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Granted its in birmingham and I try not to go there as much as possible , but I do have a ticket.

well, if you want to meet up at GD and have a chat, that'd be cool : )

I know you have probably said it before and I just missed it but where did you find the bald fellow with the sword?

he's the Eldar Ranger from the Inquisition game - if you look on the GW site, he should be under Specialist Games, Inquisition

Loving the work so far, was at games day last year and spent 30 or so minutes looking for the avatar, but then found out it was broken.

Might be going this year, if so will defiantly be coming and trying to find you.

the more the merrier

Autarch done - yey! He's looking fairly good I suppose, but I think he suffers from not having any of the light Skink Blue on him, like the Warlocks and Farseer, but there you go, live and learn. I redid his gems last night too - I originally did them reds and yellows, but it was too flat, so some contrasting blues and greens works much better.
And there we have my craftworld combat leadership. I suppose I should crack on with the Ranger now, but I'm kind of in the mood to knock out a unit to go with these guys now...

He's very nice, but seems a bit plain compared to the rest? The wraithbone and blades of of the warlocks add interesting spot colours - which he seems to lack entirely. Probably just doing elements of the armour a different colour would have helped? Or the weapons? The dark robes on the warlocks makes sense, but on his armour it just seems to be hiding the detail? Maybe just the gem settings in wraithbone would be enough? I would have commented earlier - but I didn't realise you were this close to finished!

I agree - it was just one of those things that happened during the painting process unfortunately. I did want him to be very simple, but I think he's a bit too simple. The problem with the Autarchs that I looked at is that they can very easily become too busy and distracting. It's a fine line, and I don't think I got it with this one. It's also a trickier model than I realised - the cloak covers a lot of detail, and makes some really deep recesses... whinge, moan, excuse after excuse... ; )
Luckily he was just for fun and me being a completionist in terms of army/models, so he's good enough! At least he fits in with the aesthetic, and doesn't look as if he's been painted by a five year old!
Onwards and upwards, and try better next time!

Maybe try adding a little free hand runes?

I was thinking about putting something on the back of his cloak, but again, the folds are so deep, it'd look pretty distorted... I'm thinking about changing some of the colours on belts and straps, and maybe change some of the armour to yellow...

Might I suggest that you paint up a guardian, in the same colours (maybe not to the same high standard) and use it as a test model for the yellows or bone colours, that way you can experiment without porentially ruining your amazing paintjob if it is doesnt fit with the unit?

dantay_xv wrote:Might I suggest that you paint up a guardian, in the same colours (maybe not to the same high standard) and use it as a test model for the yellows or bone colours, that way you can experiment without porentially ruining your amazing paintjob if it is doesnt fit with the unit?

Wise words from Master Dantay...

Thank you young Padawan

good suggestion there... I've already thought about the colour scheme for the Guardians, and they do have more yellow on them already to get that balance (everything black/red apart from faceplate, chest, shoulder pads, forearms and kneepads).

The tricky thing with this version of the Autarch is that quite a lot of his armour is missing or obscured by the cloak, sash and straps. A (admittedly small!) part of me is almost tempted to strip him and start again from scratch, but I know that would be going over the top.

How my thoughts are running: if I do the shoulder pads yellow, they'd stick out and look a bit odd, so the logical thing would be to make the chest yellow too - like the Guardians... but then there'd be only a little black separating the yellow chest and the sash and it might be too much.
If I did a yellow kneepad, same sort of issues with the cloak and the pad running together.
Yellow arms perhaps, but that might look a bit odd, leading to yellow shoulder pads, then chest... over balanced.
Yellow forearms - simple, easy, but might look a bit odd and out of place.
I'd be tempted to have black undersuit and yellow armour, but you can't see much of the undersuit, and that would break up the strong shape of him.
I could do the cloak black instead of yellow, but that would break with how the craftworld aesthetic is developing.

See my issues? lol (this is where stripping him and starting again comes into play)

I am happy with him (less happy now though!), and I did want him to be fairly dark and deadly... To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of the Autarch models generally - I think they're very busy and technically hard to paint because of the folds/recesses and placement of things, and it's very easy for them to get out of control with details and have too many colour on them. I'd rather have him too simple than go the other way. Maybe I'll revisit him at a later date, who knows?

