Mireadur's log. Caledor BSB Done, HE completed 30/05/22

[Mireadur]

This is the Prince's dragon. If he chooses to lend it out once in awhile....the mage will have to make do.

funny way to say it... But i guess you are right =). Ill get a 2nd dragon from ebay someday... After ive painted all the rest

Thanks for all the input btw =)

[NightHawk45]

Right now there is a HE dragon on ebay. Pretty cheap too. I'm not selling it, just saw your comment and thought that I would too.

[tinman]

Or maybe the best is just leave it as it is, considering the prince is going to be the main rider after all?..

Oh, shit that looks very good!! Just leave it. If the mage borrows it then TFB about the colors

[Bolt Thrower]

Honestly, despite my input on colors, if you plopped down that mage and dragon against me in a game, my mouth would hit the floor and I'd drool all over without a thought about the colors.

[Mireadur]

Ok thanks all the responses with this issue hehe. Im going to follow your advise and leave it as it is.. Now i need to gather up all my force of will to begin painting these 19 phoenix guard plus captain on my highest level...

[Ptolemy]

The new PG models are an enjoyable paint and actually lend themselves quite well to doing your best work. They are full of clean lines that encourage neat painting and make the fancy stuff easier.

[Mireadur]

Hi again. I couldnt gather the will to begin the PG, but did finish this noble on foot.

I know 2 hand weapons is not an option for our characters (something weird), but i still wanted to have a character with it. For the cloack i modelled some poorly GS scales to represent a dragonscale cloak. Overall took around 7 hours, not too fast but i had to change the colour of the helm as i painted it green at 1st, but i didnt like it.






EDIT: my WoC friend sold his army and he let me have his best models. He is very good at making plastic conversions, heres his chaos dragon lord which now belongs to me:




Of course it wont be painted in like 2 years, also the objetive is to cover the pillar with skulls.

[SpellArcher]

Really like the dual sword guy, you've made the blue and green go really well!

[Mandragoran]

dual wield prince is just fantastic! Ok, i recognize left sword arm (phoenix guard box?) but don't know about right sword arm (and sword)?

[Mireadur]

dual wield prince is just fantastic! Ok, i recognize left sword arm (phoenix guard box?) but don't know about right sword arm (and sword)?

EDIT: Glad you like it. Umm i actually didnt even remember about it. Looking at the mini its a 3 part arm.. ithe blade is from the PG plastic kit. the bracer is from the PG new plastic box too, but since that sword was from a left hand i had to cut it and attach it to a right PG hand (removed the halberd i think) and the shoulder is from silver helms i believe.

[Mandragoran]

I thought about multy -part but wasn't sure.. top of the class as always!

[Meraklis]

amazing work Mireadur

glad to see that you are still working on your army. I always admire people who can keep their motivation going for a long time ! (unlike me)

[Mireadur]

amazing work Mireadur

glad to see that you are still working on your army. I always admire people who can keep their motivation going for a long time ! (unlike me)

Thanks =) im hoping to finish the army this year/1st quarter of 2012.. It will have been a 3 year work!

Now what im working on now...

I want to paint 10 PG plus the captain conversion this month, and im going to do it in groups of 5 models. I just finished washing the gold and while it dried i thought id take pics for self motivation. I hope i can have these 5 finished during sunday. Still need to apply lights to gold and silver, paint the cloaks and finally do the gems and scabbards.

If you notice their faces i tried to paint them with their eyes glowing with blue energy, a reflect from their ward save and fear aura. Lets see how it looks like once finished the whole model.

[Brian Mage]

Those PG look really promising!.
The models are IMO so much nicer than the new plastics.

Really like the concept of the glowing eyes. I've done my characters with ice blue and or purple eyes (not glowing) but i may have to keep my eye on this idea - excuse the pun!

[Mandragoran]

glowing eyes idea is awesome!! I think they r going to look great!

[Ptolemy]

Glowing eyes is a great idea! I was just telling one of my gaming buddies that I can never remember they cause fear because nothing about them is scary.

I'm going to shamelessly steal the idea.

Awesome!

[Mireadur]

I also thought it was a nice idea, although my friends laughed at me about it ?! What better way to represent their bodies pouring magical energies?

The models are almost finished now. Need to give lights to metals and paint the gems and thats it!. I try to finish and post the pics tonight.

EDIT:

So they are finally done. Needed 4 hours for the damn metals, gems and bases for a total of more than 3 hours per model. Quite tedious in the end. The result, however, i think is gorgeous when faced at pictures distance!

What do you think about the eyes ?






Finally 2 pics on the cloaks:




I want to paint their captain next. Him alone will take as long as these ''shudders''.

[Jhaantikaal]

Beautiful. And for me, the eyes 'work'. They really look as if they would cause fear now. Great technique on the cloaks also.

[Bolt Thrower]

Amazing. The Phoenix Guard are one of my favorite units in playing elves, and you have made these awesome to look upon. Bravo!

[msu117]

Seeing these phoenix Guard models makes me want to get back on track painting my HE. I only have to recheck this blog for continued inspriration. I know my own post I started several months back is long overdue for an update but so many things have come up and new things to get side tracked on. Keep up the great work. I only wish GW chose to release these metal PG in finecast rather than the new plastics ones. In finecast these would be less of a nightmare with the halbreds and reglueing etc.

