So this page is old.
I wrote it ages ago.
Just deal with it.
Painting High Elves
All the colours I refer to here are Citadel Colour paints. That's what I use.
As far as I give, Citadel paints work best on Warhammer models because they are
made by Citadel. Revelation? Besides, this way you know which colours they're
using in White Dwarf and the army books. And you can buy paint from the same
place you buy your models. Plus they fixed the paint pot lids, which is sweet.
Undercoat:
Go the white undercoat. Of course, if your model is wearing all armour, it
might be easier to do them black first. This was the case with my Swordmasters.
I've also considered it on spearmen, but it depends what you've got at the
time. If you want your unit to be in bright colours, go for a white undercoat.
If you want them darker then go for black. Remember that it's very difficult to
paint white over black, but pretty easy to paint black over white. Yellow will
not go on well over black, and will probably need an undercoat of white. Large
amounts of yellow do not look cool (in my opinion).
Robes:
Many High Elves wear white robes, and these are relatively easy to paint. If
you're new and thinking of painting your elves in different coloured robes, I
would suggest that you don't. White is the Elven colour of Death, that's why
they wear it to war. Don't ask me what the Dark Elves are thinking, I guess
they're just trying to be different. So if you want your army to match its
background, I'd say paint 'em white. After all, they are the good guys.
I would start by painting all the robes with Space Wolves Grey, or if the
recesses aren't so deep you might want to add some white to that. This colour
will always be darker when it's dry, so test it a bit first. When it is dry,
highlight it by painting all the raised areas with a mix of Space Wolves
Grey\Skull White. Keep adding Skull White until you've gotten to the highest
part, which you'll paint straight Skull White. You may have to do more than one
coat of white. But remember, the robes are supposed to look white, so don't put
in too much grey. Unlike normal shading, there won't be a mid colour with a
shade and a highlight. You can't highlight white, so make sure that you're
shading colour doesn't become the dominant one. If you don't want the
slightly bluish Space Wolves Grey, try Fortress Grey.
If your robes look too bland, and this may be the case with the archer models,
paint a thin line of colour just above the bottom edge of the robe. Use the
same colour as your detail colour for the entire unit. Blue used to be the most
common colour for this type of thing, but I think that purple also looks quite
good. If you want to use red or green, I suggest using darker shades like Dark
Angels Green, or Red Gore.
Armour:
There are basically two types of armour that you'll encounter: Plate and Mail.
Plate is just that, plates of metal. Examples include breastplates, which
feature on many of the Elven models, Swordmasters, Spearmen, Phoenix Guard, Silver
Helms, among others. This also includes helmets, and other areas of straight
metal. Mail is the scale armour that practically all of them have.
To paint plate it's best to start with a black undercoat. If your model is
undercoated white, paint the bits that are going to be done in metal with
black. Thin your black down a bit with water so you don't cover the detail, and
wait for this to dry. When that's done, pick a colour. Let's say silver. If
it's a really fancy character you might try gold, or something really snazzy
like Dwarf Bronze or Brazen Brass. But this can get a bit much, so let's stick
to silver. The darkest shade of silver that GW makes is good old Boltgun Metal,
so go grab some of this because you'll need it. Drybrush the Metal over the
black, leaving the black showing where plates meet, overlap, etc. If you don't
know what drybrushing is, you won't find out here. Go to the GW forums and ask.
When this basecoat is dry, mix some Boltgun with Mithril Silver, about a 50\50
mix. Brush this over the top as a highlight, so that the Boltgun Metal is still
showing near the black bits. When that's dry, highlight again by drybrushing
with Mithril Silver.
If this is a good model, or if it's a really large area of plate, you might
want to do more than one midway highlight. That's fine, whatever to suit your
model. If it's a really insignificant thing, you might not worry about a
halfway highlight at all, and just do two layers. This basic technique can be
used with any colour, if you were using gold then start with a base of Shining
Gold, with highlights in Burnished Gold.
Your mail can be done over a black undercoat or a white.
Black undercoat: The piece is already black, so drybrush your Boltgun Metal, or
other darker colour straight over the black. Remember to brush lightly so that
you don't mess up any detail. Highlight this in the same way as the plate, by
mixing your dark colour with lighter, i.e. Boltgun Metal with Mithril Silver, and
then finish it up with a final highlight of Mithril silver or whatever lighter
colour you've got.
