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I keep checking in here, but forget am not subscribed Changing that now

True - but hate to think of all that plastic dust being in my lungs for perpetuity! Not sure what else I may want to make with the remaining sprues, but I'm darn sure I don't EVER want to do the half-round wood EVER again!


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Hiya Ysclyth - welcome!

OK, so here's the fence I was telling you all about. Front view & back view, with a 10-man Guardian unit with it for size comparison. The trees are now "half-baked", waiting for the glue to dry & will probably do a bit more for the basing for the trees as well. Comments, anyone? Suggestions for anything else I should make with the left-over sprues (anything that DOESN'T involve making the silly half-round logs EVER AGAIN)?

Here's one, and it may fit with your eldar more. The thing with sprues i that they are only limited by your imagination.

My personal preference is space marines. But any technique can translate to either generic or eldar scenery, especially given your apocolypse style force.

Use them as frame work. You will not need to carve much, nor sand down edges or corners etc... Use plasticard / foam board / whatever it's called in the US to them make up what you want. As the sprue an be carved easily we could be talking curves, right angles etc...

If your struggling for inspiration may I suggest checking out the dawn of war games. While I grant it may be far from the most original concept it takes nothing away from the striking image on the table top. Given your apocolypse army you can imagine the scale that this could offer.

On top of that it may allow for some deviation from the basic game itself. An example could be that a dark reaper squad in a gun turret may get a +1BS in addition to the fun of attack vs defence.

Hope this helps!

T


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I meant to say I love work you have done too!

Taff, thanks for the suggestion. I might look for some foam that I can carve/shave and use the sprues for support - I'm not really sure what kind of board you're referring to. In the mean time, I found a small bag of SM bits and painted them up to add to bases - unfortunately most of my models' bases are too small to add them to (guess that means I'll have to get more Wraith Lords & War Walkers)! Can post a pic of the bits, if anyone's interested. Already added a few of them to my Avatar base & my 2 newer Walker bases - but have a bit more to do yet before I'm really happy with how those two bases are looking.

Also just started stripping the 7 Warlocks I'd gotten a few weeks ago - should be able to get them primed tomorrow and then that will keep me busy for another week or so (or less, if I batch paint them all)...

Just got a unit of Swooping Hawks, hopefully they'll be here in a week; will likely keep them in standard uniform Ulthwe colors but may do something with the light blue/white colors on wings (maybe a fade or something like that on the feathers). Just have to figure out which blue to use, since I don't have a light blue - either Hawk Turquoise, Imperial Blue, or Prussian Blue. Will likely go with the Hawk, especially given the name! Haven't started on anything with the sprues yet. Am currently working on the stripped/primed Warlocks, will likely have some pics posted in a few days...

Need some rec's from you guys. First, what kind of "board" should I get to start making terrain? I found some foam board (one 3mm thick, another 6mm) that can be cut/sanded/painted on one web site (HobbyLinc.com), but am not sure where else to look - or what to look FOR. Also, I would like suggestions as to a better glue method to keep my grit/gravel on my mini bases. As of now, I've been using a 1:1 mix of Elmer's Glue and water, and it doesn't seem to be working that great - even if I make sure I spray the base with the varnish when I spray the model.

Oh - another wonderful find! Remember when I was complaining about trying to get the arms off my guardians that I'd glued on wrong, and was looking for ways to get them off? Turns out there's something on the market called "Un-Cure" debonder, which dissolves CA in the joints! Am going to be getting some, will let y'all know how it works (one of the Falcons I got had the gunner in the turret glued too close to the front - can't get the top piece glued on because of it). Expect it will arrive in 1-2 weeks.

Work on the Warlocks continues; realized that the top of one of the Witchblades was broken off, so I'm making a new hilt out of Green Stuff - we'll see how it works! May not be in with the final pic of the other Warlocks, as I'm expecting it to take ~2 days to reallly cure well...

