll be handling my hydra from now on. Lets just hope that he won't start playing Fetch ... If things go wrong, he did it!!!!

Here they are:





Finished so far (appart from the snow on the bases, still waiting for the weather to change...):

really an original colour schema...it makes your minis , dont know how to explain... to be feared of... they inspire true fear...

good work

The weather changed.
But when I woke up the snow turned out to be yellow:



Baking powder isn't going in my next recipe!
I'm goig to replace the bases that are covered in yellow snow.
And I'll try to add some snow of a different kind (based on PVA and Bicarbonate).
Anyway, some pictures of a new base (in progress) for the hydra:



I also decided to pin the hydra to its base.



More pictures will follow and I hope that I don't have to make you face yellow snow again

Lord_Azoth wrote:really an original colour schema...it makes your minis , dont know how to explain... to be feared of... they inspire true fear...

good work

Thanks!

Some pictures for those who doubted the need for a re-vamp of my army.
Here's what my models look like before the re-vamp. Plain bases and bad paint job, but it's good enough to put them on the table on a tournament.
My dark elves won't win me painting prices like they look now, hence the re-vamp.

Lord on dragon (mold and flash lines not properly removed):



A center piece like this needs more love then it got when I painted it earlier. I'm not going to redo this one, I'm looking for a cool dragon to replace it. Suggestions for a cool dragon model are welcome.

Manticore and beastmaster (old model).



I like it's pose and face more then the original models, but the paint job is not all that. It was converted by KLAW, but, saddly, painted by me.
It's going to get a bath ( in aceton) and a new paintjob.

One unit of cold one knights look like this:



Not to shabby paint job, but the paint starts to come off. Furthermore the bases are plain and boring. The models however are cool, so they can expect to get a bath too.

My other unit of cold one knights look like this:



Nice cold one, but ugly rider and boring base. A lot of work is going into these guys after their aceton bath.

Some pictures of my current darkriders:



I don't know what to do with these guys.
The models look OKish.
But the bases and the paintjob are dull. Aceton isn't going to help here.
Suggestions or advice for the re-vamp of the darkriders are welcome.

The witchelves and the Harpies need a new base and paintjob too.
Perhaps even some new models.





My crossbowmen look like this now:



Perhaps a facelift will do for them (bleu skintone and red skirts), but I don't know if I want to paint over the existing paint. I fear that it will look worse when done. Aceton isn't going to help here either so suggestions are more then welcome.

Lets give some models an aceton bath



Progress on the base for the hydra



I also started making some magnetized movement trays



Next up, fresh snow!!

First the movement trays get a layer of fresh carbonite (read snow):

The hydra base is finaly don, just needs to dry now



The shades got some fresh snow too



And then some darkriders and a movement tray:



Just to show that this way of making magnetized movent trays works. I'm holding 1 darksteed by its tail and nothing comes off:

Some shots of my newly based / trayed army:

Considered re-vamped:

The hydra with handlers:



Shades:



The cauldron of blood:

Everyone has their own preference but I like your old stuff quite a bit more than your new *theme*.

@ phierlihy: if you've got an unpaited black dragon, I'll be happy if you want to trade it for my painted black dragon.

The Shades of Everblight Theme continues:

Here are the cold ones that got an aceton bath, they just got a white undercoat:



The bases for these cold ones got a black undercoat:



This is the result after giving the bases their first highlights and putting them together:

First a layer of bleu:





Then bringing out some details:

The first one with some highlights on its skin and one without highlights for comparison:







Close up:

I forgot that I don't have a standard bearer for the new knights, so I converted one of my own.
What do you think? Can it pass for a standard bearer?





A detail I sculpted on the model to hold the banners in place: