Prot's Awakening. A tale of my Eldar Folly.

[Prot]

So I guess it's time I made this official....

It's going to take a while, but here goes my Eldar project. Basically with advice from several people in the know, and especially on the forum, I've devised a list to get me going. It is based largely around this box.....

And I picked up a farseer on a bike, and was told I'd be better off with a headswap option so I did this:

So the head and base are magnetized, and with that I went on to try to put some Wraiths together... only to find out I was missing two sprues!!!

So I've emailed GW, and told them I'm missing 2 entire sprues. This of course puts a delay in what I can build for now, but the bigger question is if this gets resolved. (It's two sprues with swords and various pieces.... so I'm assuming this would have me unable to make about 8+ guys?

The Wraithlords are all there, and so is the Spirit Seer so I can build those.

We'll see what GW says! And take it from there. Also my first game is this Friday so it should be a learning experience. I haven't played Eldar in about 8 years. :)

Wish me luck.

[ranulf the revenant]

They better send you your missing stuff pronto plus maybe some kind of freebie as an apology. We're paying enough for GW's stuff already, so that's the least we deserve. Also I want to see your painted models :).

[Imren]

They better send you your missing stuff pronto plus maybe some kind of freebie as an apology. We're paying enough for GW's stuff already, so that's the least we deserve. Also I want to see your painted models .

 

 

Second to that.

[Emicus]

Just build the lords!

[Prot]

Thanks guys. I am working frantically around the missing pieces for my game tomorrow. You guys sure know how to put pressure on a guy for painting though!

 

I was hoping to make this a table top quality army and have some fun with Xenia’s for the first in a very long time. :)

 

I have a ton of building in front of me but I probably,owe to do some updates when I get that far.

 

By the way, I took pictures of the missin stuff in the manual and the barcode on the box and sent it to GW. And I’m telling I received a response from GW faster than I’ve ever seen before.

 

I was pretty impressed so I opened up the email to see their solution, only to find it was a ‘we’re away for the US holidays ‘ message! Lol

 

So we’ll see how it goes next week.

[Shadowseer]

Oh that sucks :(

 

GW support is good though, they should get you sorted quickly.

[Shadowseer]

BTW, what's your planned army going to look like?

 

Working on some melee Wraith units myself, as a compliment to my artillery.

[Imren]

Prot, consider painting this kind of paintjob on your wraithbone dudes:

 

[Prot]

BTW, what's your planned army going to look like?

 

Working on some melee Wraith units myself, as a compliment to my artillery.

 

I've always liked things in the blue/green spectrum for eldar. But lately I've been drawn to a darker... more black scheme idea I have with sharp contrasting colours. I like some stuff I've seen in this era of darker eldar, but not "dark eldar"... just more moody eldar. lol

 

Prot, consider painting this kind of paintjob on your wraithbone dudes:

 

 

That's a very cool scheme. I did pick up some stencils a while ago though, and I think I might give them a try. I am looking to get this army playable in a reasonable amount of time.

 

Really do like it though.. .funny thing is I'd stop at about Step 6. I just really like the eerie look of that billous green, and stopping short of that very bright leafy green. That's just personal preference though.

 

That's a great choice though if that's what you're doing.

Edited November 29, 2019 by Prot

[Imren]

 

BTW, what's your planned army going to look like?

 

Working on some melee Wraith units myself, as a compliment to my artillery.

 

I've always liked things in the blue/green spectrum for eldar. But lately I've been drawn to a darker... more black scheme idea I have with sharp contrasting colours. I like some stuff I've seen in this era of darker eldar, but not "dark eldar"... just more moody eldar. lol

 

Prot, consider painting this kind of paintjob on your wraithbone dudes:

 

 

That's a very cool scheme. I did pick up some stencils a while ago though, and I think I might give them a try. I am looking to get this army playable in a reasonable amount of time.

 

Really do like it though.. .funny thing is I'd stop at about Step 6. I just really like the eerie look of that billous green, and stopping short of that very bright leafy green. That's just personal preference though.

 

That's a great choice though if that's what you're doing.

 

 

 

Yeah, I agree, the scorpion green would make it look too neon.

[Prot]

Long story short I wanted something to look sci-fi techy but with a very alien look to it.

To pay homage to traditional eldar I wanted stark contrast, but to keep it dark.

This is the result of two tests I did and I settled on this scheme which is basically aquatic colours for the main bodies. Anything with power, or 'tech' or a head, basically has this morphing pink/purple into white.

It's a lot more work than I intended, but I will say I had the goal of something no one's seen before, and I think I got that much out of it.

[Captain_Krash]

I don't even have words...gorgeous paint scheme.

 

Krash

[Prot]

I don't even have words...gorgeous paint scheme.

 

Krash

Thank you. That means a lot. I was unsure. I took a lot of risk with this scheme and wasn’t sure how it would be received. I did two schemes fir a test. I liked this muted aquatic idea I came up with but wanted to offset it with the extreme contrast of purples and even some pink. Some times I can’t figure out if I’m making a good decision when taking a chance. I hope people find it works for modern Eldar.

