Oh god, the elves are back

A while ago I took on a project to paint some elves - 15 Ellyrian reavers and 5 dragon princes. By the end of it, I never wanted to see another elf again. A few weeks ago I was asked to paint a high elf phoenix and a bolt thrower. I said OK, so I guess I'm over it. Anyway, here are the finished results:

 I didn't get a good picture of the underside, so imagine this but upside down.

Close up of the head.

The recipient likes to paint his own bases, so they've been left blank. This is actually the second phoenix I've painted and I've got to say this model is a lot of fun with an airbrush. It could do with fewer snowflakes, however. None, in fact. Surely there must be a way to represent "cold" on a model other than massive snowflakes with spindly bits that you have to paint the sides of as well as the tops? I briefly considered counting all of them to impress upon you just how many there are and how long it takes to go over them, but I fell asleep after half of one side of one wing, which I guess is a good enough way to make my point: there are so many snowflakes I couldn't count them all. Next time I paint one of these I hope it's a fire phoenix.

As well as showing some of the models I've been working on I thought I'd draw your attention to the gallery page on this blog, which has been updated since the last post. It's now a gallery of my Tabletop +1 models, and has three - that's right, three! - models in it already! Alright, I agree that's not very impressive yet, but it's a start. After uploading the first few images I decided it might look better if all the models were photographed under more similar lighting, so over the coming weeks they'll be getting new pictures taken and uploaded as I find time. Until then, please enjoy the three that are on display!

As always, happy painting!

Please... No More Elves!

So among the models I painted over the summer were some high elves. Twenty horses to be exact - 5 Dragon Princes and 15 Ellyrian Reavers. The Dragon Princes were by far the most annoying to paint. They'd been bought secondhand from someone who built them before adding in the front legs, and had managed to make two horses with the wrong sides. It was a real mess, but luckily you won't have to see them as I didn't get any good photos. Instead you get to see the Reavers!

(Bases were left bare at the recipient's request.)

Now I've had my fill of elves. Painting lots of cavalry with lots of white and gems is painstaking work. Instead I'm working on my own vampire counts, trying to put a dent in the horde of undead still waiting to be painted on my shelf. These guys take a lot of work, too, but at least there's no white or gems.

With a little luck you'll see some finished pictures of these guys soon.  Anyway, I hope you like these and until next time - happy painting!

Elves and Promises

Looking through this blog I noticed I'd forgotten to post some photos of a Prince Althran model I did a while back. I painted him (at TT+1) to mimic the one by Will Davies and was pretty pleased with the result. Looking back, I agree the sword is not the best, but as he was given away some time ago there's no changing him now. (The recipient was quite pleased with him, so we'll call that a win.) I hope you like him!

Despite the photos - which you'll notice are not as good as the orc's were, I've learned a thing or two since I took these - he's not a bad paint job, and, even though he's no longer in my possession I have a second one waiting to be painted. I'm looking forward to an opportunity to correct some mistakes (mainly the sword) and try out some new colours.

Now onto some other news. Some very pretty pictures are on their way (just waiting to get them on my laptop), but after that things are going to get a little out of focus. By this I mean I'll be using my phone to take photos for a while, as I no longer have a camera. I hope to get a new one before the summer arrives, but until I do it'll be whatever my mobile can manage. Luckily I don't have any TT+1 pieces on the go at the moment (too busy with college), but there's plenty of Tabletop hobby on the way as I attempt to chip away at my (gigantic) backlog of models.

Until then, happy painting!

Tabletop +1

Alright, so far I've only posted Tabletop Standard and I thought it was time to change that. Here are a couple of my recent pieces painted to TT+1.