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What I want to know is Who are these guys? Does your Biel-Tan force have any backstory? That's what really makes them come alive.

The nut and bolt method is a great thing to do for a model of that size. I've never seen the build of a scorpion so I'm really interested to see how it goes!

theCrowe wrote:What I want to know is Who are these guys? Does your Biel-Tan force have any backstory? That's what really makes them come alive.

I don't really have a backstory for them, unfortunately. I guess the story is much more the real-life love of Biel-Tan that I've carried over the decades but for various reasons never actually having a collection of them until now. I'm just loving painting all the different models at the moment.

Tyranid Horde wrote:The nut and bolt method is a great thing to do for a model of that size. I've never seen the build of a scorpion so I'm really interested to see how it goes!

I'm terrified of ruining a £160 hunk of resin when I start drilling into it! Probably won't be many updates on it for a while, I'm juggling different bits of projects. I had a long weekend with a lot of hobby progress, including assembling a Guardian squad and a Wave Serpent, working on painting my first squad of Warp Spiders and priming two Wave Serpents and a Falcon. The Scorpion is still waiting, and I still haven't finished off that War Walker...

Welcome to the mechanized Eldar club

Grav tanks are just that bit more fun to paint than War Walkers, it's why I've still not gotten past the first highlight on my squadron.

 Tyranid Horde wrote:
Welcome to the mechanized Eldar club

Grav tanks are just that bit more fun to paint than War Walkers, it's why I've still not gotten past the first highlight on my squadron.

Indeed, I've had these in the queue for a while, just not got around to any yet. As it stands the motor pool is two Wave Serpents, two Falcons and the Scorpion, but I can see many more grav tanks in my future if I'm not careful. I mean I already have enough infantry to justify quite a lot more transports, and I don't even have a singe Fire Prism yet. Then the Night Spinner, which I seem to recall reading somewhere (that I can't quite find now) is popular on Biel-Tan, which would make sense since they're supposed to be the only craftworld to operate the super heavy Void Spinner variant.

For a change from my normal scheduled wait-until-it's-finished-to-post-it method, I feel like I ought to add a new picture here, so here's a shot of my messy workbench at the moment -

Yeesh, clean up your bench. Unless it's meant t be organized chaos, in which case keep at it.

Which specific paints do you use for your Biel-Tan? Or have you posted that before and I missed it?

Wow. That's a lot going on. I like what I am seeing with those Warp Spiders.

Man that bench is a beautiful sight. I dream of a bench of a bench like that! My man-cave was banished by the realities of fatherhood many moons ago and I mostly work out of a couple of small IKEA baskets on a shelf like some sort of refugee hobbyist in exile.

Only an Eldar player would call that messy - you should see my proppa greenskin messy worktable . looks like a nice diverse set of models - I always liked the background of the warpspiders, curious to see how they'll turn out painted.

Thanks all! I find the varying reactions to the bench somewhat amusing. I'm not the tidiest person so while I might occasionally have a major tidy-up, within a few painting sessions it'll be back to looking like that again so I tend to leave it like that. Just this year I moved out of a small rented flat where I had to literally shove my computer mouse and keyboard out of the way on my PC desk to have a tiny amount of space to hobby in - and bought a house where I now have a dedicated man-cave with two huge office desks - one totally dedicated to hobby. I'm still enjoying the fact that I can spread out and not need to clear everything away again at the end of a session.

 CaptainWaffle wrote:
Which specific paints do you use for your Biel-Tan? Or have you posted that before and I missed it?

I think I mentioned paint ranges but I haven't mentioned specific shades before.

Green: These can vary a bit depending on what I'm painting. If it's something where I want a darker green such as the folds in seer robes or the middle of vehicle panels (I like Biel-Tan vehicles in a darker green when compared to the shade used for things like Guardian helmets) I start with VMC Luftwaffe Camo Green. Highlight/layer up through VMC Medium Olive, VMC Olive Green and then a final fine highlight of VMC Lime Green. If I want to go really in depth I'll do a few mixes as intermediate steps, particularly a 50:50 between the Luftwaffe Camo Green and the Medium Olive since there's a fair difference between those two, similarly between Olive and Lime. Army Painter Green Tone wash on standby if the model calls for it. Then an all-over glaze of Citadel Waywatcher Green to bring a bit of richness to the colour and blend the layers a bit better.

