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This is going to be a blog to hopefully motivate me to actually finish painting an army for once.

Recently started playing WFB with some friends, and I've been going with a mostly Caledorian themed army - ergo, lots of Dragon Princes.

Anyhow, this is my first cmopleted model (well, minus the base, but that should be quick) in well over 3-4 years.








Not gonna win any awards with my skill level, but I'm pretty happy with how things came out. Definitely table-top quality enough for my tastes.

C&C would be greatly appreciated.

More to come. (Sooner than later, I hope)

Striking color combination.

The red is deep and good looking and the gold armor compliments it nicely. There is some sloppiness on the horses armor, but thats to be expected with tabletop minis.

The whites could use some work, there are areas in the horses under barding that appear streaky or dirty. Have you based the white on light gray or is it straight over black?

Fix the coverage of the white on the next models and youll have good looking dragon prince unit on the table. Keep on pushing those figs to finishing line.

Thanks for the input Metsuri!

I've gone back on the horse's armor, and I think I managed to tidy up the armor a bit.
As for the whites - yeah, I need to work on it. It's my first time really trying out full white on a model on an area that's more than just teeth.
I'm also trying to get better adjusted to the consistency of the newer GW paints (I feel like the old screw-cap paints were thicker).
I tried to work the white up from Shadow Grey, though it doesn't show so well in the pics. I've gone back on those a bit as well. I'll try to post up new pics with better lighting later on.

HFJor wrote:I tried to work the white up from Shadow Grey, though it doesn't show so well in the pics.

Thats a good way to base cold white. I've based my whites with vallejo model color pale greyblue, because it covers nicely, but any light to medium gray with good coverage will do the trick.

Warm whites are easier to get covering, but I think that the cold white suits your elves better.

Good luck with the whites and hope you get the lighting working, it's the hardest part to get right when taking pics of figs.

So I have a question for people:
Should I just go with the same red armor for the rest of my knights? Or should I go with a variation of the theme?

While I'm decided that infantry is going to have the white robe/red trim/silver armor affair, I'm vacillating on the colors for the dragon princes that'll be in my army.

I like the colors on my prince/noble, but it'd be nice for him to stick out a bit (not that he won't with that ridiculously over-sized helmet :p).

Possible ideas tossing around my head:
1. Silver armor accented with red (basically the studio army paint-job, but with red instead of blue)
2. Gold armor accented with red (as #1, but with gold)
3. Same as prince/noble

Metsuri wrote:I think that the cold white suits your elves better

Agreed . The blue-ish white makes a surprisingly refreshing contrast/juxtaposition with blood-red/gold.

HFJor wrote:So I have a question for people:
Should I just go with the same red armor for the rest of my knights? Or should I go with a variation of the theme?

I'd go with option 2 as that would limit the main colors on knights to 3 opposed to the silver armor, which would raise the amount of silver equal to the amount of gold.

I think that the prince should be a bit different to make his speciality visible.

Looking good. This is exactly what I think of a caledorian looking like.

Yeah I hafta agree that DP's in gold armor will look really good with this guy. Cant wait to see them.

hes looking really good, love the color scheme

looking good my friend, lovely colour scheme
only one criticism and that was mentioned earlier about the white, keep it up buddy doing great

also, forgot to add, id go with option 1

Alrighty, some updates:

Quick shot of the prince lightly touched up. Lighting may be a bit too bright.


The RBT + crew:



And now the test schemes for the Dragon Princes - painted on Silver Helms (since I have plenty of expendable models)
Together with the noble/prince:


From Side, Prince + gold option:


From Side, Prince + silver option:


Close-up of Gold option:


Close-up of Silver option:


Note: test schemes were thrown down quickly, so obviously isn't what I would call "finished" or neat.
Everything could probably stand to have a bit of a touch-up here and there.
(just noticed that the second RBT picture was taken before the first, and as such, was a WIP shot).

I'm starting to lean toward the "silver" option, if not pure-red. The gold seems just....too gold.
What're your opinions?

Cheers

HFJor wrote:I'm starting to lean toward the "silver" option, if not pure-red. The gold seems just....too gold.

I think that once you paint the horses barding in red the gold is more balanced on the fig. I think both the silver and gold work, so the choice has to made by personal preference. I would go with the gold with similar barding as with the prince.

The prince is looking nice with the cleaned up whites.

Metsuri wrote:I think that once you paint the horses barding in red the gold is more balanced on the fig. I think both the silver and gold work, so the choice has to made by personal preference. I would go with the gold with similar barding as with the prince.

I agree. I'll probably work on the horses first, since I'll keep it predominantly red like the prince, so coloring them is more settled. I've been waiting to get some varnish before pushing forward (finding the primer is rubbing off relatively easily off the metals, so I've been a bit cautious hesitant to push too quickly on the DPs), but I think I can start on the horses for now.

Another poll:
Should I have white horses again for the remaining DPs? Or should I reserve that for my Lords/Heroes? I'm thinking black/dark grey horses for the DPs.

HFJor wrote:Should I have white horses again for the remaining DPs? Or should I reserve that for my Lords/Heroes? I'm thinking black/dark grey horses for the DPs.

