Time for another update to the ranks of the Daughters of Khaine. This time I wanted to give the warband some air superiority in the form of two airborne predators – the Khinerai. These daemonically tainted, winged elves are the spiritual successors of the old Dark Elf Harpies of the WHFB era, which for my money were amongst the very worst models Games Workshop ever produced. Shall we take a moment to look back at the ugly models of yesteryear?
Ghastly weren’t they? Between the lumpen sculpts and the hairy chests there wasn’t much to love about these and I spent a sizeable chunk of my youth hoping that someday GW would get around to replacing them. Thankfully that day came at last with the arrival of the Daughters of Khaine army book and the accompanying Khinerai Harpies. These come in two varieties, the Heartrenders and the Lifetakers, so naturally I painted one of each.
The Heartrender swoops over the battlefield impaling her prey on cruel javelins…
…whilst the Lifetaker plunges out of the sky to hack her victims apart in close combat.
I can’t honestly pretend that I enjoyed painting these that much. The way they attach to the base via the tail alone means they tend to spring around, a little shiver passing through the model every time the brush touches it. Taking a firm grip of the miniature itself rather than just holding it by the base is vital but tends to lead to me planting my great big thumbs in the middle of something I’d just painted, or smearing and smudging paint everywhere. My bad habit of using the side of my hand as a pallet worked against me here as well. They’re also packed with details, which usually I’d enjoy but in this case only made things trickier, especially when working in the awkward spaces created by the splayed wings and arms. My impression is of a set of miniatures designed by someone so excited by the possibilities created by working in lightweight modern plastic that they forgot about what it would actually be like to paint them. In the end I’m happy enough with the results but mostly just pleased to call the damn things done.
We’re now halfway through Fembruary and I’m still having a lot of fun powering through my backlog of unfinished female miniatures. To be honest I’ve no idea how much longer I can keep up painting at this rate but I’ve got a lot more models that deserve to be painted so I’ll see what else I can manage over the coming fortnight.
February 12th, 2021 at 9:30 am
Those look really nice! 🙂 I can understand what you mean about them feeling a little delicate with the tail attached to the base, but it does look much better than having a clear-flight-stand-sort-of-affair holding things aloft!
February 12th, 2021 at 9:38 am
Thank you! I think I’ve been looking at them and grinding my teeth for so long I can’t tell any more if I’m happy with them now or not. You know how it goes. 🙂 Aye, I’m in full agreement re the clear plastic flight stands those always look rubbish in my view.
February 12th, 2021 at 10:01 am
I think you should be happy with them! 🙂 I should let you know that your blog is one where I don’t see any “like” buttons against the comments (some other blogs are like that as well for some reason) so I can’t like any replies but I do always read them!
February 12th, 2021 at 10:16 am
That’s odd, it appears just below the comment for me, next to the button for reply. I’m afraid I’m not enough of a computer wizz to explain why it’s appearing for me and not for you but don’t worry about it – I’d far rather be liked that get a “like”. 🙂
February 12th, 2021 at 7:26 pm
Well mate you are powering through Fembruary that’s for sure. Can see why these would have been tricky to paint but you’ve overcome the difficulties and produced some superb results. Compared to the MK1 figures these are far superior. 🙂
February 12th, 2021 at 10:52 pm
Cheers! It’s the weather that’s fuelling my productivity, I work in the outdoors in a lot of remote areas and right now they’re all covered in a couple of feet of snow. Woe is me – I have to stay in the warm painting 😀 That said when it thaws I’m going to be flat out so it’ll balance out but right now I might as well enjoy it!
February 12th, 2021 at 10:21 pm
You’re cranking through these quite effectively. And you should be happy with these, your color scheme is quite interesting to look at.
February 12th, 2021 at 10:56 pm
Thanks! I’m pleased with this colour scheme myself, just need to get a couple more of them painted and then I can get the whole warband together.
February 12th, 2021 at 11:09 pm
Nice figures- a big improvement over the earlier versions. Top job on the paint job too.
Cheers,
Pete.
February 13th, 2021 at 4:24 pm
Cheers! Aye, those early versions were pretty rough weren’t they!
February 13th, 2021 at 8:59 am
Nice work on these! Huge improvement on the originals, I know what you mean regarding the design though. You see a lot of this kind of stuff in 3d printable minis, i.e. very little consideration given to the practicalities of the physical piece, as in the digital format anything is possible. You get the occasional model only connecting to the base, and I kid you not, by the tips of the model’s toes, maybe a square millimetre.
February 14th, 2021 at 9:39 am
Cheers! Yeah, I can imagine that with 3d printed stuff. I think back to the days of lead and how small and static some of the models had to be just to hold together under their own weight – I can imagine how freeing it must seem for designers but a second opinion from someone who might be going to paint the things wouldn’t go amiss! I actually assembled a model with a tiny little join like that the other day, spent a lot of effort making sure that I fixed it properly and then remembered too late that I needed to glue something else in place first. Now there’s no way I can get the two parts to separate without breaking the model. Doh! Ah well, necessity is the mother of conversions and all that..!
