Army of Eataine (updated 1/28/2009 - Repeater Bolt Thrower)

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ctran
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Army of Eataine (updated 1/28/2009 - Repeater Bolt Thrower)

#1 Post by ctran »

Hi,

I’m pretty new to this forum. I got involved with Warhammer about four years ago, but took a two year hiatus. With the coming of the new year, I thought it was time to start up again!

My goal this year is to build a 1000 pt High Elf force based in the province of Eataine.

Here’s my list:
15 Lothern Seaguard (w/ shields & full command) 14/15 DONE
5 Silver Helms (w/ shields & musician) 4/5 DONE
12 Phoenix Guard (w/ Keeper of the Flames & musician), accompanied by
1 BSB (w/ Armor of Caledor, great weapon & Amulet of Light)
1 Noble on a Great Eagle (w/ Reaver Bow)
1 Repeater Bolt Thrower DONE!

I’ve decided to use a red & white color scheme. I chose red instead of blue because many of my models are from older editions of Warhammer, and red was the official color of the high elves in the days of yore. I also thought the red appropriate for several of the symbols I’d be using: the Lothern Sea Dragon and the Phoenix. Other re-occuring symbols I plan to incorporate are the Japanese style rising sun and the ying-yang (both prevalent in older HE artwork.)

So without further ado, below are the figures I’ve finished painting!

Lothern Seaguard of the high elf dragon ship "Glorious Morning":
Image

Image

Image

Image

Silver Helms of "Ruby Company":
Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

The last Seaguard and Silver Helm are in the works :-)

If anyone has any suggestions regarding painting/color schemes/symbols, how to make this army more appropriate for the province of Eataine, or how to make it more effective on the table (without straying too far from the fluff), I would love to hear them!

Thanks,
Chinh
Last edited by ctran on Wed Jan 28, 2009 10:23 am, edited 10 times in total.
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#2 Post by Archmage Eternal »

Very impressive indeed. The freehand painting on the shields and banner is truly remarkable.
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Calriel
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#3 Post by Calriel »

Very nice, quite original and in theme. I think you should be happy about it. I don't feel too good about the difference in shields, I think in the end I would be happier with the same boring shield over and over again, to give the unit that extra uniformity. That said, there's hardly anything else I could comment on, it all looks like a fabulous job!

Congrats!

Cal
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#4 Post by Galengalad »

I like them. What I like most - gold on spears, faces, and freehand. Freehand on shields is impressive, however I'm not sure if all the pics are really suitable for seaguard - for instance, koi fish, sea horse and hand with trident. I'd also repaint the bases - goblin green contradicts with your colours, while graveyard earth will complement them....
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#5 Post by emrys »

great work - very old school red bows and spear shafts and green base edging!

Of course the one thing that makes the models is the stunning free hand - I wish I could do that! the odd elvish rune is about as far as i get.

Did they take you a long time?

An entire army painted to that standard would be truly amazing
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#6 Post by tethlis the slayer »

Lovely stuff, some very good freehand there. Although I would tend to agree with Calariel that perhaps the same design over the whole unit (at least for Citizen Levy, for nobles like the Silver Helms variety is OK) might be better. Still, very impressive.

As far as theming, you are doing great. Sea Guard and Phoenix Guard are both based in Lothern so are very characterful choices, and you don't have any troops from other provinces which strengthens the theme. If you decide to expand the army, try and keep this up... chariots, dragon princes, swordmasters and so on would be less appropriate than having more 'Eataine' troops or basic citizen levy which are found everywhere. White Lions you can get away with though... there is a substantial contingent of them in Lothern in their capacity as bodyguards of the Phoenix King.

As for symbols, they are appropriate too. My thoughts on what symbols are good for an Eataine theme are <a href="http://www.ulthuan.net/viewtopic.php?t=23983">here</a>, but essentially run along the same lines... anything associated with Asuryan (pyramids, phoenix etc) or Lothern itself are good ideas, as are sea-themed ideas.
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#7 Post by Synnin niitt?j »

You got some really cool stuff there :shock:

Needless to say but I love red&white-theme.
Those different icons on shields are great but I think it would be best to make same symbols for each unit. On the other hand that is completely my vision and after all I haven't seen these yet ranked up in one unit.

