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... okay, so what I should be doing is focusing on either another Golden Demon entry, or something for the Store painting competition. What I'm actually doing is feeling the Eldar love and starting three Warlocks to go with my Farseer. I should feel guilty, I know I should. But I don't ; )

I'll be following the style of my Craftworld colours and do them in yellow and black/dark red. I think at the moment, because they're 'ard Warlocks, they'll mostly be back, with yellow trimmings/accents, but we'll see how I go - I generally don't plan out my miniatures out in advance but kind of go with the flow and see what happens instead - believe it or not, that's what happened with the Wardancer's tattoos, I didn't have anything planned and just made it up as I went along. Seems to work fairly well as a planning technique lol

Is that more Skink Blue I see? lolz

I really like the look of your models. I am starting to assemble and paint my own Eldar force so I'm happy for the inspiration.

P.S. I despise the mold lines on Eldar plastics.

Love your painting! The colors are so vivid and sharp.

@ Eldarain: Wait until you see the warping in Eldar vehicle kits...

You're supposed to be inspiring me lol.

That does not sound like a very good time. Thanks for the heads up I suppose

Forewarned is forearmed as we say at work.

On the upside of dealing with badly warped Falcons, I got really good as smooting out plastics with fine sandpaper and reshaping contours with a sharp hobby blade. Those skills would have gone untrained without those kits...

Much like if it weren't for horribly miscast Wracks many hobbyists would be getting hardly any opportunity to practice with Green stuff or shaped needle files. It's supposed to take 12 hours to prep a model for assembly right?

I too hate the mold lines on Eldar, there's no escaping them and they're pretty unforgiving if they're ignored. Needle file is the best thing I've used, but even my patience has its limits lol
Never actually tackled a Falcon, so haven't come across warping there myself, but it'll have to be done eventually... as for Finecast cleaning up, I've done my best to avoid that horror too, but liquid greenstuff is amazing! : )


Automatically Appended Next Post:
... more Skink Blue... erm, maybe >looks guilty< lol

finnan wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:
... more Skink Blue... erm, maybe >looks guilty< lol

Excellent. Keep the visual treats incoming my good sir.

As for the Liquid GS, I bought a pot on the weekend and will be trying it on some Grotesques now that they're mostly done. Any tips?

Liquid Greenstuff - it's pretty thick and gloopy straight out of the pot, so I wouldn't really try using it like that, I put a blob on a palette and water it down a little so it's more manageable. and then paint it onto where it's needed. Seems to dry pretty quick, but if you're filling bigger gaps/holes there can be some shrinkage so multiple layers might be needed.
I think it's great, much more manageable for filling/repairs than solid GS, but I can see that both products fill their purposes : )

How...

Just how...

How do you keep it all so smooth finnan? I'm really struggling with purples lately, my models always seem so rough - lack a lack of definition? Paints are watered down 1:1, always. I'd gladly appreciate some tips!

I generally water my paints down at least 1:3 paint:water, and do lots and lots and lots of thin layers. It takes a while, but it does give really nice smooth, intense colour. It's just quite hard to get nice smooth finishes with any paint really in just one go - to get good coverage and colour, you have a use it thick, but that might hide any sculpted detail, and as soon as you water it down, the pigment is more spread out and you won't get the coverage.

Reds and purples are a bit tricky really - you'd think that they give good coverage, but I've always found red to be a fairly 'thin' pigment, in whatever kind of paints that I've used, the same with purple... I guess it also depends on the basecoat - if it's quite dark, it'll be an even harder/longer job to get it up to the brightness that you want.

I now not everyone has the patience or time to paint using the techniques that I use, but they do give good results as long as you don't go bonkers after layer 30... ; ) lol

I understand the process in using incredibly thin paints and multiple layers, I guess I've just never considered actually going further than 1:1 // 2:1 mixtures.

Would you recommend any particular procedure for purple? I'm currently priming in black, then basing in hormagaunt purple and then applying two layers of thinned purple-mix. Sadly, I still don't get the crisp and punchy effect I'm after. I guess I'll have to bite the bullet and try incredibly thin layers, I have all evening.

[Sorry for hijacking, if you consider this so! I love your painting so eh, makes sense to ask for advice right?]

it's not a problem at all : )
Is this for your Chaos stuff, or for something else?

crisp purple... kinda tricky as it's a fairly dark colour, but I guess that the way to get around that is to start with a dark basecoat, and then you'll have the contrast between the base and the Hormagaunt.
You've got a couple of options (in my crazed head anyway lol):
1) you could treat the black undercoat as your BASEcoat, and then go straight in with thinned Hormagaut as your main colour/highlight, leaving the black as the shadows, and then a further (lighter shade) highlight to make the Hormagaunt pop.
2) Undercoat with Charadon Granite (my favourite, I know, but it does give a great base), wash the whole lot with purple wash, then straight in with Hormagaunt purple as your first highlight. The bonus to this method is that you're getting your deep shadows with the Charadon and the wash, and a second hit of purple with the Hormagaunt.
3) Undercoat white so you're already starting with a lighter base, so that the paints will simply be brighter because of that. Basecoat with the darkest purple you have or even a really dark blue like Necron Abyss, and then start highlighting with Hormagaunts.

