High Elf on Griffen - Start to Finsih

OK, so here we have another one of my step by step guides. I hope they prove useful to someone at some point!

So this model is for Rachel. When picking this model I decided to try and find the most feminine and graceful model perfectly. Searching my Dwarven heart I realised the biggest sissies in the games workshop universe are clearly the Elves! I've never actually painted a monsterous creature nor a fantasy creature so this was a chance to do so. The choice of colours comes from there!

The Griffon - Having chosen to try and have a snow model, maybe a snow army one day if Rachel is ever interested or I fancy the painting challenge. I decided therefore to do light coloured model based upon the colourings of animals that live in the snow (got to love google).

I therefore chose to simply make this model a light grey, with grey white wings. The whole model was based coated white with the wings being painted a mid level grey. A thinned down black wash was painted over the entire model. Next began the dry brushing! I dry brushed directly up from the mid level to white.

Important notes here are the brushes and the paint. There is a large difference between dry brushing and over brushing. Over brushing is effectively a heavy dry brush. While you do remove some of paint (effectively making it less liquidy)The idea is to paint over the top, leaving the recesses empty. Where as dry brushing only picks the top ridges of anything. Given that, bushes play an important part due to the size. For example the mid greys were done with a large brush because there was so much of the wing that would be that colour higher. The less colour needed, white in the case, the smaller the brush needed.

The Rider Given that the Griffon was going to be so light I needed contrast! I had originally intended to the the Lord Silver because the "General" of the army would be a Lord on a dragon. But it would have looked bery boring. Therefore it became Gold! If you want the full details of gold please see the sanginor tutorial, but in essence it was brown undercoat first.

The Banners Base coated deep blue in the start, though it would not stay that colour....




The Griffon The details - beak, claws, paws, were base coated a blue/green to act as a contrast to the model.

The Rider Silver was added to the armour as I increasingly thought the gold would be over powering. I tried to pick out details rather than dominate so details on the helmet, the harness/saddle, some of the chainmail under armour.



The Rider
Gold - Gold was then aded to the brown, washed with brown and brought back up by the shining gold.
Silver - Washed with black, brought back up with boltgun metal, highlighted with mithryl silver.



The Base.
As this is a character model and a flyer to boot I needed to take advantage of the sculpt and give it life. As stated I thought this might be a goo snow army. I imagined the griffon sitting on the top of a mountain/rock and leaping down. that's what I tried to do.

I checked the height of the flying stand and decided I wanted to box the stand in - it removed it from the base to a large degree and would add additional strength to the model itself. The rocks were made with cork and built up around the flying stand to create a slope. This was dry brushed with blacks and dark greys. the snow was done by using the GW texture paint over the top of the cracks initially. This hid my work.

When this dried I painted white paint over this and added the snow flakes from GW. I'm happy with it!




sadly my photos seem to have gone missing at this point so forgive me for adding words to it:
Griffon - I blended the beak and the blue sections of the details. I did the underside up to a medium blue and the claws back to a higher one to help differeniate them too.
- I painted the eyes with the same blue as the cloth to help tie the two models together
- The top of the talons were blended using grey and whites, leaving a blue tinge to them to help them match the under sides more.
Gems They were all painted blue. This blue did not have any green tinge to it and added (hopefully) a deeper element to them. They were done with a blue/black mix, then regal blue, ultra marines blue, enchanted blue with a slight highlight of hawk turquoise. Added a blue wash to tie them together where I could safely get the brush in and then glazed them. Added the customary white dot too
Face Couldn't get too much brush here so I painted it lf flesh, washed it with skin wash, and then highlighted elf flesh.
The cloak This was coated with the light blue and washed with a blue wash. It was then brought up to the light blue again, ensuring I left the dark areas and doing what I could to ensure a smooth transition. With watered don paints I then kept adding white until I was fairly happy/ran out of room for more colours/ran out of patience!

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And here is the finished model