Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hey all,



Welcome to my painting blog, wherein I hope that you will find wonders to marvel and amaze at. The goal is to exceed my previous armies in both quality and speed, and to have an attractive and competitive force ready for next year’s Scottish tournament season.

For two years I have been playing with my Tomb Kings, and I am afraid to say that the frustration of using an army that just doesn’t work has now gotten to me. I have had a lot of fun with them, and they tend to attract favourable comments with their paintjob, but the time has come to move onto an army that feels a little less like being in an abusive relationship. It doesn’t help that they didn’t match my play style, and that my casting dice rolled terribly.

After much contemplation, I have now selected the High Elves. In large part it comes from my love of the ancient world and the Asur have a very strong theme of the ancient warrior race. Then again I think that their models will suit my painting style. Further they have big monsters, and if there is anything that I like, it is stamping on other people’s units. It helps that I got given the Island of Blood figures. However, there is a
problem in that I don’t care much for the default scheme. So it was experimentation time!

For a long time I’ve wanted to go for a red and orange theme. I decided to really go the whole hog: instead of normal weapons, these lads will have red blades, worked up through five layers and a wash. The trim colour on this army will be orange, in order to complement the blades; the cloth will be white as standard. I’ve been careful with the colour scheme in regards the balance; the red, the gold, and the orange will complement each other, while the white (worked up from a blue grey) and the silver are blue in colour, forming a strong contrast. Since the white and silver are taking up the most space, the red thus becomes a very vibrant and striking element. In order to not detract from this, I’ve aimed to keep the silver dulled down. The gold is allowed to be shiny, since I feel that it will harmonise with the red.

Well, enough with the theory: let’s look at the actual models.



The first guy finished, whom I finished in about six hours of solid work. I’m really pleased with the colours, and the various people that I showed him to seemed to like him, so I’ve decided to move forward with the rest of my models.



These are the next few guys to do. I’m planning on doing the Swordmasters first, and then do the Mage; the Seaguard I am procrastinating over, since they look like hard work.

I'm liking the color scheme! I think you're doing well accomplishing the vibrant red-orange against the dulled metal.

Looking forward to seeing some others completed- although there seems to be something wrong with one of their swords.

Oh yeah. It was bent when I received him, so I tried softening the plastic over the hob. Instead I just set it on fire. Whups.

Hey all,

So today I finally managed to finish the next four Swordmasters. This gives me a legal unit, haha! 65pts down, only 2,335 to go... Here you can see how the red swords look as a unit. I've tried standing them in the second rank of a tray, and I think that the blades do a very nice job of standing out.



Here is a shot from the back. As you can see, I've gone for black hair for the moment, using Shadow Grey to highlight. This looks ok, but it is definitely a colour that I'd like to improve on at some point. Blonde hair is more traditional for Asur, but I am keen to avoid using that as it'd be too similar to the orange plumes.



In case you were wondering, the guy on the right has a damaged blade. A few of these chaps had bent blades when I received them, and I tried using the gas hob to bend them back in shape. Unfortunately I mostly managed to set his blade aflame. Whoops.

As always, comments and criticisms welcome.

Hey all,

I have now finished another five Swordmasters, meaning that I’ve done all of them that I have access to right now. I intend to run a full unit of twenty of these lads, but the others will have to wait until I have some funds and can recruit some ebay specials.



I decided to follow some suggestions given to me in the replies to one of my threads, and painted the gems blue this time around. I think that it does add a bit of colour variety, and it appears that my concerns over the gems drawing attention away from the blades were mostly baseless. Those of you keeping track of the colour theory stuff will be happy to note that the gems now correspond with the fabric and the metal on the model, all of them being blue in tone.

I’m not so happy about all the elements on these models. I’m not very good at working with small areas that don’t have room to show bands of plain and highlighted sections, so the runes on the Blademaster’s weapon and the letters on the banner are a bit weak. The letters in particular don’t stand out very well; I’m planning on doing the letters orange on the next banner, and seeing how that works. The white banner itself looks ok, but I could be convinced of the need to put another thin coat on.



