This is my first post here..great LOTR community you guys have here

Ok, so with new members at the local wargames club keen to revisit Lord of The Rings SBG and with my Tolkien interest reinvigorated by The Hobbit movie, I have dragged out all the GW Galadhrim models sitting in the depths of my painting pile with a view to getting some on the table. They'll be used for pretty much whichever Elf faction I fancy playing at any given time...

Thing is, what colour scheme to use...

I didn't want a total carbon copy of the movie/GW scheme (and anyway, as a mainly Historical gamer I mostly use Foundry paints and Army Painter dip now, so I'd never get an exact match) so I have had a think about possible schemes and painted up 2 archer models to see which I like best. One has a movie-themed golden armour approach and the other goes with Tolkien's descriptions and silver mail, etc. Both have a grey-ish clothing and cloak vibe going on (the cloak is Foundry Night Sky light) as that is what I think of as 'Elf' colours really...

I do think my Army Painter and highlight technique works well enough. It takes me about half the time my full-on layering technique takes and these days it's more about getting stuff on the table than showing off mega painting!! My method is as follows:

White undercoat whole model
Undercoat mail armour black
Drybrush mail with relevant colours (usually 2 shades)
Tidy up undercoat if necessary after drybrushing!
Basecoat in flat, bright colours
Brush on Army Painter 'Strong Tone' - leave to dry for 24 hrs
Add highlights with original basecoat colours
Brush on Testors Dullcote to 'matte' everything down

The only difference this time was that the clothing got very fine highlights with a lighter shade to sharpen cloak folds, creases, etc and the armour on the silver guy got a final highlight AFTER Dullcoting, just to bring up some shine which I felt was lacking. I didn't feel the gold model needed it although I might add some now just to see if it adds anything. Also, the cloak decoration was added at the highlight stage, not at the basecoat stage.

So, what do you think? Silvery armour or Gold? I'm not sure...





So, if you have a preference, please do let me know. The silver model screams 'Tolkien Elf' to me but the combination of bluey grey and gold on the other chap is very nice, however the gold seems a bit overpowering of the other colours and it's the lightest I have (GW Burnished gold). Decisions, decisions...

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For more of my painting and gaming stuff, please visit my blog: http://guitarheroandy.blogspot.co.uk/

Thank you

THEY'RE SO GOOD!!!!!! I like the silver one best though.

Good Lord
The embroidery around the bottom of the cloaks is awesome, as in really in awe!
The silver colour way is very pleasing on the eye.
Wow

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"Naur an edraith ammen!", no thanks, we have central heating.

I think you should go for the silver as the gw elves are gold and this gives you an alternate scheme, which makes them stand out and it is satisfying to know that it's all your own work

Btw, I love your schemes, the use of black instead of brown and the detail on the cloaks are amazing and fairly adventurous decisions, which you pulled off perfectly

Well done

Welcome to the one ring

I joined recently and everyone is very nice here

However, you notice who you can rely on to answer a post quickly!

Thanks

Hope this helps with your decisions

I hope you have a good time here on the one ring

LordElrond

Very nice stuff, man, you should check out my large topic on elves..

viewtopic.php?f=30&t=16893

What I would do would be to have the infantry one color and the archers another color, to mix up the army,

I like the silver one best, I think if you went for gold though it would be better to use a more silvery gold instead and not such a rich color.

Silver all day long Looks really good and definitely your own. Agree with the above comments about the cloak detail too.

Look forward to seeing more!

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May I suggest a third option? The new color sceme in the Hobbit for High Elves is something I'm very keen on reproducing for myself. The silver looks nice, but maybe too monotone. I really like the fall, golden colors of the armoured wood elves

The gold lacks definition on the helmet, and it blends in a lot with the brown of the quiver. So for those reasons I say silver.

Welcome to the One Ring!

Of the two that you show, the silver is the best, in my opinion. However, that being said...

Two other ideas for you- one is to use the same color scheme as the gold, except shoot for more of a deep reddish-bronze instead of the gold. You could play with it and see what happens. The other idea is to do what RangeroftheNorth said up there.

Whichever way you choose- very, very nice paintjob, and welcome to the One Ring!

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"...in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”

Greetings, and welcome to the One Ring!

I love the fact that you've taken the time to add embroidery to what are simply test models! That said, I much prefer the silver to the gold scheme.

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Respectfully,
Jonathan

Do what is right, love mercy, and walk humbly

Battle Companies

Thanks for all the replies. Very helpful. I must admit that I prefer the silver one the more I look at them side by side.

Although they are only test models, I felt I needed to test out the embroidery (which is dead easy to do, btw - just paint in the two parallel border lines then the actual pattern is just random tiny swirls and criss-cross lines. Looks great and isn't actually too hard if you have a steady hand!)

