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Modeling => Projects Blog => Topic started by: SeekingOne on November 21, 2017, 08:02:44 PM

Title: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: SeekingOne on November 21, 2017, 08:02:44 PM
Hi All! :)

The opening phrase is always the most difficult one, lol  ;D
Let me just say that I finally determined to join the honourable community of bloggers on this board and start a blog of my own :) It feels like an ideal moment too: not only we're in the new edition of the game and just got a new codex for our beloved Craftworlds, but I'm also starting a somewhat special project that I'll talk about soon.

I'm collecting and playing Eldar in 40k for longer than it's healthy; I'm a great fan of Elves in all forms and variants (well, most of them), and so Eldar are the one and only army that I truly love in 40k. Many of my buddies have asked me on multiple occasions am I not fed up with pointy ears and why wouldn't I collect something else for change - after all, there are so many other beautiful armies and model ranges out there! To that I always like to answer that yes, it's true that there are many other beautiful armies - but the difference between finding a model range beautiful and actually collecting a full army of those models is about the same as the difference between finding a certain woman attractive and actually wanting to marry her :D Almost all GW models are great, but collecting an army involves so much more than that for me - and Eldar just have it all. The concept of the Art of Death, or "Lethal Elegance" as it is aptly worded in the new codex, is so captivating its impossible to resist.

Being a devoted tournament player I neglected the hobby part for years, and only got into the serious painting game a couple years ago. Have to say, playing with an army fully painted on a decent quality level proved to be such an amazing experience that I soon made a solemn vow to never play with unpainted stuff again :) Well, it's not really that strict for me, I do allow myself to proxy a few models from time to time, but those would invariably be the ones that I'm actually already working on now.

On to the special project... I've been invited to a special tournament organised by the team of SN Battlereports site, which is going to take place in Gibraltar on 10-11 of March 2018. It's a fantastic event that gives you an opportunity to meet some great people and play on tables with some absolutely stunning terrain. Naturally, it has high requirements to the quality of paint jobs, WYSIWYG, etc. Army composition rules require an army to be a mono-subfaction, so for the CWE it has to be one Craftworld. The rules are also strict about WYSIWYG in terms of colour schemes - basically you can't play with a green Guilliman or use Saim-Hann Eldar with Alaitoc attribute.

So, in the upcoming 4 months, I have to shape out a reasonably strong tournament-grade force which would belong to a single Craftworld and painted appropriately. And this is the project I'm planning to document here :)

Chapter 1: The Autarch

Now, my army is Saim-Hann and all models I have painted so far are painted as such (except Aspects which are in their native schemes), so that feels like a natural choice. Being a super-slow painter, even though I can use my aspects with any Craftworld I still doubt I can paint enough non-Aspect models in a new non-standard colour scheme to make a complete switch to Alaitoc or Ulthwe within that time frame.

And what is a Saim-Hann army without an Autarch riding a jetbike into battle! :) I never had an excuse to paint and use one before, so this feels like a perfect moment to do it. After all, if I'm forced to do a mono-SaimHann army, I can just as well make the most out of it - and Novalance of Saim-Hann is a fantastic relic.

I actually started working on the Autarch a week ago, so this post would be a report rather than a blog as such.

This is what I started with:
(https://i.imgur.com/IgBrGd2.jpg)
This is an ages-old metal model that I got with the Apocalypse Windrider Host box back in 2007 or so. Working on him made me realise once again just how fundamentally better Finecast is compared to the old metal, regardless of its flaws :)

Having started I immediately ran into a problem: the base model is designed to sit on a normal old jetbike, left hand resting on one of the steering handles. It looks like this:
(https://i.imgur.com/MbphvNr.jpg)
Somehow it doesn't immediately stand out on GW photos, but when I pinned arms in place and tried him on a bike, I immediately realised that the right steering handle (don't know what's the right way to call it) is sticking out exactly where the lance should be when lowered and pointed towards the enemy. And that just looks silly. Perfectionist as I am, I couldn't stand it and started thinking of a way to fix it.

Using a Shining Spear model as an example, I decided to go for an asymmetrical steering mechanism. I found a metal left arm of a Shining Spear in my bits box and used the control panel part of it (the arm itself didn't fit due to being totally out of proportion).
(https://i.imgur.com/3wniSrf.jpg)
Initially though I tried to keep a simple steering handle on the left, which resulted in this:
(https://i.imgur.com/PFQjl8C.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/MFN91Tz.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/3AfBuso.jpg)
I looked long and hard at it and, perfectionist as I am, couldn't shake off a feeling that it looks kind of weird. Comparing it again to a picture of a Shining Spear I started to realise that the feeling of weirdness comes from the handle - one-handle bike just doesn't look right :) However I realised that I quite like the look Shining Spear jetbike's control panel, which has the rider's left palm pressed against some sort of sensor (perhaps psycho-sensitive?) plate. Seeing no other way but to try to replicate that design on my Autarch's bike, I got to work.

It took me two full nights of work and several failures until I finally got a result that looked right.
(https://i.imgur.com/lkYIrfz.jpg)
I had to uncurl his fingers, re-position the hand so that it's pointing slightly upwards, and fully re-position the control panel itself to make them fit together :) The sensor plate itself is carved out of a piece of plastic sprue and blended into the control panel with a little Milliput (which I prefer to green stuff when I just need to bulk out some forms without actually sculpting any small details).

In the process of doing all this I realised one more issue: the lance shaft was so thin that the accursed white metal got bent literally all the time. Undoubtedly, bending and straightening it just a couple of times would be enough for the paint to peel off, and I just couldn't stand it. Did I mention that I'm a perfectionist?  ;D Fortunately, I had a set of brass rods for pinning, and the thicker ones matched the thickness of the lance shaft almost precisely. One more night with drills and files, and the lance shaft was replaced.
(https://i.imgur.com/dX4tzAB.jpg)

Now the Autarch is primed and ready. The bike is masked off for the very first painting stage, which is airbrushing the larger gems.
(https://i.imgur.com/RBWYkIV.jpg)
That's where I'm at now. Super-scared to pick up the airbrush, as I haven't touched it for over 6 months - didn't know what to paint next in the confusion of the new edition.

Oh, and I got my delivery today...!  ;D
(https://i.imgur.com/uvoUpDC.jpg)
Boxes are not too spectacular, but full of potential... ;)

Thanks for reading, and more to follow!
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: dog_of_war on November 21, 2017, 11:25:18 PM
Looking killer so far. Can't wait to pick up some airbrush tips, so I certainly will be following this plog closely.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Cavalier on November 22, 2017, 07:34:02 AM
Oh hell yeah. I am so looking forward to seeing this hobby journey unfold. Welcome to the Project Logs Seekingone! I was blown away by your paint jobs in the Eldar Army section a few weeks back and was really hoping you'd join us here. So stoked that you did.

You got invited to No Retreat? That is really something to be proud of. With your skills its very well deserving. Now I have a mission for you... you must beat Lawrence from Tabletop Tactics! Me and my cohosts just had him on our podcast and I know he's gonna bring Dark Eldar... how I'd love to see a criminally underrated Saim-Hann give him a run for his money! If that matchup happens I'll be rooting for you! He's a super friendly and awesome guy so I'm sure you'll have a fun but super intense battle.

Wow the Autarch is already off to hot start... where did you get prow for that jetbike? Soooo nice. I'm really jealous. I've got a metal Autarch pilot and lance that I'm waiting to get a nice jetbike for and I'd love to get one like that.

Also... whats in those boxes??? I hope they are Shining Spears. Anyway off to a hot start on the blog, and like I said can't wait to see where this hobby journey goes. Thanks for joining us!

Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Looshkin on November 22, 2017, 07:57:06 AM
Welcome to the Plogs SeekingOne! Man, I'm also so pleased that you've come across to these boards. You're talented as all Hell and I think we're all going to be able to pick up a lot of tips from following your journey.

And what a great first post too. I'm curious though; Did you give any thought to creating the Autarch and Shining Spears in the style of the more recent Wind Riders that have been released? They seem so much more dynamic and would seem to fit the style of Spears/Autarchs better.

Also... whats in those boxes??? I hope they are Shining Spears.

Seeing as the boxes say Shining Spears on them, I'm guessing that SeekingOne is also hoping they're Shining Spears!  ;)
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Ynneadwraith on November 23, 2017, 06:23:23 PM
Sweet! Loving how the Autarch is shaping up :) can tell this will be one to watch ;)
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: SeekingOne on November 23, 2017, 08:00:49 PM
@All

Thank you so much for your kind words people!  :D Have to say, about 95% of the praise is undeserved - my talent is all about simply being neat and precise :)

@dog_of_war
Thanks! I'll try to write up some (hopefully) useful details about the techniques I'll be using in each step.

@Cavalier
So you know about No Retreat - that's great! :) In fact, I've already been there once, at No Retreat 4 in January this year. It was 7th edition still... Hard to believe how much has changed in our hobby in less than a year, isn't it? :) I met Lawrence, Chef and Beard, WintersSEO and many other great people - a truly awesome experience.
So yeah, I applied for the second time, and got invited once again. It would be great to play Lawrence ;D I'll do my best to put up a good fight if that actually happens!
And yes those boxes are indeed Shining Spears ;)

@Looshkin
Yes of course, I did think about converting the new bikes. Thing is though... believe it or not, I actually like the old bikes more than the new ones. I mean specifically the bikes; the old guardian riders with their Ku Klux Klan-style helmets were ugly indeed - but they were easy to convert, using just legs and arms and replacing the old torsos and heads with those from the new Guardian sprues. That's why my 9 scatter-bikes are all converted from the old ones - and I shamelessly love how they turned out :) Particularly these two - even though I painted them properly just recently, they are actually the ones with which my Saim-Hann army started: the riders were the first jetbikers that I converted some 10 years ago.
(https://i.imgur.com/7QOnc4n.jpg)
I love the old bikes because imho they look much more imposing and create much greater presence on the table than the new ones. Also, their riders have much better poise - you can actually see them! unlike the new ones, where you see just their backs. And, even though from the rational PoV the whole idea is totally unrealistic - still, when I try to imagine how someone can actually fight from a bike's saddle, the overall position of the rider on an old bike looks very much more believable in that sense. You can't really fight (or do anything else for that matter) if you're lying almost flat on your chest! :)
This is why I actually quite love the standard Shining Spear models - and yes, that's just what it is in those boxes, I checked it myself!  ;D ;D

@Ynnead
Thanks! Happy to hear that you like him :)



A little update:
Didn't get much time to paint so far. Managed to airbrush the gems though.
These are the gems right after airbrushing:
(https://i.imgur.com/IUPLg7V.jpg)

What I do is simply spray the gem mostly from one and the same direction, almost parallel to the model's surface, with progressively darker shades of green, finishing with pure black. My paints are:
(https://i.imgur.com/h1ZWrU8.jpg)

When you airbrush from the direction of the darkest shadow, the shape of the gem itself helps to create the gradient effect. The amount of paint sprayed all around the gems explains the liquid mask! It's easier and quicker to apply and then remove the mask than to overpaint this mess with white later on - and bright reds invariably have to go over pure clean white base.

Then I glaze the gems with Waywatcher Green and cover then with gloss varhish, getting the following look.
(https://i.imgur.com/nRv5q5M.jpg)
Will remove the mask in the morning and post the result :)

Overall it might seem overcomplicated, but I like the final effect and it's much easier (for me, that is) than blending them by hand.

To be continued :)
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Looshkin on November 24, 2017, 05:53:02 AM
Fascinating thread SeekingOne. I'm an absolute novice in the world of airbrushing, so your tips and guidance are invaluable. What is the name of the mask that you use on the models? Is it easy to apply(Just brushed on?) and remove?

I love the thinking behind using the older Jetbikes too. I can definitely get behind the idea of making a unit look more imposing, while yes, it does seem impractical to expect someone to fight from that position...it would be like having a sword fight whilst doing Skeleton Bob or Luge or something!

Keep the updates coming bud...those gems are looking outrageously good.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Cavalier on November 24, 2017, 07:27:57 AM
Hot damn is that cool! Wow those gems look awesome. Also the jetbikes look gorgeous. I still think when painted properly the old jetbikes look fantastic. I really dig the old school converted Guardian. Also it looks like you did some additional conversions on the scatter laser. I'd like to get a look at that if possible.

What kind of masking stuff did you use to do the chevrons? Its something I want to try again this time with my airbrush as opposed to primer. Was it hard to get the white on over the red? Or did it go on with a single take?

Anyway great stuff Seekingone. I'm an aibrush novice as well so I'll definitley be fishing for tips.  ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: magenb on November 24, 2017, 04:04:01 PM
really nice work on the gems.

Its also the first time I've seen that jetbike front design very nice score there :)
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: SeekingOne on November 28, 2017, 10:43:36 AM
@Looshkin
What is the name of the mask that you use on the models? Is it easy to apply(Just brushed on?) and remove?
The liquid mask is just brushed on, like this:
(https://i.imgur.com/3eMiStr.jpg)
It takes 5-10 minutes to dry, after which it turns into a latex film, which you later remove by simply pulling it up at one side and carefully peeling it off. If the layer of paint is thick, it's recommended to carefully break the paint along the edge of the mask first using a wooden toothpick, and only after that to peel the mask off (otherwise it can pull the paint from the unmasked area with it).
You apply it with an old brush, preferably synthetic. It can be cleaned off with mineral spirits.

I bought mine in a general art supplies store. Many companies make it. It's universally called "artist masking latex" - you just need to ask stuff and they'll point you in the right direction.
My bottle is like 8 years old, so its label is most likely obsolete anyway :)

Important: there seem to be two types of liquid masks - with and without ammonia. You want the one WITH ammonia. It smells horribly, BUT its qualities are ways better. Most importantly, the ammonia mask is tougher, so you can easily remove it by grabbing the edge of the film and pulling it off. The mask without ammonia will tear up very easily, forcing you to practically scrape it off piece by piece, often damaging the paint underneath. In particular, stay away from Vallejo liquid mask - it's horrible, and I ruined the results of many hours of painting with it when I was just starting to learn airbrushing.

