Craftworld Aiam-Varr

[TrawlingCleaner]

Guardian helmets would work well or maybe some Dire Avenger heads? Defintiely something a bit more sleek vs the sharp Scourge armour.

 

Looking forward to seeing them!

[Bryan Blaire]

I would say for Swooping Hawks, keep the Scourge heads, but maybe try and round them a little (judicious trimming?) except for the beak areas - the bigger issue is going to be making the bodies not look like Dark Eldar armor - that seems like the truly tall order in this conversion.

Barring that, some Guardian or Dire Avengers with some plummage coming off them would be the best bet (maybe some features from the Lizardman range for fantasy/AoS?) - I think the body will still scream “Scourge” without work though.

 

(Jeez does GW ever need to get off it’s duff and finish designing and making the rest of the plastic Aspect Warriors lines)

Edited September 15, 2022 by Bryan Blaire

[Tyriks]

On 9/15/2022 at 12:38 PM, Bryan Blaire said:

I would say for Swooping Hawks, keep the Scourge heads, but maybe try and round them a little (judicious trimming?) except for the beak areas - the bigger issue is going to be making the bodies not look like Dark Eldar armor - that seems like the truly tall order in this conversion.

Barring that, some Guardian or Dire Avengers with some plummage coming off them would be the best bet (maybe some features from the Lizardman range for fantasy/AoS?) - I think the body will still scream “Scourge” without work though.

 

(Jeez does GW ever need to get off it’s duff and finish designing and making the rest of the plastic Aspect Warriors lines)

Yeah, they definitely still look like Scourge to me. I have spent a lot of time scraping spikes and claws off, and removed the drug vials under the wings, which helps but at a glance they still read a lot like Scourges. Maybe getting them painted would help, but I'm hoping a clearly Craftword helmet will help, too.

[Bryan Blaire]

Even with the spikes and claws gone, the overlapping armor probably still reads more DE than Eldar, since that typically has the ovals for the raised armor portions.  It seems like a pretty hard conversion, so my hat’s off to you for attempting it - I haven’t done so because I think I’d be so critical of my work that I’d just get frustrated and not see it through.

Hopefully the paint and Eldar style helm helps - looking forward to seeing them in some color!

[Captain Coolpants]

Id like to see what you come up with once its all done 

[Tyriks]

Coming back to Eldar, finally. At least on the hobby side. I didn't do much work on them yet but I was completely rearranging my hobby work space and saw some of my in progress models and wanted to take a palate cleaner break from Necrons. I puttered around for a bit trying to decide if I wanted to keep the existing scheme or not. I like the bigger models I worked on but the smaller infantry I was trying to paint differently for some reason and I'm not thrilled with the results.

 

Ultimately I decided to keep the scheme but drop the original infantry scheme. I was doing a zenithal basecoat and airbrushing contrast over it, but I'm not doing that anymore.

 

I am looking for a better way to wash/shade the gray parts. I may try Ak Interactive's panel liners. I started out using Drakenhof Nightshade which was too dark. I then tried Soulblight Gray which looks amazing up close but I think its too subtle for tabletop. Here's a pic of that:

 

Looks good up close like this but from more than a foot or two away it gets harder to discern. May try thinned down nuln oil but that may be too dark.

 

[Tyriks]

I added a very subtle highlight to the gray. Im using ProAcryl bright neutral gray, and I mixed 2:1 of that and white and then medium. It's hard to see the highlight itself but my eye is definitely drawn more to the details so I think it works, though I might try a 1:1 ratio before I decide its good. I also need to decide what color to paint all my eye lenses. Pink to match gems is the easy option but I might do black or blue or something.

 

Did a lot of metallics and picked out the gems. I need to add to the guns but I'm trying what to add. When I highlighted them originally I skipped a lot of details so I'll come back to those but I may pick out the launcher part of the gun (honestly not sure what to call it, the strip that runs the length of the gun) in metal. But I think probably just highlighting everything will be enough.

 

I am trying to focus on finishing units I already started before I start new stuff. I tend to start things and do the easy parts and then get bored/annoyed/disheartened/whatever when the going gets slow so I want to combat that. To that end I am digging out all my half built stuff that I had intentions to convert but never got around to and I'm going to try to finish building a bunch of it this week.

[Tyriks]

Ok, did a bit more today. I tried a few colors for eye lenses and thought pink stood out the most. Used Warlord Purple from vallejo game air. I almost settled for a bright teal (temple guard blue, I believe) which looked good up close but I didn't think was visible enough from far away. Also highlighted most of the gun details and picked out stuff I'd missed before. I tried repeatedly to do a volumetric highlight on the Farseer's cloak but it looked awful every time. Not sure what I'm forgetting, but I may need to rewatch whatever tutorials made me try it before.

 

 

I dont know why I tried to do pupils but I messed the first one up and got lucky enough on the second that he didn't look like he was bashed on the head. I need to add some highlights to the blue armor on the farseer still, and decide how to paint the sword. Then base him and the Dire Avengers. I'm not sure if I'll actually play Eldar anytime soon but I'm trying to enjoy the process of painting them more and not feeling rushed to get a unit ready for a game helps with that. 

[Tyriks]

Slow progress, but progress. I wasn't thrilled with the black I was using for guns, handles, hafts, et cetera. It was just too dark to actually see anything. It also was too close to the black cloth on my farseer (I used a warmer gray to highlight the cloth, but it just didn't look different on the model due to how little paint it was next to the black). So, I repainted the guns a dark gray with a black wash and a little cleanup. I might highlight a little, haven't decided. I like subtle highlights, not super sharp ones like 'eavy metal box art, so as long as the detail is visible on the table it's good enough for me. As you can see below, it is much more visible already.

 

 

I am hoping to prime my Striking Scorpions soon and get started on them. I really enjoyed building them and might buy more just to have Exarch options. But I'm waiting until I can cross more models off the to-do list first.