White undercoat: This is a little different, as the standard technique for
painting metallic colours is to do it over a black undercoat. Start with the
Boltgun Metal. When it’s dry, thin down some Black Ink and paint this
over. The ink will run into all the gaps in the armour, and make them stand
out. When the ink is completely dry, (and you might want to leave that
overnight or something), drybrush it with a highlight of Mithril Silver. You
can add shades in between by mixing them together if you so desire, and I
would. If you aren't using silver, then you might want to use a coloured wash
instead of black. I've found that Chestnut Ink works alright over gold.
Another interesting thing you can try with your elves is tinted armour. Say you
want your armour to have a tinge of blue. There are two ways to achieve this.
Firstly, you can follow the above steps and paint you armour. Then go over it
with a Blue Ink wash. You'll probably want to water this down, as it is very
blue. This is fine over a textured surface like the scale mail, but you might
find that this doesn't work so well on large flat areas of plate. Try mixing a
little blue Ink with Mithril Silver. Not too much, because it'll turn blue. But
you can get a shade of metallic blue if you get it just right. Drybrush this
over as a final highlight. You can also use different colours as details, I've
used metallic shades of red to paint runes on weapons. You can use almost any
colour.
Your armour doesn't have to be metallic, you can experiment using colours to
get a sort of ceramic\lacquered finish. This can be achieved by using coloured
inks over their respective colours.
Flesh:
Elves are by generalization fair-skinned, so you'll probably want a white
undercoat for the flesh areas. There are countless ways to paint skin.
A basic way is to put on a basecoat of Elf Flesh and wash it with
I got the following technique off Chris from GW Auckland, New Zealand. First
paint the flesh areas (hands, face, etc.) with a slightly watered down layer of
Snakebite Leather. Then mix Equal amounts of Snakebite Leather and Elf Flesh
and paint the rest of the flesh, leaving the snakebite leather showing in the
recesses (such as between fingers, and eye sockets, mouths, etc.). When this is
dry paint the raised areas with straight Elf Flesh. I found that this sometimes
comes out a bit dark for elves, so skipped the Snakebite Leather and started
with the 50\50 Snakebite\Elf Flesh, and put on some final highlights using
Bleached Bone and Elf Flesh.
You could start with a basecoat of Bronzed Flesh, and highlight this with Elf
Flesh. If you wanted your flesh tones a shade pinker, try using Dwarf Flesh.
If you want your flesh really pale, and I use this if I'm doing a female model,
start with a basecoat of Elf Flesh mixed with a bit of white. It depends how
pale you want it. Highlight the raised areas by mixing with some Bleached Bone.
Finish it off with
straight white. You just have to use your judgment based on the look you want
for your particular model.
Painting mouths is a tricky one. You don't really have to. Sometimes you will
see the lip of a model tinted a reddish shade. This can be achieved with a bit
of Red Ink, if you want to, or by mixing red into Elf Flesh or something
similar. Personally, I don't like the look that this achieves. I find it much
better to leave the lips the same colour as the rest of the face. Teeth that
are showing should be lightened using white, but don't make it too prominent.
If the model's mouth is open, then try some black, or
Eyes:
There are several ways you can paint eyes.
A simple, yet effective way is to paint the eye sockets black, and then put a
thin horizontal white line across it, leaving a black border. Then paint a
small black dot for the pupil.
If you don't like the look that one achieves, try painting a thin white line
into the sockets leaving the Snakebite Leather or whatever you used on the face
showing around it. Don't makes the white bits too big. Put a small dot of black
for the pupil. If you need to, paint a little Snakebite Leather inside the top
of the eye sockets to make a sort of eyebrow thing (this is optional).
It's amazing how the placement of the pupils can drastically alter the models
facial expression, so place them carefully and you may want to make them of
different sizes, e.g. if a lot of white is showing, then the model may look
scared. One of the biggest issues I sometimes have is getting both eyes the
same size and position. This is often because of the model. The swordmasters can
get a bit fidgety because of the closed helms, where just the eyes show out.
There's nothing really that you can do here, it just takes practice. On a mage
I once painted the eyes blue with a white pupil, for a bit of an effect. Looked
quite cool.