For things like Guardian helmets where I'm looking for a lighter shade and not as much depth, I'll start with VMC Medium Olive, highlight with Olive Green or Lime Green, wash with AP Green Tone if needed and glaze with Waywatcher.



White: Much simpler! It's Army Painter Gorgon Hide, which although a lot of Army Painter's range leaves a lot to be desired I really like that shade and it goes on fairly well for a really light colour. It's carefully lined (often a few rounds of back and forth to tidy it up to an extent I'm happy with) using VMC German Grey. I often don't bother with a highlight on the whites, but if I do it's VGC Dead White. If I'm painting cloth I'll use VMC Pale Grey Blue in the recesses for a bit of depth - I often use that as an intermediate stage anyway because it covers well and I usually work from grey auto primer.

Blacks: VMC German Grey, AP Dark Tone wash, AP Uniform Grey highlight. If it's a cloak or something I'll work in several different shades of grey for layer highlights.

Metallics: I've generally gone for a dark gold sort of look. Really simple - VMC Bronze with an AP Strong Tone wash. Where I've wanted them lighter I've usually picked VMC Gold instead of the Bronze.

Spiritstones: I do these in a gradient of metallics and then use the Citadel Spiritstone paints.

Basing: Rims in Army Painter Monster Brown. Texture paint is AK Interactive Light Earth, with some patches in AK Interactive Light and Dry Crackle Effects. Those textures have a slightly lighter shade than I want, so I give them an all-over wash from a massive pot of VGC Sepia Wash. Then I've got a selection of tufts that I picked up from ebay - generally a mix of light green, dry and dead grass/scrub/bushes. I'm going for a sort of arid steppe kind of look.

I won't go into all the individual Aspect shrines - unless you want to know?


--

Sorry for the lack of updates. I take a long time over painting and generally started this blog off by only showing finished pieces. But I suppose some WIPs can't hurt. Posting here helps motivate me to keep going so thanks for all the feedback folks, I appreciate it.

So, I've said often enough that I have a War Walker in progress and nearly finished. It's still nearly finished. It literally just needs the basing finishing, the eye lenses doing on the pilot and the canopy gluing on. Yet I've been working on other things! I really need to get that one sorted. The Warp Spiders you can see in that shot of my workbench - I've been working on them the past couple of weeks and they're also nearly done. Just spiritstones, patterns on the warp jump generators and basing to go. I've got the basecoats down on three windriders. And finally - I've been putting a lot of work into that Wave Serpent that you could see in the last shot.

I've been following that green recipe that I listed above. Like I said, I like Biel-Tan vehicles with dark green panels and fairly bright highlights. So all the panels are Luftwaffe Camo green at their centre, then gradually edge highlighted up through 4 separate layers, starting off with a really thick highlight of 50:50 Luftwaffe to Medium Olive, then through progressively thinner Medium Olive, Olive and finally a thin Lime Green. Green Tone Wash, Waywatcher Glaze, and a couple of coats of VMC Matt Medium because it had picked up a bit of a shine from somewhere that I still haven't completely killed off. It's currently looking like this:



The lighting for the photo perhaps makes it look a bit brighter than it really is - in person the panels look darker. Anyway I'm really pleased with how it's coming along even if I have made loads of work for myself with the sheer number of layers of highlight. Still got plenty of things to do before it's finished - the weapons are behind the rest of the tank so I need to sort those. The canopy, metallics and any spiritstones need doing. Plus my first attempt at Biel-Tan thorn patterns and getting the Biel-Tan rune onto it. I'm not sure whether I'll freehand another one - I enjoyed doing it on that Dire Avenger banner - or use one of the decals. The worst thing after spending all this time on getting the green right is the thought that I could ruin it by messing up my attempts at thorn patterns or runes!

Then once this one is done, I've got to go through the whole process again on another Wave Serpent, two Falcons and a Scorpion...

That is a ton of info. Thank you for taking the time to share so much of your process. And the results are evident in that glorious green.