I prefer gray horses for good elves, so i would go with light to medium gray, keeping the colors similar to get uniform looking unit.

Some updates:

Started on my spearelves.

WIP shots:

Those are coming along good. Always good to have some plebes for the caledorians to boss around. Are they gonna be blue robes? What are you planning on for their armor, silver, gold?

I feel like a slacker now, I coulda got alot of painting done this weekend but watched a ton of football instead. I literally watched 6 games. Oh well got it out of my system. Not gonna let the foosball slow me down anymore

Going for the standard white-robe/silver armor/red trim motif. The blue on the robes is just the shadow grey from which I like to build the whites for this army.

I hear ya about the slacker thing. I keep seeing exocorp's updates on his High Elves in the P&M forum and then realize that I'm going at a much slower (and much lesser quality -__-) rate than he seems to be. Helps that I don't follow sports too much and I don't have cable tv (and the broadcast antenna reception sucks). Also helps to keep the unpainted minis littered across your table with all your paints and such. After continuously looking at that, one gets compelled to paint....if only to clear up the table for use again . Warhammer Online is gonna start up for reals soon, though. I'm _really_ hoping that it won't hamper my progress...

Update time!

I've been busy the last couple of days, but managed to find some time to put in to my unit of spearelves.

Still WIPs, but getting there:


Group Shot




Close-ups of 3 of the spearelves, with mithril silver'd up armor.

Still to do: finish painting mithril on everyone, highlights on the bronze/gold parts, blood red on the armor trim, whiten up the robes, pretty-up their boots and other detail work!

Looking good.

Your whites are improving. These are so much cleaner than the noble in the beginning of the thread.

How many blocks of elves are you planning to paint?

Thanks, Metsuri. I think the improvement in the white's is mostly an issue of just adjusting to the new paints and getting back into the swing of painting again. Still needs a final layer of pure skull white to finish up, though.

For the immediate future, these 16 spearelves will be the only block of infantry I'll have running (will be bumping these guys up to 21 guys, but I'm waiting to finish up these guys before I make any more purchases). Chances are, though, I'll probably paint up a unit of archers as well, but that's a low priority. Now that I finally got some varnish, I'm ready to hit up my Dragon Princes again.

For the not-so-immediate future, I'm planning on at least another 21 strong block of spears. And after playtesting them out, I'm tempted to get some Phoenix Guard.

Spear blocks are nice, even though at least in the 6th ed they couldn't hold a charge from 30 orc boyz. There was something seriously wrong with HE in 6th.

I assume they are better in the new dex?

Spearelves are about 90% finished! Just need some touch-ups here and there and some detailing.

Here we go:






Still need more work with white paint, but I think I'm getting better.

Metsuri wrote:
Spear blocks are nice, even though at least in the 6th ed they couldn't hold a charge from 30 orc boyz. There was something seriously wrong with HE in 6th.

I assume they are better in the new dex?

Stat-wise, they're the same, I believe (don't have the 6th ed. army book around), but the main advantage now is that they have Always Strikes First, which, assuming you take the charge, means a lot of attacks against the enemy before they get to attack. That's 21 attacks an enemy unit is looking at before they get to even throw in their attacks.

They look really feirce all lined up like that. I made my first block with spears all at rest. I think my next one will be posed more like yours. Came out really nice. Are they gonna have a banner?

Now lets get to the main event, those dragon prince units

Funny you should mention about posing the spears - I was considering making my next unit to be all at rest . Mostly for ease of transportation and to be able to align for CC better.

These guys will eventually have a banner. I need to pick up some more boxes of spears (not for a while, though...I just made a big purchase, and am really trying to hold off from buying anything else for a while). For now, I'll be proxying the banner/command with some Sword Master command minis that I have lying around that aren't being used.

Indeed the Dragon Princes will be start on soon!

Also, I gotta remember to start painting shields for everyone. I've been leaving them off for ease of painting, but I keep forgetting that everyone's got a shield.

Updates!

The Dragon Princes are coming!






Went with the gold and red armor and am pretty satisfied with the results so far. WIPs - gotta do the whites, jewels, silvers, and final gold layers. And the horses.

Also, build a foldable table for playing on:

A couple of extra photos of the WIP DPs, now with noble and next to the Spears.


Spears and lances.


The noble and his unit.

Looking good!

The gold on the princes needs some tidying up, but the reds are nice.

Now finish those horses to give us a view of the finished product.

I like the way your DP's are looking, I think They will look really impressive on the table. I'm gonna be getting a unit myself, their just one of the best looking cavalry units in the game IMHO. Hope to see a finished pic soon!

Man, it's been a while since I last updated.

Anyhow, now that I'm work has gotten slightly less hectic, I have time to paint again, and I'm trying to make a resolution to finish this 2000 point army by mid-year.

New status: I decided that the gold armor for the dragon princes was a bit too glaring, so I've stripped them all and have decided to go with a red armor with silver trim (similar to my Lord, but with silver metals, as opposed to golds). I'm liking how they're coming out so far. So without further ado:


The repainted Dragon Princes


Closer look of new paint scheme (blues will be white)



Started painting their mounts. Figure they're quicker to get done anyways.


The lot of 'em