Topic: A Lethal Elegance: SeekingOne's Eldar blog

[magenb]

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.

[Cavalier]

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!!!

[Looshkin]

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!

[SeekingOne]

@All

Thank you ever so much guys! 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.



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.



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



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:


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...

[Irisado]

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.

[SeekingOne]

@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.





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...

[Irisado]

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 .

[SeekingOne]

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

[Cavalier]

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!

[Grizzlykin]

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.

[magenb]

killer colour combo and those banners are sooo tidy

[Calamity]

That is an utterly awesome paint job you did there SeekingOne!  Amazing! 

[Dread]

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.

[Looshkin]

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!

[SeekingOne]

@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




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



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

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 2 months ago is done.
The list I'm talking about is this:

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...

[magenb]

man that scheme just looks fantastic across the detachment

[Irisado]

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.

[Ynneadwraith]

Drop. Dead. Gorgeous.

Really must get back to mine...

[Myen'Tal]

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)!