@Cavalier
Also it looks like you did some additional conversions on the scatter laser. I'd like to get a look at that if possible.
So you noticed! :) Few people ever do. I prefer to attribute that to the quality of my conversion though, lol - as in, the conversion looks so natural that nobody notices that it's not a standard model :)

In fact, building those scatter laser fittings was one hell of a project in itself. Here they are:
(https://i.imgur.com/LTqY9R2.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/GiIUrSh.jpg)
Initially, I tried to fit the scatter laser barrels onto the side, like the classic shuricannons. However, unlike the sleek shuricannon, the scatter laser is fat and stubby, and when mounted on the side it looked totally out of place. So I turned to the idea of mounting it along the centre line. It did fit there just fine, but a new issue immediately followed: what to do with the shuriken catapult barrels? I saw some people just sticking the scatters in between the twin shuricats and leaving it like that - but it looks ugly and I couldn't settle for it. Initially, I just cut them off and filed the remainder to blend relatively smoothly into the central scatter laser mount. However, after building my first bike that way, I realised that instead of cutting them off I can resculpt them into something like additional air intakes. And that's what I did :)
The frontal grills of those intakes are derived from a DE Reaver jetbike - I took one of those grills, impressed it onto a piece of Milliput, then used is as a "mould" to replicate it multiple times by pressing green stuff into it.

I had 9 spare scatter lasers, so I converted 9 bikes like that :) This project took a better part of the summer 2015 to complete.

Quote
What kind of masking stuff did you use to do the chevrons? Its something I want to try again this time with my airbrush as opposed to primer. Was it hard to get the white on over the red? Or did it go on with a single take?
Not sure about white over red - if you're asking about white Saim-Hann serpents, those are just decals. Black chevrons were done using masking tape. I usually start with cutting two stripes of masking tape of the same width that I want my chevron lines to be. Then I put them onto the model to mark the position of the chevron and use them as a 'template'. Then I use bigger pieces of masking tape to cover everything on both sides of those two stripes. Finally, I simply remove the two initial stripes, which leaves an exposed area in the form of a chevron. I find this works better and more precisely than just "eyeballing" everything in place.

@Magenb
Its also the first time I've seen that jetbike front design very nice score there :)
It's actually an ages old custom sculpt created by one of the local artists here. Back in those days people didn't know resin :) so it was cast in metal (it might even be pure lead...). I decided to use it with this model, because it not only looks good, but also counter-balances the metal rider, lol



I had one more painting session, and managed to airbrush saddle, shuricat barrels and the trickiest part - red armour.

After I removed the initial masks and tidied the edges of the gems a little, it looked like this:
(https://i.imgur.com/gznydtp.jpg)
Then I masked the gems and other painted parts:
(https://i.imgur.com/PhN5WhZ.jpg)

Next is the Red. I do my red combining a modified "pre-shade" technique with some actual highlighting.

First the base neutral red goes on:
(https://i.imgur.com/PJEwfUs.jpg)

Next, I shade it with a mix of dark red and very dark violet, followed by the first "pre-highlight" with a mix of neutral red and white.
(https://i.imgur.com/ChJgaOp.jpg)

Next, I apply the second "pre-highlight", this time with pure white.
(https://i.imgur.com/poJaiTg.jpg)

Next, a fine semi-transparent glaze of bright red is sprayed all over the model.
(https://i.imgur.com/qlwI60n.jpg)
What I get as a result is very bright red on the areas that were pre-highlighted with white, which blends very smoothly into midtone and then into very natural-looking shades. Unfortunately, the camera decisively fails to capture this effect  :-\ For some reason it just doesn't distinguish between different shades of red and orange and swallows about 80% of colour transition.

Having completed those main stages, I did a little bit of "back and forth" between highlighting and shading on a few areas that didn't seem to have enough contrast. Finally I added a bit of bright orange onto the most exposed points (tips of the wings and engines, tips of shoulder pads, etc.) The final result looks roughly like this (on the bike shot you can even actually distinguish a little bit of final orange highlights, lol):
(https://i.imgur.com/Ab4jC6S.jpg)(https://i.imgur.com/GldslyJ.jpg)(https://i.imgur.com/7dF5vvI.jpg)

To be continued :)
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Saim-Dann on November 28, 2017, 12:54:01 PM
G'day SeekingOne!
Have only just stumbled onto your blog and WOW! How skilled are you? The step by step with the airbrush is amazing. Your sculpting with the Autarch's lance and the WR" scatter lasers are pro level. Best of luck at no retreat... Be well!
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Cavalier on November 28, 2017, 01:39:00 PM
Wow! Amazing stuff SeekingOne. This is truly incredible stuff. I LOVE that Scatter Laser modification. Just brilliant... also I know how fiddly those Reaver intakes are so major league kudos to you for getting it to work. Also fantastic work on the Autarch bike so far. I just love it! Also I feel your pain on the camera not picking up your transitions... my paintingly applied 4 stage highlights are absolutely invincible on my photos  :'( so I totally feel your pain. But nonetheless it looks brilliant. Absolutley love it! Keep it up bud I can wait to see the Autarch himself painted.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: SeekingOne on November 28, 2017, 05:37:50 PM
Many thanks for your kind words guys, much appreciated! I believe that trying to make our armies look good is not only something we do for ourselves, but also something we owe our opponents, as it helps to improve their experience as well! So I'm really happy to hear you like these models :)



Just did the flags:
(https://i.imgur.com/HUc0z7g.jpg)
This colour would make an unusual combination with reds, but I hope it will work :) If it doesn't, nothing stops me from repainting them once the rest of the model is complete anyway.

This is practically all the airbrushing done. In terms of time, that would be about 20-25% of work completed :) Following sessions would be brushwork - blacklining, edge-highlighting and fine detail.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Cavalier on November 29, 2017, 07:05:26 AM
Pretty sure I've seen Saim-Hann with purple accents before... I think this'll look really good. You gonna pin these bad boys? Been contemplating that... as I have the same kit (though I need a jetbike for it) and I'm just worried about the model busting up on the regular.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: SeekingOne on November 29, 2017, 09:36:52 AM
You gonna pin these bad boys?
Absolutely, yes. If you look at the Autarch, you'll notice two pins sticking out from behind his back - those are the ones these flags are supposed to go onto. They look thick and warped and so might not be immediately recognisable as pins - but that's because they are also covered with liquid mask, so that I won't need to scrape primer and paint off them in the end.

And yeah, mine both already broke off in the process of pre-assembly, so pinning is 100% essential with them.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Ynneadwraith on November 29, 2017, 11:27:25 AM
Wonderful stuff :) airbrushing as a whole is all pretty alien to me so it's great to see it broken down so well :)

What sort of camera do you use? I've found since my little melty mishap that a fair few phone cameras have built-in image processing to help amateur snaps pop with colour. However, they tend to muddle up a lot of finer detail...
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: SeekingOne on December 4, 2017, 08:37:36 AM
A quick WIP update:

(https://i.imgur.com/VQjucIH.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/OG6Pt5s.jpg)(https://i.imgur.com/x3W7mnm.jpg)

Painting that face was a nightmare, particularly the eyes. I think these are by far the smallest eyes I ever encountered on any of the GW models. I think I spent 4 or 5 hours straight on the eyes alone, only to realise that it's physically impossible to paint them properly (they're just simply too small for that), and all I can do is make them look semi-decent at an arm's length... very disappointing.
The face itself is nicely detailed but is sculpted asymmetrical (including eyes which are different in size) and in the end I decided to paint a long scar across the right cheek and the right side of the brow, which (I hope ::)) kind of helps to justify the two sides of the face looking so different.

The face does have some character though :) now I see that this is definitely a rough fighter and a type of leader who doesn't care about his own safety and would not tolerate weakness or indecision in his subordinates. A survivor too, seeing that he doesn't look young at all. Overall, seems quite fitting for a high Autarch of Saim-Hann  8)

To be continued  :)
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Saim-Dann on December 4, 2017, 09:07:25 AM
G'day SeekingOne!
That face looks amazing, mate. Palease do a tutorial as I've an entire Space Wolves army to paint without helmets. If they could look as good as yours, I'd be one happy forumite... Pointy ears forever!!
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Cavalier on December 4, 2017, 09:21:27 AM
Bruh... that face looks amazing! Absolutley incredible paint job. I would not worry about it one iota. Absolutley killed it. Also the shading on the jetbike runes is also incredible. I own this model as well and am now SUPER inspired to paint him up. Just brilliant work Seeking One. The face is impeccable! Dont be disappointed!
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Looshkin on December 4, 2017, 01:58:53 PM
That face is superb SeekingOne. There is a lot of character in the face and you're right, it does seem like the face of a weathered, gnarly veteran fighter that puts his own safety to one side in the name of his clan and Craftworld.

Simply amazing bud. this project is rocking right now!
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Blazinghand on December 4, 2017, 07:51:30 PM
That face is amazing! The hood looks great as well.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Ynneadwraith on December 5, 2017, 05:59:17 AM
Yep. That face looks damn near photo-realistic.

Agreed that it's rare (and brilliant!) to have a face that looks that grizzled, realistic and characterful. Especially on an eldar who tend to be pretty polished :)
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: SeekingOne on December 8, 2017, 07:52:32 AM
@ALL
Many thanks for your kind words people!  :) Your support is invaluable.



Had a couple more painting sessions. First, let me show a couple of pics to further illustrate the techniques I use.
So, when you cover such detail as a gem with liquid mask, it's inevitable that some of the mask will flow onto the surrounding surface. As a result, when you remove the mask, some of the primer will be showing around the gem:
(https://i.imgur.com/tyVVttU.jpg)

This is not a problem here because white primer can be easily overpainted with an appropriate shade of red. In the end, no one who doesn't know what to look for would ever notice anything.
(https://i.imgur.com/YhkDyVa.jpg)
Still, this is something to keep in mind if you wish to try this kind of technique out.

Generally, airbrushing works ideal when you can work on a single separate part that has to be mostly one colour. Because of this, painting in sub-assemblies is essential if you want to get the most out of an airbrush. However, sometimes a model is one-piece, and sometimes keeping it in subassemblies is just not practical. In this case, if you still want to airbrush different areas of the model with different colours, liquid mask is what makes it possible. However, you should always keep in mind that
1) applying mask takes time
2) removing it also takes time
3) mask will inevitably leave a line of slightly jagged paint along its border, and you'll need to tidy it up.

As a result, if it's something relatively small, it's usually still quicker to just paint it by hand. The technique that I use with those gems on bikes is a kind of an exception to that - it works for me because I can airbrush any number of those gems in like 5-10 minutes, while hand-blending colours on them would take me hours (due to their large size). Hence despite the extra fuss with the mask, it's still worth it.

With the details on the bike mostly done, I completed all small details on the rider:
(https://i.imgur.com/wB3Y0o7.jpg)(https://i.imgur.com/0H9ywgn.jpg)
Now it was time for the most tedious but also probably the most rewarding stage: black-lining and extreme highlights on the red armour.

First I outlined all armour plates and other details using a thin mix of dark red ink with black and violet airbrush paints. GW recommends doing it with a "recess wash", but using washes at this stage, even if you use them in a controlled manner, is still messy, and besides the end result dramatically lacks contrast. So I use what effectively looks like black-red paint, thinned down and mixed with some acrylic retarder for maximum control, and just paint in thin dark lines into all the recesses.
(https://i.imgur.com/Lq69uzb.jpg)
This picture is not of the best quality, but because of that it showcases the resulting effect really well. When you look at the picture, you don't really see much of those dark lines, but you simply notice that all armour details stand out much more clearly against each other than they did on the previous pictures. I heard some painters calling this "a comic-book style", implying that it looks cartoonish and unrealistic, but I actually find it rather natural and believable.

As a (semi-)side note, there was once an interview with Jes Goodwin (I think it was dedicated to the release of the new Dark Eldar model range somewhere in 2009-2010). In that interview Jes, absolute genious as he is, said one thing that I remember to this day. Can't recreate the exact words, but the idea was that in order to look good, a model doesn't have to be realistic, but it has to be believable and easily recognisable for what it is. At that moment I realised that this is indeed the principle that governs everything in modelling and painting: things, first and foremost, have to look believable and recognisable. Considering this style of painting Eldar armour, it certainly doesn't look "realistic" in the exact sense of the meaning - but, with all plates clearly defined and standing out, it does confer a very clear feeling of some kind of a protective suite built of rigid plates, and therefore looks like it means business. Or at least that's how I see it, lol

So, black-lining was followed by the first extreme highlight (Wild Rider Red):
(https://i.imgur.com/lj1jmwN.jpg)
... and the second highlight (Fire Dragon Bright).
(https://i.imgur.com/g9YYnzG.jpg)

Even on this washed-out picture you can see that the armour plates now have some definition :)

What's left with the rider is one more highlight stage on red and highlight on hair. Then the same highlights on red parts of bike, base, and it's done :)

To be continued :)
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Cavalier on December 8, 2017, 03:59:03 PM
Absolutely sick! Love the black edging... its something I do only on my special models, but something I really need to look at implementing a bit more often. Just brilliant work... about your edge highlighting... your jump straight from Mephiston to Wild Rider looks great! I usually use Evil Sunz Scarlett in between... but it doesnt look necessary at all on this model and I'm trying to figure out why it doesn't look like the stark difference I'd usually expect ... Did you use a brighter shade of red than Mephiston or is it just unnecessary? Maybe Mephiston across an entire model just looks different than using it as a highlight on a Khorne base like I implement.

