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Hi! One of the guys in my gaming group convinced me to start a blog detailing my painting escapades with my Eldar army. I started ~2 months ago with my Avatar, then finished a pair of old Wraithlords. I decided to add in a touch of blue for dramatic effect (used Vallejo Prussian Blue). Will be posting pics of the other ones I've got done, as well as some in progress. I'm averaging about one unit (or model, depending on which I'm working on) per week...

Next on my list were my War Walkers & Jet Bikes...

And next were my Wave Serpent and Fire Prism. I did the Serpent first, and had mistakenly spattered a little bit of white paint on the front fin of the Serpent - one of my nieces said it looked good that way, so I decided to spatter the rest of the Serpent, and later did the same on the Prism as well. Someone said that the spatter pattern looks like a universe on the ships - but it's actually supposed to be dirt! The top two pics were from before the cockpit covers were done, and also before I "dirtied" the engine intakes...

This weekend was the weekend to finish my Warp Spider unit. I took a cue from Spiderman - couldn't help it! Used an ink pen to do the web pattern on the backs, then had to varnish it because it turns out the pen ink bleeds (BIG mistake to find out, but fortunately I only had to redo ONE of the Spiders)! I have a feeling I'm going to take a lot of ribbing about the paint job on these guys. I'm currently working on my Dire Avengers, and hope to have one of the units finished either tomorrow or next weekend - will post the pics then!

OK, so here's an update on the Avengers. The one unit I'm currently working on had been bought painted (badly), so I stripped them and re-primed and am now repainting. I hadn't realized that with this type of process I'd lose some of the smooth finish you get with the virgin minis, and as a result some of the details are VERY hard to paint. First pic is how they're looking thus far - I'd wanted the helmet bristles to be red with white tips, but they ended up looking pink instead. One of my gaming crew said they look pretty cool like that, so I'm considering just leaving them like this - but will need to come up with a different way of painting them when I start on my second unit. Second unit is starting off as a bit of a problem - when I'd assembled them, i hadn't realized that the left arm was supposed to be placed to SUPPORT THE GUN - so it's just sticking on the left side like the guy's in a threatening pose. Definitely easier to paint this way, but I won't like how they look when finished. Anyone have any ideas how to loosen the Super Glue bond on the arms so that I can reposition them? I don't want to prime them until I've got this solved! Thanks, everybody!

OK, first unit of Avengers are DONE - at least I can't mentally work on them any more right now! I'm still waiting to figure out how to get the arms off of my other unit, don't want to snap the arms but don't want them to continue looking like fools like they do now (see previous picture). Below are some pics from the finished first unit. If you see the pics in the Gallery, please vote - this gives me some idea as to whether the paint jobs are pretty good or just adequate (so far everything's been below average for painting AND coolness). I'd like to improve! Thanks!

OK - weekend's here, time to get working on the Reapers again. I think I'm happy with how they're looking thus far, will have a pic posted tomorrow I'm sure. Got some great advice on a thread I posted regarding removal of my DA arms that I need to reglue due to bad positioning - they're all in the freezer right now, as are a unit of my Guardians (realized I'd done the same thing with them). My hope is to get the arms taken care of yet tonight, and after the Reapers are done tomorrow I'll do the second unit of DA's (latest models).

Gaming is also starting to turn around a little - just did a 750 point game against Tau, used a Farseer w/Doom/Fortune/Guide, a unit of SG's with a Warlock (w/Destructor), a unit of 8 DA's (painted ones) w/ exarch & Shimmer & Bladestorm, a smaller unit of 5 DA's (had points left over so I put them in to more troops), a Wraithlord with BL & EML w/ flamers, and a Serpent with SL's. You must understand that every game I've played up to this point I've been tabled on turn 5; this time we went 6 turns and I still had my Wraithlord left! Oh joy! Gives me hope that I may be learning a bit more about how to use the units together. I'm also considering getting a tat on my hand to remind me to use psych powers before I move units (forgot to do this three turns). It was also fun having more than just the Wraithlord painted - it was the first time using the painted Serpent & painted old DA's. I'm looking forward to the first game I do with EVERYTHING painted. Enough for tonight - I'm off to get my men out of the freezer and start painting!


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Pathetic. I kept the guys in the freezer for one hour, and then tried again after another hour - the @(*^&% SuperGlue is just too danged strong. Only got two more arms off, and one of them left a little bit of the arm attached (Guardian). Tried the clippers as well (another suggestion), which proceeded to do nothing but damage the shoulder armour. Turns out that the plastic gets brittle in the freezer as well - and snaps pretty easy. Will keep them in the freezer overnight and try tomorrow with pliers, but am worried that that's really going to damage the arms - so what to do, get them off so that they can be positioned correctly and have buggered arms, or keep them as is so that they'll be nicer looking when painted? ANY suggestions welcome! Have a feeling that painting the second unit of DA's isn't going to happen any time soon...