Keep on the good work.
Last edited by Synnin niitt?j on Tue Feb 26, 2008 1:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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#8 Post by Loran »

Looks great mate, and I love the free-hand shields. Although, I'd try to keep the shield designs the same in one unit and then change them to another unit. Makes the units more uniform. And the different shield designs could then be used to note different units :)

But all-in-all, great work!

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#9 Post by Paulo Cavalcanti »

The theme is just great. Beautifull!!!
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#10 Post by hexter »

Those are some excellent paint jobs!
The freehand on the banners and the shields is beautiful,really inspiring!
The spears also look incredible,the nmm is really well executed.
An entire army of these will look amazing,so keep us all up-dated! :wink:
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#11 Post by Prince Eldarion »

Some very nice Minis, great paint job.
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#12 Post by Kiyohira »

Those are gorgeous, especially the freehand shields.

Love the guy with the squid hat. :lol:
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#13 Post by ctran »

Hey all, thanks for your compliments and feedback!

Calriel (and others) – I hear what you’re saying about uniform shield designs making a unit look more cohesive. My problem is if I were to pick 1 shield design and replicate it 15 times I think I would go nuts from the repetition (start drawing it on the walls…). Normally, it’s hard for me to stick to the same color scheme from one model to the next, so I made a compromise: I would give myself free reign as far as freehand designs go, and that that would satiate my desire to experiment so I wouldn’t stray from red & white :P

Ranked up and from a distance, I think their unifying color scheme is enough to make them look like one unit. And only 2 of the shield designs are even visible from the front. I’ll take a ranked up photo and post it once they’re all done.


Galengalad – I agree with you 100% that there are much better choices for base color than gaudy goblin green. And if it was purely based on aesthetics I would repaint their bases, but as emrys mentioned, my choice was a throw back to how Games Workshop use to do it. I’m purposefully going for the antequated style, I even got my hands on a 4th edition model of the repeater bolt thrower (the version before the previous version :-)). Why do you feel the koi fish, sea horse & trident are less appropriate for Sea Guard than the other pictures?


Emrys – I haven’t been keeping time, but my guess is each piece takes about 10-15 hours. But these are the 5th edition Lothern Seaguard models which are highly detailed (painting the plastic spearmen would be a lot quicker). It’s not the freehand that takes a long time, as you might imagine, it’s getting their clothes to look pristine white while blending it into the dark folds of their robes, doing their hair, painting the string of gems around their belts and their sea shell breast plates and shoulder plates (I tried to make those look like paua abalone but you can’t really tell from the photos).

My advice for doing freehands is simply don’t give up. Thin your paints with water (not so much that it’s runny, but enough so that it goes on smoothly) and you’ll be able to correct yourself many times without the paint building into a mound where you’re trying to touch up your freehand. One of my later Seaguards has an anchor on his shield, and for the first 15 minutes it looked so terrible I almost gave up, but if you take the horrible freehand and touch up the mistakes, then touch up the mistakes you made while touching up, etc. eventually it’ll come together!


Tethlis – Thanks for the link. I had forgotten about the White Lions since they’re from Chrace, but you’re right, they are the personal guard of the Phoenix King. I thought Eataine was actually the only pronvice that didn’t contribute citizen levys, since they maintain the Lothern Seaguard full time. I was actually considering a chariot even though they’re from Tiranoc because I have an old 4th-5th edition model that has an eagle motif (which I could paint to look like a phoenix).


Hexter – I sure will. I have 2/5th of the last rank of Seaguard done. And the 1st Silver Helm just needs his right arm.


Kiyohira – Glad someone noticed the squid helmet! If not for the repetition I would paint a whole unit of them. Call them the Kraken’ Heads :P
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#14 Post by Paulo Cavalcanti »

There's an old Phoenix Guard Model that uses a big fish helmet, a cool model!

Maybe you may convert it as a champion!!

But with the gw bits range out... might be dificult to find!

