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The forest flowers were in full bloom when Prince Maerendil had to leave. His beloved elven wife, the most precious flower of all, he had to leave under the arch where they first met. Elves – as even a child knows – do not usually partake in the jousting sport the humans invented for their leisure. But now, with the woods in the West shaking from the enemy's boots and the smoke pillars of war overshadowing the Elf Queens Kingdom, a messenger had to be sent – and this was him. Maybe winning the joust would enable him to speak to the human’s king, maybe to Bretonia’s ambassador, maybe even to the Grandmaster of Ordo Penguinius… Alliances, friendships had to be made and this – as even a child knows – can best be done in playful exhibition of a warrior’s strength and the merrymaking a joust always provides. So with a last look at his beloved and his trusted steed Findelhuv beneath him, he left home, when the forest flowers were in full bloom.
Vignette von MWardancer auf Flickr
Front von MWardancer
rechts von MWardancer
back von MWardancer
Horse and rider von MWardancer
Flickr Folder
These are the 5 pictures for the contest. More below.
Motivation:
I have been raising a custom elven army during the last months which I hope I can show soon after the contest. The fig started as a heavy cavallery and then became a prince on his way to the joust. At first I thought it would be great to make 4 more of these guys afterwards to have a regiment, but it was so much work that I won’t do another one for a while. As I hope you can see I strive to maintain a somewhat ‘purist’ Lego look, making things TLG would produce if they listened to me. So besides the Brickforge helmet and the paint and glue, 100% LEGO materials are used.
Customized Parts:
Brickforge Viking Helmet – Wings from Lego Dwarf Helmet cut off and glued on, painted
Dark Green Breastplate Armour – painted
Flags on Lance – carved to half size and shortened
Horse – 1x1 cheeseslope parts carved and painted, legstraps painted, 2 Elf Capes cut to fit as saddle blanket, Laces on head painted so they match the head armours colour
Horse Head Armour – Painted, tip of some lego pole cut off and painted instead of the unicorn-horn
Head – This is not the usual Elf head, as its eyes are too narrow for the helmet, hair painted on back.
Flower blossoms – painted to fit wife’s dress (that did not turn out perfectly, I spent a ridiculous amount of time and money for this)
Hunter’s Knife – shortened Katana
Costs:
around 11 Euro for the parts (expensive wife and base not included),
around 25 Euro for paint, brushes and a black fineline edding I used for the black lines on the breastplate, this is just so much because I had to try 4 shades of blue for the flowers.
It took quite a while to make him. Although I have a Warhammer past, I have no big experience in customizing Lego. Painting the horses’s legstraps and carving the cheeseslope pieces for the foot armor were the most difficult parts of the work. Every leg of the horse has a different angle, which made it difficult. All brown painted parts were additionally coated with clear paint. The second hardest part were the blue flowers. I wanted to match the wive's dress, but I couldn't.
One inspiration were these Warhammer riders:
Warhammer Wood Elf Riders
@Mods: If an Elf is not human enough, as the rules for the competition demand, let me know. Then I’ll give him a different background story. In my opinion, Elves are pretty humanoid. This one has a human grandmother, which makes him 1/8 human.
Edited by Wardancer, 10 November 2011 - 03:52 PM.
I'm eagerly awaiting your story and vignette.
