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Hey everyone,

I am starting with my Eldar army and want to use this paint scheme:



Now I need some input on how to replicate it.

My idea was to use Wraithbone White as a primer, which should be slightly less saturated than the armor on the picture. So a second layer with _something_ is needed followed by a thinned down coat of Skeleton Horde?

What would you suggest for the white edge highlighting? White Scar?

I'm totally lost on how I would do the blue hair on the helmets, please advice!

It could be screaming skull layer before skeleton horde, then edged back up to full brightness with screaming skull again and/or white scar. It doesn't look like pure white scar for the highlights - maybe a screaming skull, white scar mix. I might be wrong, though.

The blue plumes look like sotek green base, then layered up to blue horror, going through temple guard blue and possibly another intermediate blue, maybe baharroth blue?

I paint a lot of Mymeara and Iybraesil, so the blues look very similar to what I use. I agree, this is a really nice looking scheme.

Big no to White Scar. Just don't buy GW's black and white paints, save yourself the horror of trying to work with clumpy, chalky gloop. Especially doing big smooth armour panels on these guys.

Literally any other company's white is better. Personally I use Createx Airbrush white.

Not sure there's a thinned wash of anything in this scheme, it looks way too smooth. Could be contrast, thinned? There's either an airbrush or a buttload of wet blending / layering going on here otherwise. Either way a white/cream primer is going to be the starting point, then careful transitions to the shadows and highlights. Pick one or two colours darker and lighter than your midtone, which is a warm off-white/khaki. Highlights may not go all the way up to full white, but a slightly off-yellow like Vallejo Pale Sand (possibly + white).

https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldar/comments/ullmqi/bone_color_scheme_question/

Someone's already asked about this scheme on reddit, so there's some good answers out there already.

Plumes look like they may be Akhelian Green contrast? Some kind of phthalocyanine green/blue to be sure. It's a common inexpensive pigment with high staining properties and very vivid to boot. Third pic on this page has an example. https://www.chaosbunker.de/en/2019/07/12/citadel-colour-contrast-part-3/ If so there's likely a gradient established already underneath, to get that dark to light transition.

Thank you both for your input and thanks for the Reddit thread in particular!

If you've got white scar already, there's no point getting another white paint. I've got a pot of white scar I've had since I started painting (years ago) and, while it's developed some small lumps over time, it's perfectly fine for edge highlighting purposes. As long as you're thinning it correctly, you won't have any problems with it - despite the hysteria around it on here and amongst some in the youtube painting community.

Are there better white paints? Sure. But they're not the vast improvement people claim. And like I say, if you've got a pot already, you're just wasting money buying another one.

The painting style looks a lot like Juan Hidalgo... do you happen to know who the painter is?

Fire_Forever wrote:
Not sure there's a thinned wash of anything in this scheme, it looks way too smooth. Could be contrast, thinned?

He never said anything about a wash. Skeleton Horde is a contrast paint.

 CancelledApocalypse wrote:
The painting style looks a lot like Juan Hidalgo... do you happen to know who the painter is?

Yep, this lady here:
https://twitter.com/ICantThinkEm?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Ah, okay, yeah, she used to be on GW's books doing their youtube demonstrations. Have you tried asking her directly?

Fire_Forever wrote:
Not sure there's a thinned wash of anything in this scheme, it looks way too smooth. Could be contrast, thinned?

 CancelledApocalypse wrote:
He never said anything about a wash. Skeleton Horde is a contrast paint.

I know. Covering the bases on 'ways to get gradient effects on a model', of which washes/shades are one.

Okay, fair enough

S'all good, I tend to write the way I think, and it does ramble from time to time. There's a lot of 'if X, then Y, but not Z ... but what if A and/or B?' going on.

So many ways you can get to a given end point with a paint scheme, but a lot of potential paths!

So for anybody interested, I found out so far that the base color is Ushabti Bone with a very thinned down Wyldwood Forest Contrast shade afterwards.

The edge highlighting is clearly creamy on zoomed in pictures. I wasn't able to determine the exact paint, but Screaming Skull or anything brighter than Ushabti should do the trick.

Thanks for everybody who gave some input!

Interesting, is that directly from the source? I would never have guessed Wyldwood, but it makes sense the more I look at it.

Good work!

Yep, straight from the source. She wrote as much in a comment on the original post on Twitter when asked about how it was done.

If you don't want to pay GW prices you could use iraqui sand from vallejo for the base. Army Painter soft tone or your tan brown of choice and then iraqi sand and a little white or buff to lighten it for highlights. Iraqui sand will cover black in 1 or 2 coats without and matches this really closely.