Anyway just brilliant, brilliant stuff. Loving this project to death. Great stuff SeekingOne, thanks!
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Saim-Dann on December 8, 2017, 06:29:04 PM
Niiiiice!
Thank you so much for the tutelage, mate. Used to use liquid masking when airbrushing back in my signwriting days. Using it on such a small scale must be very interesting... Pointy ears forever!!
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: dog_of_war on December 8, 2017, 07:09:29 PM
Gorgeous paint job. Thank you so much for the step-by-step instructions. I love seeing the WIP photos with details of how you achieved those results. I certainly helps me see avenues I've never thought of exploring before. Keep 'em coming!
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne\'s Eldar blog
Post by: SeekingOne on December 17, 2017, 02:22:44 PM
@All

Thank you for your kind words guys, very-very much appreciated!

@Cavalier
but it doesnt look necessary at all on this model and I'm trying to figure out why it doesn't look like the stark difference I'd usually expect ... Did you use a brighter shade of red than Mephiston or is it just unnecessary? Maybe Mephiston across an entire model just looks different than using it as a highlight on a Khorne base like I implement.


Thing is, I don't use Mephiston or any GW reds (except the highliht oranges). The magic paint that works as the key ingredient for my red is this:
(https://i.imgur.com/t3OC65Q.jpg)
It's an airbrush-specific paint, but it's really-really good - bright, clean, yet at the same time it's still red enough to look red rather than red-orange.
Here, I made a reference to show the difference between colours:
(https://i.imgur.com/yojBnCo.jpg)
The colours in this picture look not 100% like in real life, but the difference is visible enough.
As you can see from the labels, in the top row there are GW colours - Khorne red, Mephiston red, Evil Sunz scarlet. For comparison, the bottom row is the colours that I use. Shade is a mix of Vallejo Game Air Scarlet Red and Hexed Lichen (2:1), basically a very dark red-violet. Mid-tone is a mix of Vallejo Model Air Red RLM23 and Schminke Brilliant Red (2:1). Highlight is pure Schminke Brilliant Red.
My shade colour looks very dark - but airbrush enables me to apply it in very thin transparent layers, making shades as soft or as dark as I need. Mid-tone, as you can (hopefully :)) see in the picture, is a tad lighter than Mephiston, and highlight is every bit as bright as Evil Sunz. As you might remember from my earlier post, I do the highlights by covering the highlighted areas with white first, and then glazing over it with my highlight colour. This keeps highlights very bright. Figuring out this combination of paints and the 'technology' of their application took me three months of experimenting at some point  ;D

Let me use the jetbike wing as an example:
(https://i.imgur.com/IfufQ7L.jpg)
The shade along the centre line of the wing is effectively darker than Khorne red, yet highlights along the outer edges of the wing are as bright as Evil Sunz - thus, Wild Rider red goes very naturally and smoothly as the next highlight step. Note that despite fairly stark contrast, the colour transition is quite smooth - that's the wonder of airbrushing!

Anyway, hope this answers your question! :)

Post Merge: December 17, 2017, 03:19:10 PM
In the future, please use the modify button. Double posting is against the forum rules, and for that reason, the system merged your posts.

Time for update!

The final highlight on the red armour is made with a 1:2 mix of Fire Dragon Bright with light bone colour like Screaming Skull. Really love this step, as it really makes the red shine :)
(https://i.imgur.com/4Kfmz5T.jpg)

Here's the completed body of the jetbike, with all highlights in place.
(https://i.imgur.com/m0tli2B.jpg)

And, finally - here he is, the High Autarch of Saim-Hann, bearer of the Novalance, known in mon-keigh tongues as "The White Snake".
(https://i.imgur.com/CCvYXte.jpg)(https://i.imgur.com/B9LSdYz.jpg)
Don't ask me why he's known as "The White Snake" - this name just came to me when I was thinking of his personal heraldry to display in one of the flags. I like the sound of it though, as well as the subtle connotations of age, cunning and the merciless killing bite, as well as the parallel with the world serpent symbol of Saim-Hann.

The model was complete on Wednesday, and he already led the forces of Saim-Hann to two crushing victories on Saturday. Here's a group shot that I made at the club :)
(https://i.imgur.com/nAq583k.jpg)

On to the Shining Spears!

To be continued :)
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: magenb on December 17, 2017, 04:36:59 PM
great work and seeing a painted themed army on the table is just so sweet!
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Saim-Dann on December 17, 2017, 06:35:14 PM
OH-MY-GIDDY-AUNT!
You've done an amazing job on that piece, SO.Thank you for taking the time on the colour chart as well... Pointy ears forever!!
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Cavalier on December 18, 2017, 06:08:35 AM
WOW! Just an incredible job SeekingOne. I dig the name too! Thanks for the tutorial, it looks like a good amount of work but it came out great. Man the rune covering the jetbike is just phenomenal. The weathering/shading on it is just sick. Also what an awesome group shot. Fantastic stuff Seekingone, some of the best I've seen on the forum. Keep rocking bud this stuff is amazing!
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Looshkin on December 20, 2017, 04:40:10 AM
SeekingOne, your Autarch has come out ridiculously well. Everything is blended so smoothly and the brush work matches or exceeds the airbrushing. Your eye for detail really is impressive.

Thank you too, for the level of detail you put into your posts. They must take an age to put together, but really help the community learn a lot about how you paint to such an unbelievable standard.

Amazing work. Thank you for sharing!
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Ynneadwraith on January 11, 2018, 04:21:10 AM
Damn that's an incredible autarch :)

Also, how about this for his name. When on attack runs, his artifact jetbike emits a blinding trail of light behind it at full speed. To onlookers from a distance, the afterglow of this appears as if a colossal shining serpent has materialised snaking across the battlefield, with its head an even brighter flare from his deadly nova lance.

Hence, the White Snake :)
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: dog_of_war on January 11, 2018, 09:50:09 AM
I'm totally picturing a Tron bike when you said that Ynneadwrath. That would be some awesome imagery on the battlefield.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: SeekingOne on January 16, 2018, 07:05:26 AM
@All

Thanks for your kind words guys! Glad that you like the model  :D

I wish I could post some updates, but I found myself kind of stuck between severe lack of free
time and inability to figure out a good colour scheme for Shining Spears, and my work is sort of grinding in place not moving anywhere.

BTW, Id be grateful for any examples of some cool-looking Shining Spear colour schemes, preferably in blues. The problem is that their base scheme is kind of bleak and unimpressive; I'm trying to come up with some more good-looking variation but with little success so far.

Also, how about this for his name. When on attack runs, his artifact jetbike emits a blinding trail of light behind it at full speed. To onlookers from a distance, the afterglow of this appears as if a colossal shining serpent has materialised snaking across the battlefield, with its head an even brighter flare from his deadly nova lance.

Hence, the White Snake :)
Ynnead, I told you you should write for Black Library, didn't I? ;) This is an absolutely awesome image, and I'll definitely incorporate it into my army's background if you don't mind. Picturing this in my mind's eye is quite literally breathtaking!
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: magenb on January 16, 2018, 05:22:09 PM
BTW, Id be grateful for any examples of some cool-looking Shining Spear colour schemes, preferably in blues. The problem is that their base scheme is kind of bleak and unimpressive; I'm trying to come up with some more good-looking variation but with little success so far.

Why not keep the black and red going? Then just give their lances and helms a different colour so they stand out a bit more. A full themed army looks awesome :)

Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Ynneadwraith on January 18, 2018, 09:46:19 AM
Haha thanks man :) glad you like it!

I'm also a big fan of craftworld-coloured Aspects, albeit with variations like shadier Scorpions/Reapers or ethereal Hawks/Banshees.

Not for everyone I know. The whole 'army of many colours' is pretty iconic for eldar for a lot of people :)
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Looshkin on January 28, 2018, 07:07:37 AM
BTW, Id be grateful for any examples of some cool-looking Shining Spear colour schemes, preferably in blues. The problem is that their base scheme is kind of bleak and unimpressive; I'm trying to come up with some more good-looking variation but with little success so far.

I actually think that just reversing your Saim Hann theme might work wonders. A white base with red detailing. It'll pop on the tabletop and be very cohesive visually with what you have already painted.

Looking forward to seeing which direction you go and seeing the fantastic results you will undoubtedly achieve!
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: SeekingOne on March 1, 2018, 05:34:12 AM
Finally, I'm back with another update :)

Chapter 2: Shining Spears

So, as I mentioned above, the Shining Spears project turned out to be a tough one.

But wait - first, let me start with a note on the colour schemes in 8th edition. This would also be a reply to latest comments by Magenb, Looshkin and Ynnead.
As we all know, background-wise our Aspect warriors are traditionally entitled to their own colour schemes, which can be different from the base colours of their craftworld. However, as you guys rightly mentioned, it is also not unknown for the Aspects to wear the Craftworld's colours. As for me, I was always gravitating towards each Aspect wearing its own colour scheme: for me, the classic colour of each aspect - bone of the Banshee, green of the Scorpion, black of the Reaper - always felt like an essential part of that aspects visual style. Besides, being able to combine different colour schemes within one army provides a much welcome diversity in painting - painting endless bright reds can be tiring! :)
Also, quite unexpectedly, the 8th edition has brought yet another incentive to keep each aspect to its own colour scheme. Most of the new codices feature many different special rules, stratagems, etc. tied to specific factions or sub-factions. As a result of this, as I mentioned before in other threads, it has become a bit of a tendency lately that TOs of many high-quality events started to treat the faction-related colour schemes as part of WYSIWYG requirements. E.g., if your Space Marines are painted as Black Templars or Salamanders, you'll have to use them as such and would not be allowed to use them as "counts-as Ultramarines". Same with Eldar, an army painted in distinct red and black of Saim-Hann would not be allowed to be used as Alaitoc. Furthermore, even if your force is painted in some non-standard colour scheme of your own design, and per basic rules you can use them with any sub-faction rules, you won't be allowed to have two different detachments following 2 different sub-faction rules, because in order to do that units in those detachments would have to be painted differently.
With this situation in mind, its easy to see that traditional Aspect colour schemes are just the thing that can be used to bypass those restrictions (to an extent). Basically, a unit of Aspect warriors painted in their traditional colours can be used in any Craftworld's detachment without formal violation of WYSIWYG rules. For me, this was the key consideration that settled the matter: my Aspects would be wearing their traditional colours, and my Shining Spears had to be blue.

1. Converting
But even before I got to the colour scheme, I ran into the problem of sculpt.
I won't even mention that the failcast had more bubbles in it that normal resin - that's kind of normal, sadly. However, when I was half-way through assembling the riders, I was shocked to realise that the legs of the riders were absolutely out of scale! While the resin Shining Spear torsos and heads are about the right size, legs are so short and thin they look almost child-like compared to legs of any other Eldar model. Perfectionist as I am, I just had to find some way to fix this issue.

I quickly remembered that the legs of my old converted Windriders (I posted the pics of them in my earlier posts in this thread) didn't look that disproportional. When I pulled them out, I realised that the resin shining spear legs are clearly shorter and smaller even than the plastic legs of the old jetbikers. So I decided to replace the resin legs with the plastic ones - thankfully, I still have dozens of them lying around. However, when I took a pair of plastic jetbiker legs and filed off poach and pistol holster, I realised that they look kind of thin and not particularly well-armoured compared to the massive armour plates featured on a shining spear torso. At this point it became clear that in order to make the legs visually match the torsos I'll have to sculpt some extra armour onto them.

Here's a picture that would hopefully illustrate what I'm talking about:

(https://i.imgur.com/APePKcW.jpg?1)
The model on the right is a pair of plastic jetbiker legs with a foot guardian torso attached to them (used it later on as a test model for colours). The model on the left is a resin Shining Spear torso attached to an identical pair of plastic legs but with extra armour sculpted onto them with Milliput.
As you can see, the thicker and bigger armour plates make the legs look better armoured. I also had to bulk out the inner side of the left thigh a bit - after pistol holster and its straps were filed off, they revealed that the "bare" left thigh is visibly thinner than the right one.
You can also just about make out that I added an extra piece of plastic at the waist to make the torso sit higher above the legs, so that the whole figure appears taller. I made those "waist extenders" from the bottom parts of old jetbiker torsos (the ones with Ku Klux Klan-style helmets) - they have buttons and straps in front, which makes them look like a kind of broad belts.

Here's a close-up of the converted Exarch.

(https://i.imgur.com/SxWZHnF.jpg)
The Shining Spears' armour is sculpted in such way that they have their right sides much more heavily armoured than the left sides. This actually looks quite cool, and confers a clear idea that their suits are optimised for the situation when they attack with their lances with their right side facing the enemy. I tried to match the style of leg armour to the original shining spear legs, and made the plates on the right leg heavier and more enclosed to match the torso armour. I'm actually quite happy with the way how curved lower-leg plate on the right leg turned out.

Note that even though knee-pads are grey plastic, they are actually also converted :) I cut off the original narrow oval knee-pads and replaced them with bigger and more massive-looking knee-pads from the foot Guardian legs (I do have some spare infantry legs left from those torsos that I used to convert my Windriders). Did I mention that I'm a crazy perfectionist?  ;D

I did come up with a cheeky way to reduce the amount of sculpting though: in my squadron of 6 Spears two riders are distinctly female, and those two females I assembled with the original small resin legs. I thought it appropriate for the two girls to have somewhat smaller and more slender stature - and I can't think of a more awesome image than that of a slender Eldar girl tearing right through massive Space Marines and IG battle tanks  ;)

Here's a little illustration of my approach to painting in sub-assemblies:

(https://i.imgur.com/grQxLAp.jpg)
As you can see, I glued torsos and legs together but kept both arms separate - this was essential to provide easy access to every part of a model with an airbrush. Each part was mounted on a separate piece of wine cork. Corks are numbered on the under-side - so that I can keep track of which pair of arms corresponds to which body.

Here's what the final results of assembly and conversion work looked like:

(https://i.imgur.com/GuqCIpX.jpg)
Looking at the two bodies closest to the camera, you can kind of see the difference in size and length between converted legs and the standard resin ones.


2. Painting
Next came the stage that is always the hardest for me: designing a colour scheme.

"Standard" GW colour scheme for Spears is mostly white - but white just doesn't work for me as a main colour, so I wanted my Spears to be mostly blue with just a little white. Figuring out colours for a jetbike was actually quite easy - but when I got to riders, I found myself stuck.

