I have a lot of Heroquest Elves to get painted. I got the Mage in the Mirror and the Rise of the Dread Moon supplement and Elves were the primary baddies from those boxes. I got most of the other stuff from Mage in the Mirror done, but left off the elves since I saw the Rise of the Dread Moon had so many. If I did not paint them all at once, I had a feeling they would end up looking very different and not match each other that well. Now was the time to get it done.
First thing I did, was I reviewed how I painted my Elf heroes. There were a few conventions I wanted to carry-over across all the elf minis. Of course, I was going to use Elf Flesh from my Armypainter set as the basic flesh tone, I mean it is in the name right!?! The main convention was that I did not use Metallic colors for their "metal" work, instead I used Pallid Bone to give them a goldish look to their gear. This would make them distinctive from the other "Minions" that I painted. Hair colors I had used actual Daemonic Yellow, Sand Golem, and Graveyard Grey so nothing too crazy there. I decided that elves would NOT have any red-heads. That was for the Fae Druids and Dwarves. With those guidelines in place, it was time to get to work.
The first step, was to go ahead and undercoat them all with Grey Seer, then the traditional cheap acyrilic dark grey wash, followed by the white drybrushing. I also went ahead and painted up all the Elven Flesh in one big batch. They were now ready to get painted. You have all seen that a hundred times, so I didn't even bother with a picture!
My eye was immediately drawn to the Elf Mercenaries from Rise of the Dread Moon. These guys were not supposed to look like the "Minion" elves, so I decided to start on them first. I was not ready to start batching yet. They are four individual models, a guy with dual hand-axes (Striker), a guy with a pole-arm (Halberdier), a crossbow pistolier (Arbelist), and a crouching guy with a cloak (scout). It was clear to me that although they were individual sculpts they should all look like they were on the same team. Therefore, I decided to give them a unifying color-scheme.
I decided that their under clothing would be Orc Green, and their cloaks would be Magic Blue. I also applied the usual conventions for all elves of Pallid Bone armor and metals. No Red-heads. That made painting this little group up much easier and I ended up batch painting them as a group. Once the base coats were dry, I hit them with a light tone wash and then based them like all my Heroquest with Runic Grey and a Black rim.
I have not read the quest in Rise of the Dread Moon but I can not help but think these guys are a band of Elf heroes. They could be taking on the dungeon that our Heroes took on early, but they were somehow seperated by Zargon's trickery. The Heroes help them to become re-united and they come to their aid to defeat Zargon and their designs on the Elven Kingdom. It is always dangerous to build too much head canon before you read the actual quest!
From there, I moved onto the other Elves. I had a lot of sword and boards and archers. However, in order to feel like I was accomplishing stuff, I grabbed the Magus Guard and Assassins next to paint. I also had the Elf Sorceress Queen to paint, but I decided to hold off on her until the end as a little treat. I took a close look at the Elven Magus Guard and picked them up and put them down several times before I started working on them. I wanted something almost crystalline look to their armor but was not sure I could pull it off.
So instead, as I messed around thinking about the Magus Guard, I picked up the assassins and went to work. These guys would be much more straight forward! Any metal was going to be Pallid Bone and it looked like they just had some knee pads, some gauntlets, a breast plate, some shoulder pads, and their cool knife chain thing. I decided to make their under clothing dark purple and their boots Graveyard Grey I wanted them dark but not black. For their cloaks I gave one a Camo Cloak Green and the other a Highlord Blue. For hair it was Zealot Yellow and Grim Black. Then, it was the usual bases.
I think they look suitably tough and scary. They are pretty visually distinctive from the Mercs as well. That left me going back to the Magus Guard.... again. In my regular Armypainter Paints I pulled out Voidshield Blue, which is a relatively light baby blue. Then, I watered it down and base coated their armor with it using "two, thin coats". I hear that is all the rage. Then, I went back and dry brushed it all with cheap acrylic white again, and I was pretty happy with how that turned out. From there I added a bit of detail with some Runic Grey and Hardened Leather. After that, I gave one a Blood Red plume and another the Alchemy Purple plume to give them some differentiation. Finally, I went back and used Fire Giant Orange on their cloaks and the Phoenix on their shields. Finally, I gave the armor a watered down Blue tone each, and the rest a light tone wash. Then, the bases as usual.....
Okay, time was running out for this weeks effort but I had one last model I wanted to finish. I had the BBEG from Mage in the Mirror to finish. I wanted her to fit in with the Magus Guard, so used the same trick I did on their armor for her robe. I also enjoyed using Alchemy Purple on the runes on her color and then painted over it with Zealot Yellow once it had dried. That gave them an inset rune look. I used Sand Golem on the wolf staff, and Pallid Bone on the other one. Finally, the final touch was the Plasmatic Bolt hair. I then gave her a light tone wash on everything except her robes. Base was as normal, but her dress covered most of the base, which was cool!
Not a bad start on the painting front for 2026! I still have a lot of Heroquest Elves, but those are going to be more of a batch painting process. I have something like 8 or so Sword Elves and 6 or so Archers. Still plenty more elves to finish, and I have more miniatures than that waiting for me. I have the Rise of Dread Moon furniture, and I still need to decided what I am going to do with the translucent miniatures for Heroquest from Spirit Queen's Torment and Prophecy of Telor.
Anyway, here is all the stuff I painted this week....
Through the plastic, the paint, and the process! Until next time!
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