Tale of OG Gamers - High Elves

[cunningmatt]

Yes it did make a difference. There was more beats dead in the graveyard. (I'm not sure beats do bury their people) 

If Beastmen do bury their people the whole of The Black Isle is going to have be dug up and turned into a massive landfill/burial site - that's going to push up the Council Tax.

Absolutely beautiful Phoenix Guard, and not a subtle hint about house prices in sight!

Many thanks, much appreciated.

And whilst I have your attention, for those of you who think I just rant and moan without structure or form, I'd like to draw your attention to this amazing article by my good friend Charlie Brooker* who explains how to do it properly! http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/28/charlie-brooker-rebecca-black-friday

*When I say "good friend", we've only met once, but we got on well(ish), we'd probably be friends if we met more often.

[fatolaf]

Well said Charlie, great article...

[Veldemere]

Sadly Brooker writing that in the Guardian is about as relevant as Michaelangelo painting the ceiling of McDonalds gents in Croydon. He really is preaching to the converted, I would love to find a way to call people to book over their comments they felt they could deliver through the medium of internet anonymity, those 'web warriors' utterly lacking spine!!

I know it is slightly ironic that I post this in the guise of an assumed name and an avatar that shows nothing more than the Yorkshire rose, but I think most of you know where to kind me if you disagree with one of my posts!!

[fatolaf]

I know it is slightly ironic that I post this in the guise of an assumed name and an avatar that shows nothing more than the Yorkshire rose, but I think most of you know where to kind me if you disagree with one of my posts!!

Rolls sleeves up and sets off....

[cunningmatt]

He really is preaching to the converted.

It is true, but he does it with humour so I don't mind being reconverted!

Sadly Brooker writing that in the Guardian is about as relevant as Michaelangelo painting the ceiling of McDonalds gents in Croydon.

You've been to the McDonald's in Croydon, nice aren't they! Did you have the birthday with a tour round the kitchen like me?

[cunningmatt]

Wednesday 30th March - WEEK 13

I write this week's post from my death bed, yes I'm afraid I have the deadliest disease known to man (literally just man), not rubella, not dysentery, not even chicken pox but the virulent man flu. I'd say there's only at best a fifty-fifty chance I'll make it. So this could be my last post, I await your "With Deepest Sympathy" messages later.

Currently I'm surrounded by more tissues than a 13-year old boy who has just discovered the internet, with a headache that feels like someone has cracked me across the cranium with a well lubricated roller skate. However I have dosed up on all my medicine just in time to write this blog, medicine that I might add tastes like a cross between paint stripper and an emptied out elephant's colostomy bag, if anything's going to make you sick it's that.

Anyway before I leave this world and my remains are scattered on a custard pie and hurled at an innocent bystander (it's how all children's television professionals want to go) I best share with you the secret of banner painting* take it and pass it on, my legacy to the world:

*ok technically I revealed this secret about a year ago, but A) I'm ill and so am allowed a repeat, and B) I was less funny then!

These are the banners I painted in my epic finishing spree last week (yes March is already done people, in fact April's been started but more about that next week), in case you missed the breaking news in last week's Daly Tale bulletin, then not only did I paint my Phoenix Guard but I painted three banners, some movement trays, plus Malagor and Ghorros the Beastmen special characters. Incidentally if I have spent months painting some Special Characters, please don't tell me the rules for them are so rubbish that they're about as useful as a Snotling Assassin when you see me at the club. It's quite upsetting when a lot of effort has gone into them, besides who will be laughing in 14 years time when Warhammer Armies: Beastmen – 10th Edition comes out and they're as hard as nails, and I already have a nicely painted model? Ok, well we can all dream.

Anyway back to the point, here's last week's banners in case you missed them:


High Elf Archers


Beastmen Gor (note this banner is actually from the Bestigor set, but I've used some green stuff to fill in the holes and make the banner slightly longer – I hate having all my banners look identical, especially on the more "ragtag" armies).


Beastmen Bestigor

They may seem familiar, that's because they are copies of Games Workshop's own banners, (as featured on page 76 of the current High Elf book and 69 and 73 of the Beastmen book), and here's how I stole their intellectual property – I mean paid homage to their great work (in case their lawyers are reading!).