I didn't want the armour of the riders to be solid blue - it would've made them look too much like Dire Avengers. The most natural approach seemed to be to paint armour plates and under-suit two different colours. I started with trying white plates on blue under-suit, but it looked wrong. Then I tried blue armour plates on white under-suit - but that looked just horrible, giving an impression of armour plates being grafted straight to a rider's underwear  :D Blue plates themselves looked good though, so I proceeded trying all thinkable variants on under-suit colour, but nothing seemed right.

It was only thanks to the advice of my lovely wife (being a bit of an artist herself, she's my muse, arts advisor and a critique all in one :)) I stumbled upon a quite unconventional solution that actually worked: I painted the rider's under-suit bluish-silver metallic.
It's unusual for the armour of Craftworld Eldar to look metal, but in this case it felt 100% appropriate. The silver worked great with blue, and it also gave the riders the feeling of being massively armoured - which was just the effect I was looking for.

I started with painting the Exarch as a test model. It's a useful trick when painting Aspects: Exarchs can have their armour looking differently from the rest of the squad, so I knew that if I complete him and decide to make some minor changes to the colour scheme, I would be able to leave him as-is and just paint the rest of the squad slightly differently.

Unfortunately, this time I don't have any step-by-step pics, so I'll have to jump straight to the end results. Here's how the Exarch turned out:

(https://i.imgur.com/Sde4E5q.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/gEplXEg.jpg)
The model could benefit from some kind of decoration in the form of runic script on the armour. Alas, I'm not into free-handing, so in the end I just broke up the monotony on some of the big flat blue surfaces with some scratches and slashes, both on the bike and the rider. The only thing that is slightly off about this model is that bright white decorations on the bike's prow tend to distract all the attention from the rider - so I decided that the regular riders would look better with white helmets.

To make long story short, here's what my 'production line' looked like when the work on 5 regular Spears was already nearing completion:

(https://i.imgur.com/B5rxeSC.jpg)

And, finally, this is the complete result.

(https://i.imgur.com/JqrynTb.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/GyNcTuD.jpg)
Casting false modesty aside, I think they look awesome  8)

This project was crazy long. Effectively, I started working on these guys around 20th of December, and finished them just last week, on 20th of February, making it two full months. However, there was a week of New Year holidays when I barely did anything, so the effective timing was about 8 weeks. It took me almost precisely 4 weeks to get from unpacking the first box to the completed Exarch, and then 4 weeks more to paint the remaining 5 regular Spears. I really need to find some way to speed things up...  :D

I already took them to a local 2250 pts tournament this weekend (the one I wrote about in another thread on the Eldar board), where they did just great. Here's one nice shot of them at the peak of action, doing just the thing they're made for:

(https://i.imgur.com/BcpEfya.jpg?1)

And also, just for your viewing pleasure, here's a bird's eye view of my whole 2250 force that I used in the tournament.

(https://i.imgur.com/EaOjLAB.jpg)

Please excuse me for so much text and so few pictures.
The post is already too long, so I'll wrap it up with a little sneak-peek of my next project...
(https://i.imgur.com/nJ1zhDd.jpg)
 ;D
And also - if you're interested in any details about the colour scheme, painting process, paints, materials and tools I used, etc. - please, by all means feel free to ask, I'll be happy to respond!

To be continued... :)
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Saim-Dann on March 1, 2018, 06:40:37 AM
OH-MY-GIDDY-AUNT!!
You really go the whole hog when it comes to detailing, don't you, SeekingOne? All paid off though. The spears look amazing. And the graduation photo of the whole army together?... Niiiiice! Love the swooping hawk view.

There is only one downside to the spears that has nothing to do with you, mate. Those, not so streamlined, wings on the exarch's helmet. The speeds these guys reach, surely he ends the battle with a broken neck? Or at least has trouble keeping his bike's nose down.

Thanks for sharing, SeekingOne and don'e worry about the lack of step-by-step on the spear exarch. Am I wrong in thinking it was the same technique as your Windrider only blue? 
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: SeekingOne on March 1, 2018, 07:02:41 AM
@Saim-Dann
Thanks mate, much appreciated  :D

You really go the whole hog when it comes to detailing, don't you, SeekingOne? All paid off though. The spears look amazing.
Yeah, that's what I do :) Sometimes I hate it that my progress is so slow, but in the end I always feel that I rather spend more time and get the models that I can be really proud of, because it makes me feel that the time investment was justified.

Quote
There is only one downside to the spears that has nothing to do with you, mate. Those, not so streamlined, wings on the exarch's helmet. The speeds these guys reach, surely he ends the battle with a broken neck? Or at least has trouble keeping his bike's nose down.
My thoughts exactly  ;D ;D ;D
It was just that after spending so much time converting the legs of these guys I didn't feel myself up to the challenge of converting the Exarch's helmet. If I get to paint the second squad of these guys though I'll definitely come up with something!

Quote
Am I wrong in thinking it was the same technique as your Windrider only blue?
You're quite correct. In fact, with blue it was simpler - no "pre-highlights" followed by a glaze, just straight airbrushed highlights from dark blue all the way up to a pale sky blue. After airbrushing the final highlights I did a very thin overall glaze of intermediate blue just to knock the highlights down a bit, then followed by some pale blue edge highlights, and finally added some points of light to the very sharpest corners with wolf grey.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Saim-Dann on March 1, 2018, 07:06:45 AM
Thank you for your swift reply, SeekingOne!
The winged helmets from one of the Fantasy High Elves characters would look Micky Mouse and functional on the exarch.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Looshkin on March 1, 2018, 11:06:09 AM
I don't think my reply will truly express how blown away I am by those Shining Spears.

The conversion work is spot on, to the point that if you just look at the finished photos, I'd have no idea that they were converted; which I see as the goal of conversion work. The dedication to do that over a full squad is impressive , to say the least.

As for the painting? Just wow.

The blue's are absolutely eye-popping. So smooth, with just the right depth. If you hadn't added any of the white markings, I would still be picking my jaw off the floor. As is, the details knock the canopies out of the park.

I love the battle damage too. Perfect. Understated but beautiful.

And then you go and add those beautiful riders on top of the things.

I genuinely can't figure out whether I'm feeling more awe or jealousy at the moment! I would give me right leg to have your level of skill. Amazing work and something to really be proud of. 2 months? I don't think any of us could achieve the same result if given 2 years.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: SeekingOne on March 1, 2018, 11:36:19 AM
@Looshkin
You're making me blush with your high praise Loosh :D Thank you so much, means a lot to me!
Although I do think that if any of you guys actually gets to spend 2 months on one unit, you'll easily do just as well or better than me! :)

And now I'm sitting here, waiting with dread for the big March FAQ, hoping against hope that my Shining Spears won't get nerfed into oblivion... ;D
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Irisado on March 1, 2018, 12:06:09 PM
Outstanding conversion and painting work on the Shining Spears.  The way in which you bulked up the leg armour was very cleverly executed and I really like the final paint scheme.  That blue, in particular, gives them that sleek feel which you were after with the modelling work, as well as a regal touch which is most suitable for such an elite Eldar Aspect unit.

The picture of your entire army is equally impressive.  It must feel very good to be able to put down such well painted models on the table :).
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: magenb on March 1, 2018, 05:27:29 PM
Go the blue spears :) fantastic work, really love the pattern on the jetbike hulls, and the lances being a separate colour is also a very nice touch.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Cavalier on March 2, 2018, 07:47:34 AM
I'm just gonna come out and give it to you straight. I think this might be the single most epic hobby post on the forum. Not only is conversion work/resculpt absolutely mind boggling in terms of subtlety and flawless execution... but the paint jobs, the tiny bits of damage (AMAZING) and the forethought given to army composition all combines into the total apotheosis of 40k hobby greatness.

I'm not kidding this might be the most epic hobby post on the forum.

While the resculpt blew me away, the one thing I gotta take special note of is of course the paint jobs. The landslide win begins with just the color choices/balance. The scheme is simply amazing. The dominant blue is 100% the way to go... the green gems tie it back into the Saim-Hann and keep the cool color theme going, while the Warplock Bronze spear keeps the weapon non-intrusive keeping a streamlined look for each model (and thus the unit) and works with the blue to keep a richer, darker color pallet which I love.

Then comes the kicker. The damn freehand. Holy crap. Just beautiful and all of a sudden the dark, cool scheme has a brilliant point of contrast that ties it directly into the classic scheme and there you go: a brilliant centerpiece unit that is sure to blow people away.

Cannot say how much I admire your work on this SeekingOne. Best unit of Shining Spears I've ever seen. TRULY inspirational my man. I gotta go back and do some work on my own Spears now. Absolutely amazing... totally worth the wait. Just an epic achievement. Keep rocking man you are KILLING IT!!!
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: dog_of_war on March 2, 2018, 09:57:03 AM
Absolutely fascinating. I am totally enthralled with your thinking process and technique. It's akin to being able to look into the mind of a great master artist. And I truly mean artist and not simply a hobbyist.

I can't wait to see what you do with those rangers. I'm on pins and needles with anticipation.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: SeekingOne on March 13, 2018, 06:01:47 PM
@Irisado

Thank you Iris, happy to hear you like the conversion and the colours. Your thoughtful comments always mean a lot!

@magenb

Thanks! Funny thing is that the pattern on a bike hull was initially intended for the Exarch only, and I was planning to do something simpler on the regular spears. However, after the Exarch was complete, the pattern felt so right that I couldn't help but replicate it on the whole squadron!

@Cavalier

Hey Cav :) as always, you make me blush with your high praise :) very much appreciated!

@dog_of_war

Thank you mate, that was one of the most serious compliments I ever received. Means a lot to me.



And I'm just back from the No Retreat 6! It was an absolute blast of an event, held by the SN Battle Reports Team (https://snbattlereports.com/) in Gibraltar. Fantastic atmosphere, wonderful tables, awesome people and of course breathtaking armies!

I placed 7th out of 40 in the tournament with 3 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss to the future champion, none other than Lawrence "The Spider" Baker of Tabletop Tactics himself :) Will write up a more detailed coverage later.

What's even cooler, there was a special painting competition there. The competition effectively consisted of two parts: first, the TOs examined each army carefully and picked some of the best-looking models to participate in the contest; next, a jury of several painters selected the winners in three categories: Best Character, Best Unit, Best Vehicle.
In the evening of day 1, the selected models were put on display and it looked like this:

(https://i.imgur.com/EFB1Wrh.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/Xzk8Jrs.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/26jmRSp.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/DxYqd8E.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/8s89iDZ.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/gVL1go6.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/JsOgexJ.jpg)

As you can (hopefully) see, there were some absolutely beautiful paint jobs there! Needless to say, standing before that display case I could scarcely believe that as many as 4 different units from my army were selected to be part of that awesome display. At that moment that fact in itself seriously felt like the biggest achievement I could dream of. You can imagine my surprise and joy when, after the competition results were declared in the end of day 2, I found that I'll be leaving home with these:
(https://i.imgur.com/VxXr17P.jpg)
Yes, my High Autarch of Saim-Hann, who's birth you could observe in this blog, won the Best Character nomination :D The Best Unit prize was given to my squad of Windriders, which surprised me a bit as I personally believe my Shining Spears are painted better - but who am I to question the jury ;D

Sorry for this bit of bragging, but I just couldn't help :) This was the first time I happened to be in a painting competition - and winning 2 prizes at once was as awesome as it was unexpected :) And I once again want to say big Thanks to all of you guys here - your support really helped me to strive for the highest quality in my latest projects!

You can see a more detailed view of the competition entrees in this facebook album by SN Battle Reports (https://www.facebook.com/pg/SNbattlereports/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1979724578909114)

To be continued... :)
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Aurics Pride on March 13, 2018, 06:13:23 PM
Wow, that's absolutely awesome dude!
It's cool enough that you went to No Retreat and got to play Lawrence but to come away with a decent placing and winning the two categories is pretty damn amazing!
The painting awards are well deserved in my opinion, there was some great paintjobs there but you've smashed it with some of yours!
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Looshkin on March 13, 2018, 06:42:13 PM
Well done on your performance in the gaming event SeekingOne!

More importantly, congratulations on winning 2 painting awards! That's huge. Some of those units look absolutely fabulous...but I can see why they voted for yours. They are terrific and highly deserving of the awards. Congratulations man, you really deserve it.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: magenb on March 13, 2018, 09:40:14 PM
Congrats! There was some stiff competition there too.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Saim-Dann on March 13, 2018, 11:02:17 PM
G'day, SeekingOne!
You are the very best in our eyes, mate. I can see why your windriders won over the shining spears. Not everybody would have known about the extra sculpting gone into the SS's, plus one of the WR's has a face painted like no other.

Congrats, SeekingOne! You deserve this tremendous accolade after all the months put into your work, and 7th out of 40?... Niiiiice! Be well!   
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Cavalier on March 14, 2018, 06:52:03 AM
Wow! What an amazing achievement SeekingOne. Oh man I'd be over the moon winning those awards, getting my minis in the case and coming away with a great winning record. Absolutely fantastic! You should be very proud.

But damn you lost to that Spider! I wanted you to give him a good thrashing for us. Oh well, that guy is beyond pro, but good for you getting in there and doing work.

Did he bring his Dark Eldar? If so we'll probably be interviewing him again on the podcast. I'll try and get him to give you a shoutout!

Anyway fantastic stuff and so well deserved. Your Autarch and Wind Riders (should have been the Spears though!!!) are utterly amazing. Cheers man
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: SeekingOne on March 14, 2018, 10:29:08 AM
@All

Thanks everyone for your kind words! Your support is truly invaluable.

@Cavalier

I feel honoured, and of course very proud too!

