Lumineth Realm-Lords Vanari Dawn Riders, Auralan Wardens and classic High-Elves

My last post ended with five Vanari Dawn Riders slowly sinking into the Biostrip-dip. This post, I'm can happily report the same five have been scrubbed, cleaned, primed and painted in more proper colors. I'll start with their new paint job and then give you an overview of a bunch of my new Lumineth models as well as some older High Elf models kicking around in my cabinets. With another unit currently on the paint station I most definitely am in a Asur Lumineth state of mind. 

The sheltering shade of the forest calling come in silence. Accompanied only by the full moon howling of a night wolf....

When I first started painting the new Lumineth models I decided to go for silver metallic armor (with a soft blue wash). After painting the Light of Eltharion (the empty floating suit of armor) in those colors I took these five horses and gave them a basic silver spray and wash. Things started to go wrong from that point on. In part because I was overthinking things. 

...And the path under my bare feet. The elvenpath Lumineth path.

The problem with silver is that it's basically grey. That makes it difficult to make the horses grey because grey on grey does not give a lot of contrast. I thought grey and blue also fail to contrast nicely (as I said, I was overthinking it). Anyway the lack of contrast put me on the fence about silver. Then I decided to just finish one rider and horse and see what would happen. I applied an orange to the caparison (Troll Slayer Orange) and at that point I rolled eyes and gave up. It looked awful. Looking back Troll Slayer Orange was not a very smart choice. At that point I quickly glued five Vanari Auralan Warders (the guys with spears) together. I painted their Warden in an approxiamtion of a color scheme I spotted in the Battle Tome. That result made me conclude dipping the cavalry was the best solution. Looking back, I could've made the metallic work, but white armor is a cool look for snooty elves. As a bonus white is a notoriously difficult 'color' whick makes opponents go 'wow' occasionally (and that feeds my ego).

Going by my guide, front left a strawberry roan, back center a buckskin and to the right a grulla dun (the other two are regular bay horses).

When it came to painting the horses I took my inspiration from an ancient White Dwarf article (1989's WD 112 to be precise (I am really getting old)). I also downloaded some guides towards horse markings, colors and the accompanying names from different sources on the internet (the United States Equestrian Federation among them). Lets say I learned a lot about horses and I can now re-read The Wheel of Time knowing that 'roan' and 'dun' refer to the coloring of a horse. As most of the Vanari Dawn Rider's horses' skin is covered with armor plates and caparison, the research was a bit overkill. I still used it to pick different natural looking skins and experiment with their stockings (coloring above the hoofs). I personally dislike a unit where all the horses have matching colors. Excluding The Nine riding forth, I like the idea that even dastardly Dark Elf Reavers or Chaos Marauders ride actual horses. 

Whoever thought the Phoenix king was dead, obviously never heard the legend of the Phoenix.

During the construction of the unit I butterfingered and snapped their banner. To top it off I also ruined my first attempted fix of the banner. My third try at a fix was equally pathetic. Then I remembered I had a High Elf Noble still on sprue somewhere and this kit had a banner top. I always wanted to paint a seriously cool looking Phoenix banner and here was my chance. Color wise it actually matches the theme I picked for my Lumineth army (dawn). I took a fair bit of time painting the banner up properly and I am overtly chuffed with the results. 

I don't think I've seen any weapon as incredibly long as the pikes wielded by these guys. 

Aside from the Vanari Dawn Riders I also painted half a unit of Auralan Wardens. Painting High Elves Lumineth is a lot more intense (for me) than painting Undead or Orcs Orruks. These elves are covered in trim, frilly tassels and gemstones. Halving the unit size keeps me sane (mostly sane). As an aside: I absolutely love the insane pikes these elves wield. If anyone can form a proper phalanx it will be these elves. I should stick together another five and complete the unit soon, just for the look of it.

Eltharion? He's just an empty suit. Don't pick a fight with him though. He will stab you.

As I was taking photo's of my freshly painted Lumineth I thought, why not grab some models I've painted earlier and slap them in front of the camera as well. The mossy forest setting I made to photograph in and the light being splendid helped inform that decision. Here's my interpretation of the light of Eltharion. I'm considering repainting the guy to match my army. Then again I'm way too satisfied to dip this guy (and there's plenty of poor, unpainted models on my station to make that a bad idea). We'll see, maybe I'll get an extra light of Eltharion.

I think the Lothern Sea Guard need a place in the mortal realms and I will be providing them with one.

So far for the new Elves Aelves. Lets now zap back a number of years in time (there will be a slight skill downgrade from here on in). Here's a ten men Elf unit of Lothern Sea Guard that came with my Island of Blood box. Currently they don't have a real function in the Lumineth tome. But I'm still slightly hopeful to find one for them as I have twenty more on sprue and I want to paint them up and add them to the army. Otherwise I'll just proxy them for Auralan Wardens or Sentinels or something.