SUCCESS! FINALLY got all of the DAs' arms off, and only one of them snapped in the upper arm. The method that finally worked was: freezing overnight, then putting them in hot water (as hot as my hand could stand) for ~10", then using nippers to work into the joint as deep as possible and then the arms loosened. Have some thumbs to glue back on straight and some back fins/pods to glue on as well, but at least the arms will be straight! Will eventually get the Guardians done, but at least I'll be able to get the DA's primed and start working on them today. Here's a pic of what the Reapers look like thus far - they have a lot of painting to do yet, but they're on the way. Guns will be black, with a bit of blue on the tips. Check back tonight for (hopefully) completed pics...

The spiderman warp spiders made me lol! They look good though. The spatter effect on the WS is very interesting. Might look good over some camo patterns on IG tanks as well (maybe not white)

I applaud you for working with metal wraithlords, I have three of them myself, and those bastards refuse to stay together for more than a day.

Mordoskul wrote:I applaud you for working with metal wraithlords, I have three of them myself, and those bastards refuse to stay together for more than a day.

Actually, they are holding together quite nicely - think it says more about my tendency to use TOO MUCH GLUE to hold things together (re: miserable experience with my DA arms)! Thanks for the comment!

Love the wave serpents - talk about a happy accident!

Reapers are DONE! I'd gotten them on eBay, and one of the guys is missing his weapon - but he's still a good body to use for games. Bases still need to be done - but I'll be doing them at a later date (probably much later). Now to get started on my DA's - will paint the arms before I glue them on again, will make it much easier to do the abdomen & chest details! Updates on the DA's tomorrow (probably will have them finished tomorrow night)...

For anyone interested, the Vallejo colors I routinely use are: Gory Red, Scarlett Red, Prussian Blue, Black, Dead White, Silvergrey, Flat Brown, Dark Grey, Silver, Gunmetal Grey, Gunmetal Metal. I've been using the Scarlett Red for the gems. Guns have usually been a combination of the Silvergrey (like an ecru/white) and Dead White.

Love the speckled effect on your Wave Serpent and Fire Prism. Looks really cool.

Yee hah! FINALLY have the 2nd unit of DA's done - hadn't realized how much more detail would be involved compared to the older DA version I did before. And thank goodness the frill on the helmets don't look PINK on these (last pic has a comparison between the older DA & the newer DA). I'm trying to determine what to do next - I think I'm going to hold my Harlies until last because of the diamond pattern I'd have to do (that will REALLY be hard for me to do). I haven't gotten inspired for a way to use the Ulthwe/blue colors on any of the remaining guys - have a few Warlocks, a Farseer, Eldrad, Lord Fuegan, Jain Zar, unit of Scorpions, 2 units of Guardians, unit of Rangers (they're tempting me - am thinking of doing some type of camo cape over the armour), a D-cannon w/ 2 Guardians, unit of Dragons, and my Banshees (2 units of them). Hope I didn't forget anybody. I wish there was some software out there so that you could get a line drawing of one of the guys, and then use a "paint" function to play around with the colors. As of now I've got to hand draw a figure and then try to visualize what things would look like in the colors...

Just a quick shout out to everyone who's been looking at this blog - I REALLY appreciate the comments that have been posted here, as I've said before I really need the feedback to let me know how they're looking. If anyone has tips on how to make them look better (tips I can apply to future minis & units), that would be great as well.

One thing I've noticed on a lot of the gallery pics in general are the definition lines around gems and seams - almost looks like they're lined with black. What I can't figure out, especially after doing the gems on the belts of the DA's that had gems that were at most 1mm diameter, is how the HECK one can get even a fine detail brush to do such a tiny line - would have to be hair thin! I'd like to be able to do this to bring out the gems even more, but don't know how. If anyone has tips on how to do this better, please let me know.

I'm also trying to decide which unit (or special character) to do next - any suggestions would be most welcome.

Maybe try doing Eldrad? quite intresting in seeing how you do him

Thanks for the vote! What I'll have to do is figure out how to get him drawn out quickly and then how to do the different colors. I've just been reading some of the tutorial entries on washes & gems, which will probably make the job SO much easier. I'd previously been doing washes just by using 4-5 drops of water for each drop of Vallejo paint!

For the gems, start by painting the whole thing black, and leave that part visibl as you add in the other colours. Also, thin layered dark washes, alternatively.