The only change I think I would make to the silver one in retrospect is to black-line the parts where the armour meets the tunic to break up the monotone a little. It only needs the finest line to do that and it'd be easy to do at the basecoat stage, probably before I even apply the tunic and armour base colours.

With the gold one, I do wonder if an earthy terracotta cloak would have been better with maybe a madder red tunic (or vice versa) to give the autumnal look that the armour in the movie suggests... And maybe an additional highlight with a mix of the gold and GW Mithril silver post Dullcoting...Also, I agree about the new High Elf scheme from 'The Hobbit'. Those new knights look great, albeit very 'dark' compared to what Elves 'should' look like...Might be worth a test job for those schemes (the new one would be harder to do with Army painter wash as the scheme is so dark) , although if I do too many 'tests' I'll run out of actual models!!!!

Anyway, am taking a break for New Year so plenty of time for reflection over the next couple of days. Please feel free to keep the suggestions coming...

I'll post a new WIP thread once I have finally decided so you can see how the force progresses...

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For more of my painting and gaming stuff, please visit my blog: http://guitarheroandy.blogspot.co.uk/

Thank you

Honestly, I think you should paint their armour with a mixture of the silver and gold paint. I believe that would look the best. Worth a test at least, I should think.

And when I say a mixture I mean mixing the two pigments together to get a colour half way between the two.

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My old WIP thread - http://www.one-ring.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=16246&start=0

Lovely painting.

The silver version is definitely the strongest visually as it goes so well with the blue and the black.

Do you have any larger photos of your avatar pic? I guess it's your work. He looks just great in those rich, natural colours. Much nicer than the GW blue scheme. I've just painted one of these and wasn't happy with it so you've given me some ideas and I'd love to see a larger picture if you could.

Cheers,
Natarn.

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Painting again...

Really, really great work. You are really good at this... I long to see a WiP of yours. Looks like OR just gained another excellent painter

I prefer the silver colour scheme but both are very good

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'Though my memory's fading, I remember two things very clearly: I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior'
-John Newton

I too think the silver looks a bit more what I would expect from reading LotR, but the gold has been burned into our psyche for the last decade so for many it will look more 'right'. I really look forward to you doing a test model with the new Hobbit style color scheme if you do and putting all three up for us to admire.

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Wait ye the finish! The fight is not yours.
Beowulf

http://TacticsInMiniature.com

I do have a larger pic of my avatar and will post a pic when I am back on my main PC. I painted it in my full on multi layered technique several years ago but it took me days to paint so it's not a viable scheme for getting an army on the table. It didn't work so well with the Army Painter dip as the armour colour was impossible to replicate, hence totally rethinking and trying the ideas on this thread.

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For more of my painting and gaming stuff, please visit my blog: http://guitarheroandy.blogspot.co.uk/

Thank you

Both look great, but the silver one edges it.

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Here, as requested, is a pic of Glorfindel as per my avatar, plus a conversion I did to create a spearman from one of Haldir's archers, as I thought it might interest folk on here. They were painted years ago...The conversion is a bit clumsy as I used a Warhammer Wood Elf arm (I think) and cobbled the elf spear from a ridiculously cheap EBAY purchase of some metal LOTR High Elves.The colour scheme is lovely (IMHO) but each model took me about 8 hours to paint ( ) as they combine lots of layers plus some washes on the armour and the gold/bronze paints I used back then are no longer available, so it was never going to be a scheme I could replicate now, although the browns might have been a good base for the Army Painter Strong Tone wash (although you do have to watch it when using brown with that wash, as it's all too easy to go too dark with the basecoat and end up with a muddy mess...)





In terms of the main subject of this thread, I am going to use the silver colour scheme. Thank you to all who have responded for all the words of advice and for your kind comments about my painting . I am going to do a few further experiments, as I do fancy adding some pale gold to the 'elite' models (Galadhrim Guard models and maybe the new High Elf knights when they emerge in Feb). I will therefore try a mix of the Burnished Gold and the Mithril Silver unless I can find an alternative anywhere else that would give me, for want of a better word, a more 'silvery' gold...

I will, of course, keep you all fully updated as the force progresses... I'll also try to check out some of the other areas of the forum in more detail, as this looks a real good place to visit and contribute to!!

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For more of my painting and gaming stuff, please visit my blog: http://guitarheroandy.blogspot.co.uk/

Thank you

Hi there,

you really are an amazing painter! Technically, but also colourwise, I really love the way you choose and paint these natural colours on your minis. It ressembles very much, what I was imagining as I read the books the first time (before seeing the movies).