40k Exodite Eldar - Wraithblades complete and army complete!

After a loooong hiatus rife with technical difficulties uploading pics to my website galleries, I'm happy to report that the Exodites of the Tanelorn Wood are complete! Finished off the final unit of wraithblades (pics below), then schlepped the whole force down to the local GW shop for a family photo!

This was the first time I had them all out at the same time, and I gotta say I'm well pleased with how the colors flow across the army, it's cohesive and contrast-y without being too garish (or as least as subdued as purple, yellow and green can be)!

While I was about it I broke out the lightbox and re-shot the whole force for a final record before they wing their way to their next destination (more to come on that front).

HQ - Avatar, Spiritseer and Seer Council, all got the ghost-green treatment to help denote their mystic connections.

TROOPS - The Glade Guardians and the Rangers are more in the orange hues, in a somewhat ham-fisted attempt to make them autumnal. May have over-corrected into hunting-season blaze orange!

ELITES - The surprisingly-simple-to-convert Wraithguard and Wraithblades add some punch to the force, and the addition of an old-school Bonesinger to help keep 'em up and fighting can't hurt!

FAST ATTACK - The second-creepiest models in the force, the Wasp Assault Walkers are a natural counterpoint to the big-ass spider coming up in the next section!

HEAVY SUPPORT - The conversion that started this whole silly idea, the wraithlord is probably my favorite conversion of the bunch. That said, the Nightspinner is by far the creepiest!

Where would a project-complete post be without some spreadsheet porn? It always feels good to turn that last box green!

Next up, back on the Heresy train! With NOVA coming up in just a few short months, I need to finish off the force intended to travel out to D.C...

40k Exodite Eldar - Avatar of the Tanelorn Wood painted!

Sometimes what makes sense in the mind's eye doesn't necessarily translate to the miniature and today's model is a case in point I'm afraid! The seed for the Exodite army I've been working on was centered around the idea that the Sylvaneth Treelord model would make a cool Avatar, and that jumpstarted the whole project. Finally got around to getting some paint on him and the irony is that for it being the model that got me into the project, it turns out to be the one I'm least happy with overall. Doh!

The main issue is one of colors, I knew that as the model was a vanilla build, I needed to rely on the paint scheme to drive home its Avatar-ness. That meant a fiery burning interior and the bloody hand - Simple enough! What I hadn't really taken into account was the fact that on the earlier models I'd gone with an autumnal color scheme which is also heavy on the yellow/orange/red spectrum which meant once it was all combined the model is just sort of a mooge of those colors. It turned out all right, but isn't particularly striking - for all of the colors it still feels a little monochrome.

That's not to say that I am completely displeased. I rather like how the ember-to-charcoal-to-wood transition worked on the model, and while it could be a little more refined I'm pretty happy with it as a first time try! The bloody hand turned out pretty decent as well, with a nice gory drippy feel to it.

The little green of the grass on the base helps the model pop a little, and I quite like the small leaf litter that ties together with the leaves on the model. Overall I'm only about 75% pleased with how it turned out. Workable but not particularly exciting - Part of me wants to start over with a new version and do a witchy green internal flame rather than the orange-y red. Probably a better way to go from a pure color theory standpoint!

On the other hand, I started laying in the base colors on the Wraithguard squad and am much more pleased with how they're coming along!

40k Exodite Eldar - Wait, what?

You ever have one of those ideas that just won't quite let go of ya? Ever since the Sylvaneth line dropped, I have always thought that the Treelord model would make for a great Exodite-themed Avatar of Khaine. I mean, just look at it!

Er, yeah - That may be one that I bought and built over the weekend. I've been mulling over how to do an Exodite army for years and thanks to a wonderful Christmas gift I was able to pick one up. Of course, that got me in the store and suddenly a couple more boxes sort of accidentally got purchased.

This included a kitbashed counts-as Wraithlord comprised of the standard kit, the Drycha Hamadreth kit, and a fair bit of greenstuff. This got me thinking about the general aesthetic I wanted to go with and I'm going to veer away slightly from the usual Lizardman and Dark Elf bits and use more of the High/Wood Elf and Sylvan kits. Wood and bugs instead of stone and dinosaurs - Maybe a little unconventional, but it seemed like it could be a fun way to go!

As the plan is to build a force that is a direct counts-as craftworld force, I knew I needed some guardians. I'd done the Black Ark Corsairs method with their lizardskin cloaks a little while back for the dark eldar army and didn't want to just repeat that, so after a little consideration settled on the Shadow Warriors kit as a basis for what I'm calling "Glade Guardians" (oh so poncy, just like the pointy eared gits tend to get). Haven't built up a heavy weapons platform for them quite yet as i think it ought to be mounted on the back of a beetle or spider of some variety. Gotta find the right critters!

As far as it goes, they went together pretty easily. One of the gotchas is that both the Eldar legs and the Shadow Warrior torsos have sockets, but a little ball of greenstuff and they fit together nicely. Any unsightly joins are covered by the equipment belt off the guardian sprue, and with the addition of some bugs and critters here and there they read as guardians but with a naturalistic bent which I think fits the force pretty well!

Still penciling together lists and pondering further kitbash combos to represent other units, but I do know I am going to keep it to a tidy little 1500 point force. Each unit is going to be comprised of two or three kits, so things will have a tendency to get pricey real quick if I just go whole hog on the project. Still, these have been a black to build so far and I'm looking forward to building more crazy Bark Eldar. Hah!