That's an excellent thorough explanation of how you do green and I may end up robbing the methodology for my own craftworld's helmets. Citadel's lighter greens have really poor coverage so maybe I ought to make the switch to Vallejo.

Your wave serpent looks gorgeous, I wish I had the patience to do that much layering on my own tanks! Are you planning on doing the thorny vines like you see on Biel Tan studio armies?

The multiple layers must be time-consuming, but it is worth it. It looks as alive as a leaf on a tree!

Thanks all. I'm really pleased with how it's turning out. It's taken ages, but it's what I had in my head before I started so I'm really happy about that. It wasn't especially difficult either - the panels on the tank are a lot easier and less fiddly to edge highlight than the troops
- it just took a while.

 Tyranid Horde wrote:
That's an excellent thorough explanation of how you do green and I may end up robbing the methodology for my own craftworld's helmets. Citadel's lighter greens have really poor coverage so maybe I ought to make the switch to Vallejo.

Your wave serpent looks gorgeous, I wish I had the patience to do that much layering on my own tanks! Are you planning on doing the thorny vines like you see on Biel Tan studio armies?

Yeah I'm going to have a go at the vines. The only thing that worries me slightly is if I make a mistake or don't like how it looks, after spending so long getting the green right I don't want to ruin it. So I reckon I'll hold off on the wave serpent for now. I'm also painting 3 Windriders and I've got them to the stage of having finished the basecoats. I'll get their green finished and then try the vines on the jetbikes first since they'll be less time-consuming to repaint the green if I mess up the thorns. Hopefully that should make me happier about doing it to the Wave Serpent.

The VMC Greens are really nice and cover well, and the ones I've picked make for a good natural gradient from dark to light. I think they're not as rich as I would like (presumably that's great for real world military modellers though), which is why I add the glaze as the final layer just to add that bit of extra saturation to the colour. I've fallen in love with the VMC range in general really. When I got back into the hobby a couple of years ago, all my old Citadel paints had dried out. I bought myself an Army Painter Mega Paint Set because it was cheap (like £60 for about 50 paints), and just used that for a while. It was inconsistent, some of the paints were good but others were pretty useless. Picked up some Vallejo and now Model Color has become my go-to range.

I almost wish I was happy doing faster paintjobs on my Eldar but I wouldn't be happy with the end result knowing that I could have done them better. Which means that my collection will take forever to paint - I've got a big enough queue as it stands and I've just pre-ordered 3 copies of the new Battleforce. I know a lot of folks found the Battleforce really disappointing through some combination of being old models they've seen so many times before and having non-competitive stuff. But from my perspective I'll take all the Dire Avengers I can get - I feel that Biel-Tan should be built around Dire Avengers but simultaneously the price of a 5-elf DA box annoys me. I don't have any Vypers yet, and a squadron of 3 seems like a good number. I've got 6 windriders, but I'll welcome 9 more - especially if I convert some to Shining Spears (just need to decide on a conversion I'm happy with). Wraithknights, I wasn't a massive fan of until recently, but staring at the model on the GW site when I knew it was going into the Battleforce and it really grew on me. I think I could do some cool things with them, and 3 seems a suitably excessive number (next stop, Titans!). I'll take more guardians - I've got 20 already so 30 more gives me the option for two big Guardian bombs if I wanted it. And the Farseer - of course I've already got that model once, but I'm weirdly excited to see what sort of kitbashes I can do with it to make some unique farseers. It's like having just about every metal seer model isn't enough and I need to concoct my own. I'm picturing mix-and-match between the infantry farseer, the new Spiritseer, Eldrad and the jetbike farseer, with extra bits like shuriken pistols from the Harlequin troupe and potentially diving into my old High Elf bits box.

Finally, in another attempt to get around my irritation at the price of Dire Avengers, I managed to find 5 sets of legs-and-tabard on one of the bits sites for a good price. Given that the Exarch has a separate torso, head, weapon options and separate things to stick on his back, the only thing you need is another set of legs to make 5 regular DAs and 1 exarch from each 5-man set. I had 10 already, 15 coming with the battleforces, so with the 5 extra sets of legs I'll be able to make 5 more DA's. It's the little wins that make me smile.

Beautiful blog, in terms of minis and in history. You've got some nice clean lines going here and the green on the vehicles/robes/wraithguard looks gorgeous.

