Winter Asrai

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martinalexander
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Winter Asrai

Post by martinalexander »

Hi, here is the start of my winter themed wood elves. I have never painted anything before properly, only when i was very young which does not count. so everything you see here is by a complete and utter novice who has never painted anything before.

Current miniatures:
24 glade guard
8 glade riders
10 wildwood rangers
12 dryads

Current paints:
Ceramite White, Imperial Primer, Mourn mountain snow texture paint, wazdakka red, kislev flesh, tau light orche, runefang steel, mournfang brown, agrax earthshade.

Going to start of with painting the wildwood rangers, here is two screens of how I have assembled them, have given the command the eternal guard shields on their backs. they also rank up side by side if needed too.

Then the first two I have painted, they need highlights done now. I need to get some sort of mixing palet to do that, i guess ill mix the ceramite white with the other colours to get lighter tones? also the non standard bearer was not primed just painted straight on because I wasn't too aware of using primer, but the standard bearer was primed first.

Will need all the help I can get in order to improve, assume i know nothing lol. Any thoughts on how I can paint all the swirls the box art wildwood rangers have? my small paint brush is an awful cheap one the will not keep its point so i will be investing in a tiny brush from GW i guess in order to keep focus on the finer details.
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yanchusart
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Re: Winter Asrai

Post by yanchusart »

Being a Canadian myself- I am loving your choice of the red and white. Certainly looking forward to seeing some more.
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Kaese
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Re: Winter Asrai

Post by Kaese »

I was in a same situation in about eight months ago when I came back to warhammer after ten years. It was all about gaming back then and now I wan't my models to be properly painted.

It really helps a lot if you spend time reading about different painting techniques, and there are couple of good sticky threads here on Asrai. New techniques won't propably work on the first try but after few tries it gets easier. It helps a lot if you are patient.

The colors you chose work well together, so thats is a good start. Good color palette is the most important thing if you want the miniatures to look good.

I would advice against mixing pure white with other paints. Some times it works as intended but usually somethin else is better. In example mixing red with white will turn to pink and highlighting red with pink is makes the whole surface to pink. Mixing red with yellow for highlights will result in brighter colors and mixing red with light brown will look more natural.

Pure white is also a bad base color if plan to do any highlighting or layering. It is better to start with light grey and layer towards white. Blueish grey will look "cold" and "creamy" grey will have warmer feel to it.

It is nice to see that somebody is doing winther themed army.
martinalexander
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Re: Winter Asrai

Post by martinalexander »

Kaese wrote:I was in a same situation in about eight months ago when I came back to warhammer after ten years. It was all about gaming back then and now I wan't my models to be properly painted.

It really helps a lot if you spend time reading about different painting techniques, and there are couple of good sticky threads here on Asrai. New techniques won't propably work on the first try but after few tries it gets easier. It helps a lot if you are patient.

The colors you chose work well together, so thats is a good start. Good color palette is the most important thing if you want the miniatures to look good.

I would advice against mixing pure white with other paints. Some times it works as intended but usually somethin else is better. In example mixing red with white will turn to pink and highlighting red with pink is makes the whole surface to pink. Mixing red with yellow for highlights will result in brighter colors and mixing red with light brown will look more natural.

Pure white is also a bad base color if plan to do any highlighting or layering. It is better to start with light grey and layer towards white. Blueish grey will look "cold" and "creamy" grey will have warmer feel to it.

It is nice to see that somebody is doing winther themed army.
Ah using a light grey first then the white, of course! that makes perfect sense, i will go and get one right away thursday as well as a small brush! what one do you suggest,most look too dark, celestra grey? http://www.games-workshop.com/en-AU/Cit ... id=9677820

thanks for the advice with the mixing, taking notes! much apreciated.

yanchusart wrote:Being a Canadian myself- I am loving your choice of the red and white. Certainly looking forward to seeing some more.
thanks, ill do my best to keep this updated with my progress, im from england so very seasonal but now live in australia so winter is a rarity around me now! trying to bring a little back in lol
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Kaese
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Re: Winter Asrai

Post by Kaese »

martinalexander wrote:what one do you suggest,most look too dark, celestra grey?
The base color can actually be quite dark if you want to make more depth. If you start with too light color the end result will still look flat. It is easier to understand this by looking at real pictures. Just try writing "white robes" etc. to google picture search and you can see the difference in real life. More shadowed areas of the white fabric can actually be really dark, while flat sheet is completely white.

