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As a side project to my (many) main projects, I'm creating an Eldar Autarch based on some really great Banshee artwork. I don't think I've seen an autarch conversion out there that incorporates the banshee look (or the scorpion look for that matter) which is a shame as they're some of my favourite troops.

Anyway, the artwork and pic of the start of the kitbashing is below. A lot still needs fixing before I can start on the greenstuff, but I've got the main pose and the correct weapons in place and I've also done quite a bit of remodelling of the legs already. The walking legs are from the female Magus kit, the chest and left arm are from the Kabalites kit (the arm is the Sybarite's power sword arm), the right arm is a Scourge blast pistol arm and the power sword and shuriken pistol are from the dire avengers kit. The head is one of Statuesque's bald (heroic narrow, I think) heads. I love their heads, they're great...

Things to do before greenstuff is applied: the shoulders will be much narrower, but I think I might also thin the arms down a bit because they're quite chunky. Some of the upper arm plate also needs removing. as well as sections of the abdomen armour. I still need to finish sanding down the legs to the correct proportions (which is taking ages!) and fill the gaps I've made with my hackjob trimming of the magus's robe before I started assembling. There's also bits that need removing around the collar and I'm also considering shortening the sword slightly, though I don't know on that one. GW weapons are always so out of proportion to their models! The sword is already remarkably similar to the artwork, but I might do a bit of work getting the hilt a bit closer.

Once I start with the greenstuff, I'll widen that waspish waist and add detail to the armour, as well as modelling the belt, the hanging cloth in front of the legs (can't remember what they're called! xP) and the cloth bits around the shoulders and down the back. The collar and shoulder guards will need plenty of attention and I'll probably remodel the boob plate so it's closer to the artwork, too, though that may depend if I've lost the will to live by that point! xD

Finally, and most importantly, I want to get the hair as close to the artwork as possible, because it's what sets the whole image off. I'm hoping it will be fairly easy to model the ears in with the hair when I get to that point, although, the ears on the statuesque head aren't a million miles away already. I'll just have to wait and see, I guess.

Then... paint!

Any thoughts, comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. This is my first time doing a modelling job of this intricacy, though I've done some kitbashing before.

The pistol is twice bigger than it should be, as you can compare between DA catapult and banshee pistol. The right hand pistol comes with assault guardian kit. Also eldar don't wear high heels. (on war anyway)

Aside from that, looks very accurate.

With regards to the high heels, I'm not sure there's much I can do about that, save cutting off her feet and resculpting them (which I'm loathe to do this being my first major sculpt). That's just how the magus kit is, unfortunately... I guess I could remove the high heels and leave the feet, but then she'd be walking on tiptoes, which would look a bit weird...?

I'm fine with the pistol being too large as I'm building her as a modified homebrew autarch character with elements from the banshee and dire avengers temples. The artwork is also not far off that in terms of scale. I considered modifying further and using the exarch shuriken catapult (not the pistol, the shortened one-handed version of the catapult with the scope) to give her a much stronger Dire Avengers feel, but in the end decided to stick to the artwork.

Looks great so far.

You adressed all the points, that came in to my mind regarding changes still to do...
And I need to admit: I'm a big fan of the Battle-Heels - Love them on my Infinity Models too

but then she'd be walking on tiptoes, which would look a bit weird...?

Yvraine has no problems with this. Front leg would look fine, back one could be slightly hidden behind cloth/terrain. But suit yourself.

Yvraine has no problems with this. Front leg would look fine, back one could be slightly hidden behind cloth/terrain.

That's a fair point, though I'm not intending to have cloth come down that far. I might take the heels off anyway - looking at it again, the 'tiptoe' pose doesn't seem too bad.

Also looking at it again, you might be right about the size of the shuriken pistol, after all. I've ordered a replacement arm to try with the storm guardian's pistol. Bit annoying as I spent quite a while putting the avengers pistol on that scourge arm... xP

Thanks for the suggestions!

And yes, battle-heels definitely have their place.

Finally got back to this conversion project. I've swapped out the plastic DA shuriken pistol for a metal guardian pistol and started in on the green stuff. I'm still not sure about the sword - it looks too long for my liking - and the arms have been slimmed down, but need to go further, I think. I'm also not sure about my head of choice any more (the eyes seem too wide-spaced), but I have no suitable alternative anywhere that I can find, so, barring modelling one entirely from scratch and not just the hair as I was intending, I may have to go for this one anyway. :/

Still a long way to go with this. Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.

And while I'm at it, I might as well turn this into a general thread for my conversion projects. Here's a Corsair Prince I put together in the interim (totally ripped off from someone else's model, but with a few minor alterations) and also an exodite farseer model I've decided to add a great big chaos marine cloak to to make him look all wild and woodland-y.

Some of my exodite conversions. Would love to hear criticism.

Pretty solid group of kitbashes, and the greenstuff work looks like its well blended. Hope to see more.

Thanks! I've got at least one dragon rider coming.

It all looks p badass, especially the winter is coming Farseer.

Thanks, the model itself was a fan sculpt I bought on ebay. I definitely think the chaos terminator lord cloak works with it.

These are fantastic! I dont really ahve anything to offer other than Bravo!

I do have a question, what parts did you use to to make the scourge headed guy's neckguard?

That cloak really does fit well on the Farseer. I like what you have done with Saih and the Dark Elf sorceress.