Still waiting for suggestions on what to use to glue on my basing materials! No PM's about this, either. Just won another eBay auction - expect within a week I should be getting two Wraithguard, only need one more & I've got a unit! Expensive dudes, though (both $$ and point-wise). Expect by next summer I'll have a full unit of 10 that I can use for troops in the next Apocolypse game I'm in. GW site pics of the Wraithguard makes them look like they were painted in Ulthwe colors, so I'll follow their lead in this; however, they've got what looks like a sharp infinity symbol on the head pieces. What's the story with this? Is that the symbol for the Wraithguard, or something different?

Have a good week everyone, may get some more pics posted before the weekend...

Here's a pic of the newly painted Warlocks. Didn't change the paint scheme much (did a little less of the yellow on the "tails", added a hint of Warlock Purple to the brown used for the bags, used bronze instead of brass for the back bits). Will be hard to tell the difference between these and the last 2 I'd done! Oh - won another auction for another Wraithguard, so once they're here & painted I'll have an official unit. Little by little will make my way to having a full troop unit of them! Still waiting for ideas re: the "infinity" symbol on the head pieces of the Wraithguard. PM's would be fine, just need some ideas. Swooping Hawks should be arriving at my house hopefully by the weekend, then it's assembly, finishing/sanding, and painting! Wheeee!


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Just did a 750 game against orks - lost miserably (annihilation) in 2nd round. Had to go 2nd, and I didn't really assess the field well enough to deploy well - ended up getting boxed in a corner. Used a list of Avatar, Farseer (R. Witnessing, Doom, Guide, Fortune, & MindWar), 5 Pathfinders, 10 DA's (w/ exarch & Bladestorm), and 3 WarWalkers w/ double SL's each & spirit stones. Didn't get much out of the Walkers - they got stunned quickly, then were blown up in round 2 (all 3). Avatar was down to 2 wounds before I had a chance to get off any psych powers - and killed 1 Shoota Boy with his Wailing Doom before he jumped into the fray with them. Was hoping to use him as a sink so that the rest of my units wouldn't get shot at so harshly - but they made mincemeat of him (I rolled REALLY badly), then consolidated towards the Pathfinders and nailed them with >100 shots. Even with a great cover save, failed for the 5 (had to take ~20 cover saves). I'd made it through first round w/o any losses, other than the 2 wounds on the Avatar; rest of the crew did well until Round 2 and they assaulted the living crap out of me. Will NEVER let myself get boxed in again! EVER! Grrrrr. Had Doomed the Nobs & Guided the Walkers, but it didn't really help much at all. Did the most damage against a Boyz unit - eliminated 1/3 of them, primarily with Bladestorm (figured I'd be able to get that off before the Boyz came in to assault). Hmmpf. Maybe next time I'll use one of the Falcons w/ EML instead of the Farseer, if I ever do low points against Orks again... Oh well, back to painting. Found some objectives I can work on until the Hawks & Wraithguard show up...

Decided I needed to do a pic of all my Ulthwe skimmers together. Now that y'all can see the Serpent, Prism, & Falcon together, do you think that I should do the spatter technique on the Falcon to make it more uniform? I could go either way on this right now, so am looking for suggestions from all of you. I guess it sounds better if I call it a "star field" technique, rather than just dirty/dusty spatter from being too close to battles. Also have a pic of 2 objectives I've just finished up - had some SM bits sitting around that I'd painted for basing, figured the two banners would work well here. I tried to base the colors off of the Egyptian god Hoth - came sorta close, I think. Need to clean up a bit after the wash - amazing what you don't see with the naked eye but can see on the pics! Just assume they'll be a bit cleaner for gaming purposes. 2 days until my Wraithguards should be here, and <1 week until the Hawks should arrive. Nomnomnomnomnomnom...

I'm VERY pleased to report that, in the mail today, I received not only the Swooping Hawks that I now need to assemble but also the three Wraithguard. Unfortunately, two of the Guard had been painted & reprimed (the eBay description had said they were just primed), so they've got to be stripped. Drats. Will figure out which unit I'll start working on first and surprise you all in a few days. I also finished another objective marker, so I'll post a pic of this one in a few hours.

