2018 - a new year, new challenges, more hobby

Time to return to the blog... In many ways 2017 brought me a lot of new hobby experiences. Primarily while painting Eldar. The small force I started back in early 2015 has turned into a proper army, and since 8th edition dropped in Spring 2017 I have been gaming and adding to the army. By the end if the year I finally feel that I have both the relevant bitzbox content, knowledge of the range and experience to work more freely with the Aeldari aesthetics.

For 2018 the Aeldari army will become more themed towards gaming in the Thorn Moons setting developed by the ironsleet crew. More menacing and alien. Here is a late 2017 conversion: A warlock based on Harlequin and Drukhari plastics.

Also, in late 2017, GW offered me to review some upcoming stuff starting with the new Greater Daemon of Nurgle. Pretty awesome! Initially I sketched this up. This is the beginning of a project that I am sure will take a lot of time, but will be extremely rewarding and fun to do. Trying to "break" the scale of the model to make him even bigger. Lets see if I can make it work. I'll have to start hunting for Epic models or maybe some Warmaster minis... Projects like these mutate during the creative process and I am really excited to see how this one will end up!

Finally, at the very end of 2017 I got back in touch with a bunch of old hobby friends, and I really hope that 2018 will continue on that great vibe. I hope that 2018 will bring lots of painting, gaming and lots of chances to meet fellow hobbyists.

Harlequin Solitaire

 First model painted after the Pilgrym game.
All mood, all expression.
A Harlequin army in this style would be pretty impressive.

Studio-photos: Eldar Falcon

As promised, some images of the whole vehicle.

Eldar Falcon

Eldar Falcon finished for my Eldar army. Transport for the Farseer and a squad of Dire Avengers.

Tried a bit of oils on the belly of the vehicle. Also, I used some stipple-techniques to create different kinds of highlights and texture on the many planes. Not 'Eavy Metal style clean, but with the clean colour scheme it actually works quite well.

Harlequin Shadowseer

My travellings into the magical domain of the Eldar race took off in Spring when I joined the Invitational at the Iron Sleet blog back in Spring. Now I have worked on, developing the language of this sinister and mysterious race further. Fittingly, my recent Harlequin model, the Shadowseer, was posted on the Iron Sleet earlier today. The Iron Sleet crew have been doing Eldar interpretations the past month, so obviously the inspiration has been flowing back and forth bringing drive and enthusiasm. Thanks. And let's create some more!

Eldar army on Terrain

Lately I have been working on a 4x4 foot modular terrain set. This morning I added the flock (1 main type and 3 other types in patches for variation). Classic old-school fantasy, but I will be customizing it towards 40K or fantasy with detail elements that I will build later. First up, an army shot of my small Eldar force.

Eldar Farseer

Done. I want to move on to other miniatures. The Object Source Lighting on the spell-casting hand was fun and challenging to do, but I think it works alright. Would probably be better with a darker themed base. Anyway, that is the base theme for my little army and that is where he will go.

It would be fun to do this model with a muted wood-elves style colour scheme without red, but using various shades of green, blue-green gems, and the odd grey black and brown details...

WIP images: Eldar Farseer

Not finished yet, and I already want to paint this model again...

I still have runes and borders on robes and cloak left to do before I will call him finished...

Harlequin trooper

Finished this mini last week. The colours for the Troupe will be yellow, white and black. Will try and get less white on the next one. I have a handful more of the classic metal models plus the Death Jester painted in Spring. And I just bought myself the new plastic Shadow Seer. Ace!

A break from the Eldar / A henchman primed up

I am taking a break from the Eldar army, so I primed this sinister character last night. This is going to be a quick and refreshing paintjob. The Eldar are hard to paint. I guess it is mostly due to my own standards and expectations, but anyway, Eldar always has been a painter's army I think. Especially coming back to finishing Dire Avengers and Wraithguard troops after having gone to town on the Death Jester was giving me a hard time. But the units are almost done, and I feel I am take them for a test game soon to get into that as well. Now, however, I will do a gritty character that I have had around for about a year. The big question is if he will join a Mordheim warband or hang out with my Inquisitor retinues...

Wraithguard, WIP #2

Almost there. Just need a second layer of paint on the heads. Some touch up work. And possibly a symbol on the heads at a later stage...

Wraithguard, WIP #1

Fast-paced army painting...

Eldar Vyper

Decided to get this one finished quickly the other night.