To be honest, I've not done much to Saih at all. The crescent on her head has been removed, and the spike on her knee, her shoulder pad has been spun around and I've swapped the staff and knife for a spiritseer staff head and a non-GW resin sword I had lying around.

The feral shaman on the other hand... eesh, so much work trying to get the sorceress upper body to fit with the eldar farseer legs... so much sanding and reshaping... I'm thinking of putting her on a new base as she's leaning back a bit too much. Now I've got it in my head she'll be on a floating disc of earth that's been ripped out of the ground and is complete with trailing roots and clumps of earth, but I currently have no idea how I'm going to do that.

The exodite clanlord with the crunchy looking gorget actually uses the body (mostly unmodified) of the standard AoS chaos sorceror lord. I used the sorceror lord's legs for the corsair prince further back in the thread, but didn't want to just chuck the rest of the body on ebay or something, so came up with using it for a mountain clan exodite lord. I've kept the gorget how it is on the model.

I'll echo what everyone else is saying; these are looking great.

Big piece of criticism that stuck out immediately is cohesion between models; assuming these are all part of the same force? (if not then I guess completely disregard this lol). There's little to no consistency between the different models, and improving in that area would make a big difference.

Take the second model for instance - really nice looking model but his chainmail and heavy plated armour completely sticks out against the lightweight, more classic eldar/elf look that the rest of them have.

On a similar note, pretty much all 4 heads have completely different vibes. I like the second one best; it definitely reads as eldar but the roughness of the hair/ crest bit sells the exodite theme. The third head is too feral looking imo, not eldar at all. The fourth one works pretty well too. The first one is obviously straight up an eldar head, and I think you could tweak it very slightly to bring it more in line with the theme. Maybe cut of the crest and replace it with something more organic? Branch-like or something, to tie it in with #2 and the exodite theme.

Same could be said for the weapons. But again, I think they're looking really good as inidividual models, they just don't quite look like they're part of the same group to me.

Thanks for your comments, they're much appreciated. In terms of the cohesive look of the army, the exodite codex I'm creating has four distinct factions based on the environments they inhabit (mountains, plains, forests and deserts), so they would look quite different, whilst still (hopefully) having some commonality between them. The second, third and fourth models are all from different factions: mountains, forests and deserts respectively. They'll have units of troops that are much closer in look to them than they are to each other (I might post some more images of some troop units later tonight).

The first is actually intended to be a special farseer character who wasn't originally an exodite but who has become embroiled with the exodite worlds and their secrets. I take your points, though, and I might add some more fetishes and things to the farseer, and also some more eldar-y bits to the others to give them a bit more of a common look.

The autarch and the corsair prince from further back in the thread aren't anything to do with the exodites, of course.

So, to hopefully address the army cohesion issue raised, here are a couple of pics of two of the characters with their clan faction specialist units. The first is the mountain clan lord from the Yuroc tribe. The two models on the right are Fell Guard (WiP heavy support), the two on the left are swooping hawk proxy models from Ghost Miniatures that I'm currently calling Bright Hawks (though that may change).

The second pic is the shaman from Lith-Alar, who are the desert based exodites. Left two are Ebony Blades (WiP CC unit) and right two are fire dragon proxy models from Artel W which I'm naming Black Drakes.

For anyone who's interested, the four factions within the exodite codex I'm creating are the Yuroc (mountain clans), Lith-Alar (desert clans), Mae'borne (forest clans) and Oshtan'na (plains clans). Like Saim-Hann, Lugganath, Yme-Loc and Biel-Tan, the names are based on the Celtic wheel of the year - Yuroc = Yule, Lith-Alar = Litha, Mae'borne = Mabon and Oshtan'na = Ostara.

In fact, here's the full unit of Ebony Blades:

Edit: the Ebony Blades are another kitbash that has basically been stolen from another modeller/kitbasher... this guy - http://www.40konline.com/index.php?topic=229986.0

Another WiP kitbash, stolen and modified from someone else, this is the first of my dragon riders, another Clan Lord, this one from the plains tribes.

Not sure whether to use the Seraphon shield or the Talos shield, though. What do you guys think?

Pretty effective. The crest is a great touch. I think I like the Seraphon shield more.

Great work! Love seeing this.

Prefer the seraphon shield personaly. More feral.

Thanks guys, looks like it'll be the seraphon shield then, unless anyone else has any strong opinions.

I'm stealing some inspiration from the Mistweaver conversion for myself to make a cool Yvraine.

I plan on using mistweaver as base and then slap on farseer, Yvraine and other bits. Thanks for the inspiration.

Nice! Post pics!

Ive just ordered the bits.. Despite promising myself no more spending

However I will re-sell the visarch and the avatar so wont cost me that much probably.

More exodites, this time dragon knights WIP. First pic is a standard dragon knight 'squadron' who'll all be armed with laser lances. Second and subsequent pics are Black Drake Riders of the desert clans, armed with fusion guns. The arms and weapons for those are all from the old RT Guardian sprues. I'd forgotten how tricky they were to pose... :/

And here's a conversion of Iyanna Arienal I'm working on just for fun...

CancelledApocalypse wrote:
Another WiP kitbash, stolen and modified from someone else, this is the first of my dragon riders, another Clan Lord, this one from the plains tribes.

Not sure whether to use the Seraphon shield or the Talos shield, though. What do you guys think?

WHat did you use for legs btw ? I got some cold ones I'm thinking of using as shining spear mounts.