And no, Lawrence used his Ulthwe Eldar this time. It was a mechanised force of 5 Wave Serpents and 3 Hemlocks, with some Rangers and lots of Guardians, naturally led by Eldrad Ulthran. It was sight to behold - a real tide of black hulls washing over the battlefield. The game was short and brutal, but the battlefield looked epic in the process! :)



A small update:
(https://i.imgur.com/0IpLlfu.jpg)
Prepped and primed Rangers. Even though the models are one-piece and practically didn't need any assembly, straightening the resin rifle barrels took me a couple nights' work. After getting heated in boiling water and straightened, the GW resin does seem to have tendency to return to its warped shape after some time - something that I never saw before in FW or 3rd party resin. I even had to saw off a few barrels and re-pin them in a "straighter" position to reduce the amount of heat-straightening required.

Before I get to paint the Rangers though I'm planning to work on their leader - Illic Nightspear, who's also primed and (almost) ready.
(https://i.imgur.com/tBQF5F6.jpg)

Just as I did with the Shining Spear exarch, I'll use Illic as a sort of a test model for Rangers. He's a standalone character, so I can easily alter something in the colour scheme, should I want to do so after completing him.

Currently my plan is to paint his armour blue (the same shade as I used for Shining Spears), boots and gauntlets dark brown to imitate leather. I want to try making his cloak a combination of dark and light grey instead of the standard brown though, to differentiate it from leather and because grey should look better with blue. We'll see how it works out.

To be continued...
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Saim-Dann on March 14, 2018, 03:44:51 PM
G'day, SeekingOne!
So the comp was won by an Eldar citizen army?... Niiiiice! A table full of rending is a hoot. Were they all defender guardians, mate, or were some storm guardians thrown in as well?

After seeing what you did to those jetbike units, am keen to see how this ranger unit turns out... Be well!
   
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: SeekingOne on March 15, 2018, 04:00:32 AM
So the comp was won by an Eldar citizen army?... Niiiiice!
It was nice indeed!

Quote
A table full of rending is a hoot. Were they all defender guardians, mate, or were some storm guardians thrown in as well?

There were 4 units of 10 Defender Guardians, with no upgrades.
The tactic Lawrence used was an epitome of the true Aeldari art of war: his Hemlocks went straight for a surgical killing strike against the most dangerous enemy unit(s), basically tearing out the enemy's sharpest fangs right away; multiple Serpents ensured lots of board control. Basically Serpents were used to sort of block out areas of battlefield creating pockets of relatively safer ground, which Guardians then used to disembark and blast away with their shuricats. Tons of shuriken supported by Doom and combined with some precision fire from 9 rangers and mortal wounds inflicted by Serpent shields made short work of any target even after Hemlocks were gone (which was usually the case as they tend to take the heaviest fire from the start). Serpent shields were used extensively, and multiple CP were spent on the extra Serpent shield blasts as well as Discipline of Black Guardians, both to great effect.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: dog_of_war on March 15, 2018, 08:21:49 AM
I feel your pain with the 'failcast'. The swords on my incbui were terrible. I had to break most of them and reglue to get them even remotely straight. So wished GW would either switch to plastic exclusively or bring back metal. I would wholeheartedly pay a premium for metal knowing what the alternative is.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Ynneadwraith on April 6, 2018, 10:24:01 AM
Awesome stuff dude! Congrats on the well-deserved prizes ;)

Looking forward to the Rangers, even with the finecast troubles.

We should start a petition to get everything in plastic ;) if only for selfish reasons as it's so nice to work with for conversions...
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne\'s Eldar blog
Post by: SeekingOne on May 31, 2018, 03:17:44 PM
Here I am again, with an update that is LONG overdue. But, as they say, better late than never, right? ;)

Seriously though, I apologize for neglecting my project for so long. Thing is, in the middle of painting Illic Nightspear I was distracted for a few weeks by a trip to Hymalayas - and when I returned I dived back into painting which was getting ever more frantic with each passing week. But at least I now have some nice progress to share with you!



So, my approach to painting Illic wasn't particularly creative. I really like the way he's painted by GW Citadel team, and was aiming to do something similar. There was one part where I wanted to try something slightly different however - the ranger cloak.

The standard GW model has a fairly light and smooth-looking brown cloak with a simple camo pattern on it - and one thing I definitely did not want to do was camo pattern. On one hand, free-handing it would have taken me forever. But on the other hand, camo patterns always feel somewhat inappropriate to the Eldar - too mundane and too mon-keigh'ish in nature :) I always envisioned the cloaks of Eldar rangers more as something akin to LotR - unremarkable yet blending into the surroundings just by the nature of their craftsmanship. And it was that vague image that I decided to try to re-create in my painting.

But first things first. I assembled the model gluing the right arm to the body but leaving left arm with the rifle and the head separate. I also had to saw off and pin back the rifle's barrel to make it look straighter (silly failcast!) Also, even though he comes with a small infantry base, I found that the nature of his pose perching on a piece of eldar masonry makes the model on a small base extremely wobbly. So I got a big terminator-sized base instead, and decorated it with a couple of "rocks" made of tree bark.

(https://i.imgur.com/tBQF5F6.jpg)
As always, I started with airbrushing smaller details - those which would benefit from smooth finish and which could also be masked off easily. In this case those details were blue armour details and the rifle.

(https://i.imgur.com/ZULYflU.jpg)
I covered armour with liquid mask - and then came the time to paint the cloak.
After some searching I found the set of colours that felt ideal for creating that look of unremarkable, rugged and dusty cloak of an outcast that spends all his life on the road. The colours are the Citadel "grey-brown" set:
- Dryad bark;
- Gorthor brown;
- Baneblade brown.
I was super-happy to find out that Dryad Bark and Baneblade Brown are also available in Citadel Air range. Gorthor is not, sadly, but I had to replace it with Vallejo Model Air Camo Pale Brown, which is fairly similar in hue.

In fact, initially I wasn't 100% sure about brown - I also had an alternative idea of making cloaks light grey to make them closer to "urban camo" style. So I started with experimenting on a few old Wood Elf Glade Guard cloaks that I dug out of my bits box.

(https://i.imgur.com/T33bLQp.jpg)
Test paint job is naturally hasty and sloppy, but it was still 100% clear that brown looked far more interesting and natural. And so the decision was made, and I started working on the actual Illic's cloak.

Using airbrush, I applied Dryad Bark as base colour, then highlighted it progressively first with Camo Pale Brown then with Baneblade brown. After applying the final highlight I went back and accentuated deepest shades with a mix of Dryad Bark and Black. After that there were a few inevitable iterations of going back and forth between shading and highlighting, when I had first to re-apply some highlights because they got darkened by overspray of shade colour, and then re-apply some shades because they got oversprayed with highlight colour, and so on. In 2 or 3 iterations however I managed to get all colours where I wanted them :) Here's what it looked like:

(https://i.imgur.com/GwkUOPR.jpg)
As you can see, airbrush helped me create smooth highlights and shades on the biggest folds. I also created a general smooth gradient from the darkest area at the recessed waist towards the lightest areas at the outer-most edges of the sleeves.

Then it was the time for manual brushwork. As it is usually recommended, in order to reduce the risk of accidentally smearing already completed details I first of all applied all base colours to the rest of the model.

(https://i.imgur.com/J3NGPjb.jpg)
Then came the cloak. I used Nuln Oil and Agrax Earthshade to shade recesses between small folds and highlighted edges and sharpest creases with Baneblade brown, further accentuating them with a mix of Baneblade and VMA Ivory. After finishing just the folds and creases however the cloak looked too smooth and plain, so I decided to add some random signs of wear like scratches, tear-marks, etc. using the same colours that I used to shade and highlight. I actually like all things smooth and clean, so adding any kind of damage or wear to my models always requires a conscious effort from me :) But here it worked out pretty well. Here's the result:

(https://i.imgur.com/h9gkBuq.jpg)
I have to say, this feels like the best example of an effective combination of airbrushing and manual brushwork that I achieved so far :)

After that, the rest was fairly technical. I painted gauntlets and boots (leggings?) dark brown and highlighted them adding VMA Sand Yellow, to imitate hard dark leather worn out on creases. The blue armour was done the same way as on Shining Spears, and bone on the rifle is also standard. I also paited the face in my usual way, starting with Bigman's Glow and highlighting it all the way up to light bone.
(https://i.imgur.com/4Yah6n5.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/ecAT2Tw.jpg)

Finally I painted the base and assembled the model. Aaaaand... There he is!

(https://i.imgur.com/TMu0VCI.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/Lf1soWG.jpg)

I think this is literally one of the best GW models so far. Fantastic sculpt, great pose, lots of depth and character. Proud to have him reinforcing my battalion!

Adding him was the first (but definitely not the last) step towards converting the Battalion in my main list to Alaitoc.

Post Merge: May 31, 2018, 03:52:19 PM
In the future, please use the modify button. Double posting is against the forum rules, and for that reason, the system merged your posts.

This is not all though! :)

After completing the master ranger, I really wanted to retain the momentum and jumped straight to the squad of 5 Rangers. True to the initial plan, I painted them following all the same steps as with Illic. However, at some point a couple of my buddies convinced me to try my hand at creating some mean-looking decorations and showered me with reference examples. Inspired so, I actually managed to paint a simple skull-like design on a faceplate of one of the ranger's helmets - which officially became my first true free-hand in this life! lol

(https://www.40konline.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FMT5nmBR.jpg&hash=998a6c3a532d4b3e669e14bcb6e48fdbd3f9e16f) (https://imgur.com/MT5nmBR)

Totally simplistic as it is, it still turned out to be pretty cool, which inspired me even further - and I managed a similar but even more badass-looking design on one of the bandanas:

(https://i.imgur.com/I3zmvPQ.jpg)

This guy is definitely the meanest-looking model I ever painted :))

And here's the completed squad.
(https://i.imgur.com/rCioOX6.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/Zms7OH2.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/2D9WB9Y.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/nVphIuq.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/XfWknls.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/5Fepi85.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/GAtIB4Q.jpg)

To be continued... ;)
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Cavalier on May 31, 2018, 04:08:31 PM
Looks crazy awesome SeekingOne. The skull face is just amazing. Truly impressive work. The colors really feel "more Alaitoc" than the GW scheme. The emphasis on the the blue was the clutch move.

Are you starting an Alaitoc army? Or just some reinforcements for your Saim-Hann. Illic has been a boss in the games I've run him in. I'm really dying to get him involved in more games, because his damage output is awesome. Especially when I run into Celestine as much as I do. lol. Love to hear what the plan is going forward.

Fantastic to see you back, make sure you keep us updated!
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Looshkin on May 31, 2018, 06:58:03 PM
Um. I can't say enough about how awesome these guys are, so I won't try. I'll simply say that this is the best work I've ever seen on this forum by a wide margin.

Stunning.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Partninja on May 31, 2018, 07:22:22 PM
The skull designs on the faces is simply awesome dude. Really nice little detail to make them a little different.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: magenb on May 31, 2018, 10:02:15 PM
wow what's not to love, the basing is great, the colour scheme is great, the blue just really pops and the skull on the mask and bandanna is just an awesome touch.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: SeekingOne on June 13, 2018, 06:44:19 PM
@All
Thank you very much for your kind words and support people! :)

@Cavalier
Hey Cav!
Illic is indeed an awesome character.
As for my army - as I'll detail below, I'm not seeing it as specifically Alaitoc - rather, I want a custom colour scheme that could represent a non-standard Craftworld, which would enable me to use any Craftworld attribute I like (except Saim-Hann, for which I obviously have a separate army). Currently I have a complete, cohesive and very fluffy Saim-Hann Outrider detachment, and I'm working on expanding my non-Saim-Hann Battalion, hoping to eventually make it as nice and cohesive. Currently I'm happy to field both detachments in alliance - but yeah, eventually I want to be able to field a full non-Saim-Hann force of at least 1750 points. And by "eventually" I mean no later than early Spring 2019, when, if all stars align, I might take it to the next No Retreat.



So, have to say I've been busy painting lately - in fact, I've been painting frantically almost every hour of my free and spare time. And it was the first time when it actually felt like I'm making some good progress!

First of all, I painted two new Wave Serpents at once! Here they are.

(https://www.40konline.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FBWzWGAb.jpg&hash=f3e3461677875859239227bf0ed703026b8a43b2) (https://imgur.com/BWzWGAb)

This is THE colour scheme that I'm planning to follow from now on with my new CWE units - unless I decide to paint up something that is specifically fluffy for Saim-Hann, like a squad of Wraithblades (I do want these guys eventually, And I do want them in red!). As I mentioned before, after painting the Shining Spears I realised that blue can be made to look almost every bit as striking as red, and that I quite enjoy painting blue for a change. Well, after painting these two bad boys I know that the choice was 100% right.

I'm planning to use this new "blue" detachment of mine with Alaitoc rules - for the obvious reason of them being most efficient in tournament play. However, even though this colour scheme has blue as its main colour, I see it not as specifically Alaitoc, but rather as a representation of a custom Craftworld of my own design :) I did want to paint blue, but apart from that I made every effort to differentiate my scheme from the classic GW Alaitoc scheme - hence there's no stippled camo, no orange as the secondary colour, as well as extensive use of white and black. I also made a point of not using any Alaitoc-specific heraldry. All in all, I do realise that seeing solid blue most people would still initially think Alaitoc, but I hope that at least at the second glance the difference would be apparent enough :)

Couldn't resist taking a few more shots to show off the new Serpents )

(https://i.imgur.com/xrnubne.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/ai8hLe4.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/oFCPR3l.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/DYLvWbH.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/gvP8BKG.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/qhAubgk.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/hFmIAoY.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/UZ09K1z.jpg)

After some digging through my spare transfer sheets, I found a pretty cool combination of symbols from all three types of Aeldari transfers: craftworlds, drukhari and harlequin. In particular, that awesome-looking jagged white rune that I chose as my army's main coat of arms comes from the Drukhari transfer sheet, while lines of white runic script are from Harlequin sheet. White runes on deep blue armour look absolutely great imho )

(https://i.imgur.com/cSQ7p0W.jpg)

Initially I was afraid that the colour scheme, being mostly blue and white, would end up looking too monochrome. However, addition of multiple bone and, most importantly, bronze details brought in just enough variety in colour to make a vehicle look interesting.
If anyone's interested in seeing a more detailed report on how I painted these, or want to know something specific details, by all means please let me know.

