Painting Wood Elves

It's so relaxing painting Elves, you have to really get into an Elvish frame of mind to do it I find. Calm and peaceful...just nice ink washes, no Orcish Dipping going on. Charming.

Going back to these figures I kitbashed years ago was a real treat. Rediscovering all the little green stuff details was a joy.

This latest batch have been Matt varnished, but I will go back and give their armour a coat of gloss floor varnish to make them glint in the sun.

This Elf is destined to become a captain, he just seems to give off that vibe. Maybe it's the GW High Elf head?

I do like this guy too, the green colours really suit him. Not all the Wood Elves are heavy armoured and it fun to paint up classic looking characters.

The fancy shields are 3D printed from eBay. They make a nice variant to the Scribor ones on my earlier figures.

Various plastic kits have gone into these figures. Mostly Norman but also some actual GW heads too.

A Victrix Norman makes for a good armoured Elf.

This company banner bearer reminds me of Elrond. His shield is another find on eBay. I find myself periodically searching for any new products. Occasionally something will crop up that is suitable.

These Elves will make up the first company of Gildor.

 Gildor's companies are known for wearing grey, so I may need to add a few extras. Hopefully, this little touch will make the companies stand out from one another of the field.

The mulberry colour is a hangover from painting the War of the Roses units.

There are a few swordman in the unit, but I have tried to make most of them spearmen to match the units in the Hobbit.

An Elven officer shouts out orders above the din of battle.

An old Grenadier figure ( I think), always go to have another banner in the 1st Company. He is so small I've had to bolster his base up.

WIP, this running Elf is a nice sculpt. It was made from a HYW Perry plastic torso with a Oathmark Elf head. The cloak is greenstuff.

 My painting table is getting very weird indeed..

Update: Time to dig out an older base and make some tweaks after studying the pictures above.

Here we can see one of the earlier bases with their shields from Scribor. The new film based shields tie in well due to their fine detailing. This type of shield was made for a good ink wash.

I just realised my Autumn colour palette was first discovered be the instant noodles brand, Pot Noodle.

After looking through the previous pictures, I decided to go back and repaint the mulberry colour. A green tunic brings the earlier figures more in line with the ones I've just done. I always get a bit carried away with colours, maybe three colours to a figure is the key.

These long shields will give this first company a good look.

This Elf swordsman is another one who has had a tweak. His mulberry tunic is now green which ties in with his armour better.

I like the idea that all the Elven warriors would have been individuals, so each one would be a different character in their own right. There are similarities within the unit but they are not all equipped the same.

All the leaves are brown and the sky is grey...

Lord Hastings' Levy

Both these units are men from Hastings battle, I just couldn't resist seeing what the bases fighting would look like.

Inferior Levy, a mix of Fire Forge torsos and Perry heads and arms. A few old Foundry figures in there too with some Grenadier sculpts. A pretty ad-hoc bunch, but they are levy so it makes sense.

To help with the Levy look there are a couple of unarmoured men in the mix.

Another Hastings banner.

Hopefully all the light armour will help give the unit a poorly equipped levy vibe. A  levy soldier at the rear considers fleeing before it's too late... typical!

The figures were nice and easy to paint, being mostly padding and metal armour. I chose to use ink washes on them as this is very speedy and rather than use the Dip, I varnished them in Matt varnish. I left the metal armour unvarnished, so it retained its shine. 

I find the Dip really useful with metal miniatures like my ACW collection. However these War of the Roses armies are mostly plastic so are unlikely to chip.

These closeup pictures really capture the horror of what it must have been like. I can't imagine anything worse than being tightly packed together, hacking and stabbing your way through the enemy. It was also a time of no shields so you would have to defend and block the oncoming blows as you fought. If you fell exhausted you would soon be finished off with a bollock dagger as you were trodden underfoot.

Due to the crush of heavy armoured bodies, I think a muddy base would look good with these.

 Update: I added a couple of spare figures to the throng. One being a standard bearer which just brings a bit more colour and heraldry to the base.

Even with the extra standard, the back ranks are still thinking about saving their skins.

The other figure is a fully armoured man at arms. Well someone has to show this rabble how it's done.

The banner is a Yorkist one (Humphrey Stafford) which is the only thing that really matters. I find these little extras really make a difference and give a much more medieval feel to the units.

Bonnie Blue Flag status markers

Some more markers for units. These are simpler than my first ones, just being a flat flocked base.

These little 7mm dice track the status of the unit. The colour shows the quality of the regiment and the number of pips, show the morale hit points left after damage.

A veteran red dice shows it's impressive six morale points.

A hand held flock device covers the bases in realistic grass tufts. A blue dice of an experienced regiment and a green dice of a poor quality unit.

 A test unit in training. This unit is a new, green regiment. It hasn't seen any action yet and it's morale rating is at its max, being four.

Update: I've added some tufts to help hide the dice.

The tall bushes just give a bit of cover to the dice from the enemy player. The green bushes should also look better than coloured dice aswell.

What's the status of that regiment? 

This is the important bit, the bases are bagged up and stored with the rest of the Bonnie Blue Flag bits. After mislaying my original bases, these replacements have to be looked after more wisely.

In the BBF box are the mini dice, D100's and everything else I need for the game. I should have done this ages ago! It puts the mind at rest and stops hours of mad searching. When the originals are located, they will be added to the box too.