... and again, Great Job!!
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#15 Post by Valandil »

This is very excellent work. I have never seen Sea Gaurd like what you have painted. I would like to know though, were the shieds freehand or was there a trick to paint them?
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#16 Post by Arhain »

I was actually considering a chariot even though they’re from Tiranoc because I have an old 4th-5th edition model that has an eagle motif (which I could paint to look like a phoenix).
Include it if you want! People get too stuck on the names of the units. Keep in mind, just because chariots are found mostly in Tiranoc, doesn't mean any of the other provinces don't use them. Tiranoc just have the best around, fluffwise you're not really breaking too many rules. Besides, Chrace is a land full of mountains and forests, and they have Lion Chariots...point is, fluff isn't solid enough to negate having chariots in an Eataine army :)
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#17 Post by JPme »

I like the different designs on the shields. And I love your colour choices. Beautiful work :D
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#18 Post by ctran »

Hey,

Paulo Cavalcanti - Thanks for the tip! I pulled out my old 2004-2005 GW Catalog and found the Phoenix Guard with the fish helmet you mentioned. He's pretty stylish. I also saw one with what looks like a sea serpent wrapped around his helm. Yeah, too bad the bits range is currently not available :(

Valandil - Yes, the shields are freehand. No tricks other than die-hard persistence :) If I have time (and the photos come out well) I'll post some in-progress pictures of my freehand to illuminate the process :)

Chinh
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#19 Post by ctran »

Hey,

A couple people asked about the freehand designs, so I thought I'd try and photograph my latest shield as I worked on it.

First a disclaimer: this shield didn't turn out quite how I originally envisioned. I think my concept was a little nebulous to begin with, and that led to me trying to add new elements to it while I was half way through. Ideally, you would want to try to get a solid idea of your design before you start painting (sketch it out on a piece of paper and make sure you like it).

Ok, so my original concept was to paint a shield displaying the elven runes Lathain, Senlui & Sarathai. The high elf book gives one meaning of Lathain as "falling rain that brings eternal sleep", which to me sounds like a metaphor for a hail of arrows! Senlui is suppose to represent "swiftness, accuracy", while Sarathai is suppose to symbolize "defiance, unyielding". I picked these three because they seem to portray how Lothern Seaguard fight: they stand & shoot a rain of arrows at their assailants, then swiftly pick up their spears and strike at their enemies with ASF, and finally brace for the return attack. (Hopefully unyielding!)

Besides the runes, I decide that the shield should feature a Japanese style rising sun at its center, and ocean waves down below. I start by sketching out the general shapes in chaos black:

Image

As you can see, what I first lay down is pretty messy. The Lathain rune is very thick and I think the paint was running a little bit as I drew the upper right portion of the circle. Well, all freehand has to start somewhere!

Next I colored in the sun and the Lathain rune with various shades of red:

Image

I like to blend color gradients given the opportunity. For red, I use the following sequence:
scab red + a little black, scab red, red gore, red gore + blood red, blood red, blood red + blazing orange, blazing orange, fiery orange, etc.

This is why the sun is dark on the bottom and bright on the top. I do the reverse of the Lathain rune (it's dark on top and bright on the bottom).

By showing the shield in its early stages, I hope people who are intimidated by freedhands will say, hey, that doesn't look all that great but I can do that! The trick is to not give up when it looks aweful but keep touching it up. E.g., to fix my Lathain rune, I paint the negative space around it using white, and I re-paint the Senlui rune in Snakebite Leather (my base color for NMM gold):

Image

At this point the shield looks kind of Japanese, with the high elf runes resembling Kanji. I feel like I haven't used up enough of the white space so I decide to add rays to the sun:

Image

I apologize for this next picture, it's a bit blurry:

Image

Basically, I'm just filling in the rays with my red gradient pattern.

Next I highlight the Senlui rune with Snakebite Leather + various amounts of white. The last highlight is almost pure white:

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Ok, this is where things get crazy. I realize at this point that this shield doesn't contain any central figure, like the Sea Dragon, Kraken or ships that my other designs have, and the only link it has to the sea is the amorphous blue shape at the bottom.

So I spontaneously throw in something random (not recommended):

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Yes folks, that's suppose to be a whale's tail. I desperately try to salvage the shield by reworking the color & shape of the tail, and painting in the splash of water around it!

Image

Not too long afterwards, however, I get this:

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Not my most brilliant work, but I'll let you be the judge as to whether it's passable. Between the last photo and the one before it, all I did was work on the tail, and highlight the water & the Sarathai rune.

Anyways, I hope that helps those who would like to paint freehands but aren't quite there yet. It's all about incremental touch ups, and it's ok if your freehand looks bad throughout most of the process, it'll get there if you keep working on it! (I may keep tweaking this shield :-))

Update 2/29/08 - I worked on the runes a little bit more to get them to look closer to what's in the army book:

Image

Chinh
Last edited by ctran on Mon Sep 22, 2008 5:34 am, edited 2 times in total.
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#20 Post by Calriel »

Heya mate,

not here to diss your work at all - I think you're a fine painter and I'm really enjoying the pics you're putting up.
However, that Silver Helm really looks like a candy cane to me with the red and white alternation everywhere.