It's crazy to think how old some of these minis are, like the metal Warp Spiders, and - despite the lack of poses - just how well they hold up to the new plastics.

For your DAs, it might be worth it to keep an eye out for DA heads on ebay/bits websites, and whack them on regular guardians. You can buy the individual heads for €1.25 each here: https://megabitzshop.com/navi.php?qs=dire+avengers+head (I am Aussie and not affiliated with this site in anyway - it just popped up in google!)

I know the DA bodies have a few more extras than guardians, but if you can whack 2-3 of those in each squad you're laughing!

The Empire Wizard kit might also have some useful bits to make warlocks/farseers...

That's some dedication to the green - really worth it IMO though. And good find on the bitz, I tend to do the same with my ridiculously oversized bits box

Thanks both. On the bits front, I suppose I find it a bit amusing that I go to such lengths to eke out the contents of the Dire Avengers box - yet I've got such a pile of unfinished stuff that will take me ages to get through with the rate I paint. Like today - I've finally got around to doing the last few touches on that War Walker. That's the last model out of the Start Collecting box I picked up over a year ago. If it took me that long to get one start collecting finished, I dread to think how long it will take me to get through 3 Bladehost Battleforces. Never mind, and keep painting I guess!



I'm not sure I'm totally happy with the walker, while simultaneously being unsure exactly what it is that I'm unsure about. Never mind, it'll do. This is also the first showing on this blog of how I decided to do the vehicle canopies. I didn't want to just leave them clear, but I also haven't picked up an airbrush yet and I didn't want to try a gradient by hand painting. So instead I've just glazed the inside surface with VMC transparent blue. I can go back and paint the outside later if I feel like it.

I've also got those Warp Spiders and 3 Windriders nearly finished, so hopefully it won't be long before they appear up here. The Wave Serpent isn't all that far off either, and I'm halfway through layering up the green on a Falcon.

Anyway, I seem to recall a few posts back promising an army shot once I had the War Walker done, so here goes, taken on a tabletop that sort of matches my bases:





I'm rather pleased with how they look when they come together.

Magnificent, man. Nothing like the army shot to get that feeling of accomplishment.

 youwashock wrote:
Magnificent, man. Nothing like the army shot to get that feeling of accomplishment.

Cheers. It does feel great seeing them all together, though the fact that I can so easily fit them all into a photo reminds me just how much I still have to paint.

Some more progress today, I've declared the first 3 Windriders finished. I've painted these with my same green recipe that I've used on that WIP Wave Serpent further up the page. I wanted to get these finished first as a bit of a testbed for the Biel-Tan thorn patterns. I think they've come out pretty well so I'll use them on the other vehicles. I also tried various different of the Biel-Tan rune decals. I think maybe the big one looks a little too big, and I may feel the need to add a grey outline to the black one. But on the whole I'm pretty pleased and I'll leave them as they are for now. They're loaded with shuriken cannons at the minute, but they're magnetised so I've got the other options handy too. For bases I've used the standard 32mm bases rather than the clear plastic flying bases. I was never keen on the fact that flying bases were different in style to normal bases, I'd already adopted 60mm standard bases for my grav tanks to fit the nut-and-bolt mounting method, the 32mm bases are virtually the same size as the small flying bases and they allow me to fit magnets underneath for transport in my steel toolbox. So a no-brainer really.

 Tyranid Horde wrote:
The nut and bolt method is a great thing to do for a model of that size. I've never seen the build of a scorpion so I'm really interested to see how it goes!

Ask and ye shall receive. I've built it this afternoon.

All the parts laid out:


So, the underside has a convex dome-shaped spot which is meant to take that dome shaped bit of resin that you can see under the pulsars in the first pic. That's the way it's designed to stand off the base. Obviously I wasn't using that. I was planning on using several nuts for stability and drilling a bit further in to the body, but some quick fiddling told me that trying to use multiple nuts resulted in the alignment between them not being perfect and causing the bolt to get stuck. So one nut it was. I was kind of relieved because that meant I wouldn't need to do any more drilling. I grabbed a penny washer and superglued the nut to the inside. The washer wasn't quite big enough to go on the outsides of the opening, so I glued it to a slightly larger washer and then packed out the opening with milliput - if the superglue were to fail on the nut it could come off and rattle around in there which would be somewhat of a disaster. This way it's firmly held in place once the millput cures.