[Shadowseer]

This is a beautiful colour scheme!

[Emicus]

Wonderful! Alien :)

 

I feel those air intakes stick out like a sore thumb though.

[Imren]

Beautiful! Consider painting the air intakes on the wave serpent in a dark colour and highlight the grilles.

[Karhedron]

Wow, that is truly stunning!

[Captain_Krash]

Prot be all like "I don't want to do anything fancy"

 

Krash

[Prot]

Wonderful! Alien

 

I feel those air intakes stick out like a sore thumb though.

 

Thanks. It definitely was an attempt at doing something alien looking. The one thing that serpent has going for in its timeless design, is it is a great palette for trying some unique stuff out. 

 

The intake is stark isn't it? So are the Wraith heads..... But perhaps the darkness of the vehicles makes it worse on the vehicle?

Beautiful! Consider painting the air intakes on the wave serpent in a dark colour and highlight the grilles.

 

 

Okay so here's what happened: After I did the two test schemes, I decided on this colour scheme and decided I'm going to be bold with it after all the hull is intentionally muted aquatic / energy. So with that in mind I actually had gold/copper vents just like you see on the Shuriken Cannon belt feeds. Then I repainted it an off white (with a green tint) and then shaded it with Cholea (?) Green shade. 

 

The camera might be exaggerating it a bit, but not much.

 

I think I will go back to the gold/copper. At first I felt that was too muted, and thought since the Wraith heads were white/pink/purple I could do it... but I think the vehicle overall is much darker. So it's too stark.

 

The think about metallics is they felt too... human? I don't want to spend forever on a bloody vent though... and speaking of that...

Prot be all like "I don't want to do anything fancy"

 

Krash

 

Honestly it started with good intentions. Then to get where I was okay with it I looked at how much time it took and was really disappointed. A lot of steps to do this. A lot of drying times, and patience with fades. Very annoying.

 

I like how it looks but trust me I -always- take painting an Army not a figure as a huge task that has to take over all time into consideration. I greatly respect people who can put out a decent army quality. Many years ago I would try to paint award quality single figs and I realized.... you don't get armies done that way. It's almost wasteful for the gamer to take that approach.

 

I love the hobby more than anything, but I want to complete armies. So yes, this was a bit of an accident.. perhaps a bit of a mistake. It just kept evolving until I was happy with it.

Edited December 3, 2019 by Prot

[ranulf the revenant]

Ooouuuh. That's beautiful :)

[Imren]

What kind of hex stencils do you use? Those that are soft as a film or the hard ones? I'm contemplating getting dragon scale stencils to use on my 30k alpha legion between the metallic coats and the turquoise candy coats.

[Prot]

They are harder, and have an adhesive side to them. But I have to be honest they are a pain to set up to use (probably took nearly an hour to poke all the mis cuts out). The adhesive will definitely not last that long. It has to be weak enough to not ruin the paint job, but I would be surprised to finish more than 3 vehicles with them. Which might be enough. We'll see. 

[Captain Coolpants]

Loving the wraiths!

[Prot]

I pulled a late night last night... I hate it when I get something like this stuck in my head and I have to paint it... so I ended up doing a second vehicle to near completion.

What I want you guys to tell me is what you think of the vent colours. Since showing the pics here, I've had a few other opinions and a lot of people like the off white/green vents.

I also realized that in my first pictures the vents looked VERY white. And I think that's because of the white balance in the photos so I tried correcting that to give a more accurate colour balance.

What do you think? White/Green, Bronze/gold, or black vents?

Also there's one other thing I decided to change. Can you spot it?

[Imren]

The engine exhausts?

 

Since yellow(ish) is a complementary colour to blue(ish) I find the gold/brass on the vents looking better, it is nice to have a warm complementary colour such as yellow, orange or red (or in this case gold) as a complement to the cold tones of blues/turquoise and the purples. however, regardless of which one you go for (the gold or the white/green), I suggest you do the recesses between the grilles in black to show the vent grilles better and also they will be less eye catching (and more "realistic").

 

Also consider do spot-wise subtle glazes (without overdoing it) of the gold in violet or red tones, that way it will look a bit more interesting/xeno-ish than plain gold/brass.

 

Since you do khaki-ish desert bases to the infantry, how about a slight khaki kicked up dust effect airbrushed on the rear and the edges of the fuselage?

 

Also consider gloss coating and do a panel line oil pin wash with a khaki colour (burnt umber + a wee bit of white and perhaps a small pinch of yellow oil paint thinned in odourless white spirit) to match the dust effects. Then you satin varnish afterwards.

 

Some neat subtle sponge weathering with skavenblight dinge or black around the front edges of the hull/fuselage to show some wear from particles during atmospheric entries and exits.

 

Also some brushwork (just block in the basecoat colour and some highlights placed opposite sides of the canopy glass highlights) on the canopy frame to break up the airbrushed glass reflection effects that spilled over to the frame.

 

 

Anyways, the colour scheme is lovely and the hex patterns fits perfectly.

 

If you do any banners for this army, consider doing space skies with nebulae coronas etc, that will fit nice with this colour scheme.