One thing that really delayed me with these guys was trying to find an appropriate scheme for the wood - as used on the banner pole and on the musician’s horn (which he is tootling on with every sign of pleasure). I ended up going for an ash effect, using XV-88 as a base with thin streaks of Zandri Dust to give it something like a wood grain, before inking with Agrax Earthshade to blend them together. It isn’t my best work, but wood is a colour that your brain mostly ignores in favour of more exciting and unexpected colours, so I should be able to get away with it. I should get plenty of practice doing the streaks though, considering the number of spears that I’ll be doing…



Here you can see all ten of the Swordmasters, chilling out on a movement tray stolen from my Tomb Kings. The overall effect is about what I wanted. You can see quite directly the two colour of gems, although the red ones have a gloss varnish which I’ve not (yet) put onto the blue ones. Either way, the lot of them are ready to rock and roll, and I’ll be moving onto the first five Sea Guard soon, which are models that intimidate me with their variety of textures. They are as nothing before the complexity of the Reavers or the Griffon, though, so up they come.

As always, comments and criticism welcome!

Hey all,

So since the last update I’ve been working on the front rank of my Lothern Sea Guard. I’m quite fond of these models - they are almost infinitely better than the standard Spearelf models - but they are a right bugger to paint. Absolutely covered in detail and random bits of crap, they’ve taken me ages. Not a good sign when I have loads more to paint :/




These came pre-assembled, hence the spears pointing forwards; this makes them a total chore to rank up, but on the plus side they look more excited to be on the battlefield than spearmen often do. The faces are not perfect, but I’m willing to live with them at this point. Like the banners, this is something that I can come back to.




The banner displays the same problem with inconsistent white cover that I had on the Swordmasters, but honestly I’m tired of looking at it now! It will just have to do, until I’ve had more experience with the white paint and can come back to it with confidence.

Otherwise, I totally love the musician and champion for this unit. If I ever get into a D&D game that uses miniatures, I’ll totally use one of these as a figure for an elven fighter.



Otherwise, I’m pleased that the orange and red continues to be a good combination, even if these guys came out very orange at the end. There was just so much detail, and I didn’t want to confuse the colour palate, so I did lots of the random straps and ribbons orange. Being an essentially orange army with red highlights works for me though.



My current plan (which changes by the day!) calls for me to paint another ten, and make this a small unit of fifteen chaps. They don’t really get the benefit of their spears at that point, but they are still a flexible unit that fits well into the MSU theme that I intend on. Here you can see the next lot, which I kind of feel like procrastinating on if it’ll take as long as the five above.



Meanwhile the production line crashed to a halt while assembling my new Dragon Princes, thanks to my polystyrene cement running out. Arse. I had hoped to start these guys next, as a solid bit of effort should yield a really attractive unit. However, this does give me time to scout out ways to paint horses. My other armies are Orks and Tomb Kings, neither of which involves much in the way of horses, at least ones with flesh on...

Hey all,

I’ve been pretty quiet on here for a while. Partly this is just me being busy, and not doing much painting. But this isn’t the whole story.



You see, these Seaguard have been kicking my ass. I hate painting them. So amazingly tedious!



Anyway, I managed to get another five done. Woo.



More excitingly, I’ve also finished another five Swordmasters, leaving me with six to paint for my 1,000pt force.


You’ll hopefully have noticed the new movement trays. I invested in some Sarissa Precision ones, which have the benefit of looking very professional, albeit being surprisingly difficult to actually get the models in to. They seem to be very slightly smaller than the models are…





This is my 1,000pt force. I am aiming towards an MSU force, but can’t afford to get more models right now. On the plus side, the amount of unpainted plastic isn’t too intimidating right now.



A view from the thin end of the line. These guys have gone toe-to-toe with Skaven a few times, usually smashing anything that they get into melee with but not doing so well in the face of template fire. Dark Elves were a much more unpleasant matchup, and not one that I think these units lend themselves to.

As always, any comments or criticisms are welcome. I’ve switched back to a proper digital camera for these photographs, but unfortunately it is a very dull day here in Scotland so the light isn’t very good.

