Elric Of Melnibone // Painting A Doomed Hero

Leading the way it seems apt to have a look at some of the artwork which got me interested in painting the doomed hero Elric. I was immediately taken by this particular piece which features on the front of many different books and is one of the iconic images of Elric…

This view of him as the White Wolf certainly gives you a pretty retro look at the character but I think I’m going to go with something a bit more dark and moody from the graphic novel which paints him in a very bloodthirsty way.

A lot of the darker interpretations of him come with him clad in black, spiked armour which would be looked upon by a Dark Elf with glee.

But again, inspired by the graphic novel, and looking around for miniatures with which to base the project on, I couldn’t find one that really appealed to me. This piece of much more classic looking artwork really did catch my eye though, shown off in the banner for this project as well.

Taking this as an idea I had a peek at one of my favourite miniature producers, the team at Lucid Eye. Here I found this miniature for The Red Elf which was posed in pretty much the perfect way…

The miniature has a lot of signifiers which would be great to draw from when painting up a version of Elric.

The cloak is going to be a deep crimson red to represent the blood that is needed to sustain his sword, Stormbringer, and also his own magic power.

On the subject of the sword, it should take nicely to having those runes painted in a nice brighter colour to give you an idea of its power.

Also, across the miniature, you’ll note a few extra accessories and such which look like they’d match nicely alongside the final piece of artwork I showed above.

Pale flesh, white pair and plenty more will be worked into the miniature (hopefully) and we’ll see how it all comes together!

You can see more from Lucid Eye and The Red Book Of The Elf King and learn more about Elric Of Melnibone too.