And I managed to complete them in less than two weeks too! It was, of course, mainly due to a far more diligent schedule than usual, but also because blue proved to be SO much more forgiving than red. Overall the choice of colours feels so right on pretty much all levels.

I was aiming to complete the Serpents for a tournament that was scheduled to take place past weekend - and I actually completed them a full day ahead of schedule. Which brought me to a crazy idea of doing the impossible - and, having taken a day-off at work, in the space of one (!) day I managed to paint up this guy:
(https://i.imgur.com/DbnHZzJ.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/reDvuMA.jpg)
The picture is, sadly, a bit too yellowish and washed out, but it gives a general idea.
Due to the time constraints, the paint job is very simplistic - no decorations, fancy patterns or runic scripts, etc - but the model is still fully shaded, highlighted and detailed, which I believe is a decent result for a day's work ) And, most importantly, the minimum requirements for my non-Saim-Hann detachment are now fulfilled! What I mean is that now I have two HQ (Maugan Ra and this new Farseer) that I can use to fill the compulsory slots in a non-Saim-Hann Battalion, and so I can field it not only as Alaitoc but also as Ulthwe or any other Craftworld I fancy (before that my only non-Saim-Hann HQ beside Maugan Ra was Illic, which forced my Battalion to use 'Alaitoc' keyword). Combined with the two new Serpents that cover all my Battalion's needs for transportation, this finally gives me the level of flexibility in list-building that I was aiming for.

So, I did go to the tournament with a 100% complete army, and I actually placed first, getting both First Overall (including painting score) and Best General :) The Best Army prize was stolen from me though, by this absolutely stunning Blood Angels force:
(https://i.imgur.com/FpErxk8.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/OmxrSPF.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/C3l4Wv2.jpg)

All in all, once in a while I feel content with my progress so far. The next task, as usual, is to decide what to paint next :) The choice is pretty tough, as there are several units that are good in the current rules and that I'd really love to paint and play with, Swooping Hawks and and Hemlocks to name but a couple. However, with the minimal HQ requirements now covered, I feel that the section where I still lack flexibility the most is Troops. Thus I'm thinking of painting up 20 blue Guardians on foot as the highest priority. What do you guys think?

Thanks for reading!
To be continued...  ;)
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Irisado on June 14, 2018, 05:19:00 AM
Outstanding work on the Wave Serpents.  I am in awe at your use of colour and the precision with which you have painted those white stripes.  These are Alaitoc transports to behold.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: magenb on June 14, 2018, 07:02:25 AM
Wow, that's a great colour scheme and just stunning work. Very clever use of colours on the wave fins too.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: dog_of_war on June 14, 2018, 01:54:03 PM
I'm just loving the 'softness' of those paint jobs. They are truly befitting an eldar force. The tribal patterns on the serpents are killer as well. Great positioning of the lines really help keep the negative and positive shapes well balanced. As always I'm in awe of your work.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Cavalier on June 14, 2018, 03:42:14 PM
Truly amazing work Seeking One. Also yes! I can see that it is a custom scheme now, and I love everything about it. Love the almost "temple guard blue" highlight on the Caledor base... very nice effect there. Also the transfer work is truly outstanding. I'm in love with what you are doing here.

Love the idea of having a new CW added to your collection. I'm actually writing an article on something similar for FLG this week.

Fantastic stuff SeekingOne. Very glad to see another update. Just amazing work man. Keep on rocking this force looks phenomenal!
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Myen'Tal on June 17, 2018, 01:43:53 AM
That Wave Serpent is brilliant 8)!!! The precision and sleekness of the patterns alongside the choice of cool colors really make this thing pop in the photos. Magnificent work, Seeking One, also loving that Farseer too! The bone color is painted so well, looks really natural on the model. I hope I can achieve that look one day ;D!
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: SeekingOne on June 17, 2018, 05:53:52 AM
@Irisado
Thank you Iris, happy to hear you like the skimmers!
I didn't paint those white stripes by hand though. What I did was this:
1) first I primed the whole vehicle white then airbrushed some blue-grey shades onto the most prominently recessed parts of the hull
2) then I cut the stripes out of paper masking tape using sharp-tipped hobby knife and some curved stencils that I bought in an ordinary stationery store
3) I applied the stripes to the hull, then airbrushed blue all over
4) once the blue was complete, all I had to do was to carefully remove the stripes, revealing white pattern underneath.

The only thing I painted by hand were those small shades at the line crossings, to create the illusion of one stripe going under the other. It was really much simpler than the end result might suggest :)

@magenb
Thanks Mage! Glad you noticed the fins. Initially I was planning to leave the base parts in the colour of the hull, but it didn't look quite right, so I decided to paint them bronze - and it proved to be just that last bit that made the overall look not only of the fins but also of the whole vehicle to just snap into place.

@dog_of_war
Many thanks! Those white patterns were initially sketched on paper by my lovely wife, who is the one true artist in our family ;D I only did some small adjustments to the pattern to make the stripes better fit the overall shape and the details of the vehicle. The result did exceed even my own expectations )

@Cavalier
Thank you Cav, as always your high praise makes me blush  ;D
Also super-happy to hear that my custom scheme is recognisable as such! And of course looking forward to your article on FLG, sounds really interesting )

@MyenTal
Thanks! I'm sure you will achieve great look on your bone colour too.
It's not that hard. I start mine with a basecoat of 1:1 mix of Tau Light Ochre and Ushabti Bone, then progressively highlight it up to pure Ushabti Bone then Screaming Skull, and finish it off with sharp edge highlight of Pallid Wych Flesh. Airbrush is great for this, but handbrushing works perfectly well too, particularly on smaller details. Tau Light Ochre is the key ingredient here, as it gives the bone the nice warm tone that looks very pleasing to the eye.



And now... it's time for some army composition!
I've been thinking to dedicate one of the updates to that, and the moment feels just right to do it.

So... as I mentioned above, now is the time to once again decide what to paint next. And the decision is neither easy nor obvious, because to make this decision I need to decide where I want to go with my force in a more long-term scale.

But every decision requires a thought process, and a thought process has to start somewhere, right? So, let me start with assessing the assets that I already have available right now.

At this point I already have three kinds of units in my Eldar collection:

- pure Saim-Hann, painted in distinct Saim-Hann colour scheme, which I'll only ever use under Saim-Hann rules and no other;
- my new blue craftworld (the name that keeps ghosting through my mind sounds like 'Thirinnair', roughly translated into mon-keigh tougue as "Following the true sight" or "Clarity of vision"), which I can use with any craftworld attribute;
- Aspect warriors, which I can use with any craftworld due to them all wearing their traditional aspect colours.

So, with this in mind, I have the following units painted and battle-ready.

Pure Saim-HannNew CraftworldAspect WarriorsThis collection of units seems to give a feeling of distinct prevalence of highly elite, expensive points-wise and low model count units - something that is not at all unexpected from a hobbyist with with a seriously slow painting speed like myself ;D. However, even though WK and Spiders aren't really playable now, even excluding those I finally have enough units to build lists of up to 2250 pts, even with some flexibility. This means I can finally stop worrying about the "points/painting hours" ratio of each new unit I add to my collection and just paint what I want/need most. Such a great feeling! lol

Just for example, the latest list that I made out of these units and that did quite well at the tournament last weekend was this:

Quote
Battalion (Alaitoc)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

HQ 1: Farseer (Witchblade) (Doom, Fortune)
- Falochu's Wing (relic)
HQ 2: Maugan Ra

Troops 1: 5 Dire Avengers (Exarch, Dual avenger shuricat)
Troops 2: 5 Dire Avengers
Troops 3: 5 Rangers

Heavy Support 1: 5 Dark Reapers (Exarch, Tempest launcher)

Transport 1: Wave Serpent (Spirit stone, Shuriken cannon (upg.), Twin shuriken cannon)
Transport 2: Wave Serpent (Spirit stone, Shuriken cannon (upg.), Twin shuriken cannon)

Air Wing (Alaitoc)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Flyers 1: Crimson Hunter
Flyers 2: Crimson Hunter
Flyers 3: Crimson Hunter

Outrider (Saim-Hann)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

HQ 1: Farseer Skyrunner (Witchblade) (Doom, Executioner)
- Warlord, trait Fate's Messenger
HQ 2: Warlock Skyrunner (Witchblade) (Protect)

Fast Attack 1: 3 Windriders (3 x Scatter laser)
Fast Attack 2: 3 Windriders (3 x Scatter laser)
Fast Attack 3: 6 Shining Spears (Exarch, Star lance)

Elites 1: 7 Fire Dragons (Exarch, Dragon's breath flamer)

Transport 1: Wave Serpent (Spirit stone, Shuriken cannon (upg.), Twin shuriken cannon)

Total: 2250

This is a huge list though, not suitable for casual games (makes them too long!), and besides a couple of upcoming tournaments are 1750. So this has to be scaled down to 2000 and then further down to 1750.

Now, let's think of the key bases that need to be covered.

Firstly, I have just enough Troops (15 DA and 5 Rangers) to field a Battalion, and a squad of Rangers provides me with some tactical flexibility due to the option of forward deployment. Initially I was planning to have 3 squads of Rangers, and even purchased the models. However, with the new beta rules prohibiting 1st-turn deep-strikes the importance of Rangers as tools for area-denial and screening has all but disappered, and their damage output is critically poor - so I realy don't feel like adding any more of those at this point.

Anti-tank duty is covered very reliably by the trio of Crimson Hunters supported by a squad of Reapers, and an option to bolster the AT section even further by taking some Serpent-borne Dragons. This area doesn't feel like it needs any special improvement atm - although it seems that I'm not opposed to painting some more Reapers, provided there are some strong arguments in their favour.

Anti-infantry duty is where my lists kind of feel lacking. Currently, my main source of anti-personnel firepower is obviously 3x3 scatter-bikes, followed closely by the Shining Spears (24 shots from shuricats is pretty respectable). With addition of up to 27 shuricannon shots from serpents and a bunch of shots from DA, my force can destroy about 30 chaff models per turn. This sounds seriously at first, but then you realise that it will still take you well over 6 turns to destroy a horde of 200 models. Besides, in my games Spears usually die first and very early, and scatter-bikes tend to follow them pretty soon - so there's no way in hell my main anti-personnel units will survive long enough to keep shooting for 6 turns. Even judging purely by experience, I usually do quite well versus mechanised Astra Militarum or SM where I have to deal with multiple tanks, while new Tau repeatedly steamroll over me - facing them I have to grind through some 25 shield drones before getting to any decent target, and my army just fails to do that quickly enough. This also kind of proves the fact that my anti-tank is good while my anti-infantry is not so good.
BTW, the latest list of 1750 pts that I used against Tau just yesterday (and got pretty much wiped out by turn 4) was this:

Quote
Battalion (Alaitoc)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

HQ 1: Farseer (Witchblade)
HQ 2: Maugan Ra

Troops 1: 5 Dire Avengers (Exarch, Dual avenger shuricat)
Troops 2: 5 Dire Avengers
Troops 3: 5 Rangers

Heavy Support 1: 5 Dark Reapers (Exarch, Tempest launcher)

Flyers 1: Crimson Hunter
Flyers 2: Crimson Hunter

Transports 1: Wave Serpent (Spirit stone, Shuriken cannon (upg.), Twin shuriken cannon)
Transports 2: Wave Serpent (Spirit stone, Shuriken cannon (upg.), Twin shuriken cannon)

Outrider (Saim-Hann)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

HQ 1: Farseer Skyrunner (Witchblade)
HQ 2: Warlock Skyrunner (Witchblade)

Fast Attack 1: 3 Windriders (3 x Scatter laser)
Fast Attack 2: 3 Windriders (3 x Scatter laser)
Fast Attack 3: 5 Shining Spears (Exarch, Star lance)

Total: 1747

So, let's say one important topic is set - it would be great to improve the anti-personnel capability of my force.

Now, in terms of expanding my collection further, in addition to improving specific lists I also always strive to increase variety and flexibility of my forces in general. And of course I also prefer to work on things that are interesting to model and paint as well as aesthetically appealing! Aren't we all :) This means, among other things, that I much prefer painting units that I don't have. 

The units that lately have been hovering at the fore of the list of things I'd love to paint and play with are:
1) Guardian Defenders
2) Swooping Hawks
3) Hemlocks

Guardians: I've been avoiding these guys for a long time, not the least because painting 1 Guardian would take me about as much time as painting say 1 Dark Reaper, with over 4 times difference in points :) Now, however, I feel I can afford it :) And besides, no Eldar collection would be complete without at least 20 of these.

Swooping Hawks: I would never even consider painting the classic GW Hawks as I find them as ugly as nuclear war. However, recently I purchased 2x5 alternative 3rd-party Hawks which are really beatiful (they come from the same russian guy sculpting under the label "Ghost Miniatures" who sculpted awesome - and pretty world-famous - alternative Warp Spiders a while ago). Now these guys are high on my priority list.

Hemlocks: I love the Eldar flyers, and since I already have a full complement of CHs, it would be great to bolster my air wing with a couple of Hemlocks. I proxied them a couple of times at the very beginning of 8th and they proved both powerful and really interesting to use.

One other thing that makes Guardians and Hawks particularly attractive is that both units are good anti-personnel specialists. Another overall very strong addition to my anti-personnel section would be more Shining Spears - but I already have a squad of these guys, and, as I mentioned above, I'd rather paint something new. I might consider painting some more Reapers though - the only squad I have was painted over 3 years ago and so they'll feel almost new and fresh again, if you know what I mean ) Also, painting 20 guardians would give me even more flexibility in terms of filling up Troops section (I might even field 2 Battalions!). Hawks at the same time would work as a direct replacement of scatter-bikes, being more points-efficient, better at using cover and getting a great additional benefit from Alaitoc trait.