Hey all,

Despite my radio silence, I have been beavering ahead with the Asur. I have been playing a lot of 1k games, which have been really fun. The list that I've been using is this:

Mage, level 2, High
Noble, BSB, Shield, Dragon Armour

15 Seaguard, Shields, Full Command
5 Reavers, Musician

5 Dragon Princes, Musician
10 Swordmasters, Musician, Bladelord
10 Swordmasters, Musician, Bladelord

It has been a lot of fun to use, with some remarkably killy units, but there is definitely a lot of rock/paper/scissors at 1k. I came up against Dwarves with three shooting units and they simply shredded the Elvsies.

So the painting! I have been hard at work, actually, but I just didn't want to show a part-painted unit. I instead got the entire Dragon Prince unit finished, and am really pleased with the result. Let's see some pictures!









I am trying to keep the horses from looking identical, and so I have painted these guys in pairs, each pair getting a different colour of horse. The Musician's horse is Palomino, while the others are Dark Bay and Apaloosa. These colours come from the White Dwarf guide on painting horses that came out with the High Elf release. It is a really solid guide! It did require me to buy pretty much every brown colour that GW does though, so clearly I should start Skaven or something.



This photo shows the shield, which I had to paint separately. Painting shields is such a chore.



And another side shot of a single model, so that you can see how they look individually.



As I was painting in pairs, when I got to the fifth guy I needed a friend for him. This friend was the champion of the Reaver unit, who also got a Palomino horse. I'm really taken with this horse colour, and plan to use it a lot in the rest of the army.



As you can see, I am mostly ignoring the eyes at this stage. I have a bad track record with them, and so I am happy to leave them and perhaps come back and do them en mass.




I hope that you guys enjoyed this bumper update. I'm moving onto the rest of the Reavers next. In terms of army expansion, soon I should have a bunch of Phoenix Guard and Dragon Princes arriving to help bring me up to 2250pts or so. I really liked painting the Swordmasters, so I'm hoping that the Phoenix Guard are as pleasant to complete.

Hey man this is a fantastic looking army. Lovely painting style and the colour choices are great too I wanna see mooreee.

Looks awesome!

Thanks guys! I did put a lot of thought into the colours for this army, and it is good to hear that the end result is working.

Just a quick update here. I put in a big order of new models, using birthday pennies, and here you can see my ill-gotten gains.



As you can see, the intention is to run a medium brick of Phoenix Guard, along with the required characters to fill out a normal army. The Dragon Princes make it in because I love them dearly, and I will be running a second unit of 5. In the future I intend to pick up another box of Dragon Princes and run a cavalry bus as an alternative list option.



The Phoenix Guard are kicking my ass, so I’ve only gotten ten assembled as of yet, but here you can see the new models sitting out to dry. As part of my assembly process, I double-glue sand onto the bases, which helps to make it utterly rock hard.

Hopefully the next update will feature some more painted Reavers, who I intend to finish before moving onto the Phoenix Guard. Big bricks of elite infantry really deserve to be painted.

I like the colour scheme and how well they've been executed.

What I really like is how you've done this sustainably and how it's growing nicely, as opposed to millions grey plastic models, waiting for you to finish them. Of which I'm rather guilty.

Nice work.

Thanks!

The best cure for buying too many models is, I find, to be broke. It really helps

Saying that, I am pleased to be crawling slowly upward in terms of points painted. I believe that I am now at 582pts done, which doesn't actually sound like a lot, but it is certainly better than nothing. Completing some of the characters would very quickly boost that, so naturally it is very tempting to rush on to paint that Loremaster straight away!

Those are some lovely looking High Elves, this is turning out to be a really nice looking force.

Will you be adding a Phoenix at some point?

I hope to add one of each, at least - the Frostie is really good in game, while the Flamy would look amazing with my army scheme - but neither is in my current army list. :(

A quick update to share some ingame shots. I took part in a very fun and totally bananas game of Triumph and Treachery yesterday, which I won (as is only right and correct). Here are some of the troops looking very dashing and whatnot:



Sodding Dwarves elongated their line through a Reform to block me off from the artillery!