I'm also nervous - bunnygurl says she's going to start painting some Eldar she's got around her house, and I'm worried she's going to beat me into the dirt once her pics are posted. She tells me not to worry, but we'll see! Means I've got to do even better painting with these units than I have with all the previous ones! Am considering doing the eye of Isha on the heads of the Wraithguard (freehanded)...

So much for a surprise. Starting on the Hawks, since the two Wraithguard are still in the Simple Green stripping the old stuff off. Am trying to figure out the paint scheme for the Hawks - wings will be Turquoise with hilights, will NOT do the every-other-feather that's on the box. Don't have the Citadel "Dark Angels Green", so will use Vallejo's "Sick Green" for the top borders of the wings instead. Bodies were initially going to be black (Ulthwe), but I'm now thinking of doing the color scheme more like I did the Scorpions (Bonewhite from head fading to Black at feet), with black tabs at wrists. Figured that if they're lighter in color, they'll be harder to see when up in the air. Am waiting until everything's painted before I glue on the wings - will make it SO much easier to do! If anyone wants me to, I'll post WIP pics along the way.

Here's the pic of the 3 finished objectives.

WOW. That's quite a few posts going on here. I never do understand why more people don't post on this given that you ask for C&C, hints and tips and general questions. Plus you're such a regular poster and are improving all the time!

OK, so I may miss something (so prompt me if I do) but here I go...

The board For your terrain I'm wondering what you want to make. Ice Angel has just been working on some great terrain using foam/insulation that I can never find in the UK. If your looking for larger pieces then it may be worth carving them from that.

If your looking for smaller terrain then another two scenery based things to check out would be miniwargaming and U tube. I found lots of useful things on you tube, although I cannot think of any eldar specific ones. Of course there is always inspiration from GW based computer games and the like!

Swooping hawks - nice buy! Hope you didn't have to pay too much for them. If you're looking to keep them in uniform (black and white colours), why not try to do a more extreme highlight? Paint the wings black and then highlight with ice blue of something like that. I think you said on bunny girls blog that you like to mix paints so you may want to try and blend them a bit. Would keep them uniform whilst giving them a little tribute towards the GW scheme.

Bases - I personally use pva glue (which I think is called Elmers glue on your side of the pond). The things that I recommend are:
- I don't water the glue down at all
- to ensure that there is a full coat on the base, probably applied by a brush
- I leave them for about a day. How long do you leave them for?
- You could paint them as that may hold them together a bit?
- I add either a ink/wash over the top to help them stick. Having said this I often either paint the bases and models apart or add the bsing before I base coat the model. Between the wash or the primer it seems to old. I then apply my matt varnish at the end and I rarely have too much fall off. Plus I add little bits of grass if there are any areas that I have missed.

Wraith symbol - no idea! I assume it is some sort of infinity symbol but I am not so familiar with the fluff as I might be. I see it on the Wraith Lord too.

Splatter Pattern - If you intend to keep the splatter pattern on the others then use it on the last one. You could leave it as they are as they are different anyway as two have red and this one has white. I would be inclined to leave it.

Bunny Girl - do not compare yourself to any one! What you want from the army and what she wants are both completely different. Bunny girl is in this hobby to paint while you are making an army. It is a rare person who manages to do both! Bunny girl is a rapidly improving painter though, so maybe you can draw some inspiration from her!

Objectives - They look great! What model are they? They look like I should know them but I have no idea!

OK! I think that is enough for now!

T

Thanks, taff! I appreciate all the suggestions. I bought some board stuff from an online hobby shop, am waiting for it to arrive so that I can start working with it. Will use the sprue bits for reinforcement, as you'd suggested. I've asked my brother-in-law to let me know when he gets any kind of foam I can work with, as well. Have the wings done for the Hawks already - pic below, let me know what you think. The objective markers are 2 Eldar Eldanesh statues (in with the sprues for DA's), the other one was, I think, in with the WraithLord - or was it the War Walker?!?

