Sunday 21 February 2021

ArcWorlde: Wild Elves and Halfling Testing Colours

These past two weeks I spent pretty much only on ArcWorlde miniatures. At first I finished up the Wild Elven Centaur and an Ascendant to finish up the Elves I own right now. And after that I also got started on to the Halflings of Hobbleshire and decided on a colour scheme.

Wild Elves vs. Halflings of Hobbleshire
Pict 996: Wild Elves vs. Halflings of Hobbleshire
Wild Elven Centaur and Ascendant
Pict 997: Wild Elven Centaur and Ascendant
Wild Elven Centaur and Ascendant
Pict 998: Wild Elven Centaur and Ascendant
This Centaur was quite far along when I last showed her. Finishing up the skin colours and details on the upper body went pretty quickly and since I was on a roll, I also painted the Wild Elven Ascendant. With him, the war paint provided a bit of a conundrum, because of the different angles his legs have, but I think it looks cool the way I managed it. With these two done, I painted all the Wild Elf miniatures, I own right now. So now it's on to some adversaries and then of course some games as well!

Halfling Sheriff
Pict 999: Halfling Sheriff

As the Sheriff of my merry band on Halflings, this guy simply had to be painted first. He also provided a good opportunity to test the colour scheme and get to paint some different surfaces. For the colours themselves, I did something I never thought I would and looked at some historical reference!

Halfling Historical Reference – Leo Ignaz von Stadlinger: Geschichte des württembergischen Kriegswesens (History of Württemberg Military), K. Hofdruckerei zu Guttenberg Stuttgart, 1856

I have this theory, that the part of the world I'm living in (and it's inhabitants!) have some striking parallels with Tolkiens Shire and this has become somewhat of a running gag. With my Middle-earth Hobbits already painted to match the movie aesthetic, I took this band of ArcWorlde Halflings as an opportunity to try and replicate some of the local coat of arms. Thankfully the internet knows everything and a bit of googeling produced these coloured plates of uniforms from the Kingdom of Württemberg. Now obviously I could not reproduce any one uniform accurately on the miniature, but they severd as references. For example I never would have thought to go for white pants and gloves, but here we are!

Troll Hound and Halfling Militia
Pict 1000: Troll Hound and Halfling Militia

Troll Hound and Halfling Militia
Pict 1001: Troll Hound and Halfling Militia
Since the colours came out pretty much like I wanted them, I also painted the first Halfling Milita and the Troll Hound from the starter set. Again, these scuplts are very characterful and the big surfaces are very fun to paint. The best detail here have to be the flapping ears of the Troll Hound - very dynamic!

Halfling Militia (WIP)
Pict 1002: Halfling Militia (WIP)

And here is the rest of the Militia: one more with a torch and two each with crossbow and shield/handweapon. For now, they are basecoated and had some washes, so that finishing them should not take to much time. After that I still have two more Halflings and the it's onto the beastiary.

Sunday 7 February 2021

Beasts of the Forest

These past two week, I painted two big beasts for my ArcWorlde Wild Elves and started to work on a Lion Chariot.

Briar Elk and Unithorn
Pict 990: Briar Elk and Unithorn

Unithorn
Pict 991: Unithorn

The Unithorn was the first of these bigger summoned creatures I painted. I like how it came out but in hindsight I could have chosen some other colours for the mane. The hair brings in a different texture and it would have been nice to bring that out. But I also don't quite know what colours I could have chosen to fit in with the simple red and black scheme...

Briar Elk
Pict 992: Briar Elk

This Briar Elk is even bigger than the Unithorn but it painted up even faster since now I have the colours down pretty comfortably. I went a little lighter on the bones that I did with the Woodfiend and the Lichenhawk but I like how it draws the eye to head of the monsters.

Wild Elven Centaur (WIP)
Pict 993: Wild Elven Centaur (WIP)

At the same time I was putting the basecolours on the Elk, I also did the same ones on this Wild Elven Centaur. It's a cool concept – instead of riding any mount, you simply summon the lower part and thus still have both arms free to do stuff such as shoot you bow! The details and highlights on the elven part of the model are left to do but this should be done rather quickly.

White Lion (WIP)
Pict 994: White Lion (WIP)
White Lion Chariot (WIP)
Pict 995: White Lion Chariot (WIP)

The other big model I'm working on right now is this Lion Chariot for my High Elves. After figuring out what to do with the lion cloaks, I wanted to see how this would look on a full sized lions. I'm quite happy with how the cat looks but working on all the other parts of the chariot will probably take some more time.