Sculpting the Elven Archers (or Wanderers as they are known nowadays) WIP

Here's a memo actually written a week ago. And some pics!

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I was looking for buying a box or two of Elven Archers, but the local gaming shop didn't have them on the shelf. Nor did they have any other even remotely suitable options for conversions, such as High Elves, Free Peoples or Bretonnian militia. The Reaper Bones range has a few very nice and fitting Elven Ranger models available, but if I bought twenty of them the seemingly low price tag would reveal it's true nature. No. Those fine miniatures would be saved to act as heroes or unit commanders, not rank and file troopers. I really wanted my Sylvaneth army to have an allied section of hood headed, long cloaked and sneaky good old Wood Elf Archers, accompanied by a hero or two. And of course some animals, such as moose, deer, great eagles, war hawks, hedgehogs... and a Forest Dragon. The alliance options for Sylvaneth limit these choices a bit, as I'd like the army to fit the current AoS rules and Pitched Battle profiles.

Once again I had a lump of ready mixed Milliput left over from sculpting some roots on the Treelord Ancient, I decided to have a go and sculpt the unit of Archers myself. Now I haven't tried anything so ambitious with the modelling putty(s) before. The idea was to have the sculpts on the table all the time, and whenever I had any Green Stuff / Milliput leftovers, I would use them to slowly add structure and details to the Archers. From the first lump of Milliput I formed the rough shapes for 10 hoods. A couple of days later I happened to have enough GS for sculpting the faces on five of those hoods.

I remember seeing one tutorial about scultping faces maybe an year ago. It had some information that I found very useful now. The chin had to be made look too big first. Then deep cuts for eyes, tiny lines for establishing the eyebrows and to define triangular shapes of the cheek and leave the nose protruding from between them. Then three more tiny cuts to lift up the nose, define mouth and the lower lip. So I stuck tiny balls of GS on front sides of the hoods I had made earlier. I pressed them gently with fingers so they got a nice triangular shapes going on, protruding slightly in the middle and towards the chin, and upper corners for eyebrows.

I felt that the exact amount of GS and the initial triangular shape of the face were crucial here. If I got them right, the following simple cuts for eyes, cheek and mouth could already get me pretty close to a decent enough looking face with not much further work to do. Just a little tweaking here and there to make the cheeks slimmer and the eyes and mouth to have some expressions going on. I was surprised how fast this was to do. Even quicker than finding a suitable head from the bits box and cleaning the mould lines off. I'm really looking forwards to painting them, because then it will be truly revealed if these are any good at all. They're propably way too big, disproportional and crooked looking for any fine Elves.

Some days later I was back at the cabin again. Got the modelling putties, wire, twisters and THE favourite sculpting tool with me. Made a few skeleton frames for the bodies, and will start with Milliput to form the basic body structures. It's sunny outside, so I suppose the putty sets up real quick and I can get to glue in the hooded heads and add some details. The huge cloaks will likely be the easiest part here. Any visible clothing on the torso and limbs shouldn't be that hard either. But the hands might prove very tricky, as I can't even draw those weird things properly. We'll see. Some pouches, gemstones, hair and other details will be added in as well.

The bows I'll make from wire. I tried the method already on the Elven Hero. A length of wire is folded in half, so that both ends of it can be bent simultaneously and have their shapes match perfectly. When the curvature is ready, I'll just fold the piece open or cut the middle part off. I suppose it will be easiest to first attach the ready made bow to the wire structure on the models arm, and then sculpt the fingers around the bow.

Here I've worked on the clothes, boots and long curling hairs, which resembled the vines/roots I had done before. Next I might gather some courage to try and do the hands that pull the bows' strings. I'm considering sculpting the cloaks and feet last, only after the models are already attached to their bases. Should be easier to get the cloaks flow better that way.

The first bunch of Sylvaneth painted

Beginning of an army. Managed to paint the first 10 Dryads, 5 Spite-Revenants and an allied Elven Hero in a couple of days almost two weeks ago now. Didn't have time to sort the pictures nor post anything earlier. Wrote a rather long mystical rambling about painting them, but can't find the text anywhere. Oh well, propably just saved that on another computer. I'll try and find it later.

Here are the results however. Very pleased with these tree folks, even though they didn't turn out as birches like I planned. They're just dead trees. With some mutated evil spirits and poisonous mushrooms on. Protectors of Life. 

 

More work on Sylvaneth from mid July

Did some more green stuffing on the Spite-Revenants and Dryads, based them and put some Agrellan Earth texture paint on before applying the black-grey-white spray basecoat with zenithal effect. I wanted the Spite-Revenants to be really nasty, mutated and bestial outcasts. So lots of Beastmen Gor parts, Ghouls, LotR Goblins and Imps from the Doom boardgame were used in addition to the few choice Revenant and Dryad bits.

My absolute favourite one has to be the "Cow-Revenant", who has a Ghoul torso for head. I was planning to attach the basic Ghoul arms and head in there as well, but upon noticing how freakishly good the plain torso looked with arm holes as empty eye sockets, I just drilled in the nostril holes and that was it. Lots of twisted vines or overgrown roots from green stuff were sculpted on as well. Really liked doing that, and felt like learning a lot about working with that stuff. The randomish root/vine type of things here are quite forgiving to do, as the actual proportions nor the end results are not that pre-established.

The Treelord Ancient needed some more work, but the rest of the bunch was ready to travel to the cabin with me and a case full of paints.