February 13th, 2021 at 10:25 am
🤣 They are little fuckers to paint aren’t they!! I’m glad it isn’t just me that found these a pain, but heck of a job dude, they look fab 👍👍
February 14th, 2021 at 9:48 am
I’m glad to hear you say that mate, part of me was worried you were going to say “Don’t you know it’s really easy to paint them if you just…”. 😀 Got another three to do at some point but they won’t be in this warband so I can kick that can way, waaay down the road. Maybe by next Fembruary I’ll have forgotten what a nightmare they were…
February 14th, 2021 at 11:17 am
😂
February 13th, 2021 at 11:57 am
You’re on absolute fire this year for the Fembruary challenge mate! Despite the troubles you had you’ve done another top notch job. I’ve also got to say how much I thoroughly enjoy the way you string your words and sentences together. Your posts are always such a joy to read my friend.
February 14th, 2021 at 9:55 am
Thank you very much mate, on both the models and the writing. I try to make it a rule of thumb that anything I write should be engaging for both a regular reader and someone completely new, I know there’s lots of people out there who look at the blog and then never comment, and I try to make sure that everything I put out is as interesting as possible. Sometimes I know I don’t get it right, and sometimes it’s hard to find something to say and very tempting to just write “Look, I painted a thing, here’s a photo, what more do you people want” but I try. 🙂
February 14th, 2021 at 12:14 pm
Haha 👌🏼👍🏼🤘🏼
February 13th, 2021 at 6:05 pm
Kudos to you for powering through what sounds like an annoying miniature to paint! I haven’t painted a mini like this but GW has been making more and more where they look amazing but the tiny contact point on the base makes me wonder how fragile they will be.
I had forgotten about those harpies but then again, I’ve never been as into Dark Elves as I am Eldar, Dark Eldar, High Elves and Wood Elves. Until I typed that out, I didn’t realize just how many “elven” armies GW used to support! Regardless of that, I love how these turned out. The wings look great and fit the grim nature of these ladies, in particular. Keep the hobby progress coming, mate 🙂
February 14th, 2021 at 10:05 am
Wow, I hadn’t thought about it that much until now myself but you’re not wrong, they do like their elves don’t they? Three sorts of Eldar (Craftworlds, Dark and Harlequins), three sorts of WHFB elves (Dark, Wood and the poncy ones), four for AoS (Daughters of Khaine, Lumineth, Sylvaneth and Idoneth – plus elf themed Cities of Sigmar armies, and anything else they might have up their sleeves – we’re yet to see much of Malerion and his forces for example…). Then there’s the various LotR elves. Three elven Blood Bowl teams so far as well. You could actually paint nothing but elves and still had a few decades worth of models to work on.
Anyway, glad to hear the struggles paid off, there were times I was ready to have a right mantrum with them but if people think the end results are good then it was worthwhile. 🙂
March 26th, 2021 at 12:35 am
Those are really nice, especially the wings! I don’t know the models well, but could you paint the wings separately and then attach them?
Usually when I hav finicky stuff like that, I will stick a different part of the model in blu tac so I can work around the area. Like the other night, I had to get a Halflings feet painted but I couldn’t reach them well with his belly. So I stuck his butt on the mound of blue tac with his feet sticking sort of upwards, then I could paint all of his feet in one go (plus the other flesh bits).
March 29th, 2021 at 7:30 am
Cheers! I think doing the wings separately would make some of the other stages tricky but that said it would make the wings themselves a lot easier… Food for thought definitely, so good shout. I’m always a bit lazy when it comes to sub-assemblies – I never think to use them and there’s times when they’d be really helpful. Good thinking about the blue-tac too – that might be another good way to handle these. I’ve got a few more to do so I’ll experiment and see what works. 🙂
March 29th, 2021 at 2:25 pm
I used to sub-assemble just about everything. Way easier to paint, but a pain to keep track of all the bits, and I would spend most of my time dying to get to the stage where I can glue the mini together. Then you have to hope you don’t get glue all over the paint. Nowadays, I pretty much assemble everything unless I see something that looks like it will be really tricky to paint. But that’s a wild guess on my part, and I’ve assembled a few that I wish I would have sub-assembled first. But it’s probably only been a few models, so at least I ‘guessed right’ on the majority!
March 30th, 2021 at 9:36 pm
Yup, for me it’s a combination of impatience to get to the assembly stage and total disorder on the painting desk which would undoubtedly see me loose a vital bit at some stage if I didn’t glue it down. Plus 99 times out of a hundred if you can’t see to get a brush into it no-one else will see it either. Mind you I have some regrets – Skitarii for instance would be so much easier in sub-assemblies. Ah well, you live and learn…