Demonic Advesaries and Allies

Dechala as a demonic summons and a Temple Dog

I picked up a few new recruits from a fellow Oldhammerer recently - the community is very active when it comes to buying, selling and, most importantly, trading miniatures. One man's surplus is another man's gold! These two miniatures, I felt, would be perfect as summoned entities to support the Dark Elves' cause.

Dechala (the denied one?)

OK, the model has a silly name straight out of the blister - not really a bad thing - and it isn't that old, sculpted some time in the early 2000's. It's not, however, the best sculpt in the world or so I used to think, and is a royal a pain to put together. So when I saw it come up for trade/sale I thought that a six armed snake woman sort of fits the old Dark Elf vibe quite well and would make a great demonic summons for the wizards to play around with (or will she play around with them?) On closer inspection its not as bad as I once thought, mostly being let down by a poor product paint job, I think. This seems to be a curse of the 90's to early 2000's models. I mean, look at it this way:

Image © Games Workshop.

Seems typical early 2000's to me - lots of black and lots of pale, whitish areas leaving everything in between rather flat and lifeless. Not a dreadful paint job but it doesn't make a terribly interesting mini... though at least they'd got over that obsessive, plastic looking "Red Phase"!

Anyway, after plenty of pins - head, three arm pieces and body/tail joint - she was finally ready for paint. I would seriously advise priming the arms and at least the underside of the hair, before assembly because they're impossible to reach afterwards; I prefer not to start painting properly before putting together a model because its a major pain in the arse (or 'ass' for American readers, though might I remind you an ass is a cross between donkey and horse not the sitting part of a person... I digress)

She's already got six arms...

Well, being rather indecisive I wasn't sure what to begin with. I'm also impatient and impulsive so, thinking about yellowish skin, dabbed some Tausept Ochre and Tallarn Flesh (GW paints) onto the palette. I had a little GW Goblin Green still wet on there as well and accidentally mixed it in. It made the perfect colour! I love it when a plan comes together - or not.

...so there's no need for legs, lets make her a snake!

To balance it out the hair has to be a rusty orange/red, that's simple colour harmony talking there. Mixing Scab Red and Bestial Brown does the trick. This goes onto the snake's rattle tail and that scale patch round her midriff as well, to balance out the mini. It may also find its way onto some of the armour too, but most likely as a wash or tint here and there. I'm still not settled on colours for the rest of the mini yet but I'll think more on that during the week and more than likely splash some random paints around, because its more fun that way. I've not used pink in a while, perhaps..?

Temple Dog

This model is made by Wargames Supply Dump, a small company with only a handful of 28mm's for sale. Its a nice model though, and the sculpting is pretty clean and the casting crisp. The one I got didn't have the rider which is fine, but he's quite bulky so there will need to be some modification of elf legs involved in mounting him - or her, there's no discernible genitalia to take reference from.

It didn't fit together all that well, with two body halves, one separate leg (its front right leg) and the head as separate parts. I pinned them all and back-filled a number of gaping holes, most notably on the underside of the body, the lower left side of the head and the front right shoulder. Still, they're not difficult fills to achieve, being mostly low detail, partially hidden areas. A little hair texture and some light smoothing over the rest of the joints finished the putty work nicely.

Bluey green, purplish orange... sorta weird perhaps!

I decided to go for a colour scheme that would reflect, but not be an exact match for, the rest of the Dark Elves. So I picked a mix of VMA (Vallejo Model Air) Intermediate Blue (dark grayish blue) and VMC Emerald, highlighted up through Emerald, GW Goblin Green and Goblin Green + White. This gives a more greenish turquoise than the pale, bluish colour of the Elves' armour, though the glossiness of the paint has killed the colour balance of the photos a little. 

The mane is a GW Liche Purple based Scab Red with orange-yellow highlights. Similar, but again not an exact match, using a warmer, richer palette than the Elves. I think its beginning to stand out quite nicely as a mini, which it should be as a mount summoned only for a powerful general or wizard.