Have to admit I wish I had more models to paint that weren't Eldar, as I'd probably have a blast with them. It just seemed that I should paint my army as well as I could, and I honestly didn't think I was going to enjoy it as much as I've been. Was even thinking of what army I should start building once I get my Eldar army all maxed out, but I want to be able to play them really well before I start working on another army!

I like the wings. The blue appears to be quite deep which should help to keep it in line with the black bodies. The colour difference is pretty goo too. Were you thinking of doing an extreme highlight on the blue or black as well? I haven't tried this technique myself but I have see others add a straight GW ice blue edge highlight and then wash with GW blue wash to help the blend a bit. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished model, including what ever you may do with the base!

I think you should do a test model with a blue helmet instead of white. I think it may help them to stand out as a non standard troop type. I'm hoping the basing and the black body keep them looking as part of a coherant force.

One of the things that I'm doing while I pint up my marines is painting models for the fun of it. An example would be the choas lord on manticore that has recently been released by GW. There would be no way to add this to the space marine range at all but it i a model that I think is stunning and I want on my shelf! Others buy the models they want to pint ad then sell them on E-Bay afterwards. Just trying to illustrate that you can always paint something else while you play your eldar!

Oh. Those wings are sweet. I think I went for the GW scheme 'cause I'm oh so creative. Eager to see them attached to a body. Personally though, I found the wings of the Swooping Hawks to be a total b*tch to glue together. They kept falling off, drove me nuts. Hope your assembly goes better than mine.

Really really like those objective markers too. Nice work.

Thanks, bunny! Means a LOT coming from you, in particular (I love your work). As for the assembly, I think I've ordered a CA glue that's flexible - think that may help a little bit. Will make sure I roughen up all edges before I glue them on - but that's going to be a while until I get to that stage. Maybe by the end of the week, if I don't get any games in!


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Wow. I'd been having a hard time getting the old paint/primer off of the Wraithguard with the Simple Green - the guy I bought them from suggested I try acetone. AMAZING stuff - will use this from now on for any metal minis that need stripping! And it worked after only 10 minutes! Still digging junk out of the ooks & crannnies, but I've got most of the old junk off now. Hawks are coming along slowly - am doing the Lasblasters first, will then start working on the uniforms. I dread doing all the blending since I'm doing the fade that I did on the Scorpions a few pages back. To get it blended correctly is a total pain in the you-know-where.

Well it will keep you out of trouble at least

Quick update. The Hawks are practically done - am waiting for some glue that I'd ordered (flexible CA bonds) that I want to use to put the wings on. Should've been here last week (grrrrr). Guys actually look cool even w/o the wings on them! The fade turned out good on the bodies (IMO). Was happy to see that one of the squad is actually left-handed! Yay! Will post pics as soon as the wings are sticking on them.

Army stuff - just ordered another Walker, so that one will be in the works in 1-2 weeks. Am waiting to hear back from the guy I'd gotten 2 Wraithguard from on eBay - knew that one of the pair's weapon tip was broken off (am currently sculpting Green Stuff to replace), but was upset to find that his back "fin" was also broken off. Will be a pain-in-the-you-know-where trying to do this one as well with Green Stuff - especially with all the little gems on it. May have to come up with another option for this - maybe add them on after the basic fin is hardened. Anyone know of someone with an old Serpent they'd like to sell? I DEFINITELY need to get 1-2 more of these!

I have a Serpent, but I'm not selling it. I need it to expand my army so that they can kick some backside when their time arises. Good to hear about the Hawks. Super eager to see them all done and put together. Sorry to hear about the Wraithgaurd. This could perhaps be why I only buy new. =/

Hmmmm. Bunny tells me she's using pre-packagd washes - think I may invest in one or two evantually. Just started working on 4 of my 5 Wraithguard, will post "WIP" pics if anyone wants me to. Will also post a pic of the Swooping Hawks w/o their wings attached shortly - still waiting for the stupid flexible glue! With my luck the order's sitting in a stolen USPS trailer somewhere...

