Elven steeds

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Jak3_dude
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Elven steeds

Post by Jak3_dude »

So I bought the WE battalion box today and was wondering how to paint the steeds... :eek: they look complicated!!

Is there a simple yet effective way of painting them. Remember I'm not entering a Golden Demon contest here, I just want them to look nice but not overly complicated to paint ('cuz I know some people on this site could probably tell me how to paint them marvelously). I might have to post a pic or two to show you guys my skill level. I'm not horrible but I probably won't win any contests either, I'd rate myslef a 6 out of 10 (10 being the highest). Anyway back on topic. What would be easier? Painting the individual parts and then glueing together of glueing then painting the entire horse?

I think I have the rest of them figured out, although Dryads might be somewhat complicated at first...

Thanks in Advance,

-Jak
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Cignus
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Re: Elven steeds

Post by Cignus »

I would glue the steeds together and mount them first, before painting. (though i would file and spray on the sprue like i always do) There are a couple of reasons for this: in my opinion, to warrant painting something in pieces means that you need to gain some advantage in painting to overcome the benefit of having the model assembled and seeing what you want to highlight how. For example, I paint GG in pieces (mostly), because it is easier to paint and highlight the legs when they are not attached to a base and it is easier to do the bows when there arnt legs in the way and you can easily approach them from any angle. Dryads I will paint when they are assembled because almost all of the highlighting i do on them is drybrushing and you gain no benefit with that if the base is off because it doesnt require the same precision as other highlighting methods.

Horse legs dont become harder to paint in my opinion when they are mounted (you can still get to the inside of just about all the legs because none of the legs are directly behind another leg on the opposing side) and more importantly, assembling them lets you see if there are any large cracks in them that need to be filled in with green stuff. (havnt seen many bad cracks on GR elven steeds, but bretonnian warhorses, for example, are a completely different story) For painting them I simply use a traditional highlighting method of base coating one color and highlighting up from there, which would mostly be the 'raised surfaces', so not the crevasses between muscle groups. reasonable paint schemes would be base coating fortress grey and highlighting up to white for white horses using very generous highlights or starting with bubonic brown (its a yellow color and called a brown why?) and highlighting up to bleached bone for a palomino. GW doesn't ever show another color for its WE horses, but I would start a light brown horse, with bestial brown and highlight up by mixing in white as none of the other browns are really a highlight for bestial brown.

As an aside, if your question is should you assemble the riders onto the horses before painting, I would not, i believe that would make your riders very hard to paint, but thats simply my opinion.
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Re: Elven steeds

Post by arisen »

i've found a very easy way to paint white elven steeds. after undercoating, just paint the whole horse (except for the leather ofcourse) astronomican grey.after that, it's a simple matter of applying several light layers of skull white.
the tail and manes were painted bubonic brown, and afterwards slightly drybrushed with kommando khaki.
the leather is simple; paint the whole thing scorched brown, then slightly go over it with a watered down dark flesh, and finally highlight the edges with bestial brown.

i assembled the horse before painting; elven steeds are quite slim, so you can easily paint everything after assembly (unlike my bret horses <.< )

here's a sample pic i took with my cellphone since my digital camera is in repairs for about another 2 weeks :o

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Re: Elven steeds

Post by Council of Eight »

I simply heavily drybruch the color I want my steeds to be over black. For a white steed I will usually basecoat a light grey first. This technique is very fun and quick and gives a semblance of shadow and possibly sweaty flanks.
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Jak3_dude
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Re: Elven steeds

Post by Jak3_dude »

arisen wrote:i've found a very easy way to paint white elven steeds. after undercoating, just paint the whole horse (except for the leather ofcourse) astronomican grey.after that, it's a simple matter of applying several light layers of skull white.
the tail and manes were painted bubonic brown, and afterwards slightly drybrushed with kommando khaki.
the leather is simple; paint the whole thing scorched brown, then slightly go over it with a watered down dark flesh, and finally highlight the edges with bestial brown.

