More for the Horde, 1989 Witch Elf and Foundry Fighter

After an incredibly prolific May, June ended up being a ghost town here at Realm of Chaos 80s. What with the two heatwaves (one of which I remained in school as we closed), landscaping the back garden (trying to keep newly laid turf alive in said heatwaves) and the normal end of year at school nonsense I've hardly had the time to pick up a paintbrush. 

Of course, I have dabbled. The workshop is now well organised and set out for serious miniature painting. I've managed to pick up a few random pieces of old lead too, though I will be staying well clear of the new ogre re-release by Games Workshop. I thought it rather cynical of them to separate the Jes Goodwin classics and merge them with the Marauder sculpts. In odd moments, I've slinked off to the workshop and finished off these three skeletons for my long delayed Skeleton Horde project. 

They were completed in much the same way as my other skeletons. Exact same colour recipe of Orc Brown and Bleached Bone over a chestnut wash. Of course, I took the opportunity to create some more freehand shield designs. You can see my efforts below.

The centre example is my favourite ever painted skull shield. After eighteen months of dabbling, I am getting the hang of the shape and character of a good skull. Having a large shield with plenty of painting space also helps as painting smaller skulls is much more of a challenge, as you can see from the yellow background and green background examples here. Still, they are in keeping with the era I love and am inspired by. Hope you think so too. 

Here are the new skellies ranked up with their comrades. I've still go a fair few skeleton infantry to crack on with. Perhaps inspiration will call over the summer which is mere two weeks away?

I also finished off this Bob Naismith Witch Elf. She was one of my dreaded 'unfinishables' and has been sitting gathering dust for many, many years. I have a large cache of unwanted figures from the glory days of Oldhammer. Unwanted by me I should point out. All started and never finished for whatever reason. Some of them I dread to even look at but they sit now in my workshop in my eye line and I will slowly work through them which inspiration strikes. 

The colour scheme remained exactly as I have envisioned all those years ago. I just completed the highlighting on the hair, armour and books. The sculpting on this model has a chunky feels, especially around the arms and the knives she carried and that makes her feel quite different from the Goodwin style elves. Even so, I am glad she is finally free to face the tabletop. I've got other dark elves kicking about and I think I'll stick with this colour scheme if I ever get around to painting them. 

Of course, she appears in White Dwarf 109 (my first ever issue) and I can remember the article well from my youth. It explored the background of the evil side of the Elf family and I can recall enjoying peering at these models with the hope of young, that perhaps they would all somehow fall into my possession for free. I ended up with the clampack of Mengil Manhide's Dark Elves and I still have a few of the models kicking about today, unearthed in a packed of photographs in my mother's loft not that long ago. Bizarrely, the photographs were not even mine! 

Finally, we have this rather lovely fighter. He is not Citadel but I am sure he was part of the Fighters range and some point. He comes from Foundry and was in one of their ranges. I expect I was given him years back and made an attempt to paint him up all Landsknecht style. My concentration or skill level was clearly lacking that day as I gave up on him at the shading stage. I was lovely to work him back up over the last few weeks, dabbling and taking my time. I found an old plastic Citadel shield and restored that up for him, keeping the hole and the socket on his arm sound. I usually file them off and fill in the gap but didn't worry about it this time. 

As I said, the end of the school year is fast approaching and I am hoping for another 'Summer of Citadel' though I am going to be more focussed on painting up interesting figures rather than trying to relearn my painting skills. Looking back, last year's figures weren't really the most interesting or inspiring pieces. But that was due to how limited my collection was at that time. I also hope to carry out a couple more of my scenery hopes. I have the ruined temple and hedges, fences and walls to complete as well as my new gaming table too. 

Just got to get through another heatwave first! 

Orlygg