Gluing the engines on:


I decided that I was going to pin the pulsars with some 2mm steel rod. Good thing I've got a set of bolt cutters (my biggest hobby tool!) to cut them down to size. Some very careful drilling with my power drill -




What you haven't seen is the 5mm magnet I've stuck on the peg on the bottom of the turret, and another in the hole on top of the body. I had to chop down the turret peg a bit to make room for the magnets, but now the turret firmly stays on the tank even if it's tipped upside down. Everything glued together and the turret magnetised on:



Final thing left to do was the heavy weapon mount on top of the turret. It uses the Wave Serpent style heavy weapons, but it doesn't stick a peg through the hole, I think you're just supposed to glue one in there. I wanted to keep them swappable, so I drilled through one side of the mount to let me use another short bit of 2mm steel rod to slide in and through the hole in the side of the weapon. Leaving just enough steel showing to pull it out with a pair of pliers if I want to change the gun.



And the end result is a complete Scorpion. Welcome to the painting queue! Part of me wants to get on and paint it because it's such a cool model, but I'm also tempted to paint a few more 'regular' things first. I basically never play but I feel like I should concentrate on getting the models that would be more useful for a normal game done. On the other hand...

One more thing on the modelling front is that I feel I may want to bend the pulsars a little bit more. I managed to get them close to being level and equal, but one is ever so slightly higher than the other. Hopefully my substantial pins will stop them from coming off the turret in the process.

First of all, I have to say that's a gorgeous army you've got there. The greens mesh together so well and and the bases make the whole thing pop. Definitely jealous!

Liking the War Walker, interesting use of the glaze to colour the canopy, it's quite a cool effect.

The thorns on your jetbikes look great and the transfers went on really well by the looks. All of my jetbikes are the old kind and even though the new ones have been out for years they still look new to me.

That scorpion is such an impressive lump of resin, I didn't think the top and bottom were one piece, which in all honesty is a bit of a godsend! In regards to whether you'll paint that first, it's totally up to you, but you'll be at it a very long time looking at the way you paint tanks (albeit worth every second)!

 Tyranid Horde wrote:
First of all, I have to say that's a gorgeous army you've got there. The greens mesh together so well and and the bases make the whole thing pop. Definitely jealous!

Liking the War Walker, interesting use of the glaze to colour the canopy, it's quite a cool effect.

The thorns on your jetbikes look great and the transfers went on really well by the looks. All of my jetbikes are the old kind and even though the new ones have been out for years they still look new to me.

That scorpion is such an impressive lump of resin, I didn't think the top and bottom were one piece, which in all honesty is a bit of a godsend! In regards to whether you'll paint that first, it's totally up to you, but you'll be at it a very long time looking at the way you paint tanks (albeit worth every second)!

Thanks sir. I'm very pleased with them, it's just taking a long time. One of my mates is plotting not buying a single model in 2019 and working on his pile - I'm starting to think I should do the same, though realistically I'd never make it through the year.

I was quite surprised (and relieved) when the body turned out to be one giant lump of resin. It's certainly got a fair bit of weight to it. I was afraid that I would have to stick the body together, and having to bend the parts into shape first so that they lined up, but one piece meant that wasn't a problem. The only real bendy resin problems in the kit were the pulsars and the little aerial thing that goes below the cockpit. Mainly the pulsars, because they need to match for it to look good. Like I said, I'm still not quite happy but they're pretty close. A minor bend should sort it.

As for the next models, I've been putting some finishing touches to the Warp Spiders tonight - should get them photographed tomorrow probably. I've got a production line of grav tanks going (one Wave Serpent nearly done, one Falcon with the green just about finished, another Wave Serpent with basecoats only) and I just started putting down the basecoats on another group of 10 guardians. I think I'll look to start some Fire Dragons and Striking Scorpions soon as well. That lot ought to keep me busy painting well over the Christmas period.

I still maintain that the Scorpion is the best tank that FW have ever done Both in its own right, and I how it copies the aesthetic of the Falcon.