I think I've talked to Hangfire about this, but not sure I have on my main blog: one of the reasons my stuff looks so bright is that I highlight using colour rather than just adding white in the GW style. Adding white just makes it go a bit pastelly and washed out. By using colour, things tend to be brighter. For example, use a base of dark blue or purple, which will give you depth (rather than just black), then highlight in a brighter shade of purple, and then a final highlight of even brighter purple... Take my Eldar: I base with orange, then highlight with yellow rather than orange + white, this makes both colours stronger... I don't think I'm explaining myself very well there, hope that makes sense!

Thank you so very much finnan.

Yes, it is for the Emperor's Children link in my signature. After three months of toying with various hues and applications of purples, I am still being defeated! I think much of it lies in misapplication and technique, rather than colour choice. I'm aiming for a very royal purple, something lordly that will pop nicely with bronze and gold trim, as well as green for the contrast. I've been using my own mix of vallejo purples, although I now wonder why since they run their own shade named Royal Purple. /facepalm

Since writing to you a couple of hours back, I've grabbed a spare Marine and primed black then applied four very thin layers of said colour. Looks OK thus far! Would you recommend a wash over the top? You mention "leaving the black as the shadows", I assume you're suggesting leaving a minute line of undercoat in the shadows, as opposed to applying any form of wash?

I'm trying to shy away from washes at the moment, just because they tend to be a bit blobby when they dry and I end up spending time tidying it up... having said that, I am a fan of the technique to add colour. If you were going to highlight first then wash, I'd say to highlight in a lighter/brighter colour first, because the wash will knock the colour back somewhat.

... also, if you're going for rich/royal, maybe go for redder purples rather than bluer purples, but don't mix them, as that might make the combination of paints a bit duller.
Yeah, if you're undercoating black and then using that as your basecoat as well, I wouldn't cover it entirely, leave some of the black exposed as the darkest shadows.

another technique you might want to try is: undercoat white, then do a black wash to give yourself some shadows and then once that's dry, do a thin-ish, even coat of a strong purple over the top, so you can still see the black wash underneath, and then all you need to is to a fairly small highlight over the top : )

Fantastic like always, how may I ask did you acheive the sking on the Wardancer, I have been pondering for a while how do the skin of my Wood Elves and that is just the effect I'm going for.
Keep up the good work finnan!

hey Krell
Skin - I actually wasn't amazingly happy with the skin, I thought it should be a bit lighter, but I was rushing it a bit to get it done.

I just followed the GW recipe (which seems a bit overdone really): basecoat of Dark Flesh, a washo or Ogryn Flesh, then a first highlight (major) of Dwarf flesh, leaving a bit of the Dark Flesh showing as shadows, and then a final highlight of Elf Flesh. I think I should have done a heavier Elf Flesh highlight...

I might try just a base of Dwarf, then a wash of Ogryn's, rehighlight with Dwarf and then Elf next time...

finnan wrote: hey Krell
Skin - I actually wasn't amazingly happy with the skin, I thought it should be a bit lighter, but I was rushing it a bit to get it done.

I just followed the GW recipe (which seems a bit overdone really): basecoat of Dark Flesh, a washo or Ogryn Flesh, then a first highlight (major) of Dwarf flesh, leaving a bit of the Dark Flesh showing as shadows, and then a final highlight of Elf Flesh. I think I should have done a heavier Elf Flesh highlight...

I might try just a base of Dwarf, then a wash of Ogryn's, rehighlight with Dwarf and then Elf next time...

Thanks man, writing it down on pen and paper as we speak

Warlock progress, from last night and tonight.
... to be honest, I thought that they'd be looking a bit better than they do now! (but perhaps that's slightly high expectations of myself. I thought that the yellow would be easier and quicker to go on... why I thought this I have no idea, considering the amount of yellow onto orange I've been doing lately. Maybe I'm just blanking it from my memory!)
I've only started on the robes on the 'lock on the right, and I want them to be brighter than that, so I'll do some more tomorrow and do a further highlight to make it stand out. The plan is to have double stripes (like on the Wraithseer) on hems and sleeves, and the rest of the robes to be black. It might be that the yellow isn't standing out too well against the white.
I've also re-undercoated the topknot on the middle one - I did some drybrushing on it and that just reminded me why I don't like drybrushing - it looked clumpy and dry, so I'll try again with it...
Also the lenses done, and that's about it... I feel as if I should have achieved more!

Really liking what you've done so far your oranges are outstanding and I love the tats on the wardancer, very well done.

I like just how nice they already look at 10% done!
<---Green with Envy lolZ

tonight's progress

How did you do that so quick?

Because finnan is a blending GOD!

They look amazing as usual, i still cant get over that velvety red.

doing the red on the Charadon is pretty quick to do - the Scab Red goes on really well, even when it's thinned down. The yellow seemed to take ages this time (but probably no quicker/longer than usual!).
Blending god? Not sure about that ; )
Like I said at the top of the page, I SHOULD be going my last entry for the Store Competition next week... but I'm just having fun with the Eldar at the moment... so I've decided to cheat somewhat and enter a model that I've mostly already done rather than do one from scratch, simply because I think I'll run out of time otherwise

Wow these are excellent paintjobs all around, i dont know why i didn't comment before. I am a big fan of your colour sheme, especially as I paint a lot of orange myself.

Exalted and subscribed.

Warlock 1 done : ) actually fairly happy at how he came out, and I'm really liking the group shot and how dark he's looking : )
On to Warlocks 2 and 3!

Fething beautiful, finnan. Absolutely beautiful!

I can't wait to see how you handle the grav tanks and guardians.

The look brutal. So much more grimdark than regular eldar.