Stormweaver on Unicorn (Part 4)

 

After getting the Unicorn to a point that I was happy with, I moved onto the rider. Back in the Marauder Miniatures days the Morrisons (Ali and Trish) sometimes teamed up on projects like these where Trish would work on the "monster" and Ali would work on the hero.  I feel like it didn't always work as Ali's elves always came off as having 'puffy' faces particularly when compared to Jess Goodwin's high cheeked and narrow faces. But I digress, the point is that there is definitely a contrast between the Unicorn and it's rider. The mage (now Stormweaver) was done prior to the strict uniformity of the High Elf range preceding the launch of WFB 4th Edition. Indeed, the painted example featured in the White Dwarf adverts at the time were colored in a technicolor palette more fitting for the Wood Elves of that era than High Elves. 

Images snipped from original Marauder ad. 

Forward to now, and I am trying to make the best of both worlds and have a scheme that matches my army but still perhaps calls back, if only a wee bit, to that old house advert. As I have been doing with my High Elves recently, I painted all of the basecoats using Contrast Paints. 

Next came the mid-tones, which really start to pull this closer to how I envisioned it. Polished Blue, my trusted old blue metallic paint from the '90s, went on most of the blue areas. Retributor Gold went onto the head of the staff. I painted the back of the cloak and her tunic/dress thing receding from black, to dark blue to a purple. 

Stormhost Silver was the highlight on anything metal, and this really kicked up the colors I think. Still photos such as these just do not convey the metallic sheen those areas have in reality. I liked the idea of keeping the staff wooded with a vine wrapped around it. I was tempted to just make the whole thing metallic but thought that this gave the staff a lot more character. There are, I guess we can call them ribbons, that flow off of the staff and the sheathed blade. I struggled a lot in trying to pick a suitable color for these ribbons. Ultimately decided to make them white to better tie her in with he rest of the High Elf army, while not distracting from the rest of the model's colors. 

After I added the grass tufts and fallen leaves, the rider was attached. Once everything from this step was done, I took the model outside to my deck and sprayed it with Model Master Lusterless (Flat) Lauer Overcoat to, hopefully, reduce paint chipping. 

Of course I took the opportunity for some natural lighting pics even though I would have preferred a more scenic view...

Oh, I forgot to mention the stars that I dotted onto the cloak and tunic/dress, which ties into the theme of the rest of my army. 

Anyway, this concludes the saga of this Stormweaver, I hope you enjoyed the end results. 

Stormweaver on Unicon (Part 2)

 Between all the other projects I have going on, I dabbled some more on this model. Here is the current work in progress from where we left it off in Part 1 up to the present. 

As I stated I would do in Part 1, green stuff was applied to the most grievous of gaps left over after assembly. Then it was mounted to it's base. For some reason, it's left letgs peg kept trying to pop out of the hole. This resulted in it appearing a bit more elevated than intended. 

I hid this weird feature with grit and rocks. And when the miniature is fully painted I will hide it more with grass tufts and leaves. 

I had one of those rocks form a kind of a ledge that I hid a skull under. I dig weird little details like this, as they hint at a bigger story or event  which might have happened beforehand.

So I primed the miniatures and was pleased that my green stuff work seems to have been a success. Then I painted up the base.  I used Skeleton Horde on the hooves and horn. Then I.... realized that I needed to figure out the unicorn's color scheme before I could continue further.  

Check back in Part 3 to see what I do next with this miniature. 

Stormweaver on Unicon (Part 1)

I was excited when GW put up this old classic Marauder Miniatures era High Elf Mage on Unicorn for Made-to-Order last year. So much so that I bit the bullet and ordered it, thinking in regards to it's scarcity and value on the secondary market. Yes, I caved to FOMO.. This particular release was to coincide with the Higb Elves Arcane Journal and this particular fellow on the unicorn  being rebranded as a Stormweaver. 

 

Then it arrived half a year later, I was quite bummed by how sloppy this thing was actually produced. Mould lines everywhere, flash, bumps along the joins, and a leg that I had to bend back into place. It was the physical manifestation of nearly everything that could go wrong with metal casting. After a half a year of waiting, this was a disappointment. 

Flash, ah-ahhh

The flash and mold lines on the rider are going to require some time to work out. When it comes to connecting his two halves together I will definitely be drilling and pinning him for a stronger connection. 

It looks so simple too...

After a lot of scraping, filing, sanding, swearing, and leg bending, I was able to super glue this thing together. There is not joins to guide with connecting the two haves together, you got to just eye it and feel it. Once I got it together I used a rubberband  to apply some pressure to maximize the bond and help keep it together. I already know that the next step will be filling in the gaps with greenstuff, but I will cross that bridge when I get to it.

Wound up and bound up so tight

The unicorn from this kit was sold separately for many years. Here in the USA it sold at least through '98 in stand alone blisters. So I am curious to know if anyone reading this recalls getting this miniature back then and if they recall the clean-up being as extreme as what I am going through with this piece. 

From thw GW US 1997 Fantasy catalog.

Hopefully whenever I post part 2, I'll have made significant progress on this thing and not gone mad in the process of doing so.