Eldar - (subset of) The army going onto the auction block

With GenCon rapidly approaching, and the unexpected cost of a new pair of glasses cropping up last week, it's time to put the Eldar up for sale. I'd been waffling about what exactly was going up on the block as I did want to keep a small allied contingent for my guard. I finally settled on what that would be (Bonesinger, Wraithblades, Corsairs and the Crimson Hunter) but the rest is getting the chop. I went through and snapped a new set of pics of what all will be up for sale over the next couple days, and figured I'd share 'em here:

HQ

Farseer

 

Spiritseer

Warlock Council

 

ELITES

Fire Dragons

Striking Scorpions

TROOPS

Dire Avengers

Guardian Defenders

FAST ATTACK

Warp Spiders

 

HEAVY SUPPORT

Falcon

 

Wraithlord

  

Wraithknight

  

DEDICATED TRANSPORTS

Wave Serpent 1

 

Wave Serpent 2

 

APOCALYPSE

Tempest

 

All in all I really had a blast painting this army, all the various color schemes helped to stave off Army Painter's Fatigue and it was surprisingly easy to stay on task and keep cranking them out. Expect to see a lot more Hobby ADHD over the next few months as I ricochet crazily around the half dozen other projects that lurk within the Closet of Doom!

Eldar - The army so far...

Just a quick post today - Couple folks have asked for a group shot of the Eldar, so I laid them out in roughly the same setup as the painting chart and snapped a pic over my lunchbreak today while I had some relatively decent light:

It's definitely a colorful army! I have gotten the basic blue laid down on the Dire Avengers, I'm trying to ensure they are done up in a different style/shade of blue from the earlier Guardians - a little lighter, and done in a wash-over-white primer style similar to the Fire Dragons and Striking Scorpions. I dabbled with the Warp Spiders but didn't like the 'brown recluse' scheme so they'll likely get a bath in Simple Green and start anew soon!

Eldar - Falcon and Wave Serpents painted

It has been in the high 90's (35+C) over the last week, which means it's been just brutally hot up in the hobby loft. Had a bit a reprieve though and I took advantage to finish off the painting portion of the Eldar transports.

  

 

Started off with the basic 'chevrons' look, which ties in with the ones on the Wraithknight. Happily however the Wave Serpents don't have quite so dang many gemstones. I like them a bit more scarce I have to say. Went with the same reddish-orange gemstones. What felt odd was the fact that I somehow ended up reversing the gradiant angle I usually go with (going with the bright area in the lower right corner rather than lower left).

  

 

The second Wave Serpent got a sort of 'swoopy' colored slash, and a few framing sections on the cockpit. Eventually I'm planning on going back in to add some waterslide transfers, so the larger open blue areas will be ideal for some symbols and whatnot.

  

 

Next up is the Falcon, which got alternating blue and yellow panels. Easy peasy! One thing I'm not 100% happy with is how the larger flat bone colored sections turned out - a little streaky here and there, though it does seem to show up worse in the pictures than it does in Real Life(tm).

Here's a shot of all three of 'em. Overall I'm really pleased with how they turned out - now I just need to finish up all the troops to go into 'em!

One last shot with the two Wave Serpents alongside the Wraithknight. It's all coming together nicely!

Eldar - Even more transport-y goodness

Pressing onwards - Finished up the yellow and took a crack at the canopies after work this evening and snapped a few more pics!

The yellow started off as Hot Orange, followed by Fiery Orange to get a nice smooth undercoat. Once that dried it got a few passes of Golden Yellow, and as it's a somewhat translucent color the underpinning orange gives it a nice warm glow. After that I went back in with a micron pen and cleaned up the creases between the yellow armor panels.

 

I tried my hand at what was originally supposed to be a NMM gold sort of thing which didn't really work out the way I'd planned. However, I do kind of like it - I might give it wash of some variety to tie it together a bit better. Wet blending/feathering is still not my forte, even after decades of trying. Heh.

Next up is the whole gemstone process, to tie these in with the Wraithknight, which I'm thinking should look pretty neat. Guess we'll find out!

Eldar - Wave Serpents and Falcon painting in progress

I'm trying to take a lot more pictures in progress with the Eldar, and get some more consistent albeit smaller posts for the blog. A bit more brush time on the transports this afternoon - brought the bone back up a tone from where they left off in the last post, and took a whack at getting the yellow started:

I decided that the yellow would be different on each vehicle, going with the chevrons on one, alternating panels on another and some big curves on the third. At the moment, they're just picked out in the initial hot orange, which will be followed by a fiery orange then golden yellow once it cools down in the hobby loft a bit.

 

Snapped a couple semi-side shots to get a better feel of what's going on with the chevrons and curves. I'm pretty happy with the 'individual but still stylistically similar' vibe. Not sure how I want to do the cockpits just yet, I'm considering having another go at the 'reflected horizon' effect that I'd attempted on the Nephilim, though perhaps a green tinted gemmed look could be interesting as well. Thoughts?

More to come soon!

Eldar - The Transports begin...

While rooting around in the Closet of Doom I uncovered the box of Eldar bits which happened to have not only the rest of the bits to finish off the second Wave Serpent but also enough bits to build an entire Falcon! ...And a War Walker, but that's going to have to wait for a bit. I started off with the basic blue sponge technique I used on the Wraithknight which turned out pretty well on the larger flat surfaces. It's really quite simple - started off with a basecoat of midnight blue, followed by sponged-on ultramarines blue, magic blue and ice blue. After that, it's all tied together with a guilliman blue wash.

Once the wash dried I blocked in all the areas that were destined to be bone with leather brown. This took a lot of coats to get a decent coverage, but is key to the whole process. The bone color doesn't go on well directly over a black undercoat in my experience, it tends to get splotchy. Painting the bone over a brown undercoat is far more forgiving!

Next up, the first pass of bone goes on, and the models really start to come together - I'm considering doing the vanes on the Wave Serpents in bone as well. It's at this point where I need to think about what I'm going to do for the requisite yellow to fit the Alaitoc scheme. I'm planning on keeping the yellow fairly minimalist, probably just a few select panels, or perhaps some chevrons.

Step three in the bone process is the wash it all down with devlan mud. Once that dries I'll go back in and add another pass of bleached bone on the upper surfaces, but that'll have to wait for a bit. It got far too hot up in the hobby loft and I was forced to retreat until this evening!