The Seaguard eventually all died, while trying to get some points from a unit of Slayers.

Awesome work man, I love the color scheme.

My high elves went with a green/white scheme, look good, but not as nice as yours. Great work!!

Hey all,

Thanks for the kind words Pelas! I used to think that High Elves only suited blue and white, but I now think that there is actually a lot of potential colour schemes that will work well on the models. You just need to keep that delicate look, which is why white tends to be part of the colour range. White and Green sounds good, a nice refreshing spring feel as opposed to the darker autumn colours that I've got going on here.

So another update today, in the form of two characters. I got these guys recently, and decided to get them painted up ahead of more rank and file models. Partly because painting the Loremaster was a lot of fun, and partly to get the most important models in the army painted and looking good. But, most importantly, because by painting these two 20mm-base models I instantly double the number of points in my army that are painted



Here they are from the front. The colours are fairly typical for this army by now, but I did make a conscious decision to paint the banner with a lot of orange, to help distinguish it from the white banners carried by the unit standard bearers. I also changed the way that I paint the gems, to put the brighter shades of blue at the bottom and the white dots at the top, which seems to look better than the other way around.



Here is a better look at the banner itself. I think that I made a mistake in painting the background white - it means that there are too many clashing bright colours at work. I'll leave it for a day or so, see how it looks in a game, and perhaps I'll use a watered down blue ink on the white to darken and colour it. That could go really badly wrong, though - there is especially a danger of ink pooling and ruining the colours - so I don't want to do it unless I have to.



The Loremasters ball o' magic is a bit of a strange thing, and I'm not sure that I'm totally happy with it, but I think that short of a full OSL effect there isn't a huge amount more that I can do with it. His white cloak came out nicely though, I think, and he certainly looks like a total badass!

Your high elf army looks really good you have done an awesome job with the paint scheme and it is nice to see a different painting scheme to the usual blue for the high elves work really well I am looking forward to seeing more of your work

Hey all,

After a summer full of painting Orks and my Haqqislam models, I have finally returned to the Asur. In large part, this was prompted by the realisation that I have a 2250pt tournament under a month away, and that my army is a very long way away from fully painted. Also I had taken about a month off from painting, while finishing my MRes dissertation, and the break had rejuvenated my desire to sit and squint over tiny little plastic dudes in an effort to try and work out what they are carrying. So let's have a look at what I managed to do!



This is the Island of Blood mage. For ages I've been procrastinating on painting him, but in the end my army's scheme actually worked quite nicely on him. The magical force stuff at his feet naturally lent itself to being painted in the red colours of my army, while oranges and whites gave his robes some nice bright colours.



The big orb in his staff I opted to make red again, trying out some techniques for painting glass orbs that I read once. I didn't follow them exactly, but mixed the vague ideas with my gemstone techniques to give an overall impressive effect. The size of the orb allows the gloss varnish to really take effect.



I even managed to paint his eyeballs, which is a feat that I can only rarely accomplish. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with this model; he has responded well to my efforts, and I like him a lot more than I used to, now that his crazy magical stuff has been toned down by integration with his overall colours. Someone remind me to use this model when next I play a D&D wizard!




These two Ellyrian Reavers are also Island of Blood models, and have a lovely sense of motion. I think that I did a decent job on them. I also like their feathered caps, which is a fashion accessory that precious few can pull off these days.



One of my biggest problems on these models was trying to differentiate the various browns that you can see. Though I really like the palomino colours of the Reaver champion that I did before, I am determined to vary up the horses in my army, so I had to make this work.



Though they are not nearly as armoured as the Dragon Princes, these guys really do have an extraordinary amount of metal on them for guys with light armour and no barding. I kind of feel that the models deserve a 4+ save or something.



