Dark Elves Lot 1

This post was written in early October. Asterixes are expanded on in comments.

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My current big project is a dark elf army using as many old minis as I can lay my grubby little paws on. I'm painting in lots of 14 or so*, a process that makes it maneagable** and is not overwhelming*** when I pause and look at what I have to do.

This lot is the first batch. I'm keeping the palette fairly simple: bronze and brass metallics; white hair, gloves and boots, pastel colours for clothing.

I decided that since dark elves, at least the earlier versions, are egalitarian I'd try and have as many male and female miniatures across the army as possible. I also decided for similar reasons to have a range of skin tones. Being a dark elf isn't so much a racial thing, more a philosophical/theological split.

The photos have made the colours far lighter than they appear in the flesh. I like the miniatures here and I'm thinking I may have to reference the photos to add more highlights to the miniatures.

Two Mengil's troopers and the wonderflly sculpted Ean Hawkbane.

The three miniatures above came from a set called Mengil Manhide's Manflayers, a gruesome group of elves that skin their enemies and wear them as cloaks. The minis demonstrate what I really like about the dark elves as a whole: they look fairly normal, yet when you look closer there is something off about them . The body language and the facial expressions are slightly out of the realm of normal. You turn the miniature over and are confronted by the slack screams of their victim's faces on their cloaks. It's unnerving.

I have yet to decide on how to base these miniatures, nor have I decided what shields to use. I'm torn between having a uniform round shield or having individually shaped shields. I may go with individual, simply because it breaks the uniformity of the mengil troopers up a little more.

(For non-citadel enthusiasts: the older minis have a peg (seen on the left wrist of the troopers and the left hip of Ean Hawkbane above) where you would slot a plastic shield. These shields come in a variety of shapes.)

I have to make some shields at this point as I do not have enough to go around, and I don't know if I want to use some of the shields that I have.

Two sorceresses from a decade a part. One from before Citadel changed their scale.

A cold one and a sorcerer.

The mengils at that point: musician, troopers and standard.

The thoroughly gruesome standard.

A close up of the sorceress.

The sculpting on the sorceress is very chunky with her free arm is like a tree branch. I have grown to like her a lot and I'm continually charmed by the older miniatures' details and character.

Close up of Ean Hawkbane.

This is my favourite miniature of the lot. From the awkward sword arm to the face to the owl there's so much character. This was a miniature that painted itself and I adore how it turned out.