This model is way too awesome to be discontinued. 

Another model that will not really have a function in the new army is this Noble on Griffon. I'm hoping to use him as a proxy for one of the newer models that will be added to the line. If that is the case, I'll probably touch up the paint job. I'm still quite happy with the way the Griffon turned out, but the rider needs some work. 

There's nothing quite as relaxing as occasionally just painting a random character model. 

Here's a small command unit consisting of a Lore Master, a Mage and a Waywatcher. I snipped the silly sword of the Mage and replaced it with a book. The Waywatcher has a wonderfully odd cloak (see next picture). A Lore Master was actually mentioned in the recent Realm Lords book by Black Library so here's hoping they actually make some rules for him. If that is the case I 'll repaint his face. It did not quite come out as I wanted it to when I painted him and I've been itching for an excuse to do that anyway.

The cloak of leaves was difficult to identify unpainted.

Here's the back of the Mage and the Waywatcher. Fun fact: the flame pattern on the Mage's robe was airbrushed on using a nail polish stencil. Looing over his shoulder you can see I always try to paint something interesting in books. It's not a very hard thing to do and it looks very cool. The Waywatcher's cloak confused me when I got the model. It turned out he has one made out of leafs. Which reminds me, I should most definitely include some ancient Wood Elves in my Lumineth force, and I have Skarloc's Wood Elf Archers (minus their standard bearer) on my lead pile. Insert grin here. 

"Light a fire under it," management said. So I did. 

Lets quickly pop back to the Island of Blood/Spire of Dawn set (that box was awesome). Here's another High Elf mage (I always paint too many mages for any army). I remember being insanely proud of how this Elf turned out as I tried all kinds of techniques to make the white look better. I learned a lot painting this model. I also took my time on the top gem and I worked hard to make the fire pop (its a bit crude, but it works). I still like the model, but I think I could do better a second time around (and as luck would have it, I have a second version of him lying around somewhere).

Oh mighty GW design gods, give me more Dragon Lord kits. Preferably not the boxy kind like the Star Drake. 

Next there is this Dragon Rider. I love this kit, especially as a continuation of the original Dragon Masters kit). I'm a bit disappointed the current line-up of Lumineth don't feature this model or a newer variant of it. Maybe the future will bring us an AoS interpretation of the Knights of Caledor (Caledorian Dragon Lords? Celedorian Realm Raiders?). I've had a lot of fun fielding this terror on AoS battlefields in the past few years and I would hate to put it out to pasture.

In the pipe, five by five.

Here's my other Dragon Lord. This time the unfortunate combination of a mage riding a monster. Sure they look cool, but one needs to be in melee and the other should've stayed in bed to read. I actually got this kit as a wedding present from my sister in law. I painted it years ago using a how to paint by GW. Right now I feel the urge to strip the model and try again as I think I can do it a lot more justice. Then again...

Painting silly random doodle in books is fun. Painting an artificial horizon in your dragon rider's book doubly so.

Then again, I did paint one of those artificial horizons you see in (simulated) jet cockpits in the book the mage is holding. I had quite a lot of fun pointing this out during games. (Almost) always makes my opponent grin for a second (just prior to murdering the poor mage). Looking at the close-up I suspect I should apply a duster to the dragon. It's been painted a long, long time ago and has not seen a lot of use.

I've owned this model for decades and still love the hell out of it. Awesome.

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Going through the pictures I'm sharing here I realize I did not photograph the ten Sword Masters of Hoeth and my Elyrian Reavers from Isle of Blood. The reavers mostly because that paint job really is abysmal, the Sword Masters? Ah you'll see in a later post. I also skipped the Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers (the crews still aren't finished after all these years) and the classic spearmen and archers I have standing around. Those models have gotten a bit long in the tooth and will most likely stay in the dispaly case for the foreseeable future. A few nice snaps of these guys can be found if you click this link to another part of my blog. 

The only downside to loving a model that much is that I constantly want to repaint it, because I don't feel like I've done it enough justice. 

This Wood Elf Chariot does deserve a place of pride in my collection. Although I think I can do a better job painting it these day, I still like it. Aside from that it has never seen a battle since I painted it (and I highly doubt before that). So I think I'll just let it sit in a place of pride in my collection. Once in a while I see an insane price for this model and I smile and reminisce what a strange hobby this is. Next up, I'll most likely finish an unlikely bunch of chaps to add to the Lumineth force and then I'll probably detox by painting a few other models first. We'll see. 

Never take shortcuts on painting the base rims, that'll just make your models look bad ;)