Here's the pic of my Hawks w/o wings attached. Hope you all like them - can't wait to see what they look like with them ATTACHED!

Oh those are nice. They'll look freakin' sick when glued together. I personally would've never thought to do a bone color (yay creativity) but it really works. Good work.

Thanks, bunny! I'm hoping to get them glued tomorrow or Saturday (which ever day the glue arrives). Sorta had to do them in Bone White because of the Ulthwe theme - but I'm very happy with the results! Look for the completed pics this weekend! Yowza.

Ooh! Two more Wraithguard arrived in the mail today! That will bring me up to 7 total. Still am working on making the back fin out of Green Stuff for one of them (the broken one), so he's gonna be the last one finished - two from today need to be primed, but the remaining 4 have been started (black bodies done). May do a WIP pic of them, or may wait until they're done. Otherwise I think they'll look too boriing with the Ulthwe scheme... :-(

Just got an email from the place I ordered my flexible CA glue from - it won't be here until 9/6, at the earliest. Sniffle sniffle. Completed Hawk pics will have to wait until next week, then. In the mean time, here's a pic of the Wraithguard that I had to do the weapon tip & back "fin" with Green Stuff. Should be doing the finishing sanding this afternoon, then priming & catch him up with the other 6's paint jobs. Oh - also have another War Walker that came in the mail yesterday, am painting the Guardian before I put the whole thing together! Am also magnetizing the shoulder mounts for this one. Next week will also be getting a de-bonder; if it doesn't totally eat up the plastic will be able to take the weapons off my other Walkers & magnetize them as well...

New War Walker's completely assembled & 99% painted. Just have to do 1-2 washes on him & get him varnished. What I need help from all you readers on is what to do about the base. On the previous 2 plastic Walkers, I've just painted the broken missile pod & left the rest black; however, for this guy (since I think my paint job is better than on the other two), I'm considering painting the base with earth tones and possibly putting some gravel on it. Don't want to do all of that with the Walker on it. All that being said, PLEASE give me opinions as to whether I should leave it black or whether I should do the earth tones (or do something else entirely). I obviously can't add any flocking with it being black, but...

P.S. I also realized after looking at lots of bunny's pictures that I need to do better lighting for my pics! Can't see lots of the detail! Someone told me at a game last weekend that my Harlies don't look nearly as good in pics as they do in person, so I'll probably retake those with better lighting.

Sorry, I realized I should've included a pic of the Walker on the black base. Here it is. Also, ignore the old-school scatter lasers. I have't gotten the weapons painted for him yet, and my other magnetized SL's are otherwise engaged at the time! PLEASE remember to leave some feedback on the base question.

With my Walker I thought the base looked more like stone so I painted it in a stone color. Base of Codex grey, wash of Badab Black, drybrush highlight of Codex grey and a final drybrush highlight (or fine line if you prefer) highlight of Fortress grey. I didn't use any flock on my Walker. Just my thoughts.

Your Walker looks freakin' sweet though. Love the colors and the gems are very nicely done. Good work.

I'm not sure I agree with bunny on this one simply because the rest of your models have not been based this way. It appears to be a really similar base to the space marine dreadnaught one, which means you have the opportunity to do a 50:50 split as the heights of the mould vary to add depth.

I think that if you only did the rock it would look too barren in relation to the other bases.

Perhaps do the low sections in your standard style to help it tie in with the rest of the army, and the higher section in the style that bunny described. You could even add a further extreme highlight of white to the rock of you feel the need. Might tie it in with the paint scheme better too.

On the note of your painting I definitely agree that this is your best walker. I really look forward to seeing the other pictures of the harlequins. I really believe that those models challenged you and made you a better painter in the process. If they look a lot better in real life then I look forward to better pictures.

Hope that glue hurries up!