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...

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 - Not exactly batch painting, but still...

No painting time this morning (the snooze button's siren call would not be denied), so just a little forward progress today. At this point in the process, I broke up the batch into smaller groups so I could focus on the colors that wouldn't necessarily be shared across all the models. On the other hand, I ended up working a little on each of 'em so it's still sort of batch painting! Heh.

The seers with witchblades and singing spears got their blades done up in purple (still in progress, gonna try and add some lightning), and I started blocking in the areas which will eventually be white with Shadow Grey - This will then get passes with fortress grey and ghost grey, with only the very uppermost edges with pure white. The farseer's cloak, the fur on one of the warlocks and the hair on the other will all end up getting the treatment.

I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do with the spiritseer and bonesinger spot-color-wise yet, so they just got a little touch up here and there. Eventually they'll get runes and such on their cloaks in white, but I want to work the purple from the warlocks and farseer in there somewhere.

On the advice of my buddy Dave, I'm going with red blades (which will eventually transition up to orange and yellow). So far, I'm really digging how it sets off against the blue!

Last up are Illic Nightspear and the Autarch - started blocking in their cloaks, though in retrospect I'm going to re-do the Autarch's cloak to match Illics. Think I'll save the white for the seer council models.

I always wince taking pictures close up like this. It definitely shows up all the issues and mistakes and places I've missed that I still need to address - oof! However, looking at the pics helps me understand what I need to practice on!

Eldar - Painting the yellow and general cleanup

Pressing onwards with the group painting - laid down the yellow and did some general cleanup of things I've missed on the first pass. My yellow recipe is pretty straightforward, I start off by base coating anything that's intended to be yellow in Hot Orange. Much like the bone in the previous post, the yellow is very translucent, and I find that painting it directly over a black or other dark undercoat it tends to look very patchy. The orange 'shines' through the yellow and gives it a nice warm glow.

Once that dried I hit it with a quick drybrush of Fiery Orange - I was in the zone and didn't take a picture of that step though. Once the orange is on, I went in and layered on the Golden Yellow followed by a quick hit of Casadora Yellow wash.

At this stage I discovered a couple things I missed on the bone color step, so I went back and painted in the weapons on the Autarch, as well as the knee and elbow joints on the Wraithblades. I also started blocking in the areas that will end up being leather (boots, pouches, etc.) with Earth Brown.

At this point I'm thinking it's time to break the batch painting up into its constituent parts to do the final detailing. Expect more pics of various parts of these guys in a completed state soon!

Eldar - Painting the wraithbone

A bit more forward motion on the Eldar this morning and this afternoon after work - finished up the wraithbone, and took some pics between each stage to show how I do it:

Starting off I basecoat anything that's intended to be bone with leather brown. The vallejo bone color is pretty translucent and the brown helps give it a warmer undertone than painting it directly onto a black or blue basecoat.

After that is dry, I give the area a few coats of the bone color. Essentially I do a really heavy drybrush, leaving only the very deepest of recesses showing any of the leather basecoat. Another way of saying that is "missed a bit, there". Heh.

Next up is a Devlan Mud wash (aka army painter ink strong tone), to bring a little depth back to the recesses and stop it from looking as flat. This is applied in the "slather a bunch of Devlan Mud all over everything" method.

Once that is fully dry I go in and give the areas a light-to-medium drybrush of the bone color again, concentrating on the upper surfaces especially. That helps the model stop looking like I just slathered a bunch of Devlan Mud all over everything in the previous step.

I'm pretty happy with the psyker contingent thus far, I especially like how the amount of bone steadily increases as it goes Warlock > Farseer > Wraithseer > Bonesinger. Next up is the yellow stage - chugging right along!