Firstly it is infinitely easier if you can save attaching your banner to the end so you can work on a flat surface. It is possible if attached, but I'd advise mounting the model in a large lump of white/blue/any colour-tac (no racism here) so the banner is as flat as possible. Then paint the banner your usual base colours (i.e. whatever "Stage 1" would be for the colours you've chosen), so for the High Elf Banner I have painted the banner 1:1 Astronomacian Grey : Skull White and the gold parts Tin Bitz.



Then photocopy yourself a picture of the banner you want to copy (unless you don't mind damaging the original picture), with the exception of group army shots or battlefield photos most Games Workshop photos are at approximately 1:1 scale, so you should have a good choice. But I would strongly recommend working at 1:1 scale (I've tried enlarging/shrinking images before and it went a bit wibbly!).

On the photocopy then draw a set of gridlines, breaking the image into 1cm by 1cm squares, it is helpful to make sure the centremost horizontal and centremost vertical line cross in the centre of the image. This may seem obvious but if you start your grid squares at the edge of the image rather than the centre it may not be the case, and you'll find it much easier for positioning the design in the centre of the banner. At the risk of sounding like a disenfranchised school master, a ruler really is essential for this.

Once that's done your original image should look like these examples:







Next you need to copy the same grid pattern to your banner, again start with the centre point, making sure it is central on the banner so that your image doesn't drift off the edge of the banner. I find it easiest to mark out dots for all the intersection points using a ruler and a colour of paint that will not feature on your finished banner (certainly different to the colour you choose to outline your banner design in):



Incidentally that property in Brick Lane, EC2 has now gone – thanks for your interest.

With that done you can then join the dots with straight lines, as best as any alcohol problem you may have will allow – generally banners are too lumpy to actually use a ruler on!



As you can see by making sure the central cross is in roughly the same place during your marking out, your banner design should end up centrally placed.

Next using your outline colour, often Chaos Black, but this will not be the case on dark banners, copy the image across square by square. It helps to concentrate on one square at a time, and start by noting the point each line crosses the gridlines, and then try and copy the shape – rather than trying to copy the shape, and then drag it to cross the gridlines at the right point (if that makes sense) as it will end up a mess!

After a few squares it will look like this:



Don't worry too much about errors, as you'll be repainting on both sides of the line, so feel to redraw the line if it goes a bit askew as I have done. Importantly although you are working square by square make sure your lines cross the gridlines, else your pattern will have holes in it when you remove the gridlines! The trickiest part will be any self-contained lines that do not cross any gridlines, there aren't any here, but if I'd been unlucky with the positioning of the gridlines I may have had an eye completely in one square. In this case try to pay attention to each line's closest approach to other lines as this will give you a reference to hopefully locate the line without giving your beast skull wonky eyes!

Once the whole image is copied across hopefully your banner will look at least as good as (hopefully even better than) these:







You'll notice there are rogue error lines here, don't worry they'll get tidied away. Once you are sure you are happy with your design (you really don't want to be redrawing gridlines) paint the design with the base colour of each section (painting out the gridlines, but leaving the outline showing), for example:







You'll notice for the unicorn on the High Elf banner, the main body of the unicorn is the same colour as the background of the banner.

Again check you're happy, then paint out the remaining gridlines using the base colour for your banner background:







And there you go, you've actually done the hardest part now. All you need to do is highlight the whole banner (including design) as you would for any other part of the model.





In the case of the Beastmen banners I've washed the red with Devlan Mud and lightened the Brown field with the next lighter Brown – Beastial Brown and Kommando Khaki respectively.

Once finished your banners will hopefully look something like this:







A couple of important points to remember when highlighting – firstly remember to do the back of the banner! Bare in mind, provided your battle is going well, you are likely to spend the majority of the game looking at the reverse sides of your banner – and your view is most important! There may not be a design on the back, but it is worth making sure the cloth is highlighted properly. Secondly your highlighting, both of the background cloth and design, should reflect the folds in the banner, so obviously parts of the banner folded away from you should be darker, and conversely those folding towards you should be lighter.

And hey presto you should have some lovely banners, which look a bit like Games Workshop's counterparts:







Then all you need to do is mount them on your standard banner and you should have a standard bearer that your opponents are envious off. In fact you don't have to copy Games Workshop banners, you can copy your own designs from paper to banner using exactly the same technique – such as I have done in this alternate banner for my archers:





Which one should I actually glue to the standard bearer? Hmmm!

It's actually a lot easier than it looks, I promise! Here are some other examples from my armies to get you inspired*:

*these may be familiar to those who read the last tutorial I did for this!

