Dark Elf Skin colour

Interestingly when I look at the background information on Dark Elves in the third edition WFB rules it talks about them wearing dark clothes, but I don't see any reference to their skin being any lighter than other varieties of elves (Wood and High Elves).  The implication being to use the Citadel Elf Flesh colour produced at the time (late 1980s and early 1990s). Most of the pictures in White Dwarf supported this idea. However by the time the 4th Edition codex came out in 1995 there is a reference to Dark Elves having pallid flesh although the pictures still showed typical elf flesh.  The move to really pale flesh did not seem to happen until the next Codex for the 6th Edition in 2001 primarily with Witch Elves and harpies and continued in the 8th Edition codex in 2008 and for AOS.  Basically the Dark Elves have gotten paler over time.    

In the past I have used Citadel Elf Flesh washed with the Citadel or Reaper flesh wash (reddish brown) and then highlighted with a mix Elf Flesh and white.  With the latest batch of Dark Elf figures I am painting I want the skin colour to be a little  paler. I am not going to re-paint finished figures in regiments or heroes as all races can have variations of skin tone, just thinking of this for new regiments and heroes.

Citadel C13 General with my current Dark Elf Flesh colour
 with a base coat of Citadel Elf Flesh

Dark Elf General and Sorcerer

My next Dark Elf Old Hammer painting project (actually running simultaneously with painting the remaining crossbow Dark Elves) are some late 1980s command figures: a Citadel C13 Dark Elf General on a Cold One with a matching foot version and a mounted Citadel Dark Elf Sorcerer on a Cold one.

Citadel C13 Dark Elf General on Cold One

Citadel C13 Dark Elf General on Foot

Citadel Dark Elf Sorcerer C21 "Addlecore"

More Dark Elf figures: Harpies

These are the Citadel Iron Claw Female and Male Harpies sculpted by Bob Olley and produced sometime between 1988 and 1990 for Chaos and / or  Dark Elf armies in Warhammer Fantasy Battle (WFB) 3rd edition. They would also work well for Greek mythology based games or SAGA AOM.  Back in the early 1990s I bought 2 blisters of them giving me 4 harpies, they were pricey then but I wish I had bought more as they now for for inflated prices on eBay.  There were originally 4 different versions but only 3 were released with wing variants. Anyway they are now finally painted and ready for the gaming table. Take a good look at the faces (more on that later).

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