As for Hemlocks, their steep point cost keeps me hesitant about them. Effectively, I'll be replacing 3 CHs with 2 Hemlocks in my lists, and I'm not 100% sure it will work well.

And finally, one other option I've been toying with lately is adding a small allied detachment of Drukhari to get me access to CP farm based on "Labyrinthine Cunning" trait. After all, a Patrol detachment of a cheapest Archon and a unit of 5 bare-bones Kabalites clocks in at mere 102 pts, which is comparable to the cost of an Autarch. Choices, choices...

So - if you somehow managed to read through all of my mumbling ;) - what would you do in my place? What would bring most benefits - both short-term and long-term - to my current forces? Would you start with Guardians, or jump straight to Hawks? Or perhaps start with securing more reliable competitive build by adding some more Reapers and Tempest Launchers? ALso, what do you think of Drukhari allies?

Any and all constructive thoughts and suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

To be continued... :)
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: dog_of_war on June 17, 2018, 09:41:49 AM
One thing that I first noticed with your collection is that you didn't have a lot of options in the assault phase. I'm not sure that it would fit your play style, but I would nominate either scorpions or banshees, as your next addition. I know you have issues with Tau. If you can get one of these two units into Tau lines, they'd really blend through your opponent's gun line. It would also give you an opportunity to add either Karandras or Jain Zar, which I would love to see you accomplish.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Looshkin on June 18, 2018, 05:23:55 PM
Wowsers trousers.

Those Wave Serpents are simply stunning SeekingOne. The smoothness of the transitions and the richness of the colours are absolutely lovely. The additions of the white stripes and the transfers just takes an already spectacular paint job to the next level.

Astounding.

As for the Farseer...I think I may hate you. To paint such a stunning model (One which would win every competition I've ever entered) in only a day is just sick. Or sickening! Seriously, it's lovely. The richness of the purple is my particular highlight. Everything is just so smooth and well done.

Yup. I think I may just hate you!

That said, if I could ask a technical question, what kind of pressure are you putting through your airbrush for this kind of work. My airbrushing is still in it's infancy, so I'm looking for tips from airbrush pros like yourself and AP whenever I can get them.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Cavalier on June 22, 2018, 01:37:14 PM
Great stuff man. I'd defintley recommend Swooping Hawks. I use a unit of 5 in my Alaitoc army and they are great for helping to clear chaff. I deal with a lot of hordes and anytime I take them out they always reward, especially with Fire and Fade. Great little unit, super cheap. Love those models by the way killer!

Let us know what route you decide to go down. I love army development talk. Keep it coming!
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: SeekingOne on June 23, 2018, 04:44:40 AM
@Looshkin
Hey Loosh, I love you too man!  ;D ;D ;D

As for airbrush pressure, in general I vary it between 1 and 2 bar or 15-30 psi. The way I do it, the thickness of paint is the defining factor. I use slightly thicker paint when I want good strong coverage (usually when applying base colours) and thinner when I want smooth transitions. For an airbrush, "thicker" paint would be roughly the kind of consistency that you would normally use for hand-brushing - e.g. thinned down enough to flow smoothly but not too watery. "Thinner" paint would be closer to milk-like consistency or even thinner. Especially when I go for a second pass over already airbrushed area (for example, after I already applied highligts, I usually go for the second pass over the shadows) I use paint of almost watery consistency.

So, when I have paint in the cup, I try it out on the back of my left hand and adjust pressure to make the paint go through smoothly. Generally, you do it this way:
1) when pressure is not enough, you'll know it by the fact that the test spot of paint would appear kind of grainy with tiny speckles all around.
2) when pressure is too much, you'll know it by the fact that the spot you're aiming at gets overly wet and overflowed with paint too quickly.

For thicker paint I use about 25-30 psi. For thin paint I can go down as low as 15 psi (usually not lower). Note that when spraying thin paint a lot depends on the trigger control - basically, with thin paint you want to pull the trigger back just super-slightly, letting through miniscule amounts of paint at a time.

Distance between the nozzle and the surface also matters. Basically, the micro-droplets of paint are already drying in the air, so the longer is the distance they have to travel to the surface, the dryer they'll be when they hit it. So if the painted area keeps getting wet and runny, you might fix it by simply holding the airbrush further away.

Hope this helps! If you have more questions - by all means feel free to ask.

@Cavalier
Hey Cav,
Thanks!
I haven't decided anything yet. The latest rational thought I had on the matter was that I'll probably want all three groups of models (Guardians, Hawks and Hemlocks) painted anyway, and I'll also want to bolster the HQ section of my new blue Craftworld - so I thought I'd start with assembling and priming them all. By the time I'm done, I'll hopefully make up my mind lol

Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Looshkin on June 24, 2018, 12:34:41 PM
@Looshkin
Hey Loosh, I love you too man!  ;D ;D ;D

 ;D

Cheers for the super thorough run through of your techniques. My airbrushing is very much in the formative stages, but it's this kind of info that I hope takes me on a level or 2. you know, when I can hold an airbrush again!

Cheers SeekingOne and once again, congrats on some seriously brilliant models.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: SeekingOne on June 29, 2018, 06:43:13 PM
A quick update - still with no pictures, sorry for that...

But I finally made up my mind! And oh Isha, what a gorgeous feeling it is :)

Looking back, it's kind of curious how it worked out... The latest model I completed was the Farseer on foot which I showed earlier, and it was on 9th of June. Since that day 3 full weeks passed without me making a single brush stroke - literally all my hobby time was spent wracking my brain over endless list variations - but the more variations I came up with the harder it got to make any decision. So, thankfully, I had enough common sense to realise that trying to make an abstract decision doesn't work, and I have to give it all an actual test run. SO I made a 1750 list that contained all 3 units I'm interested in: 20-Guardian blob, some Hawks and a pair of Hemlocks (all proxied, naturally). And... well, after a few test games that I played over last two weekends, it looks like the doubts that I had about these units were well-founded. Hemlocks proved far weaker than CHs agaist tanks, while not being that much stronger against anything else; Guardians proved extremely limited by their short range, and deep-striking them on turn 2 is usually too late. Hawks proved good indeed vs infantry but near-helpless against tanks.
Still, Hawks and Hemlocks feel like they might have potential, I probably just need more practice with them. Fielding Guardians on foot, however, doesn't feel like a viable option at all.

Initially these new (and somewhat disappointing) discoveries sowed even more confusion in my mind. And it was then that I got unexpectedly distracted from all that. You see, I play video games from time to time - and one of my buddies, having heard that I played The Witcher 3 and enjoyed it greatly, and that I generally like fantasy-style adventure games with swords in them, convinced me to try Dark Souls. I heard about the franchaise a lot, but I'd never even consider playing DS1 or DS2 - the whole atmosphere there is just way too ugly and depressing. However, having looked into DS3, I found that - at least in the first couple of locations - it doesn't look that depressing, so I decided to give it a go. And so it happened that I completely forgot about everything 40k for some 3 days - and this unexpected break had a miraculous effect on my mind. It seemed that the break allowed my mind clear itself on some subconscious level, to shake itself out of that riddled and confused state. As a result, when I got back to my lists yesterday with refreshed mind, the preferable path forward quickly became clear and obvious. And even better, once I made up my mind about the 1750 list that I'll be aiming for next, I also immediately saw that the things start scaling up further very neatly and smoothly. Oh, what a glorious pleasure it is, to feel all things finally fall into perfect order. I think I know how the Eldar gave birth to Slaanesh at the peak of their civilization! haha

I'm going to start with the 1750 list that I posted in the Eldar forum earlier as "Dark Reaper-centric". It looks like this:
Quote
Detachment: Battalion (Alaitoc)
HQ 1: Farseer (Witchblade)
HQ 2: Warlock (Witchblade)

Troops 1: 5 Dire Avengers (Exarch, Dual avenger shuricat)
Troops 2: 5 Dire Avengers
Troops 3: 5 Rangers

Fast Attack 1: 5 Shining Spears (Exarch, Star lance)

Transports 1: Wave Serpent (Spirit stone, Shuriken cannon (upg.), Twin shuriken cannon)

Detachment: Air Wing (Alaitoc)
Flyers 1: Crimson Hunter Exarch (2 x Bright lance)
Flyers 2: Crimson Hunter
Flyers 3: Crimson Hunter

Detachment: Spearhead (Alaitoc)
HQ 1: Maugan Ra
Heavy Support 1: 3 Dark Reapers (Exarch, Tempest launcher)
Heavy Support 2: 3 Dark Reapers (Exarch, Tempest launcher)
Heavy Support 3: 3 Dark Reapers (Exarch, Tempest launcher)

Transports 1: Wave Serpent (Spirit stone, Shuriken cannon (upg.), Twin shuriken cannon)

Total: 1750
This already feels like a good list, with a very fluffy-looking Spearhead of Reapers. And, what is best about it, I only need to paint 1 new warlock and 4 new Reapers to field it. The only slight imperfection it has is that I have to include a reduced squad of 5 Shining Spears - there doesn't seem to be any viable way of freeing up enough points to squeeze in the 6th Spear.
Still, this list is merely an intermediate version, because right after I complete a Warlock and 4 new Reapers I'm planning to paint an Autarch on foot with Reaper launcher and use him instead of Maugan Ra. Maugan is an awesome character, but still a tad too expensive for what he does, and particularly so in 1750. Replacing him with an Autarch would free up just enough points to bring back the 6th ShSpear:
Quote
Detachment: Battalion (Aeldari)
HQ 1: Farseer (Witchblade)
HQ 2: Spiritseer

Troops 1: 5 Dire Avengers (Exarch, Dual avenger shuricat)
Troops 2: 5 Dire Avengers
Troops 3: 5 Rangers

Fast Attack 1: 6 Shining Spears (Exarch, Star lance)


Transports 1: Wave Serpent (Spirit stone, Shuriken cannon (upg.), Twin shuriken cannon)

Detachment: Air Wing (Alaitoc)
Flyers 1: Crimson Hunter Exarch (2 x Bright lance)
Flyers 2: Crimson Hunter
Flyers 3: Crimson Hunter

Detachment: Spearhead (Alaitoc)
HQ 1: Autarch (Banshee mask, Star glaive, Reaper launcher)

Heavy Support 1: 3 Dark Reapers (Exarch, Tempest launcher)
Heavy Support 2: 3 Dark Reapers (Exarch, Tempest launcher)
Heavy Support 3: 3 Dark Reapers (Exarch, Tempest launcher)

Transports 1: Wave Serpent (Spirit stone, Shuriken cannon (upg.), Twin shuriken cannon)

Total: 1750
This will give me a very solid foundation for further list development.
Once this is done, the next thing on my list would be a pair of Hemlocks. I am going to try to make them work, if only for the sake of getting more blue vehicles into my force! Besides, next time I get to play in a 2k or 2250 pts event, I really want to try out a bigger Air Wing of 2 CHs AND 2 hemlocks. In a 1750 list, replacing 3 CHs with 2 Hemlocks would free up enough points to get another Warlock.
And finally, once these are done, I might add some Hawks.

So, here's my painting plan for the near future, finally clear and free from indecision:

1) 1 warlock (or, more likely, 2 new Warlocks at once)
2) 4 Dark Reapers
3) 2 Hemlocks
4) 5-6 Hawks.

Now, finally, I can get to work! :)

To be continued... :)
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Partninja on June 29, 2018, 07:05:26 PM
I'm glad you made the swap to the Autarch over Maugan. Saves points and giving him the hunter warlord trait makes him very good. He can also buff more units.

Your list still feels very light due to a lot points being soaked up by the flyers. I'd still suggest trying some variations only using two.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: SeekingOne on August 2, 2018, 10:05:32 AM
Finally, I'm back with an update :)

My new Craftworld's warhost has just received some reinforcements! The Farseer finally deemed his two apprentices fledged enough to take them to the ultimate class which is the battlefield. Will they prove worthy of carrying light of the Eldar spirit to the darkest corners of the galaxy, or will they end up joining the Infinity Circuit early in their lives? Only time will tell. Of course, their master knows the threads of their fates better than anyone, and of course, he keeps silence...

(https://i.imgur.com/9c9Y8z5.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/ZxM5kr6.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/1gqWfEB.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/BwvwAMQ.jpg)

The Council is ready, and the enemies of the Craftworld are doomed
(https://i.imgur.com/3fliVJd.jpg)

All in all, I think I like black background far better than white (which I used before). What do you guys think?
Still, can't help posting this pic as well:
(https://i.imgur.com/3KfmGqA.jpg)
It kind of seems that my camera captures colours and hues best of all against deeper and multi-coloured background, rather than against mono-chrome artificial backdrop.


And here's my next project - the Reaper Autarch :)
(https://i.imgur.com/4aQI9Pj.jpg)
Need to complete him by the nearest Sunday - wish me luck! :)

To be continued... :)
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Irisado on August 2, 2018, 11:37:28 AM
The shading of that blue is wonderful.  It gives those psykers such a magical and mystical hue.  The contrast with the green spirit stones works really well too.  This is very impressive work all round.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Partninja on August 2, 2018, 11:45:25 AM
Digital cameras adjust based on the lighting. So if you have a blue background it's going to shift blue. White will make things seem hotter. The varied background gives you an even shift.

This is assuming you used a phone or point and shoot camera. A DSLR camera will have manual settings to help adjust for this.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: magenb on August 2, 2018, 11:59:14 PM
great work, really like the white at the bottom of the warlock robes being paired with the instep white strip on the arms. The edging around the white strip is fantastic too.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Cavalier on August 4, 2018, 11:49:20 AM
Hot damn Seeking One! The amazing work continues. Absolutley luminous stuff... truly master class. Cant wait to see that Autarch... one of the all time classic sculpts for Eldar IMO. I'm gonna strip mine and do a cool conversion. Can't wait to see the paint job on yours. The Seers are amazing though, give us MOAR!!!
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Looshkin on August 7, 2018, 10:47:29 AM
Amazing stuff as always SeekingOne. Your colour transitions are so smooth the edge highlights so perfectly done. Simply stunning as always. I love seeing your updates...and then immediate feel totally inadequate as a painter!
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: SeekingOne on August 10, 2018, 09:03:07 AM
@All

Thank you ever so much guys! :D Such high praise feels kind of undeserved, but your awesome support really keeps my painting projects going.


