One day our illustrious chair.... er... Editor decided he wanted Christmas-themed minis. And so there were Christmas elves.
But not just any Christmas elves!
These were the Bad Elves from Amazon Miniatures' Santa Claws Gang.
The minis were kind of roughly sculpted when compared to, say, a Freebooter miniature. But with a lot of character.
Very little flashing to deal with.
Itty bitty bases that I immediately glued onto other, larger bases. I used Greenstuff to further secure them, and to give me something to put the snow on.
Laying in the Colors......
I used all Reaper Master Series paints.
The reds (I know....uninspired Christmassy color choice) are done with the Blood Triad, and just a touch of Bright Coral on the highlights.
The greens (all right - shut up about the color choice!) are the Cool Greens Triad.
For the white areas, I used Sapphire Blue with a drybrush of Pure White. Then I picked out a few more details with the same white.
For the black areas, I used black (surprise!) with a mix of Stormy Grey and Cloudy Grey highlights. (I really suggest you do that wet-into-wet, by the way.)
Here's a close up of the reds, greens and white:
On to the skin tones...
I used the Medium and Fair Skin Triads, as well as a little Dark Highlight. AKA pretty much all of them! I even used Rosy Shadow for the dudes' lips.
About the Dark Highlight paint... It dries glossy. Since I eventually matte-seal all my minis, it's not a problem for me, but could well be a pain for others.
Metallics and Faces.....
I noticed they all had the same hair so - after clearing it with Editor in Chief Bill - I painted it as tinsel. Or, at least tried to. This is where the rough quality of the sculpts caused me some trouble. Black, Blackened Steel and True Silver for that.
The gold details were Scorched Metal and Antique Gold.
The eye colors, eyeshadow and lipstick are all taken from the outfit colors.
At this point, I forgot to take any more pictures!
The weapons were finished using the same metallics.
The candy cane acquired stripes that don't line up. I almost painted that as a crowbar!
The base was painted (wet-into-wet) Pure White and Sapphire Blue. Hudson and Allen Snow over that, and just a little more Pure White after that dried.
And I think that's it!
The Illustrious Editor promises to take some pics of the finished minis...