Gemstones:
Almost all if not every High Elf model has several gemstones on belts, helmets,
weapons, etc. You can paint these a straight colour such as red or blue, but
that's usually a bit boring and doesn't quite look the part. There are several
ways to paint them covered in the High Elf army book, and I'll repeat some
here.
Paint the gemstone mithril silver, let it dry, and put some coloured ink over
the top. Nice and shiny, looks ok. Or you can just paint it and add a lot of
gloss varnish.
The way that I've always done them is the layered technique, and there's a new
version of this in the latest HE army book.
Start by painting the gemstone black. Yep, black. Contradicts what I always
figured in the past, but it's the way to go. Then paint about the lower 3/4 of
it with Red Gore or something similar. Leave some black showing. Then paint the
bottom half with Blood Red. When that's finished paint a thin crescent of Fiery
Orange at the bottom. I've found that Blazing Orange is not a good substitute
here, you want this bit really bright. When all that’s done, put a little
spot or sliver of Skull White near the top, in the black bit. If you do these
properly, they come out really good. It's worth spending the bit of time it
takes to paint all the gems on a model because they do look much better.
If you don't want a red gemstone just swap the colours for something else. When
I'm doing blue ones I'd start with Regal Blue, though you could use Midnight
Blue, then Enchanted Blue, (and I'd steer away from Ultramarines Blue for
this), and finish it off with Lightning Blue at the bottom. I don't think
Citadel sells Lightning Blue anymore, so use Ice Blue if you can't get some. If
you wanted a green gem you could use Dark Angels Green, Snot Green, and
Scorpion Green. I've never tried a yellow gem, but a purple one could look
good.
Horses:
Elven steeds are slightly different to regular horses, and are used by the High
Elves, Wood Elves, and the Dark Elves (though they call them dark steeds or
something stupid). Dark Elf steeds are always black, it seems, there's a piece
in an old army book about how the Druchii would raid Ellyrion looking for black
steeds. This doesn't mean that the High Elves won't ride black ones. Because
Elven steeds don't really have proper covers, unlike the Human or Chaos steeds,
you've got quite a bit of actual horse to paint. This can pose quite an issue.
I had serious problems when I first attempted painting Elven Steeds. Bretonnian
horses, no problem, because they're mostly covered up.
Try to get a bit of inspiration. Go visit your local farm, and look at some
horses. Maybe you live near, or even on a farm, and you have some horses. Maybe
you already know what horses look like. Great! But I sure as hell didn't, so go
out and look.
If you don't have a local farm, maybe because you live in
If you aren't cool enough to talk to girls, then your next best bet is probably
the internet, and if you're in that situation you probably know this already.
Whatever you end up doing, just look at some horses and how they're patterned.
It's really quite interesting. You'll also want to have a look at some of the
horses in the Warhammer books, and see how they're done.
You'll probably first notice that no two horses are really alike, unless
they're a plain colour. But it's still pretty difficult to breed horses of pure
colour. Though, horses bred for war might be. I'd say, if you've got Ellyrian
Reavers or something similar, then you'll want to paint the horses in some sort
of pattern and not just plain. If you've got actual knights like Silver Helms
then you might not want to draw the attention away from the fancy riders and
what not, and just go for a plain colour.
Whatever you decide on, here are some things to remember:
1) If you're painting a white horse, don't shade it with Space Wolves Grey. Use
a blackish grey, like Codex Grey or Fortress Grey.
2) Don't paint the horses head a different colour to its body, this doesn't
seem to happen much in real life and looks pretty stupid anyway.
3) Watch out if you're painting the horse’s nose with a fleshy sort of
colour. Just use a normal flesh colour, like Elf Flesh. Maybe mix in a bit of
white. Blend it up into the colour of the head, but remember this colour is
only really on the nose anyway. A black horse will probably have a black nose.
4) Hooves are not brown. Do them black, maybe highlighted with a little bit of
grey. Do not paint your hooves Bone.
5) The mane and tail of the horse will probably be the some colour. If you're
doing these white, then it looks ok shading them in Shadow Grey or Space Wolves
Grey.