Looking good and looking forward to it I all its greeny glory

Woah!
Looking better and better by every model you paint. Liked the army shot.

The Wave Serpent and the War Walkers look astonishing!

You really pulled it off with those thorns, keep it up.

Can't wait to see the Scoepion painted.

Bellerophon,

Good progress. The work on the Jet Bikes is beautiful with the vine pattern.

Army shot has be exalted!

Always like to see larger model builds with magnets shown with photos in case I ever want to reference a build that was successful.

Cheers,

CB

Thanks all. I really appreciate the comments, it helps to keep me motivated to keep up the rate of painting.

 Flinty wrote:
I still maintain that the Scorpion is the best tank that FW have ever done Both in its own right, and I how it copies the aesthetic of the Falcon.

Looking good and looking forward to it I all its greeny glory

I totally agree there - I love the thing. I wasn't necessarily planning on getting one, but I was wandering around the Forge World shop at Warhammer World and noticed that they had one on the shelves. I tried to resist, but after sitting in Bugman's for a while I had to go back and get it. It's really a lovely model and I'm looking forward to painting it. It may be a little while before it gets to the top of the painting queue though.

 Ezki wrote:
Woah!
Looking better and better by every model you paint. Liked the army shot.

The Wave Serpent and the War Walkers look astonishing!

You really pulled it off with those thorns, keep it up.

Can't wait to see the Scoepion painted.

Thanks very much! I'm very pleased with how the green came out. One of those recipes where after getting a feel for the individual colours I just thought that they would work well layering up to the lime green with a wash and a glaze, and it came out if anything better than I'd imagined.

Captain Brown wrote:
Bellerophon,

Good progress. The work on the Jet Bikes is beautiful with the vine pattern.

Army shot has be exalted!

Always like to see larger model builds with magnets shown with photos in case I ever want to reference a build that was successful.

Cheers,

CB

Thanks Captain! There aren't actually that many magnets in it, just on the bottom of the peg that mounts the turret and the matching magnet in the tank body (just to hold the turret more firmly onrto the tank than gravity alone) and similarly under the heavy weapon mount at the back of the turret (again to hold it on more firmly while keeping it rotatable). Both of those cases the peg was about the same depth as the hole so I needed to cut the pegs down a little bit to make space for the magnets.

The only other modifications are the ones I showed, with the 2mm steel rod pins in the pulsars and the little bit of 2mm steel rod I used in the heavy weapon mount to make it swappable.

---

Today I've got the promised photos of the Warp Spiders. It was about time that this blog called 'Power Metal' got a bit more actual metal in it - and substantial metal too. There's enough mass in a metal warp spider that each one has two 5mm magnets under the base to hold them steady in my steel toolbox for transport.

They're painted rather similarly to the studio standard scheme. Much like the Hawks, Banshees and Avengers I've set out to do my first batch similar to the studio scheme, and may well mix it up a bit for subsequent ones. For the Hawks, Banshees and Spiders I've got another squad of each primed and ready to paint (I really have spent too much time and money on ebay), but I won't do any of those until I've painted at least one squad of Fire Dragons and Striking Scorpions, maybe my Dark Reapers too.

Anyway, the photos:



And for the back, one of the last things I did was paint on the web designs:


Since these guys are mostly red, I switched to the green spiritstone paint rather than the red I normally use.

--

So, what's in the queue right now?

In Progress

- 2 Wave Serpents and a Falcon - at various stages of completeness. The first Wave Serpent is down to just needing the small details, thorns and decals doing. The Falcon isn't far behind, the green is finished, the white isn't lined with grey yet. The second Wave Serpent is basecoated on the green and white. I'd like to get these done - the army shot up above is somewhat lacking in larger models and vehicles with just the Wraithlord and War Walker finished so far.

- 10 Guardians & weapon platform - slowly building up the white coat by coat. That would take me to 20 painted. I fancied getting a few more troops done, and gives enough for a full 20-model guardian bomb. Coupled with the fact that I've got 30 more on the sprue I figured throwing a squad of guardians into the queue every now and then would be a good idea.

Next on the List?

