So, years ago, I used to have a nice 'core' of an Eldar force... back in the days with the blue codex, and then spent many years away from the hobby. Now, I'm getting back into it, eyes lighting up with all the shiny stuff on Forgeworld, much to the disdain of friends and girlfriend who keep insisting I really ought to start out with some 'normal' basic troop choices first to have a fieldable army. Now, of course, they're right, but at the moment I'm as eager to try to do some fancy painting as to use the models to play with - and, definitely trying to 'run before I can walk' in terms of what I'm aiming for! But, I figure that if I have grand ideas, it's something to keep aiming for.

To my dismay, I found a load of the old models in my parents loft from a few (cough *ahem* 15... was it really that long?) years ago, which kind of looked like I had just thrown pots of paint in their general direction. Luckily I saw another thread on here not long ago that told of the miracles of fairy power spray, which means I can try to do better this time around. However, the 2nd part of the dismay was still to come - the stuff I could find was 'earlier' stuff, and I know I did improve a bit at the time, but all the later, slightly better painted stuff was nowhere to be found. I was still in mind of stripping it down, it wasn't that much better painted, but the bigger issue was the amount of stuff that had just vanished... last mental listing puts the contents of that other box at something like: Eldrad, Asurmen, Maugen Ra, 1 Warlock (the oop one with the force staff), 1 Swooping hawk exarch, 1 old metal wraithlord (back when they were called dreadnoughts too), 1 falcon, 1 fire prism, a few jetbikes, and a wraithguard. Eeek, hate to actually total up the value of the missing stuff.


So, the plan for the new army was to work in stages, starting with building up a bit of a 'ghost section' in order to be able to justify getting a nice shiny wraithseer, and some shadow spectres... as the old wraithlord was AWOL added one of the new plastic models in to the mix too. I had this kind of metallic white colour scheme in mind, like those metallic white cars, just for the smooth parts of the heads so it would be shiny, but also a bit sparkly, which then presented with a problem of how to actually get that colour... the guys in store had an idea of drybrushing silver and doing a white wash over the top, which they tried out there and then being so intrigued by it, but found that didn't work. I went with mixing a bit of white into silver in the end, which didn't give exactly what I wanted, although I have got something that is lighter than silver, and a bit sparkly, so it kind of ended up in the right direction.

Here it is on the not quite finished wraithlord:



As I said about wanting to run before I can walk, rather than just sticking him on the base, I felt it was a good idea to complicate my life by having him stood on a Space Wolf. I've done a little bit more work on it since that photo, improved the dodgy line highlight on the sword, coloured the flamer and done a bit more on the base including adding in a couple more rocks so the marine is pinned amongst rocks rather than just laying on his back.

The plan with the wraithseer is to try for a sort of 'Darth Vader force-strangle' pose, with another Space Wolf suspended in the air in front of it, clutching at its throat. (By 'suspended' I'm hoping I can use pins/a bit of flying base coming up out of the base, shrouded in a 'bush' and going into the tip of a marine's foot, without it looking like he's just standing on a bush).

A couple of new wraithguard are coming along too in a similar colour scheme:



along with some warlocks intended to be spiritseers accompanying the wraithguard, who I wanted in fairly similar colours but I feel I went too 'blue' so I may end up scrapping these guys and starting again




I planned to do warlocks in multiple colour schemes, depending on whether they are leading wraithguard, leading guardians, or in a squad with the farseer, making each different but also having certain common colours. As I say, the previous 2 may or may not get repainted depending how they look when more other things are done, and secondary colour scheme for the 'squad with farseer' is much redder, but with 'common' purple facemask



I guess partly I'm also seeing which colour scheme I prefer when I'm finished. Choosing a colour scheme is bloody hard!