6) The odd flare on a horses head can't go wrong. (the white thingees on their
foreheads if you don't know what I'm on about)
Bases:
A model with an unfinished base does not look cool, no matter how flash the
paint job. It's no use painting an entire army only to have all your hard work
offset by lousy, unfinished bases. I paint all my bases with Goblin Green, as
standard. You can use any colour flock, (it should be green) but it can be a
slightly lighter colour and can have some shades of yellow in it. To achieve
this, mix two or more packets of flock together to get different shades. Flock
is easy to use. Tip the bag of flock into an ice cream container or a deep bowl
(or something similar). Paint a layer of PVA glue onto the top of your base.
Try not to get glue on your models feet, or however they’re attached to
the base. Then dip them in the flock. Voila. Shake of the excess, and you’re
done.
IMPORTANT NOTE: When you pull your model out of the flock, DO NOT blow the excess off. You will blow into the container and your flock will go everywhere. I don’t know how many times this one caught me out in the early days. If you’re going to blow on your model, cover the damn flock or face a different direction.
If you want something more than flock, or if yours turned
brown like mine did then you might want to try sand.
To do this, start by painting the sides of the base whatever colour you want
(green, anyone?). When that’s dry, put a layer (not too thick) of PVA
glue on the top of the base. Then dip your model in the sand. Just like using
flock. When that’s dry, mix some glue and water together and paint this
over the top. It’ll hold the sand on, but make sure it’s completely
dry before you paint over it.
Now you simply have a textured base to paint, which you can do easily by drybrushing. Paint the base a dark colour (I use black) and then highlight it with lighter colours (I use Codex Grey, then Space Wolves Grey).
Instead of gluing down your sand and then painting it black, you can mix black paint in with the second layer of glue (the mix with the water that goes over the top.) This is what I tend to do.
It looks nice if you finish this off by sticking on some
static grass in little patches. You can buy this from a model store, it works
exactly like flock.
Here's what I've learned when basing with sand:
1) Always be patient! Never try to paint your sand when the glue's not dry.
2) Where possible, paint the sides of the base before gluing sand to it. Otherwise, your sand gets all over the sides of your base.
3) Always put a layer of glue ON TOP OF the sand, otherwise
it will fall off and make a mess.
Weapons:
Weapons can be painted the same way as armour. Start with black, and apply
layered highlights of various metallic colours. If you’re being really
flashy, you can do weapons in all sorts of colours. I’ve painted swords
using red blended through orange up to yellow, to give it a glowing, fiery
look. I’ve also used blue and white to create lightning effects. Do not
do this on your spearmen. Only use it on characters, and even then only on your
best characters, otherwise it gets too much.
A cool way to make weapons look somewhat interesting but not too overpowering is to paint them black with a coloured edge. This works best with double edged weapons like swords or spearheads, I’d avoid it for axes and suchlike.
Start by painting the weapon black. Then brush the colour around the edges. Gradually mix white into your colour (or use a different shade of paint) so that it’s lightest at the top and darkest at the bottom. You can use colours for this, or use grey and white, which looks really good against the black weapon. To make it shiny afterwards, paint on some gloss varnish.
Spears and halberd have shafts (the stick that the guy holds onto). These should (usually) be painted in a neutral colour, otherwise they tend to draw attention away from the rest of your model (cf. the infamous ‘Red Spear Syndrome’). On my spearmen, I use white. Always have. You can also use browns, or perhaps black. Depends on the rest of your model.
Boots, Gloves, etc:
These can be really painted any colour you wish (to a certain degree, don't
paint them green or something). In the 5th edition Warhammer rulebook, though,
there is a picture of Rick Priestley’s High Elf army painted with red
boots and gloves. They looked a bit weird, but still alright.
In the old-school days I did all my leather accessories in brown. Back in the day it was Bestial Brown, and later I took to highlighting this with Snakebite Leather. I also did a lot of models using Snakebite Leather highlighted with Bubonic Brown, and washed with Chestnut Ink. Lately, I’ve taken to painting all my boots and gloves in black. I don’t even highlight this, because otherwise they tend to look grey (unless it’s a good model and I want to do a bit of highlighting). I like the black as it’s firstly easier to paint, but also makes the rest of the model look brighter and crisper, whereas I find the brown tends to detract slightly from the overall appearance.
On character models and some fancier figures you might want to try coloured gloves. I painted my Silver Helms with blue gloves and thought they looked pretty cool. I’ve often done white, blue, even purple gloves on other models. Just use normal highlighting techniques and you’ll be fine.
I think that’s about it. If you have any questions,
email me or something.