Painting High Elves

I love painting High Elves. I've been working on them for 8 years, and I've used a ton o' different paint schemes, but I've settled on one that I think best reflects the green-golden hue of the High Elves.

Here's a quick paint guide for how I do my High Elves. I can provide more info and in-progress pictures if you want.

Undercoat with Chaos Black.

Paint all of the armor Burnished Gold. Give it a 50/50 wash of water Woodland Scenics Green Undercoat. Play with the water/undercoat ratio until you get it right. I could gush on and on about how much I love the green hue that it gives to the armor. A wonderful hobbyist named Steve Marr (Onyx) introduced me to this stuff. Thanks, Steve. You're a champion.

Paint the robes Midnight Blue, highlight with Regal Blue, and give a final highlight of Regal Blue/Enchanted Blue. I like the contrasts between Midnight Blue and Regal Blue, which is why I go straight from one to another.


Paint the chain-mail, cloak, and sash Chainmail. Give the chainmail a wash of Black Ink, and give the cloak and sash a wash of Boltgun Metal. I tried highlighting with Mithril Silver before, and building up the entire shading from a basecoat of Boltgun Metal, but I didn't see that it made much difference, so I just do a simple wash of Boltgun Metal to give a little bit of depth. It's the easy way out, but it works.

For the faces, I do two different things--one for the metals and one for the plastics.

For the metals, I paint the faces Elf Flesh and wash with Flesh Wash.

For the plastics, I paint the faces Elf Flesh and wash with a watered-down Dwarf Flesh. Alternately, you could basecoat the face with Dwarf Flesh and highlight with Elf Flesh.

Paint the bows and the spears Bestial Brown.

Paint the boots Scorched Brown and highlight with a 50/50 mix of Scorched Brown/Bestial Brown.

Paint the leather Scorched Brown. Paint Brown Ink into the crevices of the fingers.


For the arrow fletching, I just like to paint it Skull White. I'm open to suggestions for what to wash it with, but at the moment I like the stark white-look.

Paint the base Chaos Black, and then decorate as you choose. I like a simple mix of green flocks with some shrubbery, or I mix flock with Woodland Scenics rocks.


Let me know if you have any questions.