First step, of course, is to prepare them by washing them thoroughly and removing all mold marks, and assembling them. When you have that done, prime them with a nice clean white primer. Use one that has a very fine emulsion like Floquil or Model Masters. Do not use a cheap primer, as it will obscure the fine detail on the elves.

To paint them, start by painting all of the flesh areas a mix of Elf Flesh with just a tiny bit of Snakebite Leather mixed in to darken it. Then wash the flesh areas with a slightly darker version of this colour to do your shadowing. Then go one shade lighter than your original base flesh colour and start highlighting. This is a good time to paint the eyes. Do this by first filling in the area where the eyeball will be with either a very dark brown or black, then paint the eyeball white, keeping it inside the eyelids, then paint either a dark blue or black dot for the pupil. After this, paint the eyelids down to where they just clip the top of the pupil off, so that the eyes do not look bug-eyed, then very carefully finish the shadowing around the eyes, being careful no to get any paint on the white of the eyes. Then finish highlighting your flesh with ever lighter colours until you are satisfied with it. To paint the mouths, paint the inside of the mouth black, then drybrush the teeth bone white, with another very light drybrushing of white. For the lips, use a slightly darker shade of your base flesh colour. NEVER, NEVER USE RED OR PINK FOR LIPS, UNLESS YOU WANT THEM TO LOOK LIKE THEY'RE WEARING LIPSTICK. Paint around the edges of the face a very narrow shadow using dark brown to separate the face from the helmets.

Now to paint the uniforms. Start by painting all the white areas with white that you have added just a very small drop of Ultramarine to (you can get a tube of Ultramarine acrylics wherever artist's paints are sold). This will brighten the white and give it a nice clean look. Then paint all the areas that will be armour black if it's going to be silver, or chocolate brown if it is going to be bronze or gold. If the armour is to be silver, drybrush it with Iron or Chainmail, then after that is dry, drybrush it again with silver to give it a shiny appearance. If it is to be gold, first drybrush it with a dark bronze, then with brass, and then with a bright gold, using an ever lighter touch with each colour. Now it's time to shadow your white areas. To shadow white, always use a blue-grey for shadowing, never black (if you want a dirty look to the white, you can use a mixture of Snakebite Leather and Bone White for the shadowing). To highlight white, you actually use a very, very pale, almost white blue. This is very tricky, though, so you should practice on figures that aren't that important to you first.

Now it's time to paint in the details. To paint the details, use bright colours and keep them well-defined. For the High Elves, I use a lot of blues, crimson, polish crimson, bright yellows, etc. The skirts of the elven tunics look very good if you paint a border of some type on them. This doesn't have to be anything too elaborate, a plain line around the edge of the skirting will work fine. If you have the steady hands for it, a border of Elven runes or other symbols really adds to the appearance.

Painting gemstones: Paint the gemsone white to begin with, then paint it with a bright colour such as red. Then paint a crescent of a darker shade of the same colour across the top of the gem, and a crescent of a lighter shade of the same colour across the bottom, then take and put just a dot of yellow or white near the top to create the illusion of light glittering on the gem. Example: A ruby, paint the stone an overall medium red, then paint a crescent of blood red across the top of the stone, then paint a smaller crescent of even darker red inside that crescent, then paint a slightly orangish red crescent across the bottom, then paint a smaller orange crescent inside that crescent, then paint a smaller yellow crescent inside the orange crescent, then put a highlight dot of yellow, a very tiny one, somewhere near the top. Instant gemstone! You must blend all of these colours together except for the glitter spot, which should be kept sharp.

To paint silver armour, I always start with a black base, as it will define the silver colour better. I then paint on an iron colour, leaving a very thin line of the black as a shadow around the edge. Then I work myself toward the highest points on the armour with iron paint that I have added silver to. The closer I come to the high point of the armour, the more silver, until I am finally using pure silver. This gives the armour a nice, three-dimensional metallic look. To paint bronze armour, start with a base coat of chocolate brown, then paint the armour a very dark bronze, leaving the brown shadow just like we did with the black. Then we work our way toward the highest areas with shades of bronze that have had more bright gold added to each successive layer, just like we did with the silver and iron, till we are using pure bright gold for the highest and smallest highlights.

WHEN DRYBRUSHING, ALWAYS LET EACH COAT DRY FOR SEVERAL HOURS BEFORE THE NEXT COAT.

To paint the flames of such units as the Phoenix Guards, first draw out the flame and fill it in with a nice, bright medium red. Then start from the bottom and blend a yellowish orange paint over about 3/4 of the area of the flames. To do this, thin the yellow-orange paint to a fairly thin consistency, and work from the bottom, dragging the paint up toward the top so that it will bland with the red and be less orange and more red as you get toward the top. The last little bit of it you want to be totally transparent. One trick to doing this is to paint on the paint with one brush, and draw it out with another brush that you have loaded with water, but no paint. Flames take a lot of practice to get right, so practice on some card stock first, before tackling your model.

To paint the pelts on the White Lions, start by painting it a very light brown, then drybrush with a very pale grey, then drybrush over this with white, then wash it with bone white. What you want is for the grey and light brown to give you your shadowing without making the pelt look dirty. Then paint the claws brown with a drybrushing of bone white with just a touch of Bubonic Brown added to it to give it an ivory look (the claws should remain basically brown, the bone white/Bubonic Brown mix is only to be a highlight, so use a very light touch).

This should give you what you need to start painting all those beautiful High Elf figures. I will leave horses and monsters for another day. Before you do any of this, though, you should read the Preparing and Assembling Your Models for Painting