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.

So, I got the miniature in the post and started work on Elric! I then realised that I really hate painting black and even working up from that undercoat. However, I am working hard to try and sort out the missteps along the way.

Here we have the model with the basecoats basically done…

I am happy with how the skin is coming out, the red cloak and the sword but of course all of this now needs to have a generous wash put over the top of it as well as a little more black in places to smooth out the quirky ‘highlighting’ that I’ve tried to do.

As it stands it is kinda working and I’m mostly happy with how it looks but this is always the worse stage for me where I think I’ve ruined it but have to bear in mind that there are still steps to do!

So, I’m going to be focusing on finishing this off as best I can and we’ll see about the final result!

Took some time over lunch today to finish up the shading and highlighting on the model. Still not convinced about painting black but that’s what happens when you choose to work on a Dark Fantasy anti-hero…

I need to do a bit of extra work around the sword blade on the right-hand side to make it more defined against his robes but otherwise, I think the wash and a little bit of extra work on the highlighting has produced a look I’m kinda happy with.

I also really liked the way the cloak came out. I do like a good cloak…

As with all miniatures at this stage, I think it’ll again look better once it has a proper base painted up underneath the figure.

I am thinking about going with a winter/tundra base with maybe a few blood-red flowers here and there. Of course, you then need a good pool of blood on the ground too.

Took some time yesterday and this morning to finish off and take a snap of the final look for Elric with the basing done.

I went with some flowers, snow and grass on the base to act as a little bit of a contrast to the model then threw a bit of blood into the mix to show that he’s been cutting down some fool who decided to stand in his way.

I’m sure that I could have done more with the model but for me, I think this has been a good reintroduction into actually painting/finishing a model!

A fun model to paint and one which certainly tested my patience when it came to painting black!