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So I let the updates (and painting) slip as per usual, but no big deal, progress has been slow but steady.

For this round of Eldar (Aeldari, Space Elves, whatever) I am doing a polar opposite to my previous Eldar army that was a Ulthwe theme (Guardians and Psyker) although in my own Craftworld scheme. This time I am doing a Biel-Tan inspired Swordwind (So all aspect warriors). Now Eldar was my first love when it came to 40k and I have an EXTENSIVE collection of older metal models hiding under a layer of dust and neglect, so I am going to slowly dust them off and give them the love they deserve.

To that end first up is a squad of Fire Dragons, nothing like dumping them next to a tank and watching it burn. I can't exactly remember when these were painted, but I think I was still in school so it would be around 25 years ago at least they got their first coat of paint...



A tad garish and lacking any real defining highlighting details. Now a note on colour choices. I want to give each Aspect it's own identity, but I will try to include my Craftworld colours in a subtle way to tie them to the other Eldar army. So I will try to sneak a little green and purple on them where I can.


And this is where they have ended up...a lot brighter and bolder.


I was a tad disappointed that I didn't have a Fire Pike Exarch, but kind of reason if something can stand up to 9 Fire Dragons one Fire Pike isn't going to tip the balance and a Flamer is a nice deterrent from getting charged.


I think the clean up has gone reasonably well, they have a sort of 80's/90's cartoonish element that I am finding kind of endearing.


The green is a bit strange on the Yellow, but I think it links nicely into the Craftworld colours so I won't be changing it yet.

I am debating whether to paint a Wave Serpent (or three! The only non-Aspect part of the Army) or continue with another Aspect, Howling Banshee's perhaps?

Thanks for reading.

Well I am at it again, never seem to have the time to drop by and update this. But progress has been slow and I have been busy. The major painting achievements have been to paint the inside of the house. My Wife decided she needed a change and five rooms a corridor and three feature walls later it is done. Happy Wife and then I got some piece and quiet to get some small scale painting done.

First of all I have continued with the Eldar and managed to knock off the unit of Howling Banshees. This is what they looked like before I started the revamping process...



Not sure what I was going for all those years ago, but they never quite looked finished. I do like the Purple hair and Green tabards as the tie in to the Craftworld colours so that was going to remain.

And this is how they ended up:


Not totally happy with how the blades ended up, I used an ink and should have thinned it more as it really ended up pooling in a much rougher way than I had anticipated.


But much happier with the armour and think the purple and green work well as a whole.


I quite like this version of the Howling Banshees, but I never liked how 'heavy' the Exarch looks compared to her squad.


A shot of the Banshees and Dragons, I think they are quite 'traditional' Aspect schemes and pop nicely.

Next up is a squad of Dire Avengers, in all the years I have collected my Eldar, I have never actually painted a squad of these guys, I always just relied on massed Guardians, but this army will be getting two squads of them. So no before pictures for these guys, but I will be sticking to the blue and white as is traditional. Thinking green guns and purple mohawks to tie into the Craftworld though...

The other painting progress is I have FINALLY finished the Spartan Assault Tank for the Death Guard I have been doing for a friend. It is the last model of the army (I will get an army shot when I get a moment) and has been sitting collecting dust for far too long, so I pulled my proverbial finger out and finished it off.


It's a massive model and I tried to add some gribbly elements to tie it into the modern 40k Deathguard Aesthetic.


A lot of parts were donated from the extra bits from the Mortarion kit.


It's a pity you can't actually jam a Terminator in here.....


All the doors and weapons are movable still (hence why that side door has a gap...)


It's dirty, it's grimy and thank god it is finished.


Originally I had a resin version of this tank to do and it's what kicked the motivation out of me as the kit was absolutely terrible. It was taking so much effort to assemble it and when I heard a plastic version was on the way I spoke to my mate and we shelved the resin one, waiting for the plastic. I had sculpted a lot of the detail onto the resin one already so I got the chisel out and carved them off and transferred them onto the plastic.


