Druchii.net

Its not actually a warhammer army. Melniboné (also known as the Dragon Isle) refers to a fantasy land created by author Michael Moorcock upon whos work Games Workshop has leaned heavily in the creation of their Elven Kingdoms. (GW in fact had a line of Melnibonéan miniatures a long time ago).
The main protagonist of the stories Elrik of Melniboné is a tormented soul, railing against his enforced allegiance to chaos and his soul drinking black sword stormbringer. It is a story of epic proportion, written in a classic style, it is a story of heroism, love and ultimately tragedy as Elrik is forced to destroy everything he loves and holds dear in his efforts to thwart the will of his Chaos patron Arioch. - I dont want to give away too much of the story, but I can really recommend you read the 1st book, it is firmly routed in the high fantasy genre - if you like that sort of thing.

I did a quick search, looks like its free here:
http://www.epubbud.com/book.php?g=8FKYZLM9

Menibonéans are essentially an ancient elven race with both the characteristics of High Elves and Dark Elves. wikkipedia says it all better than I could:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melnibon%C3%A9

You have a nice, soft painting style. Keep up

Kalisthenes: Thanks for clearing it up for me. The story sounds very nice, if I run out of books to read, I will try it. eReaders are great things, aren't they?

Pahvivalmiste: Thanks very much for the compliments.

I have decided to take a break from the warriors and paint something else while I gather energy to finish the unit. This game me a great opportunity to explore the second, yet unseen part of the army.

While those following the solar way are trying to remain as High elf as possible, the second, lunar part of the army are those who have decided to embrace everything that made Ulthuan reject them. Their culture is rather fatalistic, leading to them not wearing armour (If they are fated to die in this battle, armour wouldn't save them anyway) and dedicated to life. If that makes them wild and barbaric... very well, so they would be, rather than being like those hypocritical traitors back in Ulthuan.
Full history will hopefully follow.

Anyway, the models. What can embody the lunar side better than Witch elves?



The models I'll be using are Blood Vestals by Raging Heroes, my favourite company, and they are just lovely. Their only drawback, apart from the fact I will never be able to do these great sculpts justice, is that they're metal. And I hate metal models with passion, the paint never seems to stay on them and... anyway, the Vestals are worth it.

Some more shots of the first Witch elf, for better view of the colour scheme:



The greatest problem when painting her was where to put some blue, to match the rest of the army-to-be. In the end I have decided to go with subtle blue highlighting on her hair and even more subtle blue glint on her swords and hope it's enough.

Her base was a compromise between the army theme of blueish marble and the wild nature of the lunars, who probably wouldn't spend too much time repairing their cities - cracked marble with some ivy on it. I had originally planned to use grass, but ivy doesn't have to grow only in cracks. And given that I had some Army Painter's Poison Ivy at home...



(and sorry for the crapy pics, I'll try to get some better ones when we finaly get decent weather )

How awesome is that! A very beautiful model painted by the best! And yes, you have to give us moar pictures.
I wonder when I'll manage to buy them too. That's a unit I will be very happy to paint massively.

Great looking army so far. I really like those bases and can't wait to see more.

If you have problems with paint sticking to metal miniatures:
Wash the miniatures in warm water with a little bit of soap before painting. The solution used to remove them from the molds is rather greasy and prevents the paint from sticking to the model. The same sometimes applies to plastic miniatures (but less often)
Make sure the miniatures is undercoated properly. Spray paint will stick much better as an undercoat.
And of course to avoid chips later on, make sure to coat the painted miniature in matte varnish.

Thanks very much for the compliments and yes, more is coming.

Dalamar: thank you for the advice, I'll definitely try the soap. The undercoat (even though not apray paint, I may try it, so far I use the Imperial primer in a pot, maybe that would help as well) and matte varnish I already do.

Best thing about spray undercoat is... it takes mere seconds to undercoat an entire unit. I used to undercoat by hand and by 5th model all my will to paint was drained away.

Yep, ditto what Dalamar said.

Spray undercoat changed my world.

Lovely stuff all round. Really like the conversions, and the fluff. The blood vestal sculpt is fantastic sculpt (although I'm not quite sure about the eye brows...). Well painted, although I will enquire about the use of washes? I myself am I fiend for them, and find they really help give depth and definition....

I'll throw another vote in for spray varnish (at least when it ain't snowing outside!). I have just started using Vallejo sprays and really like them (although specific brand comparison is the subject of many many internet trolls so I'll leave it there).

Look forward to seeing Moar!

