This will probably become my high elf army painting blog - I know it's not Blood Bowl, but I'm sure there are members of the FUMBBL community that might have shared interests!

Where should I start?... hmmm... well, just recently I took the (perhaps slightly unhinged) decision to collect and paint a high elf army, despite never having played one game of Warhammer ever. Why?, you might justifiably ask. Well, I'm nearly 40, with a busy job, a young family, and a body that is telling me that it doesn't appreciate having to be made to play sport anymore. Anyway, I dabbled in W40K back when I was a young boy, and played a little back at University (although I tried to keep it quiet as I would never get a girlfriend otherwise!). I gathered together a rather strange mix of Dark Angels and Eldar but got a bit bored with them from a painting point of view.

What stuck in my mind from very early on as a kid on were two models: Prince Imrik, Dragon Lord and Eltharion on Stormwing. But I never bought them, and over the years it just nagged away at me.

Well 2014 comes along, and so did a New Year's resolution... along with a little bit of Christmas present cash.

I splashed out on a Imrik (£36) and Eltharion (£20.50) direct from Games Workshop as I couldn't get them cheaper on ebay. But then, the ebay spend kicked in... and I went a little mad...

Thanks to Ebay, I am now in the possession of:
1x High Elves Battalion (£46.99 all in) - containing 8x Silverhelms, 20x Spearmen, 20x Archers and 1x Tiranoc chariot.
1x Island of Blood High Elves miniatures set (£31.48 all in) - containing 10x Seaguard, 10x Swordmasters, 5x Reavers, 1x Mage and 1x Prince on Griffon.
10x Swordmasters - stuck & basecoated (£11.98 all in).
1x set containing 10x Seaguard, 5x Reavers and 1x Mage all basecoated but not stuck together (£17 all in).
1x Mage Lord Teclis (metal) (£6.50 all in).
That's £170.45 spent on a childhood whim. I must be mad. I did offset it a little bit by selling off some unpainted W40K models at least. I'm not buying anything else, despite the obvious units missing, such as Dragon Princes, White Lions, Phoenix Guard, Shadow Warriors/Sisters of Avalorn and Repeater Bolt Throwers. I'm sure, if I ever get to field these guys on the battle field, I will find I will need at least one of those units.

I now have a rather large collection of models to paint. I love the fact that the "new" High Elf models are all slightly different from each other in the rank and file, meaning that they look a bit more interesting, and more importantly, each one will feel a bit more like an individual to paint.
Allmodelspic

I have previously looked around for inspiration for a colour scheme, and I have to say there are some superb painters demonstrating their skills on the Ulthuan.net site. I will never get close to their skills, but, I am in no rush, and I think this project will really improve my skills. I particularly liked, and am in awe of Gwydion's High Elves. Bearing in mind the size of the task ahead of me, I thought creating a blog post would really help encourage me to make progress over the coming months (maybe years! :D ).

I took a look at various army colours, using Google's image search too, and also consulted colour wheels etc. In the end I decided to just go with what felt right. I love the plushness of purple robes, offset by orange trimming, on a background of grey armour pieces (with boltgun and mithril platelets). I love Gwydion's woodwork - not that I am ever going to get close to that lovely craftsmanship... I'll just have to accept my take on it (ie what my limited ability will produce).

I decided upon a plan to paint one of each of the troop types to see if I like the scheme. So far I've 'completed' a Lothern Seaguard model, and have started on an Ellyrian Reaver. I have to say I rather like it, as I personally think they compliment each other - but the "success" of paint schemes tend to be down to personal taste. Anyway, here's my first model - the Lothern Seaguard:

Seaguardpic1

Seaguardpic2

Seaguardpic3

Seaguardpic4

I have to say that the phone camera doesn't really do justice to the model... for example the shield and the robes seem to blend into one on the photo, but it looks better to the naked eye. The jewels need work though, and the robes could use a nice enriching purple wash. To be fair it was the first model I've painted in years. I didn't use a magnifying glass, and I prefer natural light which isn't very plentiful in winter time! Right, enough of the excuses.

I apologise now if there are lots of posts like this, but it's new to me, and I'm excited by the project - I would appreciate as many constructive comments as you feel able, but I am pretty thick skinned, so if you think I'm a plank or have made some bad choices there won't be much harm to me if you tell me. I'm not worried about playing the game just yet - I don't have any friends locally to me that play anyway, and I would probably have to go to a Games Workshop to find some non-kiddies to at least be shown what to do... and I'm not investing in ANY codexes or anything (at least for now). I do have an idea about the bases, but, I'm not going there until I have at least painted a few units first!

Next post will be about the Reaver... but I have to pace myself.