Another Beastmen Gor banner (well you can never have enough Gors):




This banner is taken from Warhammer Armies: Beastmen

A Beastmen Ungor banner:





Again this banner is from Warhammer Armies: Beastmen. This was a little trickier as I had cut a plastic banner to fit on an old metal banner bearer and as such had to glue/green stuff banner to model before painting.

Tiranoc Chariot:







This banner is from Warhammer Armies: High Elves (current edition), note because both sides of this banner need a design I simply placed the original photocopy next to a mirror to reverse it. This also a good opportunity for re-spiking your hair I've found, you may or may not find that as useful an opportunity as me.

Chaos Warriors:





This banner is taken from Warhammer Armies: Hordes of Chaos (6th edition) – the 6th edition books feature pages of line drawn banners, which are really simple to copy as your photocopy will appear that much clearer than a full colour banner.

Chaos Marauders:





Again taken from Warhammer Armies: Hordes of Chaos (6th edition), in this case there wasn't room for the full design, so to help I coloured over the parts of the design I wanted to copy on the original so as to avoid confusion.

Chaos Knights:







Again taken from Warhammer Armies: Hordes of Chaos (6th edition), highly curved banners can prove tricky. If the curve isn't too intense and the image you're drawing is an irregular shape, like a skull, or small images then copying the pattern as detailed above will probably look ok. If however the design contains lots of straight lines or geometric shapes you'll find that if they aren't distorted they will give away the fact the image isn't curved as well.

In the case of the Chaos Knights banner above, the best technique I've found is that when you draw the gridlines on the banner, keep the horizontal lines the same as normal, but draw the vertical ones so they are parallel with the way the vertical edge of the banner curves (obviously this swaps around if your banner is more curved in the horizontal plane). So you will have a distorted set of gridlines. Then as you copy your banner across from your straight set of gridlines, to your distorted ones, as long as you keep the intersections between the outline and the gridlines the same, the image will be curved in the same way as the banner.

Hope that proves helpful, and it can easily be applied to cloaks, shields, hulls of tanks or even tattooing the cat – though I can't say I approve of that.

If you do have a go, why not post your photos here? We can even look at them whilst listening to this music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om2HbDzZOWA&feature=related

I'm afraid that's me done for this week, sorry but man flu is about as painful as reading through this blog. Next week, provided I'm alive, we'll have movement tray making, the last update from The Black Isle and the most depressing question in the universe. Plus I hopefully will be able to announce some important news later this week, so keep your eyes peeled! Oh and don't forget it's Mothering Sunday on Sunday – you're mum won't have (is that the rush of hundreds* of readers hurrying to Moonpig.com I hear?).

* when I say hundreds I mean about three, but I love you all dearly!!

And before I go, I should say Happy Birthday to Lee for tomorrow, if the plague has lifted I will head along for the Arena of Death (I know I haven't declared myself in, or chosen a character, but I should imagine whatever I take won't trouble the eventual winner!), if the plague hasn't lifted I will be heading for just general Death. Many Happy Returns, and I'm not specifically singling out your birthday because mine is a week tomorrow and am hoping for many nice messages – honest. Though I have just noticed that according to the forum, you're only turning 24, twenty-four, twenty-f***king four (no I'm not angry with Kiefer Sutherland). That's depressing, I have things at the back of my fridge older than you. I was 24 ages ago, it was such a long time ago that people actually had money then, it was time when it was alright to hate Jade Goody, Kate Thornton was awkwardly trying to control the X Factor judges like a failing supply teacher, and Army Books cost less than their weight in gold. What happened to my twenties? Supposedly the best years of your life? Mine were s**t, who can I write to, I want to get a refund?

[fatolaf]

What happened to my twenties? Supposedly the best years of your life? Mine were s**t, who can I write to, I want to get a refund?

I can't even remember my twenties....

Hope you recover buddy, I only just made it myself (think I should set up a survivors group)...

[cunningmatt]

I can't even remember my twenties....

Surely that was because of the alcohol?

Hope you recover buddy, I only just made it myself (think I should set up a survivors group)...

Yeah, we can give councilling for others suffering the same trauma. Let's do it!

[fatolaf]

As the plague lifted enough to see you tonight for the Bday arena?

[cunningmatt]

As the plague lifted enough to see you tonight for the Bday arena?

I'm afraid not,  have a wicked time all!