The Halls of the Past - Silver Tower collected, complete painted box

I realized recently that I've actually completed my Silver Tower collection, but never remembered to consolidate them into one big, snazzy post, so, here's a little trip down memory lane.

We are the Earth-Intruders, We are the sharp-shooters - Amalynn Shadowguide & Spindle Drones

Eldar were actually my first serious army, in any game with miniatures at all, so I wanted to do something special with Amalynn Shadowguide, a model I thought was so close to being awesome, but had ended up a bit flat.

Who's Laughing Now?! - Harlequin Wraithknight Conversion

So, this guy started as just a simple re-pose, but became something far more elaborate.

Black Operations part 8: Wyches

 Expanding the continuing Mandrake army, I've put together a couple new units.

Black Operations part 7: Command

Rounding out the continuing Mandrake army with some command. Two pretty liberal interpretations of Dark Eldar command, they have roughly inverted colors.

Black Operations part 5: Venoms and Starweavers

It would hardly be a Dark Eldar army without some vehicles, right?

Black Operations part 4: Mandrake Scourge Conversions

Another quick* post today, continuing the Mandrake force I've been working on, and wrapping up its infantry units.

Conceptually, these aren't much different than the previous Witch conversions, but I'm still very happy with how I got these wings to look.

* That would be short, not speedy subject matter.... and yeah, probably no one else saw that unintentional pun.

Black Operations part 3: Mandrake Hellion Conversions

Continuing this dark and glowy army, next up are some Hellions, incorporating a fair amount of kneadatite and Doomfire Warlocks' heads and torsos.

Black Operations, part 2: Mandrake army conversions

Continuing the Mandrake army, this is my take on Dark Eldar Warriors for my client's army, in what feels a lot more like a collaboration than many commissions I've done, as it's often a bit of bouncing ideas back and forth for these conversions. It's a little odd that they're segregated by sexes, but, with very similar color schemes, some more obvious visual cues should make an army of little dark pointy elves easier to tell apart. The purple ones are, again, the unit leaders, while the blue ones are special weapon troopers. I went out of my way to find shield and armor pieces for these ladies, to try to emphasize a slightly more defensive mode than the standard Mandrakes.

Unlike my preference for "Drukhari" over "Dark Eldar," I definitely don't prefer GW's switch to calling these base models "Witch Aelves," since, most naturally, that means that the entire race should be being pronounced "Eelves" which just sounds silly. The models are nice, though, and the freehand runes came more naturally than I expected.

Black Operations - Drukhari Mandrake Horde

Or, since they're figurines, would that be "hoard"?

From the Shadows - Dark Eldar Mandrake Test

While I thought a few of the original Dark Eldar kits, like their warriors, the vast majority of the line, especially the metals, just did nothing, and I was quite happy to see the Mandrakes, among others, basically get overhauled from the ground up.

A short one today, the first of those Mandrakes, which I'll be painting in large numbers, to see how the colors go down to be sure I didn't mess up a batch together. He's a mix of mostly traditional painting, with  just a little source lighting effects beyond the obvious bright points.

Gloom and Doom - Silver Tower Elf Heroes

The Misweaver Siah is definitely the color scheme I'm most excited about for my Silver Tower set. I thought I got a pretty unusual set of colors to work together, and think that she's one of GW's better female models in general.

The End, My Friend - Final Cryx Batch for sale

So, this is the fourth installment of my cleaned up Cryx army, and as much as I like these zombies, I decided it's time to consolidate my WM collection to its core, so these guys'll be up for grabs...

Black Operations - Goreshade & other stealthy cryx (continuing updates)

Goreshade was one of my first PP conversions- for an elf, he felt really bulky and short.

Heros of Ulthuan - High Elf hero re-sculpts, part 3 of 3: Tyrion

Saving the best for last, I'm quite proud of how Tyrion came out.

Heros of Ulthuan - High Elf hero re-sculpts, part 2 of 3: Alith Anar

The second high elf hero resculpt, Alith Anar, was a bit of a tricky one--

Heros of Ulthuan - High Elf hero re-sculpts, part 1 of 3: Teclis

The first in a group of three conversions my client wanted-- he, like I, felt that the translation of GW's high elves between illustration and miniature was rather lacking in a number of areas.

Ashara (Dark Eldar Heroine)

This was a fun little commission-- my favorite type of commissions are actually single pieces (there's no way they get repetitive).

Raging Heroes is a small company that does some nice minis, but this is the first of theirs that I've painted. The pose was decent (reminiscent of late 80's miniatures poses) but with some very nice detail, especially for how delicate the parts were. I also appreciate how a few different pieces allowed it to fit in two separate lines.

On the commission itself, it was pretty open-ended- essentially, purple armor and orange hair & tassels, and something like the studio paint job. I added some dark red to the cloth to distinguish it from the purple armor, while avoiding making it distract from the rest by adding too much contrast. The green details were to oppose the purple, and even more importantly, so the bright orange wasn't the only bright spot on the model.

I did some of the highest contrast highlights I've done on this, to accentuate the already sharp edges.

The client is going to do their own thing with the base, so this is just temporary, but I think that the wider base does something good for the cloth, accentuating the flow, rather than the sleeves just hanging out over space.

But, enough words, here's the mini:

Pointy!

Eldar Commission

© GW/Black Library

Game: Inquisitor
Faction: n/a

Notes: While this is a bit of an older one (hence the lack of stellar photography), this was one of the more interesting commissions I've been assigned. The client liked some of my other conversion work, and wanted a specific feel to a model. He was looking for a model with the feel of the female Eldar on the right.

While I'd done as elaborate projects as this one, I'd never needed to do one as clean in form (particularly the armor) as this.

To cut down on work time (this the price of the commission), I based this on an old Inquisitor scale miniature. I dremeled down all of the armor and accessories, which wasn't terrible, as the model started with what was essentially an armored jump suit. However, the original model's torso was probably about 2/3 the length it should have been, proportional to the legs and arms, so, while the model could have just been a little short, to fit the amount of detail, I needed to build that from scratch.

The hardest parts of this mini were the torso and head (the bionic eye (or possibly sci-fi monocle?) had to go), unfortunately, both of which are sort of obscured by my old poor lighting.

My biggest areas of growth were the smooth sections of armor (I was particularly happy with the arms and legs) and the cloak which. While the cloak's colors are mottled from filing to smooth out the form, that won't be visible when the mini is primed, and I think that the shape nicely organic and dynamic.

High Elf Battle Standard Bearer

Game: Warhammer Fantasy Battle
Army/Faction: High Elves

Notes:


This recent commission has a more eventful story than many.

My client didn't have a lot to spend on this, so wanted it done with traditional metallics, but, after toying with how it would look with regular metallics, I decided that it wasn't nearly bright or vivid enough for a centerpiece model, let alone an Elf one (where it would tend to be even more showy), so I decided to comp him the extra work for NMM work. It'd been ages since I had painted a High Elf mini, and I was pretty pleased with it.


Given my client's testimonial, "Thanks a million, Nick.  If you're ever in Northwest Indiana, the beer and lapdances are on me," I guess he was, too.