Eldar Pirate - Part Two

So, the paint job on the Pirate Lord is complete. I thought the sword looked big in the green-stuff stage, but it looks even bigger painted. I like it. Below is the image I used for the inspiration on the color scheme. I wanted a stormy seas and cartoon look.
I originally wanted to avoid black in this army since I think it lacks depth (since you can't shade it) but I couldn't imagine pirates without a healthy amount of black. As a compromise, I decided to go ahead and include black, but highlight with color (in this case blue) rather than the usually shades of gray. As with the Eldar, I'm sticking with the Non Metallic Metals. To kick up the painting a notch, I've decided to include color transitions in the highlights. For example; rather than blue highlighting to light blue, it will fade to a purple (see back of cloak). Below are the before and after shots. I still need to make a suitably fancy base to call this model complete.

Eldar-rrgh Pirates!

The Dark Eldar models are now available for advanced order and they are very attractive (http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/armySubUnitCats.jsp?catId=cat440160a&rootCatGameStyle=) . I intend to use these models, their new rules, and their hit and run nature as a basis for an Eldar Pirate army I've been contemplating for a while. The look of their new transports (Raider pic from GW web page below) make me both happy and sad. I was going to add sails to the models to match my pirate theme, but they've apparently beaten me to it. I'm happy they did such a splendid job on them, but I'm sad that I will no longer have that unique sail-look.

The actual composition of my army will include some of the DE models and some modified Eldar models. For example, I intend to use the Eldar ranger models for the base troops because I like the look of the long coats and loose clothes. Additionally, I wanted to do something special for the lord character that had a look of Eldar-gone-rogue. The plan was to merge an Eldar Farseer model with an empire noble model, add an elf head, and sculpt him a fancy tricorn hat and buccaneer sword. The images below show how the plan unfolded this weekend.

The messiest part of this project was the preparation of the metal Farseer and metal noble models. In the Farseer's case, I was lucky that the head model was not part of the main model but I still had to remove his skirt, below the belt (which is going to be replaced by the noble's legs). This required some precise grinding with the dremel tool for about an hour. The only thing I needed from the noble were his legs and his surgery was completed entirely with a hobby saw and exacto knife.The sculpting of the cutlass and tricorn were a blast. The cutlass is made mostly from plasticard that I shaped using the dremel's grinding wheel attachment. The tricorn hat was surprisingly easy and actually took me less than ten minutes. The base shape of a tricorn (or bicorn) hat is actually a circle. After sculpting an appropriately sized flat circle, I simply pressed it down over the top of the head and folded it up on three sides.
The next post will include this model fully painted and will demonstrate the color theme I intend to use for the army.

Another Eldar Tank

So these posts are a bit out of order. I painted this tank just before the NOVA open in August. The tournament before that, the ICGT, proved to me the value of mechanization and I meant to fixed that gap in my army. I hope to add another Wave Serpent to my army soon as well as beef up and double my jet bike squads (see blue jet bike in previous post). I've even been toying with the idea of a second, three-strong squad of war walkers. I don't really like the paint job on the current ones and my 'Ard Boyz list for 2011 requires six :-)I think this model turned out quite nice but a little dark. When compared to my early tanks, it is noticeable a shade darker. Next to the newer, glowy Fire Prism, they are about the same. This model also fell victim to a phenomenon that was slow to recognize but is now undeniable--varnish will change the color of your paint job. Sometimes it is nice, because it tends to bend together fades and hides the brush strokes. Unfortunately, it can also dull and darken the highlights. After spraying this model I had to go back and repaint all of the hard lines. I wish I had taken a "before" shot to show the difference. BTW: the same problem occurred with the Black Queen and I had to repaint her skin and hair highlights. I switched to a new can of varnish before coating the most recently painted jet bike. The fading is less obvious on this one.

A small break for Chess

While drooling over the Golden Demon models at Games Day, I was captivated by the amazing skill with which the artist are painting faces. At the same time, I realized that my flesh tone paints have nearly dried up, from lack of use. There are but two un-helmeted heads in my entire Eldar army and account for about a micro ounce of elf flesh paint. Therefore, I took a small break from Eldar to work one of my Chess pieces. The below image is of my recently completed Black Queen model.
Although I think her flesh is highlighted and blended well, it is not the color I had set out to paint. She is supposed to be a frankenstein-like creature and I wanted the flesh to a have a blueish tint. However, I started painting her like any other humanoid and was so pleased with the blending that I wimped out when it came time to tint with blue. Oh well...

Jet Bike Grafiti

Recent tournaments and painting competitions have indicated a strong judging preference for detail work and weathering. Unfortunately, rusty/dirty Eldar is not my style but I will give the detail work a try. The below image is a picture of my new jet bike and a modified old one. Although I've already grafiti'd the entire [old] jet bike squad, I'm toying with the idea of adding the same touch to the rest of the army. The swirl/swoop work on the tan bike is a bit sloppy, but I refined by technique on the new [blue] one.


In this picture, you can also see how badly I painted the rider on the old versions. Three big differences with the new paint job: 1) I painted the rider before placing on the bike, 2) my blending has gotten a lot better, 3) I was not rushing to put together the core of a fledgling army and took my time.

Hardliners Image Tag

Ken requested an image to use for tagging mini photos. I think this gif should work.

Tacticon 2010

Yesterday I attended Tacticon 2010 in Denver, Colorado. Though it was a disappointing day for results I still had a lot of fun.

My first game I was paired against a Space Wolves army with the mission being Spearhead and Annihilation. I initially won the roll off so it appeared things were looking up; unfortunately the initiative was taken making my deployment very ineffective. Things only went down hill from their. This opponent had a wolf rider squad with two lords which is by far the most over powered squad I have faced. Three volleys from my entire army before the broke my lines and I had only reduced the squad by 2 models. Ultimately suffered a major defeat. The good news is he went on to win the RTT.

My second game was against Necrons. This was a standard pitched battle seize ground mission. I easily controlled the Necrons in this game, but sadly only ended with a draw. My opponent played extremely slow allowing us to only finish 4 of 6 turns.

Game three was a mechanized Ork army with a dawn of war deployment and 6 objectives. I lost the deployment roll and was on the defensive most of the game. Through a lot of tactical moves and losses I did manage to ultimately end the game in a draw by contesting all claimed objectives. The dawn of ware deployment causes large problems primarily because I was unable to control the Nob biker squad before it broke my ranks. Overall this was the most fun I had.

Finally painting. Sadly I did not walk away the victor this time; I lost to the SM army pictured below. I apologize for the relatively bad picture, lighting was horrible in the room. In addition to my army there was a Demon army that was painted exceptionally, but I was unable to get a good picture because it was in a plexy glass box. As for the winner he seemed to impress the judges primarily with his display base, conversions, and hand painted markings. The judging criteria seemed to favor these items more the just painting technique. I talked to one of the judges afterwards who was brought in as an outside party who explained most of this to me. Additionally, it seems the two primary judges knew this individual and where impressed with how much time it took him to create. Overall, I think this army was worthy of winning. Painting is ultimately very subjective, and comes down to opinion in most cases.