Everyone needs tentacles.


The three vehicles of the army, a Plaguecrawler, Spartan and humble Rhino.

I also have a distraction I may paint as for Christmas I got the Battletech: A Game of Armoured Combat with its 8 Battlemechs, I am thinking of dividing them into two Lances and painting them for two different Houses. Anyone have any thoughts of schemes?

Thanks for reading.

It has been far, far too long since I popped through and made some rambling comments with some random pictures to accompany them. So I managed to motivate myself to wander in and time to throw some randomness around....

I have been plodding along with painting, nowhere near as much as I would have liked. But life has gotten very busy and I have been allowing computers to suck up too much of my free time.

First up in the finished pile is some Dire Avengers for the Eldar army that is currently in progress.


I have gone with a pretty traditional scheme of blue and white, although the Craftworld colours of green and purple have made themselves known just so you don't forget where these noble warriors hail from.


I didn't have a suitable weapon (or shimmershield) for the Exarch, so a short rummage in the bits box and a few odd pieces of metal and I have a passable setup, probably not as useful as other Exarch options, but due to the short range of Shuriken weapons it is likely they will end up in combat eventually.


I have another squad of Avengers in this army and I am debating reversing the colour scheme to differentiate the squads, but I am also wary since there is already so much colour in the army that it could be even more distracting and all that white could be horrible.


Glad to have finished them, hope to have the Dark Reapers finished very soon (I did only need to paint 2 from bare metal and clean up the other 5 so hope to have another update soon).


Onto something more random, my first attempt at a Battlemech. I call this Catapult 'The Bumblebee' I wanted to play around with painting it slightly differently to the standard base/shade/highlight, it looks a little rougher in the close ups than it does in the hand, but overall quite happy with the result.


I tossed around painting the 2 lances that I have (from the starter box) in two different schemes. But I have always liked the idea of a Mechwarrior mercenary company after my love affair with Mech Commander so have settled on the idea to paint each mech as a unique scheme to show the Mercenary's are not really unified in their efforts.


I started with very little plan for this model, apart from the initial thoughts of yelllow and he kind of developed from there. Not as much black as I was originally intending, but I figure there is enough to provide details.


I figure that the ostentatious paint job doesn't matter as the victims of the Catapult rarely actually get a look at it before they are bombarded by a hail of missiles. Next up I think I will do the locust, but can't decide if I should do it green or brown...

Thanks for reading.

Seems I have more to show (or at least a tiny bit).

The next addition to the Eldar army is a unit of Dark Reapers. Now I must confess that five of these models were painted many, many years ago (in excess of fifteen I would guess). So I needed to try my best to match another two to the rest of the unit as I am still all these years later quite taken with the paint scheme of these guys.


The two "new" recruits are the two with no 'rocks' on their bases, they are on the far left and right in this picture. They aren't perfect reproductions, but they are close.


Funny note, the new Reaper on the right I had the body, but no launcher, so with a bit of greenstuff I made a mould off the other launcher and then used a bit of polyester resin to cast a replacement for the missing one. It holds up to scrutiny pretty well, but up close the detail is a tiny bit 'soft'.


Of all the variations of the Dark Reapers that have been available, I think these are definitely the ones I like the most. I just think they embody the sinister and dark aspect of the Dark Reapers backstory better than a lot of the other options.


You can see how old these models are as I haven't washed the dust that they have accumulated off of them, it is very obvious in this photo from the back.

My next squad for the Eldar is my all time most used Aspect, Striking Scorpions. I remember back in the day they would almost be the first unit I would include in an army (may have been that they for a long time were the only Aspect I owned). It got so bad for my regular Imperial Guard opponent he asked me to take a break from the Scorpions. I have yet to decide if I will do a total repaint, modify the existing scheme or just do some paint repair and call it a day. I may take a photo of where they are currently at and see what peoples opinion is.

Thanks for reading.