Sunday 24 May 2015

New Talent: A's first Elves

Introduction

My 12-year old son (I'll call him "A.") has expressed an interest in my model-making and gaming for some time now.  He was interested enough to find out that I had several sprues of Mantic elves lying about; these were things that I had picked up at occasional shows or in "lucky dip" bargain boxes.  Once A. had determined that I had no particular use for them, he asked if he might build and paint them.  I wasn't going to refuse and put him off the hobby, so I said that he could.  Some while later, here are the first results:

Elf bases for Hordes of the Things

1 base of Elf Shooters.
A. decided that he'd like the elves to be based in elements suitable for playing Hordes of the Things.  I helped him to choose the composition of these bases and showed him how to cut out the parts, glue them together, paint the figures and finish the bases.

I also suggested the colour schemes and painting techniques that would be suitable for a raw beginner.  However, I'd like to stress that I did no more that a small demonstration on maybe 1 figure and rescue a few of the bigger mistakes; the rest is entirely his own work.

A Hero base, with bodyguard, standard and pet!

3 Spear bases
I helped most with the decals, I think.  We searched for drawings of "firebird" or "phoenix" on the Internet and then I printed these out on decal paper.  I think we ended up with 4 distinct designs.  A. had a bit of trouble applying the decals despite my repeated demonstrations; I probably had to rescue about 1/2 of them.

Conclusion

All the elves together.  About 50% of the force necessary for a HotT army
These models are certainly not up to my own standard of painting.  Then again, I've been doing this for 40 years or more, so it shouldn't be any surprise.  While I know that the painting isn't as neat as it could have been with more practice, I am deeply impressed at what A. has achieved on his very first attempt at such models.

He's now wanting to build Tau for Warhammer 40K and more elves to round out this force.  Whilst I've got plenty more elf infantry sprues, I'd like to get him a wizard or 2, some cavalry and perhaps a few eagles; that sounds about right to me.  Hmm, I could be onto something here...

21 comments:

  1. They look pretty good to me, especially for a first attempt. Tell 'A' well done!

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    1. Thanks, Lee. I've showed this to my son and I think he's quite pleased with the responses!

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  2. They look pretty good to me

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    1. Thanks, David! I'm quite proud of my son :-) .

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  3. Excellent work! And being able to field a painted force from the get-go is a big plus!

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    1. Thanks, David. He'll need about twice this number of bases to make a HotT army, but it's a good start!

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  4. Without mucking about I wish I was that good at his age. A terrific start to the hobby. I hope we are treated sometime to a HOTT aar with them involved.

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    1. When I was learning, I had no-one to help me and so my first efforts were probably pretty awful! But I persevered...

      I think that A. has visions of taking on my new Barbarians in a HotT game. If either of us finish our respective armies :-) .

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  5. Blimey! Looking pretty good to me!

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    1. Thanks, Gordon. I've passed on all these comments and the lad is thrilled!

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  6. Your son is off to a good start. It is great to see such talent being nurtured.

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    1. Thanks, Bryan. My elder son painted a few things many years ago, but he never really caught the bug. All the signs are that number two is keen as mustard!

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  7. They look great! Well done A.

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    1. Thanks - I've passed this on and he's delighted!

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  8. Great start! Hopefully this is the start of a lifelong hobby. Every journey starts with the first step.

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    1. Thanks, Bob! it's up to A. to choose his own path of course, but if he's interested in this hobby then I hope I can provide a lot of support.

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  9. This is really great for a first! Heck...I know some gamers that are worse than this in painting their armies. A....You have done a good job!!!

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    1. Thanks very much. I think he's quite taken aback with all of these positive comments :-) !

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