I guess I had already done about 60% of the work, but I had got stuck with some undecided areas. Well, picking up work on the model I took some quick decisions, and then it was crunch-time painting away for about 2½ hours. Done. The goal was to have to levitate off centre on the base, and I think it works alright. I probably should go back and paint some of the gems in purple/magenta and add proper highlights, but for now it is about getting this small army to grow... Better photos would probably also be nice.

Death Jester, WIP #2

Almost there. I have started taking pictures as a technique to look for mistakes and final details for improvement, so I will not say that he is done yet. Pretty close though...

 

I think the waystone on the ribcage armour needs to be painted purple as the gems on the gun... And maybe the blue gem should go purple also... Definately some slightly starker shading in the grills on the helmet, red/purple I think. The brown pants could do with a bit of jazz also... Anything else?

I am really happy with the way the gun looks, and also the yellow came out very much like I envisioned it.

Death Jester, WIP #1

I have been painting this guy over the past few evenings. A fantastic miniature kit.

I am going for a yellow/purple colour scheme. So the yellow part of the jacket is actually going to be a lot more vibrant, but I have yet to come to that part of the model. I consider the shuriken blaster done for now, but a lof the areas are very close, but not completely done in this image...

I hope to have him done by the end of the week.

Eldar Runes Explorations

A series of quick explorations to find a rune design for my Eldar army.

 Will be used as black linework on white surfaces and as white linework on red surfaces. I think.
I have picked a favorite - actually with my children making decisions in the design process - but I will not tell which one we picked just yet...

INVITATIONAL - WIP

Not much time left to work on these. I am saving the colour images for the final post on the ironsleet-site when the event closes. But not I have this B&W image to show.

Both my wife and my eldest daughter have given some input though: The colour for the head of the wraithguard must change...

WIP - Dire Avengers' weapons

So, with the INVITATIONAL project I am doing not only the 3 models required for the challenge from the ironsleet-crew, but actually starting an army. A Dire Avenger trooper is one of my model for the challenge but I am actually doing the whole squad now. 

My overall plan for my Eldar army is to have a colour scheme of white wraithbone armour, bold bright red for helmets and decorative areas (sashes, gems) and with black weapons. I have chosen these colour to go bright and light - and at the same time it corresponds nicely with the strong classic colour scheme that I favour. I want these models to really stand out on a gaming table.

However, the colours for the Dire Avengers are reversed having white helmets, bluish black armour and a red/black pattern on the hemlet crest. That leaves the weapons that should be black (according to my colour scheme), but this gets a little tricky because of the dark armour.

Thus, I tried out several ways of painting the shuriken catapult:

Left to right:

1. Exarch - no shuriken catapult.
2. Copper with a chaos black wash. Finish off with a light drybrush of copper.
3. Bone + white for basecolour. Shading using Vallejo Model Color Burnt cad. Red mixed with Army Painter jumpsuit shader (a red wash). Highlights with white.
4. Black base colour. Edge highlights using GW Dwarf flesh with a bit of magenta ink. Followed by a stipple of black (dupped on with a sponge), and final highlights with white.
5. Copper mixed with Army painter orange (Prison jumpsuit). Shading using Vallejo Model Color Burnt cad. Red mixed with Army Painter jumpsuit shader (a red wash). Highlights adding white to the basecolour.

As you can see I also explored different base edge colours but have since this settled for classic black, which might go high gloss black. Not sure yet, but black is decided at least.

INVITATIONAL - part 1

Back in January I was invited to join with the IRONSLEET-crew and a few others on a project about creating miniatures with focus on scale and bases. These are the words and images for my first contribution to the INVITATIONAL:

The past years I have been investigating the 40K universe mainly from the side of the imperium. Various characters from inquisitors and their bodyguards to thugs and other hired guns. But I never really focussed on building an army. My contribution to the INVITATIONAL is my first take at starting an army for 40K. And while I love the dystopia that is the Imperium I have also always loved the elegant and iconic Eldar range.

So my approach for the INVITATIONAL is more about getting into the game and building an army, than creating fluff. But I believe the fluff will follow, when I delve into painting and gaming with my eldar force. I ahve already had a first test game with a local friend. This is so different to WFB!

For the INVITATIONAL my three different models will be a Dire Avenger warrior, a Wraithguard, and a Vyper. All will be on a warm dessert-style base with slate rock. Quite basic - but basics are important when planning to build a whole army. It can easily get too complicated, which will slow the progress of the army.

So far I have built the Dire Avengers, the Vyper and I also have a war walker kicking about. The Wraithguard are on their way, so I will have to build these and paint them during the next few weeks. So plenty of stuff to do, but I am really looking forward to it.