Here I have lined up all of the High Elf models that I own and that I intend to take to the tournament. I still need to buy another six Sea Guard and five Reavers. As you can see, the chance that I will successfully paint the entire army is close to zero, but I think that I'll simply keep painting things to my usual standard and just take the points hit from the tournament's 'all or nothing' painting score system. That way I'll have more fully painted stuff going forward, and can hopefully finish the core of the army by the new year.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to leave any comments below!

Hey all,

I spent this weekend hard at work, splitting my time between Diablo 3, a Triumph and Treachery game (which I didn't win, sad times) and painting another two Reavers.



These two I gave Appaloosa horses, which includes some Rakharth Flesh patches on their coats. I think that they look quite nice, and if I didn't live in a 2nd-story flat then I might consider getting one. Also it would probably freak my cat out.



I've started to speed up a bit with the High Elves, but they will never be that quick for me to paint. For starters, they use thirty four separate colours. Top tip: using both orange and white on the same models is not a recipe for quick painting.



I do wish that the gems on these models were a little bigger, though. It is pretty hard to get the colours looking right with so little space to play with...



Here I have lined up the completed Reaver squadron. Overall I'm pretty pleased. They may die on turn 2 of every game, but at least they will look good doing it!



As I had hoped, their orange plumes are striking, especially en masse, which means that the unit doesn't fade into the table. Manifestly redirectors should be really visible, right?



The movement tray, by the way, is a Sarissa Precision one. This makes it crazy expensive compared to a normal tray, but it gives each unit a really professional looking finish. It is also, unfortunately, only just bigger than the models, which means that it can be a surprisingly difficult task to get the models out of the tray. Happily these guys tend to all die at the same time (to Bretonnian lance charges, direct hits from stone throwers, that sort of thing) so the problem doesn't usually come up...

Thanks for reading!

Hey all,

With a tournament looming, and my desire to field a fully painted army growing, I once again dived into my Asur backlog. Before we begin, our sponsors would like a word.



"My name is Amata, and I approve of this army."



I decided to start with the Griffon Noble, which, contrary to all reason and sense, I have included in my tournament list. This model is really quite nice, and his huge wingspan made it even more obvious that he was unpainted. But it also presented an interesting challenge. The noble himself was fairly standard, being painted in the orange, silver and gold scheme that you've seen before. The most interesting element here is that I used the red signature colour on his helmet prongs (not the right word, I suspect) with just a touch of orange highlighting on them. I like this look, and will probably use it on my Phoenix Guard.



I have never painted feathers - or indeed lions - before, so I started by searching out appropriate reference material. I chose a male Marsh Hawk for my reference; this and this were my most important photographs for this. I thought that the triple colour on the wings would be more visually interesting, as well as allowing me to tie in the white and black colours found elsewhere on the army.



Ultimately I'm unsure if I like the wings. The brown looks so great, and the white and black so average, that it makes me wish I'd just done all of the wingspan in brown. This way is much more striking at least, which is perhaps not what a warmachine hunter needs to be! I'm going to sit on it for a while, see what people think at the tournament, and then maybe either repaint the wings or use a Sepia wash on them to alter the colour slightly. Also of note is that I went for an ultra-simple technique on the beak and talons, painting them black and then painting pure white on the tips. This, again, I may use a wash on at a later date.




Prior to painting the Griffon I had actually completed another rank of the Seaguard. I absolutely despise painting this unit, since the models are so fiddly. This means that it takes far longer than it should to paint what are basic line infantry. Then, having painted them, they conspire to look nothing more than average on the tabletop. So annoying.



As you can see, there is space on the movement tray for another fifteen. One unit of 30 with full command is the primary unit in my Core, with two units of Reavers filling the rest. I really like Seaguard, even though the internet hates them. They definitely have their ups and downs though, I'll grant you. My biggest irritation with them is that they cannot take a magical banner.



Here you can see the scale of my painting backlog. So many elves. So many helmets D:

Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope to speak to ya'll soon.

A beautifully painted army with a well excuted paint scheme. I love the Orange!

Before making the annual Christmas pilgrimage to my parents' place, I had to decide which unit to paint over the holidays. I decided that I would try and get my Phoenix Guard done, thus making my infantry battleline a litte more complete. I already had five in-progress, who I swiftly finished off and present for your edification.