[Mireadur]

I used a mix of putty and superglue for a super strong bond. There has been some rare times where a halberd fell but thanks to the solid putty in the joint superglue would work really well again.

Thanks for the comments


EDIT: Just a quick update on the progress of the PG captain. So far ive been switching between the base and the model painting both on short periods. 4 hours of work at the time of the pic. Tomorrow i want to get the base 100% finished. Right now is only missing the banner and the flame which should take 2 hours total.

For the character himself i chose to paint the scalemail in turquoise what is a change from what ive been doing so far, and for the clothing i chose a darker green but with a blue base (scaly green) so it would keep the army style.

Im finding these plastic PG much much easier and faster to paint than the metal ones, they definitely have less detail and offer bigger and more flat surfaces to work. I believe the metal ones are sculpts of better quality overall, although i must admit these ones look more impressive as models.

The idea is to paint the cloak white and all the parts you currently see brown will be in gold, as usual. The trim on the scalemail i was going to do it gold, but i think i will paint it silver mithril finally as it wont break the scheme between boots/scale/chest that much.

[Ptolemy]

Looking great Mireadur.

Can I ask about the 40mm base you are working on? What colors/techniques did you use? I've been trying to emulate a similar effect myself.

[tinman]

Man I love your work. Very nice job!! You've inspired me to get back to my HE's. I'm working on my Beastman army right now.

[Jimmy]

WOW!! Simply amazing work. I see work like this and I wonder why I bother painting seriously!!

Love the base as well.

[Mireadur]

Thanks for the comments guys.

Looking great Mireadur.

Can I ask about the 40mm base you are working on? What colors/techniques did you use? I've been trying to emulate a similar effect myself.

Umm, burnished brown base colour. Then snakeleather bite, then mix 20% snake+80%bleached bone.. Then pure bleached bone finally white on the edges.

How where they applied? the 2 browns just covering everything. In the cracks just the burnished though. Then for the bleached bone i went with lighter layers of watered down colour but i apply it like it if was drybrush. For the pillar with the fire had to apply several coats until it covered well. Theres also a devlan mud wash right after the 1st coat with bleached bone.

On the floor, it is important to apply the lighter coats as if you were drybrushing to give it a stony appearance..

The filigree is actually silver, but i must say it looks like grey even in RL.

WOW!! Simply amazing work. I see work like this and I wonder why I bother painting seriously!!

Love the base as well.

I can show you my 1st models and they sure dont look like these ones..Hell even just watching at the 1st pages of this log you see a huge difference... But so far ive put over 570 hours of painting into this HE log. I better have improved by now! Anyway i have also reached a limit in skill i dont seem to be able to break.

PS: Tinman... The fact they are beastmen doesnt mean we dont wanna see them :p. What happened to your gold dragon btw? Cant believe you just left if half done!

[tinman]

PS: Tinman... The fact they are beastmen doesnt mean we dont wanna see them :p. What happened to your gold dragon btw? Cant believe you just left if half done!

I have done a bunch more work on the dragon. It's one of those models that will take me about 40-50 hours. But I don't do it all in one shot. I don't want to get sick of it. It's not so "gold" now, I really like the color I was adding so have added more. There is now a hint of blue too.

Oh, btw, I won 1st place and best at show with my Lion Lord and I will show some pics of the beasts later today. Nothing is finished but I am making some progress.

[Mireadur]

Oh, btw, I won 1st place and best at show with my Lion Lord and I will show some pics of the beasts later today. Nothing is finished but I am making some progress.

Grats on that man =) I wouldnt have expected less from you

Another small update on the captain progress: Started lighting the gold. missing the gems also, but the rest is finished.

Also i will have to work on the banner later. I know it will take longer painting both independantly rather than together,but i dont feel like switching between both right now. Kinda impatient

EDIT: I have a question about the halberd blade.. As you can see the blade has a flame pattern carved on it, well im not really sure about how should i paint that... Red flames again? leave it silvery/white as it is now? Opinions very much appreciated, thanks

[Macharius]

EDIT: I have a question about the halberd blade.. As you can see the blade has a flame pattern carved on it, well im not really sure about how should i paint that... Red flames again? leave it silvery/white as it is now? Opinions very much appreciated, thanks

I think it would look better if you left it the silvery/white. Particularly in the third picture you posted, there was a contrast between the bright silver of the flames, and a more darker boltgun/iron coloring closer to the haft that looked pretty cool. If there was some way to put further emphasis on that contrast, I think it would look great.

[Ptolemy]

I would recommend your carry over the gold from the helmet/breastplate on it. It would complete the 'triangle' of colors and draw the eye to the center of the model.

Also...VERY minor thing I noticed. On the cloak, your flames are correct. Lighter colors on the bottom. Yet on the brazier, you have the flames backwards.

[Mandragoran]

Also...VERY minor thing I noticed. On the cloak, your flames are correct. Lighter colors on the bottom. Yet on the brazier, you have the flames backwards.

Eagle eye

@Mireadur: without flames, halberd looks unimportant.. non magical kind of. my suggestion- do the flames! (maybe blue flames?!)