The list is always flexible, but I'd like to get a squad of Fire Dragons and a squad of Striking Scorpions done. They're the only aspects for which I have enough models for more than one squad where I haven't painted a single squad yet, and they're also Aspects that I've always been quite fond of. For these I might deviate from my pattern of doing the first squad of an Aspect close to the studio scheme.

The Fire Dragons in particular were always my favourites. I think I've said before that the old White Dwarf that introduced me to so much eldar stuff had the Fire Dragons painted in a deep red body, with a really dark red/black helmet and gold fusion gun, and so to me that's always been the 'proper' Fire Dragon scheme even though most of the studio models have always been orange/yellow. So I reckon I'll do my own version of that. I've got enough Fire Dragons to do 3 squads, so I'll probably make one of the subsequent squads in the orange/yellow when I get around to it. For the Striking Scorpions I'm not a massive fan of the bright yellow details that the studio scheme uses. I'm tempted to do one squad using a brighter green and a deep ochre, and the other squad in a really drab army green sort of scheme to reflect the fact that bright colours aren't really the best idea for ambush tactics. I'm still a bit undecided which to do first.

Both the Fire Dragons and Striking Scorpions are a bit different to the Hawks/Banshees/Warp Spiders in that I don't have the exact number of models to make exact nice 10-model squads. Pretty much, I have more Exarchs than 1-in-10 models. For the Fire Dragons I have 2 Firepike Exarchs and 1 Flamer, to 21 regular FDs. I think I may make them into a squad of 10, one of 8 and one of 6 (or maybe 10/7/7). In practice if I used them in a game they'd probably only be 5 or 6 model squads anyway, it will let me do 3 different colour scheme variations and I'd like to do at least one full squad of 10 for modelling/painting reasons. For the Striking Scorpions I have 2 Scorpion's Claw Exarchs and 1 Biting Blade, with 18 regulars. What I'm thinking of doing there is making one 10-model squad with a Scorpion's Claw Exarch, and then for the others painting the remaining 9 regulars and 2 Exarchs all in the same scheme so that it can be one 10-model squad if I leave out an Exarch, or it can be 2 MSU squads.

You can probably tell I've thought too much about this.

After those, the plan gets a bit more vague. I rather enjoyed those 3 Windriders, so I might be tempted to build and paint some more fairly soon, maybe some more Dire Avengers, a Wraithknight, or finally get around to painting the Scorpion or the Avatar!

Stellar job on the Spiders. Love that web on the shell. Excited to see what happens next, especially if it involves Dragons, Reapers, or the Avatar.

Loving your work, the green on the falcon in particular.

Yep, those Spiders are gorgeous, giving me inspiration to do my own!

I like the web pattern on the back of the armour.

And it is a full unit of ten!

Cheers,

CB

Thanks again for the responses folks, I'm glad you like the spiders. I was really pleased with how they came out.

I've been a bit quiet recently, mainly because I went to visit my parents over Christmas and New Year. I took my painting gear with me, but when I have to take over the kitchen table to have a painting session rather than just sitting at my hobby desk at home, I didn't get much done.

However I've just had a session on my batch of grav tanks and I thought it was worth a post to show that I'm still making some progress. Before tonight I'd got them all to the point where the green was fully layered up and finished, and the white also done. Tonight I've done the thorns on the first Wave Serpent and also applied a couple of decals. Studio Biel-Tank grav tanks usually have a white rectangle next to the cockpit with some fancy variation of the Biel-Tan rune. I wanted to emulate that so I painted on a white rectangle, cheated a bit by using one of the decals which have the rune in black, and then embellished it somewhat. I think it came out quite well. The only thing I'm not really sure about at this point is the blue glazed cockpit. It looked really good when I was doing it, but putting it on the tank I'm not sure whether the colour draws too much attention and whether I might have been better off going with a black/smoked look.

All I've really got left to do on the Wave Serpent is decide whether I want to pick out any of the bumps as gemstones. I'm normally quite sparing with the number of gemstones I like to do since I think that too many can make the model too busy, but I feel like I should at least do a couple.

Anyway, the photos. So, the centre Wave Serpent is the nearly finished one, the Falcon and the other Wave Serpent are just a bit behind, needing the thorns and decals (and the canopies and weapons putting on).