I didn't quite manage to complete the Autarch by last Sunday - mainly because I decided not to spend the whole Saturday at my painting desk. Saturday is the regular gaming day in our club, so I felt I'd rather get a couple games in.
Still, I am making some progress - the airbrushing on the Autarch is mostly done.

(https://i.imgur.com/j46TVH2.jpg)

Since he obviously keeps close ties with the Reaper aspect and favours its style of warfare, I decided to go for Dark Reaper-style colour scheme for his armour, painting the armour suit black and helmet pure bone. The blue&white colours of the Craftworld are featured on his cloak.

A quick illustration of my methods:
I first of all airbrushed the cloak The Fang, followed by Fenrisian Grey and Vallejo Ghost Grey (faintly bluish off-white) highlights, which gave me a nicely shaded white. Naturally, highlights were concentrated at the bottom of the cloak, where the white hem would be. Then I cut a 2mm strip of masking tape and masked off the future hem.

(https://i.imgur.com/5NSPvak.jpg)

Then I airbrushed the whole cloak blue. After removing the masking tape it looks like this:

(https://i.imgur.com/slgvw11.jpg)

Similar technique is used to create a "mirrored" gradient on the powered blade. I start with airbrushing a contrasting gradient from almost black to almost white (with Turquoise in-between) onto the whole blade, then mask one half of it and airbrush the same gradient in the opposite direction:

(https://i.imgur.com/bkPaZhL.jpg)
You may notice that I use simple strips of masking tape to mask off the straight part of the blade, and add some liquid mask to cover the curved tip.
After removing the mask you get the look like in the first picture above. Fairly simple yet super-effective way of painting power-weapons!

To be continued... ;)
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Irisado on August 10, 2018, 12:37:52 PM
I love the cloak.  The technique that you have used has worked really well, as is reflected by the shading and the colour both being resplendent.  That blue is spot on.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: SeekingOne on August 22, 2018, 11:10:44 AM
@Irisado

Thank you Iris, glad that you like it :) I'm not much of an artist, but bringing out depth and vibrancy of colours is one of the most rewarding and enjoyable things for me in miniature painting.


And, finally, here he is - the Reaper Autarch.

(https://i.imgur.com/3mkejOY.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/sWRja3K.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/wsa1syr.jpg)

To me, he really looks like an epitome of stern and composed dignity. Awesome model too - and not only does it look great, but it also (quite uncharacteristicall y for Eldar characters!) used to come with a whole set of wargear options. It's such a shame that GW decided to discontinue it.

So, finally the HQ of my new craftworld is complete - as in, the necessary minimum of HQ choices that I might need for my lists is ready. Admittedly, it's not 100% practical as from purely competitive standpoint all of our characters - Farseers, Warlocks and Autarchs - are probably better on jetbikes. Still, I kind of have the theme of jetbikes covered with the Saim-Hann wing of my force, so for my new craftworld I wanted my characters on foot. 

And... now I once again find myself at a bit of a loss as to what to paint next. I did quite a bit of playtesting in the mean time, and almost all choices that I was thinking about proved kind of sub-par. I'm talking about Guardians, Hemlocks and, to an extent, even additional Dark reapers. The next two additions to my collection that are pretty high on my list are Hawks and Prisms. At the moment I feel myself kind of leaning towards the idea of diving in and painting up three Fire Prisms at once - it would be a crazy amount or work, but in the end I'll get a full detachment of heavy firepower. Sounds good and reasonable, right? Except, 3 Prisms can only be included into my list by dropping 3 Crimson Hunters, and that would make it a totally different army overall. So... perhaps it might be safer to start with spending the next two weeks to bolster my anti-infantry department with a few Hawks, and only then dive into painting Prisms for a month? Choices, choices... :)

To be continued... ;)
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Irisado on August 22, 2018, 01:33:58 PM
The Autarch has turned out wonderfully well.  The colours, the banners, and the effect on the sword, which is always something that I look out for, are all incredible.  He will make an excellent centre piece for your army :).
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: SeekingOne on August 23, 2018, 02:18:53 AM
The Autarch has turned out wonderfully well.  The colours, the banners, and the effect on the sword, which is always something that I look out for, are all incredible.  He will make an excellent centre piece for your army :).
Thanks Iris! Very much appreciated :)



Almost forgot to add a note on my Autarch's wargear and the conversion that I did.

This Autarch, obviously, uses the Index wargear options to wear a Banshee mask and wield a reaper launcher. Now, the classic model comes with a set of ranged weapon options for the right arm - it can be assembled with the right hand holding either a simple shuriken pistol, or a fusion gun, or a reaper launcher. Left arm however comes fixed with a power sword - and this makes the situation a bit weird. Per the instructions in the flowchart in "Designer's Commentary", we have to use the codex datasheet for an Autarch on foot, but we can combine it with wargear options from the Index datasheet. Trick is, in the codex datasheet an autarch on foot comes stock with a star glaive and no options at all - and options in the Index allow us to take additional weapons, but none of them technically allows us to replace the star glaive with any of those additional weapons. And therefore, technically, per RAW a foot Autarch is stuck with a star glaive no matter what other weapons we might equip him with, and has to pay points for it. So, in order to use the classic model as-is and keep it WYSIWYG, I'd have to pay points for a star glaive, and then on top of that I'd have to pay extra to equip him with a power sword. Obviously, this wasn't something I was prepared to do :) So I decided to cheat and converted the power sword into a glaive by shortening the blade by half and extending the handle with a shaft from a Dire Avenger exarch's polearm. I also twisted the arm a little inwards at the elbow to put the glaive into a slightly more down-pointing position.

Just couldn't help sharing the details about this little conversion, because I'm super-happy with how it worked out :) Overall, it looks quite natural and even imposing (imho :)), and it also actually allowed me to kill two birds with one stone: not only it keeps the model 100% WYSIWYG without wasting any extra points, but it also made the model far easier to transport. You see, the standard power sword arm was supposed to be attached with the sword pointing almost directly forward - and the sword's blade was long. Thus, if assembled that way, with the reaper launcher sticking out far to the right, banner poles sticking out far up and sword blade sticking out far forward, the model would've been practically impossible to put into any foam tray (or any other reasonable container for that matter). The way I did it however it eneded up being far more compact and transportable :)
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Cavalier on August 23, 2018, 07:27:55 AM
Simply superb work Seeking One. I LOVE that sculpt (been waiting to repaint mine, I've got a cool kitbash ready to go) and you've done it so much justice. Love the load out but its a shame we have to go index on these builds. The whole no models=no rules is so tired. I feel like Eldar have gotten the short end of that stick far too often, but still he looks great. Hopefully they'll do relics in future dexes to make the old Autarch's codex legal again. Still a totally valid choice and won I support 100% especially with the insane paint job.

Love the foot council as well. The robes are fantastic!

While the Jetbike variants are "better" I've found my foot options to be outstanding. My Archon, foot Farseer and Spirit Seer have been all-stars and I'm sure they'll shine for you too.

So what is your list looking like? I didn't see the 3x crimson hunters or fire prisms in your previous lists. What about the Dark Reaper? The 3x3 seems a bit odd to me for purposes of psychic support and stratagem efficiency, but I'm sure you have a plan. Would love to see a list and what your general strategy is. I'm intrigued!

Anyway great stuff SeekingOne killing it as always!

Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Grizzlykin on August 23, 2018, 07:38:36 PM
Seeking one... I was going to sleep. I was going to see what was your last post and what that blog was all about... I am baffled I did not take the time to read this all before. It's an absolutely insane level of painting and proficiency you have with these painting... Iw will have to read your whole blog from the start... It's just so insane! I LOVE IT! That last autarch expecially! Gosh does he look awesome. He perfectly encapsulate the psychology of an eldar. I am a son of the star and I rule over everything in this galaxy.

Absolutely amazing stuff.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: magenb on August 26, 2018, 04:52:30 PM
killer colour combo and those banners are sooo tidy :)
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Calamity on August 26, 2018, 06:03:08 PM
That is an utterly awesome paint job you did there SeekingOne!  Amazing!  8)
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Dread on August 27, 2018, 09:28:36 PM
Well, now how did I miss this. I love this Autarch. Perfect! The colors, shading and highlights are primo! The base just tops it off like whip cream on a chocolate shake.

I went back a couple of pages and I love the rangers, what a great idea, you must have hired Cav's little painting fairy to do that tiny painting, haha. Great work in all of it.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Looshkin on August 29, 2018, 04:04:58 AM
Superb Autarch SeekingOne. Your skill with an airbrush is absolutely top notch and it shows through here again. The colour palette that you've used is also perfect. Just the right amount of each colour for a perfectly balanced mini. Excellent work.

I'll be stealing the tip about power weapons too...although I have a funny feeling that I'll find it a lot harder to pull off than you do!
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: SeekingOne on September 4, 2018, 03:20:27 PM
@Everyone
Thank you so much for your positive feedback people, I'm honoured! Really means a lot to me.

@Dread
Haha, true, Cav's little painting fairy definitely provides tons of inspiration for me :)

@Looshkin
Thanks Loosh :) Though all the true credit goes to the Citadel team! I'm only evolving and adapting their classic immortal designs that make the visual part of 40k so awesome :)

@Cav
Thank you Cav! As ever, you're a source of massive inspiration :)
I'll write about my current list further on.



So, this update is small (hobby-wise) but also important, as this is sort of a big milestone reached for me!

I completed four more Dark Reapers for my force - two Exarchs and two regular ones. Here they are :)

(https://i.imgur.com/5WLzOjM.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/ZAz56Gj.jpg)

I had a 5-strong unit with an Exarch since 7th edition, and with these additional Reapers I can trasform them into three units of 3 with Exarchs - which enables me to field them as a separate Spearhead detachment.
Just for the fun of it, I made a group shot of my whole "Reaper Cult", which is now complete :)

(https://i.imgur.com/EkmLIU0.jpg)

There's something deeply satisfying about being able to field a complete detachment - including HQs! - themed around a single aspect. Fear the Reaper! 8)

Now, the reason why I said it's a milestone for me is because these 4 Reapers were the last models I needed for my updated 8th edition list. Which means that the first part of the plan that I outlined for myself in my army composition post (http://www.40konline.com/index.php?topic=230783.msg2774504#msg2774504) 2 months ago is done.
The list I'm talking about is this:

Quote
Detachment: Battalion (Alaitoc)
HQ 1: Farseer (Witchblade, Doom, Guide/Fortune, Faolchu's Wing)
HQ 2: Warlock (Witchblade, Protect/Jinx)

Troops 1: 7 Dire Avengers (Exarch, Dual avenger shuricat)
Troops 2: 5 Dire Avengers
Troops 3: 5 Rangers

Fast Attack 1: 6 Shining Spears (Exarch, Star lance)

Transports 1: Wave Serpent (Spirit stone, Shuriken cannon (upg.), Twin shuriken cannon)
Transports 2: Wave Serpent (Spirit stone, Shuriken cannon (upg.), Twin shuriken cannon)

Detachment: Spearhead (Alaitoc)
HQ 1: Autarch (Banshee mask, Star glaive, Reaper launcher)

Heavy Support 1: 3 Dark Reapers (Exarch, Tempest launcher)
Heavy Support 2: 3 Dark Reapers (Exarch, Tempest launcher)
Heavy Support 3: 3 Dark Reapers (Exarch, Tempest launcher)

Detachment: Air Wing (Alaitoc)
Flyers 1: Crimson Hunter
Flyers 2: Crimson Hunter
Flyers 3: Crimson Hunter

Total: 1749

This is my first complete mono-faction non-Saim-Hann list ever :) It's awesome in itself and I'm really happy that I completed it. I might be a person with like 15 years of experience in 40k - but, as you might remember, I only got into real painting in like early 2015 - and this whole experience of actually completing my armies on a good quality level is still fresh and exciting for me. Fresh, exciting and outstandingly rewarding! That's the positive side :)

There's a... slightly less positive side to it too though. Thing is, I settled on this list because it looked good to me by itself, and also because it felt like a good intermediate stepping stone for developing my army further. Now, I've been slowly working towards this list since May - and, inevitably, I played a lot of games and did a lot of testing in those months, new codices were released, my regular opponents updated their armies, etc. And I have to admit (with a little sadness) that those tests and shifts in the meta revealed so many weaknesses in this list, as well as in all future lists that I planned to move towards further, that it feels like the list became obsolete even before I completed it ::) Well, I did say on many occasions that the pace at which GW has been updating the game lately is WAY too fast for a fairly slow hobby like 40k. Oh well. Let's be positive and think what I can do to get back on track :)
But that's a subject for the next post!

To be continued... :)
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: magenb on September 4, 2018, 05:33:49 PM
man that scheme just looks fantastic across the detachment :)
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Irisado on September 5, 2018, 05:23:06 AM
Those Dark Reapers are outstanding.  You have really captured that midnight shade of colour that they are supposed to have from the original lore.  Your attention to detail is very impressive.
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Ynneadwraith on September 17, 2018, 05:57:00 AM
Drop. Dead. Gorgeous.

Really must get back to mine...
Title: Re: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog
Post by: Myen'Tal on September 17, 2018, 04:51:14 PM
Wooow, now that is the essence of sleek, Seeking One, those Dark Reapers look so much more menacing than the GW scheme. And the bone of their Missile Launchers, that is a great warm tone that does indeed remind me of the mystical wraithbone, so cool! You remind me that there are some more techniques I should look into, your blending on that Autarch's cloak are top-notch!

Now I'm off to look more into your thread to see if you worked on those Crimson Hunters (One of the coolest new models to come to the Craftworlds in my opinion)!