Vanguard of the White Tower - High Elf Host

Yeh the banner is really good. Like the champion hero too - bet he gets a sneaky magic item....

Brave man painting all that white....

Progress on the Sea Guard...

My main thoughts on these is that despite them looking amazing on the GW site, the casting is not very good on mine! there are lots of areas where the detail just seems to disappear and become smooth. At first I thought it might be the undercoat was too thick, I brought a lot of them off ebay, but compared to my own the detail crispness is about the same. They are very odd, like half the mould needed to be replaced - so for example, most of the spears have crisp fine detail on one side and poor detail on the other
All in all to make a really good job of these you would have to paint in the joint lines to make them feel more crisp, this is my attempt and I'm not overly happy with them. The most frustrating part is that I'm disappointed with them and they are taking about twice as long to paint as the White Lions...

I'll pop up fully finished pics with bases tonight, hopefully

Rare to have bad casting on GW stuff - not since the days of Boss-eyed Scarloc....


The pics aren't loading again BTW - that Image shack is poop. Photobucket FTW!

Patience my young Padawan, just leave the page open a few minutes if its playing up/connection is going slow

They look really nice. Cant believe how quick you paint stuff when you get going!

These will be anything but quick....

First 5 done, you can just see the start of the command rank...

They look great!

Small update, command rank for the Sea Guard complete and I'll probably look at my BSB before finishing off the remainder of them...





For the BSB I'm using this old White Lions champion, his size has held up well over the years and of course the pose is ideal. I expect him to be spending a lot of time in a White Lions unit, so being themed that way is a bonus

The standard I am thinking of using is from the White Lion chariot, its a bit different to a traditional T shaped banner. If you look at the closeup you should just be able to see that his spear has a cloth tied around it, I'm planning on cutting it off just above there and drilling a hole through that thicker section to form a socket for the standard (ordered an archimedes drill thing from ebay http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/390672043675)
I've not decided on a top to the banner yet, I have some White Lion banner tops but they are a little small so I had been looking at one of the Dragon Prince banner tops, maybe this: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/High-Elf-Dragon-Prince-Standard-Icon-A-/271275509690?pt=UK_Toys_Wargames_RL&hash=item3f2947c7ba

They look really good, really really good tbh!

Lightened the dress a little and popped her on a simple base... hopefully my drill thing arrives today and I can get started on the bsb

Looks good, makes her stand out a bit.

Is that a wood elf floating about in the background too??

Yeah I was rummaging around fox's box (oo er) and spotted it, bloody great figure and I was planning on doing something similar for my Everqueen but her dress is a bit static and I couldn't figure out a way of doing a decent job. That and I've got bloody hundreds of figures to get through so I can't afford too much messing about time!

Drill still hasn't arrived so didn't get onto my BSB last night, annoyingly

Drill arrived! You can see it in some of the pics, its actually a bit awkward to use although if you had a vice I imagine it would be excellent.

Cut off the spear top and drilled a hole through the thicker cloth that is tied around the staff. This should give me a decent socket with some strength



This is the White Lion Chariot banner, I've taken a few pics from different angles so you can get an idea





I'm not 100% convinced so I quickly looked at a regular banner - but I would need to make an actual flag for this one. Any thoughts/preferences?

Depends on how the banner looks that you make. Not convinced by the first one either though tbh, not quite sure why. Too static looking maybe?

Ok, I cut off the big blade thing at the back of the tall banner and added a quick banner top in addition to cutting it closer to his hand. Better, still not convinced



For the more traditional banner I found a moulded flag that fits, this option probably looks better....

The eagle type top looks a lot better I think.

I want to like the banner that is a bit different, but I can't decide if I don't like it because its different or because its just naff.... I may end up painting both at this rate, no need to glue it in place for a while

The front of the eagle looks great but the back looks a bit like they've not bothered to sculpt it!


I spose go with the animal that best suits the army?

Bit late but I do like the sashimono style banner. It looks more sophisticated. The other one looks a bit rustic or barbarianesque (new word!). Might suit White Lions though.

Only problem with the sashimono is that you can't see any of it from the front of the unit.

I agree with Gilly (what is the world coming to!), I think the sashimono banner looks best. I like the idea of it being a BSB, so it's visible from the sides, where your other units will be able to clearly distinguish it.

Foxy wrote:

I agree with Gilly (what is the world coming to!)

Frosty in Hell at the moment, I hear.

Bah, was catching up with Dans update and realised I hadn't updated mine!

BSB (virtually) complete




Not decided on how to do the flag just yet - most likely some kind of stick on. Overall not quite as impressive as I had hoped although not bad for such an old figure I guess. I thought he ranked up pretty well tho

Bloody lovely.

The paint job is characteristically great, but I think the work on the bases really sets them off - a sort of drab and low key contrast to the uniform.

Aye, they look really good.

BSB looks right at home too.

Did you shade the white of the standard or is that just natural shadow?