I decided to amuse myself by taking some action shots of them moving across my terrain. I like to think that here we see five of the elite warriors searching through a marsh for enemies of the Asur.



The warlock's trail leads here, to this hut with its still-glowing hearth. What foul menace lurks inside?



Otherwise I still have another fifteen to go yet on these guys, and I have made a start by basing all of them to start with. I'm hoping to get at least the next five done by January, including the command models. That would make for a solid start on this unit, and might help to prevent my painted/unpainted ratio from slipping too badly as a result of asking for models for Christmas...

Until next time!

A quick update from the Christmas trenches...

I've made a start on the next five guys, and I've made sure to do all of the command models so that my shame is lessened somewhat.



These guys have all of the base colours blocked in, but those colours need to be cleaned up, before the reds and silver highlight goes on. After that I get to do inking, and then about eleven highlight colours...

I also totally hate painting banners. I hates it. For a start I can never decide which parts of the banner to paint orange, and which parts white...

I hope that my readers all enjoyed their Christmas, and convinced Santa to bring them more plastic! For my part, I spent my entire time at my parents’ doing three things: watching films, drinking my dad’s beer, and painting High Elves. Let’s talk about the Elves.



I focused entirely on my Phoenix Guard unit, finishing another ten models, including the command. The banner took me a lot of adjusting, and I’m not convinced by the flame effect; I might have to revisit it at some point.



The orange highlights on the halberds are a bit difficult to do – it is hard to judge where to put them – but it really gives the unit a menacing appearance.



The cloaks also take forever – bright white and bright orange are not the quickest of colours – but hopefully the effect is compelling. Overall I am really excessively pleased by these guys, and am looking forward to using them in my next game (where, no doubt, they’ll all die horribly).



Santa-wife was cajoled to bring some High Elves, and so here we have my first Bolt Thrower. I don’t hugely like Warmachines just standing by themselves, and so I have based the Bolt Thrower on a 60mm base. As you can see, I’ve left strategic gaps in the sand, which is where the crew will stand:



Though not entirely convincing, this does mean that the crew are more integrated with the machine, and effectively act as wound counters for it. We’ll see how it looks after painting: I can always fill the gaps in if I have to. Alternatively I might cut the gaps out using a knife, allowing the crew to be inserted and thus stand at the same height as the warmachine.



I also got a unit of Sisters of Averlorn. These ladies have lovely models, but damn if they don’t hate ranking up. I can believe the idea that they were meant to be skirmishers, because they honestly look much better when not crammed together like this! Anyway, they are also on the list to be painted, but I won’t be getting to them for a while yet.

Now that I’ve received some eagerly-desired ranged firepower, I am very close to the kind of army that I’m keen on. The intention is to go for something like this:

Metal Archmage
BSB on foot

30 Seaguard
5 Reavers
5 Reavers

18 Swordmasters
20 Phoenix Guard
5 Dragon Princes
5 Dragon Princes

Bolt Thrower
Bolt Thrower
Bolt Thrower
10 Sisters

That will give me a solid amount of shooting and also a decent infantry line, with cavalry units to prance around on the flanks. It should look cool, and especially look like an actual army, not just a collection of random models. Infantry may not be especially in vogue right now in Warhammer, but I think that nothing can beat the look of a solid battleline composed of infantry units, two feet of spears and swords ready to receive the enemy!

Thanks for reading, and until next time.

Great looking elves. I love the red blades too. It's refreshing seeing something other then shiny silver. Keep up the good work.

Those elves are really coming along well, really like the way you do the flames on the cloaks very brave on white.

Keep up the excellent work , I like how you based the Bolt Thrower thats a good idea.

Thanks guys! The Phoenix Guard cloaks do look quite nice, I think, and were worth the effort.

The red weapons are a bit polarising - some people really hate them! - but I like them. They really give the army a unique visual element, and that is always nice.

I based my Tomb King catapults, and found that it really helps to tie them in with the army. Confuses opponents sometimes though, which is a slight problem.