Beginning of a Sylvaneth army

So I went off for a holiday, and spent a week mostly staring at the trees. As had happened once or twice before on such a trip, an urge to collect and paint Sylvaneth (or Wood Elves) arose. When back in town just a few days ago I got some scenic material from flea market and a pile of miniatures from the local game shops. I'll propably do more specific post(s) of the conversions, green stuffing & paint phases of these later on when I have more time. However, here's the current situation after the first two days on this project:

* Treelord Ancient based on D&D Shambling Mound from Wizkids, with extra branches from their Treant as well, and the staff and right hand from GW. Some wire and green stuff (much more to be added).

* 10 Dryads with extra bits from Saurus Warriors and LOTR Goblins. Genestealer and Kroot skulls, wire, green stuff, modelling clay mushrooms, sawdust and static grass. Thick blobs of Agrellan Earth was painted on the first batch of Dryads before basecoating them with spray paints. Black undercoat followed by grey and white zenithal layers.

* Allied Elven Wanderer Hero (Nienna, Female Elf Ranger from Bones) with sword from Tree Revenants and bow from wire.

* Spite Revenants based on GW Beastmen Gors, LOTR Goblins & Doom boardgame Imps. Select bits from the actual Spite Revenants, Dryads and Ghouls

Leftover green stuff was used to make some extra mushrooms and vines/branches/tentacles to be used anywhere later on.

Here's the second batch of five Dryads in their early stages. More green stuffing and adding textures with static grass and Citadel technical paints have been and will be done before painting them. Below them is the first batch of five Dryads I already basecoated.

Today I continued work on green stuffing the Spite Revenants, Treelord Ancient and the Elven Hero. I also tried some Milliput on the bases here for the first time.

 This guys belly is already painted black, because I'll be gluing some beard moss on there.

The Psychiatrist

In the gloomy streets of the Underhive, a lonely Psychiatrist is wandering.

Splashing steps of some slimy feet echo in the abandoned halls of an old refinery.

The Psychiatrist picks up the pace and straightens his collar...

The splashing sounds increase. More legs, bigger legs...

The Psychiatrist starts to feel he's not alone.

And at last, they've come to him! The ritual has been succesful.

All the small offerings, all the flues he's been infecting on his patients,

all the helpful syringes for their ailments...

The God of disease and decay has finally answered the Psychiatrists prayers.

Now here is a miniature I really like, it's from the Chronoscope series of Reaper Miniatures. The soft white plastic used in this Bones range is quite iffy however. In case of any spears shafts, big wings, outstretched limbs or such I don't really appreciate the litheness of the material, and it's a bit hard to clean up and convert too. BUT this guy (among so many others from Reaper Bones) is so cool that it didn't even cross my mind to go converting him.

As far as I remember, the model was basecoated with Game Color Off White, and given a few layers of very light grey washes/glazes, concentrating on the recess. Forgot the names of the greys though, maybe Blue Grey Pale and Ash Grey or Sky Grey (from Vallejo)? Then propably watered down Smokey Ink was added to the greys as well to define deepest shadows. For highlights some thinned down Off White. It's very rare I thin down any paints exept for washes/glazes. Supposedly the skin was Elf Flesh, few careful layers of Red Tone and then up to Off White highlights again. Some Citadel copper and wash for the buttons and goggles? Looks like Gun Metal, Soft & Dark Tones, Game Color Flesh Wash were used for metals, and final higlights done with drybrushed Necron Compound?


For the base I used the same method I  have based most of my 40K Iron Warriors army with:

1) Hot glue a pile of little sharp rocks and interesting bits (cogs, pipes, skulls, shrapnel) to the base.

2) Hot glue (or super glue if there's a nice flat spot available) the miniature on top of that.

3) PVA sand on some spots. I use sand with very random sized grains. There's some static grass, flock and plastic scrap in there as well. The sand is mostly used to cover any ugly droplets of hot glue, hide  joints and provide general sturdiness.

4) Paint with some mid brown all over the base, Gun Metal on the metallic looking bits if there are any. Wash with Soft Tone (maybe add Dark or Strong Tone around feet or in some darkest holes. Generous blobs of GC Flesh Wash on any areas that should be rusty, then tiny drops of Army Painters Dry Rust on top while the washes are still partly wet, so the paints will mix up a little. Maybe even some Citadels' Fire Dragon Crimson or Ryza Rust on spots? Finally drybrush with Game Color Khaki, two or three light layers and concentrating towards the edges.

Painting the Plaguebearers

More pictures from the last year... I tried some spray primer and zenithal highlight on this batch of Plaguebearers. Looks like there's some Citadel technical paint (such as Agrellan Earth) under those layers. Haphazard jets of green acrylic art spray were also applied to create some stains. Bright green, even brighter green and off white for some shading, tinting and highlighting. Inks, washes, drybrushes and a few edge/dot highlights here and there. Business as usual. Looks like they need only a couple of finishing touches, such as rust (the lovely Game Color Flesh Wash maybe?) on the weapons and varnish.

Plaguebearers on budget (building a second batch of 15 models)

It was so much fun to make the initial 5 Plaguebearers from toys, that I decided to do another set of 15 at once. Not many toys were employed this time though: only a big hand of some unknown giant, a sheep, and a rear section of a pig whose front half got to become a Chaos Spawn / Beast of Nurgle.

There's also a pile of different seashells, papier-mâché mushrooms, glass & wooden beads, coctail sticks, pistachio nut shells, plastic pellets (from toy gun), molten Hama beads, guitar strings and a few bits from plastic Blaguebearers, Bloodletters, Skaven, Dryads, Chaos Warriors & Hounds, Orc, Saurus, Poxwalkrer, Ghoul, Empire Wizard and Tzaangor. A little melting & deforming of the plastic toys here and there, and some hot glue & PVA for slimy textures and blending the bits together.