Also, thanks for putting up a step by step of one of your shields. When you finish more things, please share!

C :)
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#21 Post by DarthIbis »

Very nice tutorial. I always appreciate seeing a step-by-step process for how some things work.
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#22 Post by ctran »

Calriel wrote:Heya mate,

not here to diss your work at all... However, that Silver Helm really looks like a candy cane to me with the red and white alternation everywhere.
No worries Calriel, everyone has different tastes and I appreciate the constructive critique (both positive & negative). Most of the stripes were already there as party of the model, but it was my choice to alternate them. I'll make the next one less stripey and see if I like it , though I think it's too late for me to change my color scheme. (And with your candy cane comparison I'll certainly refrain from adding green to the mix; a bunch of Christmas elves hehe :) )

Chinh
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April 9 Update

#23 Post by ctran »

Hey,

FYI -- I posted the photo of another Silver Helm up top. I think I'm going to keep editing the original post to add new pictures so they're all in one place, and maybe convert some of them to links once it gets too cluttered.

Chinh
Army of Eataine: http://www.ulthuan.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24671

Da Red Skullz: http://z3.invisionfree.com/Orc__Goblin_Warpath/index.php?showtopic=23224

Ultramarines: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.php?showtopic=158014
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#24 Post by Acorn-Anvil »

I love the guy with the Red Squid helm in the second picture!
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#25 Post by GruPax »

very nice, i like the bright use of colours, it reminds me of the older books (before gw whent al gothicy)
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Lothern Seaguard (Sea Wolf)

#26 Post by ctran »

Hey all,

Here are some more work-in-progress photos of one of my Lothern Seaguard. I've been wanting to paint a "sea wolf" for a long time, and this was my first attempt:

Image

Ok, that looks more like a rat than a wolf, but I filled it in with color anyways to see if it would get any better:

Image

A bit colorful, but I guess I have been aiming for nostalgic looking high elves, and the rainbow colors look like they came straight out of the 70's. Next I tried to crown the shield with elven runes:

Image

In the end I thought the runes made the shield look too busy, so I wiped them clean. I also tried something new and put a few nicks in his helm and spear tip:

Image

The nicks are more visible from the back:

Image

Update: I refined the spear tip, added the quiver and based the model:

Image

Chinh
Last edited by ctran on Mon Sep 22, 2008 5:36 am, edited 2 times in total.
Army of Eataine: http://www.ulthuan.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24671

Da Red Skullz: http://z3.invisionfree.com/Orc__Goblin_Warpath/index.php?showtopic=23224

Ultramarines: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.php?showtopic=158014
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#27 Post by Lobbo »

Absolutely beautiful. Im stunned. Keep it up, you inspire me to keep painting :D

I wish my freehand was as good as yours. I paint reasonably well but when it comes to freehand I usually get a way too thick layer of paint due to corrections haha.
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#28 Post by Burning Gaze »

Good job!
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#29 Post by DarkTyrany22 »

The latest model is stunning, as usual. Something that particularly caught my attention was the black free-hand waves on the bottom of the chainmail. Flawless.
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#30 Post by ctran »

Hey,

Lobbo - Do you thin your paints with water? I never apply the paint straight out of the bottle. The trick is to water down the paint enough so that it goes on smoothly and doesn't glop, but not so watered down that it's runny and you can't control where it goes. Actually, if I'm doing a base coat (like the white background for the shield) I'll make it runny since I don't care where it goes at that stage and the surface becomes very smooth. If all else fails and it becomes too thick (after many corrections) I'll take a file to it and shave off some paint.

DarkTyranny - Thanks for the kind words. All my Lothern Seaguard have had those free-hand waves on the hem of their robes (I guess this was the first photo from the back, where you can really see it) but I've been using blue. This was the first time I used black for the waves, which seems to make it look more distinguished.

Chinh
Army of Eataine: http://www.ulthuan.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24671

Da Red Skullz: http://z3.invisionfree.com/Orc__Goblin_Warpath/index.php?showtopic=23224

Ultramarines: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.php?showtopic=158014
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