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I love the fluff from the eldar craftworld Altansar. Now there is a problem. How the heck do I make my ships and troops look like ghosts (a there not there ghostly look) with the magenta undertones. I want everything to look like ghosts

Probably just paint the models the colors in the codex and paint any exposed skin a ghostly color

AustonT wrote:Probably just paint the models the colors in the codex and paint any exposed skin a ghostly color

I wanted them to look like they had broken armor the tanks to look like they're tattered torn old broken etc. and what would ghostly colors be

I think he wants their armor to appear ghostly too. It could be a bit silly to say "this is my ghost eldar from Altansar" when they look like normal guardians.

Have you considered doing a lot of washes over a white basecoat?

ph34r wrote:I think he wants their armor to appear ghostly too. It could be a bit silly to say "this is my ghost eldar from Altansar" when they look like normal guardians.

Have you considered doing a lot of washes over a white basecoat?

I see where you and the op are coming from I do. I'm thinking of LoD and how they are pretty etherial themselves and they get painted pretty solid.
The idea of washing or maybe using translucent colors would work.
Considerably more work and it'll never be legal to use in GW stores and games. Make a mold of a guardian and cast him in water clear resin. Chop off arms, heads, torsos, etc. And mix them into your plastics. Paint solid on the plastic and wash the clear. THAT would look baller.

For ghosty elf flesh maybe an elf flesh base washes with blue then a very thin green highlighted in bone to straight white.

AustonT wrote:

ph34r wrote:I think he wants their armor to appear ghostly too. It could be a bit silly to say "this is my ghost eldar from Altansar" when they look like normal guardians.

Have you considered doing a lot of washes over a white basecoat?

I see where you and the op are coming from I do. I'm thinking of LoD and how they are pretty etherial themselves and they get painted pretty solid.
The idea of washing or maybe using translucent colors would work.
Considerably more work and it'll never be legal to use in GW stores and games. Make a mold of a guardian and cast him in water clear resin. Chop off arms, heads, torsos, etc. And mix them into your plastics. Paint solid on the plastic and wash the clear. THAT would look baller.

For ghosty elf flesh maybe an elf flesh base washes with blue then a very thin green highlighted in bone to straight white.

I don't know why you'd want to mix the plastic with transparent guardians. Might as well just go all the way with the transparents and wash them for all the painting.

In any case, that is probably way too advanced for the OP, or anyone sane.

You do realize that now I basically have to try this? STOP MAKING ME BRAINSTORM! it costs me money and time.

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?aId=12300001

All the answers are amazing. Im sort of the mad scientist when it comes to stuff like this. So sane no...lol I really like the idea of using a clear water resin for the molds and then washing over them. Now how is this done. I like to take on challenges and am willing to work on something this big. That link is also good but when I think of ghosts i think of the white will a blue tinge.
@Ph34r, How is the translucent wash done can you explain this process? Now what about vehicles, Like wave serpents, night spinners, etc Thanks for the link michaelcycle!
ALSO!
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?categoryId=&pIndex=2&aId=4400033&multiPageMode=true&start=3
But this is not ethereal enough, and I dont want my eldar to look like zombehs...

I wrote a how to on ghostly models in my p&m blog in my sig. Page....34?

Doomthumbs wrote:I wrote a how to on ghostly models in my p&m blog in my sig. Page....34?

erm page 34, tyranids = ninja turtles O.o

It was just before that then.

it was on page 32-33 a little bit anyways...but i like the idea of clear etherealness that ph34r was talking about. They're eldar everything has to look extrememly beautiful

Do a reverse highlight wash. Wash white into the deepest recesses.

Have you thought abou heavy drybrushing of ghostly greens over a black undercoat?

And then lighting them in the dark with a green light?

I would also suggest drybrushing.

Pick a ghostly colour you like, then just drybrush over a darker shade of said colour with lighter shades of said colour, drybrushing less as you go untill you get a slightly glowy effect.
It's all i do when painting fire, and it could work here ^^

LazzurusMan

sweet! So a ghostly color could be anything...COOL! now I need to post my painting so far. Fore my dire avengers I went with a primed white, washed over a ver dark greay then to shadow grey and then finally white and they all came out really awesome. As for my fire dragons, I wanted to do something out of the ordinary.

Fire as we all know it is rated by the color of heat related to the temperature. being the "coolest" red, orange, yellow, green, blue, then white, finally white turns a magenta's purple. If something is "purple hot" There has only been one recorded incident in I think in the swiss of a metoer coming in so hot that it exploded in the air wiping all life our for 40 miles? Saw this on natgeo once. But what they portrayed was a white meteor with its glow a purplish hue. I wanted to paint my fire dragons that way. It also keeps with the altansar scheme.

dreamydevil wrote:sweet! So a ghostly color could be anything...COOL! now I need to post my painting so far. Fore my dire avengers I went with a primed white, washed over a ver dark greay then to shadow grey and then finally white and they all came out really awesome. As for my fire dragons, I wanted to do something out of the ordinary.

Fire as we all know it is rated by the color of heat related to the temperature. being the "coolest" red, orange, yellow, green, blue, then white, finally white turns a magenta's purple. If something is "purple hot" There has only been one recorded incident in I think in the swiss of a metoer coming in so hot that it exploded in the air wiping all life our for 40 miles? Saw this on natgeo once. But what they portrayed was a white meteor with its glow a purplish hue. I wanted to paint my fire dragons that way. It also keeps with the altansar scheme.

In that case I'd think about modelling them up using GS w/ flames coming off them. Do them in your normal paint scheme to start, then paint the flames in your purples & OSL them to look like the flames are burning purple.

as I see it, monochrome is the way to go when doing ghosts.... You dont need to have a single color across the army; i mean, each aspect has its own colors, so you could say, have your dark purple brightening to the aspects color, all done ghosty style.... could be nifty.

Red_Starrise wrote:

dreamydevil wrote:sweet! So a ghostly color could be anything...COOL! now I need to post my painting so far. Fore my dire avengers I went with a primed white, washed over a ver dark greay then to shadow grey and then finally white and they all came out really awesome. As for my fire dragons, I wanted to do something out of the ordinary.

Fire as we all know it is rated by the color of heat related to the temperature. being the "coolest" red, orange, yellow, green, blue, then white, finally white turns a magenta's purple. If something is "purple hot" There has only been one recorded incident in I think in the swiss of a metoer coming in so hot that it exploded in the air wiping all life our for 40 miles? Saw this on natgeo once. But what they portrayed was a white meteor with its glow a purplish hue. I wanted to paint my fire dragons that way. It also keeps with the altansar scheme.

In that case I'd think about modelling them up using GS w/ flames coming off them. Do them in your normal paint scheme to start, then paint the flames in your purples & OSL them to look like the flames are burning purple.

That is so F&@#$& AWESOME! I never thought about that. I don't have the money for green stuff but I've found a cheaper alternative and thats mighty putty. The only thing is that its epoxy so it tends to harden after like 2 minutes and doesn't like to stick... but I absolutely love your idea. that was inspiring!