i assembled the horse before painting; elven steeds are quite slim, so you can easily paint everything after assembly (unlike my bret horses <.< )

here's a sample pic i took with my cellphone since my digital camera is in repairs for about another 2 weeks :o

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That's ****ing awsome!!
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arisen
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Re: Elven steeds

Post by arisen »

Jak3_dude wrote:That's ****ing awsome!!
thanks for the energetic response :D

it looks good, and painting them like this is easy :cool: .
also, for the hooves, i used codex grey slightly highlighted with fortress grey if you were wondering :wink:
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Re: Elven steeds

Post by Jak3_dude »

Now if I could just find a way to speed up painting my Glade Guard...man they take forever (and me typing here isn't speeding anything up either :lol: )

What basecoat colour do you use for Glade Guards? I'm trying to make mine look something like this:

http://uk.games-workshop.com/download/p ... dave4b.jpg

on the website they said they used this method to make it look like that:

Undercoat: Skull White.
Basecoats: Scorched Brown, Bestial Brown, Blazing Orange, Dwarf Flesh.
Highlights: Vermin Brown, Vomit Brown, Fiery Orange, Elf Flesh.

However white basecoat doesn't explain how they got those dark, probably black sections between two colours (I don't know if you understand what I mean, but take a good look at the pic where the cloths hanging from the waist are and in-between them)

ALSO VERY IMPORTANT: How do you mix orange to make it darker...using black makes it brown... <.<
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Xavir
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Re: Elven steeds

Post by Xavir »

Oh I know a super easy way to paint steeds and they turn out amazing and it is really easy. Ok here is how you do it. Start out by undercoating with Skull white. Then Paint the main colour on the horse (like bleached bone or umm.... Skull White for example.) Now take a shading colour (like bubonic brown for bleached bone or fortress grey for skull white) and water the paint down then quickly paint it all over the horse and rub your thumb on it the oringinal colour will show and the shade will umm shade. then paint the details and on any places where you messed up put a bit of the main colour on and spread it around it looks really cool and is easy too
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DarkMark
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Re: Elven steeds

Post by DarkMark »

Hi,
I've used a very dark brown to undercoat my GGs. The reasons being that with the colours you're hoping to use brown gives a very good base on which to paint, and if you paint carefully enough when applying the base coats for the other areas it can be used as a lining effect. Using a very thin brown wash over the whole model once completed should also help with overall definition.
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Re: Elven steeds

Post by Vinciri »

What i did for the GG, is basecoat black, drybrush the entire model with scorched brown, then drybrush the entire model with bestial brown. Paint the parts you want orange fiery orange, apply a thin layer of fleshwash and drybrush with fiery orange again. the result should look something like this:

http://s101.photobucket.com/albums/m78/ ... CT0163.jpg

I was inspired by exactly the smae picture when I started painting this model, hope this helps.
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Re: Elven steeds

Post by Ryikko »

to darken an orange you have to add a yellow-brown OR a red-brown depending on the colour you want...

regarding basecoats to GG DarkMark's idea is the one i'd use if i were to paint an autumn theme, because the colours all should be highlighted up from a brown anyways (save the grey)......might as well not waste paint by spray painting black then just covering it with brown....

hope that helps
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Jak3_dude
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Re: Elven steeds

Post by Jak3_dude »

Vinciri wrote:What i did for the GG, is basecoat black, drybrush the entire model with scorched brown, then drybrush the entire model with bestial brown. Paint the parts you want orange fiery orange, apply a thin layer of fleshwash and drybrush with fiery orange again. the result should look something like this:

http://s101.photobucket.com/albums/m78/ ... CT0163.jpg

I was inspired by exactly the smae picture when I started painting this model, hope this helps.
Thanks man.

I think I'll try this out, and if it works for me, I'll befinitly use it!!

Sounds simple and the result are nice!!
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Re: Elven steeds

Post by snowman »

this is an old article that I found useful. I don't think anyone else has posted it.

http://us.games-workshop.com/games/warh ... horses.pdf
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