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Right, so here goes. I'm actually going to paint an army completely. No really, I'm going to do it. I've started playing again after years, and after dusting off my models and realising that my I had remembered my previous painting skills with rose tinted glasses (no thinning paints, half finishing models, poor colour schemes, messy painting, no concept of what a wash is - either painting or in real life to be fair...) I feel inspired to do a proper job this time.



What's encouraged me even more is seeing plaing against a friends really nicely painted Blood Angels and Imperial Guard armies. It makes such a difference to the game to have figures that aren't just undercoated in black or had paint slapped on them at speed.

I'm an Eldar player (It was 1st and 2nd ed rules before) and originally I tried a Iyanden scheme, but I'm staying well clear of yellow this time. Yuk. I've decided to go for Biel Tan because I really like the look of the green on the skimmers, I really really want to nail that gradation in the green seen on the really well painted ones - I don't understand how it's done (is an spray gun needed?), but anyway I'm going to focus on the units first.

The first guys I've done are the Dire Avengers, I picked them because I thought blue was a pretty easy colour to start off with and I wasn't that impressed by Dire Avengers before, beacuse I don't think that the old models were that great compared to the others. I was very mistaken if I didn't think I was going to take long painting them, it must be the best part of 2 months later and I finally finished them last week. The problem was that the more time I've spent on them the more I've got to like the models, and I really think that the Dire Avenger plastic ones are far better than the older metal models.

I followed the painting scheme on the GW website, they had some nice articles posted for all the Aspect Warrirors, but 2 weeks into my painting they pulled them! :( I e-mailed their customer services to try and get a copy of the articles for reference but they told me that they are unable to get access to them. I'd read the stage by stage on the Dire Avengers enough times that I was alright, and the pictures on the box really helped with working out the bits and pieces. The colour scheme I followed was exactly as on the retail box, Ultramarines Blue for the armour, Warlock Purple for the gems, Skull White for the helmet and Yellow / White on the plume.






I'm really pleased with the results, It's so much easier painting this time around as there are so many resources available with tips, suggestions and videos. Only problem is that it took me hour and hour and hours and far too many times I'd be painting on a Fri or Sat and suddenly find it's 4am. I'm hoping that with some practice I'll get much quicker.

Now that the Dire Avengers are finished I'm getting started on the first Guardian Squad.


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I'm getting on ok with the Guardians. I was unsure if I'd be ok with the white armour of the Biel Tan scheme, but the Dire Avengers helmets came out fine which gave me the confidence to go with it.

From what I've read I think the best plan is going to be While Undercoat, Astronomic Grey Base Coat, Badab Black wash and then layering with 50:50 White / Astronomic Grey and then White highlights. On the dire avengers I did a layer of astronomic Grey before the 50:50 layer, but I think it just took more time without any additional result. I also washed the Dire Avengers helmet with 3 washes (Badad Black, Purple, Blue) as I read this method in the 'eavy metal book. I'll probably do one of the guardians in this way and compare the results to see if the extra stages are worth it.

After the base coat the wash they're looking like this:




The helmet is snot green painted directly over white. I was thinking about putting Dark Angel green on first, but didn't bother in the end. I'm glad I didn't because I think that the green is a good darkness with just snot + wash and I'm hoping it'll come out nicely after I layer the snot green back up.

I'm now working through the first layer up and I'm part way through doing the armour on all the models.



It's takes ages, almost 2 hours last night got me 2.5 models done with a grey/white layer. I'm thankful that the guardian models don't have as much equipment and detail on them, the Dire Avengers had bits and pieces all over and that took a while to work through. I'm hoping for some good progress this weekend, but we'll see how things go.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/434078/3988308.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/434078/3988308.page GMT http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/434078/3988539.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/434078/3988539.page GMT http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/434078/3988592.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/434078/3988592.page GMT ]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/434078/3988857.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/434078/3988857.page GMT

To all others my advice is, DON'T paint all white armies! LOL.

Great job though, love the DA exarch the most, the purple in his hawk really makes him stand out! ]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/434078/3988896.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/434078/3988896.page GMT
Thanks for the comments.

Progress this weekend has been slow. I've now got 5 guys with the first layer done, I was hoping for less than an hour each but it's easily over an hour per guy just to go over some bits with grey/white. Will defintely look at more careful painting with the black wash next time, but I'm not sure if I'd end up goes over everything anyway as the base coat is Astronomical Grey but the layer is grey / white. I'm happy with the consistency of the paint, about 2 drops of water per loaded large brush when I'm mixing it. It takes 2-3 stroke to get a constant colour when applying it which I'm feeling more confident with rather then trying to do it with one brush stroke.

I'm a bit worried about the next stage - using just white. I'm not sure how smooth the grey to white transition is going to be and I think it's going to be difficult to get a balanced colour all over the model.



The other guys are staring at me, waiting to be painted. Some look less patient than others - the guy with the visor is annoyed to be in the second group I feel..



I bought the last box of my 3 support weapons today, I'll start on them next after this squad is done I think. The other option is to do the Howling Banshees so it depends if I need a break from white or not.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/434078/3994022.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/434078/3994022.page GMT
Patience and lots of layers are the only way to paint white.

Oh and im going to blast the crap outta these guys again soon.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/434078/3996174.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/434078/3996174.page GMT http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/434078/4027249.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/434078/4027249.page GMT
I decided to go for Chaos this time round and paint my models properly as well, I used to do the same just base coats and flocked bases lol]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/434078/4027573.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/434078/4027573.page GMT http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/434078/4027719.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/434078/4027719.page GMT