News update! This weekend will be working on Eldrad. Think I've come up with good color plan for him, using the scheme I've been using for the rest of the units. May post some pics tomorrow afternoon of him as a WIP. Weird - I've been watching the gallery views, and it seems as though the Reaper pics haven't had many views as compared to the DA's. Guess they're not as popular, huh! If you like what you see, PLEASE consider doing a vote - I'm still amazed that the highest "cool" vote is for the Spiders (4.25)! Sorta makes me wish for an airbrush. Also sorta makes me wish I wouldn't have chosen Ulthwe, and made up my own craft world - but then I would've had to come up with the whole story for the craft world (and try to explain why everything's preppy colors like pink & green)...

I like the old models, the wraithlord especially.

Pennywise wrote:I like the old models, the wraithlord especially.

You mean the "blue suede shoes"? LOL! Thanks! :-)

OK, so I couldn't sleep well. What do I do but get up and paint some more! I think I'm making good progress thus far with Eldrad. Figured I'd get his cape and "gown" part done first, and then add in all the other details with a fine brush (e.g., boning stuff). Will be doing a mix of dead white and silvergrey, I think, for the boning. Tried doing a black wash with a tiny bit of dish soap on the face medalion on his staff - am not terribly sure I've got it right just yet. Hopefully I'll get him finished today, and then will probably start on my regular Farseer (will use same color scheme). Still have to do a better fade job on the helmet fin...

OK, making progress (see below). Decided to make the bag yellow - is a mix of sand and transparent yellow, with some leather brown added in to darken where needed. Still have to do highlights on the boning, as well as detail work on the sword and Staff of Ulthamar. Should have finalized pic posted later today...

DONE with Eldrad! Sooner than I'd expected, as well. Remember he still has to be based. Think I'll start working on the generic Farseer next since he'll follow a similar scheme to Eldrad. Other option is to work on getting off the arms from my remaining unit of Guardians. Maybe I'll do arms first and then start the Farseer. Remember to please drop a line and let me know what y'all think of it! Thanks! :-)

OK, I'm going to have to use green stuff to fix the arms on my Guardians. All of the arms are off, but about 40% of them lost part of an arm that had the shoulder part get mangled with me trying to get them out. Add that to the shopping list from WarStore. I'm not quite happy with the way the gems turned out on Eldrad, so I'm going to modify the painting for the Farseer - will do more of the color, starting with 3/4 of the gem covered, then work back to the hilight area and then the light spot. Colors I did differently on the gems with Eldrad: base of black, then 1:1 mix of black & gore red, then the gore red, then thin coat of orange fire, then light dots done with 1:1 orange fire & dead white. I'm pretty happy with the colors (but will this time use my scarlett red instead of the gore), just think that the portion of the gem that's painted needs to be more. I like being able to see more of the color in them. Am not quite sure whether or not I'll go back and redo gems on any of the other minis yet, though! Farseer should be completed and posted later today - or I'll have him near completed and post him. My dilemma with the Farseer is that I did the edges of his robe a mix of skull white (leather brown & dead white), but they look too stark. I'm not happy either with the boning on his chest - not as detailed as it was with Eldrad, so I'm twiddling my thumbs trying to figure that out. The Farseer also has a small apron that's now dead white, and looks bare - I don't have the skill nor the stady hand to paint on runes. If anyone gives good suggestions after he's posted, I'll go back and modify him. I think he's going to be my first mini posted that I'm not 100% happy with the results...

OK - Farseer's done (except for basing). Below are front/back pics, followed by front/back pics of Farseer with Eldrad. I'm not terribly happy with the details on the shoulder bits on the Farseer (straggly), but overall I'm pretty happy with him. Just did a bit of shading on the edges of the robe, and did shading on the front "apron" which I think helped a lot. Unsure who will be done next - have a unit of BLUE Guardians that could be done until I get the arms fixed on the other unit that now has their arms off. Or I could do the Dragons, or my old unit of Banshees, or the Warlocks (have 3 of them). Maybe I'll do the Warlocks and follow the same color scheme I've just used with Eldrad and the Farseer...


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OK, so now I need input from everyone out there. I've been told that my Eldrad doesn't look "Ulthwe enough" because I used too much of the dark red. Do I need to redo his cloak and make it black in order to keep to the true color palette, or can I leave the cloak dark red? Same problem with the Farseer. Help!

I like all your paintjobs, but I think it might be nice to have a more matte finish on them, they seem a little shiny.

Thanks Inadroid - I've got a satin finish varnish I've been using, especially like the effect I got on the Serpent & Prism. If enough people say this, I'll have to get the Matte and then just redo the gems with the satin finish...

OK - had done another thread asking whether or not Eldrad & the Farseer had too much red in their uniforms, since red isn't officially an Ulthwe color (though it and yellow are also used a lot). Recommendation was made to change the helmets to black with the bone detail; I did change these (and added gems to Eldrad's helmet) but left the helmet fins with the fades - I like them too much to change them! Hopefully they'll meet with better acceptance for Ulthwe models now.

Also - am currently working on 3 Warlocks, they won't have much red on them at all...