As promised, I'm bringing you moar pics. I'm sorry for the time it took me, I'm in the process of finishing my thesis, so I don't have as much time for painting as I'd like.
This is what my Vestal group looks right now:



Individual photos of each of the new girls are on my blog for now.

And colour scheme comparison between the spearelves, Vestals and my avatar girl:



I think they fit together quite well, despite there being almost no blue on the Vestal. The blue highlights work better than I expected to tie the minis together and when I have more lunar units, it should work even better. Hopefully.

I have also tried to make a magnetic movement tray for my warriors,



It's made from metal sheet with balsa wood borders, painted to look good even with some of the models removed. When testing it, I have however found out it was too strong and that I would sooner tear off the figures from their bases than remove the mgnetised bases from the movement tray.
So back to idea stage...

These are definitely worth waiting for.

Sounds like you need a slight air gap between the magnets and the tray. If they are that strong in direct contact, a near miss should still provide plenty of attraction for most purposes.

Lovely work on the vestals - I have a group waiting to be painted but don't have the heart to give it a crack yet! How did you find attaching them to their bases? Did you pin their feet??

As for the colour scheme, I think that the subtle blue shades/glazes on the vestals really helps to tie them in with the other lunar models, they really do look cohesive! Nice work, can't wait to see more!!

I'm jealous... can't say anything else.

Thanks for all your kind words, I'm really glad you like them.

Vulcan: Thanks for the tip. I'm thinking about that, but I would have to buy new magnets for that, the ones I have have the same height as the bases. Or I could put something (a sheet of paper?) between the metal and the bases, but that would mean I'd have to repaint the whole thing... decisions, decisions.

Ilmaestro: I used slotted bases, beceause I wouldn't dare pin something this tiny. For some of them, however, the metal piece between their legs is longer than the space in the bases, so you should watch out for that.
And don't worry, these are really models that paint themselves, they are so smooth and all the details are very clear.

Marchosias: The Vestals are very glad they meet the approval of their general. I'm working on their remaining sisters now.

I have received another box of lovely Raging Heroes miniatures and started playing with them. This is what our harpies will look like:





What do you think? Are the wings too big? I'm still a little bit unsure about it, but I haven't been able to find better ones (I want them to be feathery rather than batlike)

Also, the models (The Preying Mantis) are just lovely and very detailed, but I have had troubles glueing the resin pieces together, despite the ball and joint system.

I like them. I struggled for a bit with the feathers, but with a dark paint job, they'll look amazing. Much better than the ones I have/use. Looking forward to seeing them painted.

Wings are lively but very big indeed.
The trouble will be when grouping several harpies within a single unit.

Calisson wrote:Wings are lively but very big indeed.
The trouble will be when grouping several harpies within a single unit.

That's one thing I'm afraid of. I'm going to put them in different heights, but I'm not sure if it will be enough.
I haven't been able to find smaller ones, though. Any ideas, anyone?

Most people are using the 40K nid gargoyle wings which don't look too bad, especially painted like bat wings. I say go with the feathers but use different heights(base & peg) for each of them. Just google image search for what I mean:
http://www.cultofkhaine.com/2010/09/dark-elf-harpies-conversion.html
http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/showthread.php?p=989944 closer to the bottom.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/388350.page
Obviously these are modeled with modeling in mind, but if you're modeling to advantage for tourney play, you may be better off working with the nid wings:
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?prodId=prod350002a&_requestid=356385

Great idea with the harpies. Hopefully the 'mantis figures are strong enough for the conversion. Which glue did you try using with them? I'd imagine a decent branded superglue would do the trick.

+1 for the creative basing idea to fit the unit together.

Thanks. I used normal superglue, but I also pinned the wings and the arm. I hope it will be ok.
And yes, creative basing is planned.

Rowena wrote:Kalisthenes: I would like to ask, what is a Melnibinean army? I'm afraid I'm still very new to the Warhammer universe, especially as this army is something very different, and I'm certainly interested.

Elric of Melibone and the Melibonians are from an Author called Micheal Morcock. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elric_of_Melnibon%C3%A9

I used to read them in the 70s.

As for the harpies, they are perfect. People will make allowances for such nice models when you try to play with them. Just have some bases flocked the same as your harpies to replace the ones that won't fit when they are close together. Most of the time they will be spaced out and they will be fine the way they are.

As far as attachments go the only fix is pinning. This is a really clear tutorial on how pinning works. http://theleadheadblog.blogspot.com.au/ ... odels.html You can get more specific advice from here or via google. I can say it does work and is quite easy when you get used to it.