Okay, to keep him dark and brooding?

where the hair meets the elm (topknot) do it dark gold, I think I saw a gem at 90 degrees to the one painted you could do it, dark green as a change from the blue, but it still fits in with the others in the unit.

You also have gems on theshoulders and on on the chest, plus a small bandana on the upper thigh with a gem in it., You could ignore those on the shoulders.

Dark gold bandana with blue gem, possibly also do the melta in the fark gold too to make it look ornate and break up the darker colours a bit, or if you have fire dragons don, match it to theirs maybe??

Possibly the same to the other weapon, some blues nd gold to tie it visually to the others in the unit.... or use yellow for striping/kill markings?

By focussing on th weapons, not the model itself you can bring it more in line with the others without making the main body of the model, overly busy.

Just my thoughts, but it is an awesome model

or you can make him rainbow colors!!!!
j/k

finnan you mentioned stripping your model. what product are you using to do that?

finnan wrote: A (admittedly small!) part of me is almost tempted to strip him and start again from scratch, but I know that would be going over the top.

Don't do it, Finnan!

What about just adding a few bone details? (I feel like this might have come up already, but I couldn't find it)

In all of my MSPaint glory, I give you my ideas:

Still dark and brooding, but not so monotonous...

Anyway: eat the meat, throw out the bone.

Keep up the great work!
Rawson

hey, I'm liking those bone details - see, many heads think better than one! It always amazes me what people think up that I would NEVER, in a million years have thought of doing - gotta love design collectives!
I'm kinda tempted to do them in yellow for cohesiveness, but I'm liking the bone better I think.

@DijnsK: I'd strip him by soaking him in Dettol (a disinfectant/cleaning fluid - do you have that brand in Holland?), and the paint comes right off - I was really surprised at how well it works the first time I tried it. You just leave the mini to soak for a while and then scrub the paint off with an old toothbrush.

Against what you've been saying, I've loved the Autarch/squad. If you were going to do some different highlights/details, I'd make it that 'ice' blue you're using; I really love the fire/ice clashing awesomeness. I wouldn't use the bone though, (no disrespect to Rawson) as I just think it looks abit dumb...

oops... bone already done! He's just drying at the moment, pics to come.
I do agree with the ice/crystal blue though, but it never actually occurred to me that the tertiary colour was the bone - it's on all the others, as well as the crystal blue. In a way I kinda wish he had a normal power sword, not the chainsword, then I could have done some of the blue...

Urien_Rakarth wrote: I wouldn't use the bone though, (no disrespect to Rawson) as I just think it looks abit dumb...

Ever notice that "No disrespect" always comes right before something rather disrespectful?

finnan wrote:bone already done! He's just drying at the moment, pics to come.

You don't need to post new pics: I can make my MSPaint version available to you

That would be mighty kind of you Rawson - Paint is one of those pieces of software that I find indispensable! I mean, everyone knows that Adobe stole all its ideas for Photoshop from Paint... ; ) hee hee

Pics still to come - I forgot that I have some more highlighting to do on his helm...

Looking forward to it - I expect it will be perfection!

dunno about perfection, but the additions have lifted a bit, so thank you very much for all the suggestions : )

The only thing I don't like about this blog is that it makes me want to break my brushes and weep.

Seriously though, excellent painting as ever, I can't wait to see the Harlequins finished.

Keep it up!

D

(Edit for spelling)

thank you evildrcheese : )

this is my next dilemma... I have three entries for Golden Demon - do I push on and go for Fantasy single miniature, or a vehicle, or a squad (I honestly don't think I'd get a squad done in time that was up to scratch)... or do I call it a day for this year and crack on with more Eldar? I have more than enough Eldar to get on with and I'm really liking how things are shaping up at the moment. I'd like to get the Harlequins finished as a squad before I go onto anything else, plus there's Irillyth to finish.
Thoughts?

Okay, maybe not perfection (you didn't do all the suggested bone bits) - but it lifts him immensely!

funny how a few little changes can make such a difference, isn't it. Yeah, I didn't do the feet because, let's face it, feet aren't the most important bit of anything really, and there weren't any convenient ridges on the forearms, so rather than risk some wobbly freehand I left it alone.

The model looks great, Honestly I say go for A Fantasy Single model, I think you could really turn some heads!