Looking at real pictures is often useful if you are unsure how different materials should look like.

Buying the right paint is not that important if you plan to mix paints anyway. If the paint is too close to white, just add some darker color to the mix. Add lighter color if it is too dark. The end result is not always perfect, but you can always make another mix and try different colors. Biggest problem with mixing is to remember the correct mix if you paint new models to a unit that you painted year ago, so it is good to write down what paints you use for each unit.

Having huge range of paints helps if you don't want to mix colors, but this will get quite expensive. :D
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popisdead
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Re: Winter Asrai

Post by popisdead »

yanchusart wrote:Being a Canadian myself- I am loving your choice of the red and white. Certainly looking forward to seeing some more.
I approve this post based on geographical and nationalistic similarities :thumbsup:
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Nicholas Nitro
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Re: Winter Asrai

Post by Nicholas Nitro »

If only I could figure out a 'red,white and blue' color scheme that could fit with wood-elves. Good work with your Canadian colors, but...
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Kaese
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Re: Winter Asrai

Post by Kaese »

Nicholas Nitro wrote:If only I could figure out a 'red,white and blue' color scheme that could fit with wood-elves. Good work with your Canadian colors, but...
'Merica!
Bright colors wouldn't work unless you are aiming for the Captain America look. Try breaking the basic colors with small amount of brown. This makes the shades more natural and it is easier to combine them with others. White as a primary color (shaded strongly towards blue) combined with few details painted with more natural shades of red and blue should work for winter themed elves.

Edit: I did some experimenting with photoshop and it looks like it is extremely difficult to match the scheme to any season if you use light colors. It is easier to do a really dark "autumn night" theme. Kind of like this theme but change the brown robes into dark blue.
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Nicholas Nitro
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Re: Winter Asrai

Post by Nicholas Nitro »

I already went with a spring theme, so most of my army is bright greens, yellows, and browns.
My Sisters of Twilight, on the other hand, are riding on a Bald Eagle. They are the ones I'm holding out on, because they are in bikinis (kit bashed witch-elves) and would make an awesome 'America themed' center piece!
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martinalexander
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Re: Winter Asrai

Post by martinalexander »

So as suggested I went out and brought a light grey. turns out it was no so light as i thought :P i don't think i can do much with using this then the white so i decided to take a go at painting the swirls with the grey and trimming the base with it. not sure if i want the twirls in red or grey. you can see the test of the full grey on the musician work in progress. should i trim the base grey or white you think?

my brush sucks and wont keep points even my GW one, ive seen people do swirls with fountain pens, maybe i will get one and try!
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Salaius
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Re: Winter Asrai

Post by Salaius »

I actually was working on a winter themed army too, kind of similar to your scheme, however, my Wood Elves are based on D&D Drow for skin colour, to contrast the lighter clothing.

Here's my lord that I am working on, a converted unit of Glade Riders and one of my units of Glade Guard.
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martinalexander
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Re: Winter Asrai

Post by martinalexander »

first attempt at a glade rider, need to do the horse more still
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Re: Winter Asrai

Post by martinalexander »

also first run of some dryads, i like the black and white look , can anyone suggest how i can make them better from here? i am also thinking about getting some red flock for them to make them look more bushy , has anyone done this before, do i just glue it on? is there a method and type of flock
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martinalexander
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Re: Winter Asrai

Post by martinalexander »

i like this mage model although its high elf i feel it fits the theme
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Berinhart
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Re: Winter Asrai

Post by Berinhart »

martinalexander wrote:i like this mage model although its high elf i feel it fits the theme
That's one good thing about the 3 elf factions, is that it's not too difficult to incorporate models from one faction to another, especially when Wood Elves are the recipients.
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Re: Winter Asrai

Post by martinalexander »

Eternal captain
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