Mini Painting: Female Dark Elf

 In this direct sequel to my previous miniature painting article (Dark Elf Ranger) I mentioned a technique I wanted to try out that would hopefully make painting faces quicker and easier. I aimed to do just that with the Dark Elf Ranger’s counterpart, a Reaper-brand Nienna, Female Elf Ranger. I usually try to take a picture of the unaltered miniature before I start painting but it slipped my mind here and I’d already begun painting the face and inside of the hooded area with Reaper Pure Black, as well as the areas on her armor that I knew I was going to be dry brushing with silver later on. I also started painting the log she’s perching on with Reaper Harvest Brown. I tend to start with what I consider the lesser details if I still don’t entirely know what colors I’m going to use for the costumes.

And before we get any further, I’ll address the elephant in the room. Yes, her sword is bent and yes, I could have fixed it by following Reaper’s directions and dipping it in hot water and bending the sword back into place but I was too lazy and thought I’d just manhandle it back in place. I couldn’t. There, now just try to ignore her limp, floppy blade and proceed with the rest of the article.

I knew I wanted to paint the hair a light green (Reaper Naga Green mixed with a few drops of Dragon White) and use my previously established dark elf skin color. I’m glad that I started blogging my hobbies because I might not have otherwise remembered that it was two drops of Dragon Blue, one drop of Dragon White, and one drop of Mountain Stone. Anxious to see if the “drybrush skintone over a face painted entirely black” technique I stumbled on actually worked, I started there. And sure enough, it did and I was satisfied with the result and will probably keep using it going forward (anything to avoid trying to paint eyes). There’s just something really gratifying about seeing the mini’s facial features emerge from pitch blackness as I drybrush on the skin color. It almost makes me want to try using a flat black primer for a miniature or other crafting project that actually requires a spray primer (Reaper minis don’t recommend spray primers on their packaging so I don’t).

I used a mix of Reaper Leather Brown and Harvest Brown for the quiver, scabbard, and straps with reaper Blade Steel for all the metal bits on her armor, the quiver, and the ends of the bow strapped across her back. I continued with the Harvest Brown for the log on her base and for the ground, I think I used a mix of Naga Green and Leather Brown but it’s a bit hazy. This is one of those projects where I did a little bit at a time and set it aside for days, only recently finishing it up this week (and I believe I started it a week or two ago before I got too busy with work). So yeah, some details I might be a bit hazy on.

The boots and her clothes I never really had a clear idea on what I wanted to do for them, but I used a Mountain Stone gray on her outfit and a dark blue (Dragon Blue mixed with a drop of Pure Black) on her boots, but I would later brush those over with a different color after the wash. I decided I wanted to go with a dark purple for the cloak but since the Games Workshop/Citadel purples I ordered were still in the mail, I thought it might be fun to mix my own. I took the darkest shade of red I had (Citadel Blood for the Blood God) and mixed it with some Dragon Blue and Pure Black. It looked good on the palette, like the deep dark midnight purple I had in mind, but when I painted it on the miniature, it looked more maroon than anything else.

And I think because I used Blood for the Blood God, which is a “technical” paint meant largely for layering (I assume), the cloak maintained a kind of glossy, oily shininess that I wasn’t expecting and wasn’t entirely thrilled with. Much like the cranberry juice cloak, this was meant to be a quick project so I kinda just rolled with the punches. My whole rationale here is that I felt bad for not painting a new miniature in however many days and this was just me trying not to fall out of practice.

After applying the basecoat, I used Citadel Agrax Earthshade to wash the ground and Citadel Nuln Oil to apply a black wash over everything else. Nothing to really say except that I quite enjoyed how the washes pooled into the recesses in the terrain as well as in the details on the sword.

Sometime later, I eventually circled back to this miniature to finish it off with a bit of drybrushing, even though I’d forgotten the exact mixtures I used for the basecoats by then. I’d received some Citadel Naggaroth Night (the dark purple I’d wanted to mix myself) and dry brushed it over the blue boots until they were fully repainted. I also dry brushed it over the cloak as a kind of highlight, though I could barely see it. Still, Naggaroth Night is a keeper and I’ve been quite enamored with the color purple of late (I also ordered some Citadel Phoenician Purple, which is a lighter shade that I’ll also be interested in trying out), so I will definitely be using it again on a project in the very near future.

I mixed some greens and whites into some browns and yellows and drybrushed areas of the base and I went back over all the metallic pieces with Reaper Polished Silver to give them that extra shine.

Not much more to say on this one. I practices a new technique for painting faces and had some fun just kind of making stuff up as I go, so that’s a win in my book. And here she is, side-by-side with my other dark elf miniature. At this angle, her floppy bent sword almost looks like a giant kukri or some other curved blade if you squint hard enough. That’s my cope and I’m sticking to it.