37 - Iyanden Craftworld Eldar Guardian

The Eldar Guardian gave it the ol' college try during the Tutorial Poll, but came up 6 votes short of the Blood Ravens Sternguard. Still, since by the 2nd or 3rd day of the poll, the end result was pretty much a given, I thought I'd pass the time waiting for the poll to close by trying my hand at the Eldar.

PUN ALERT! PUN ALERT! I call this piece, "How to Get A-head in Warhammer 40k." Silence. Crickets. Taps microphone. Hello? Is this thing on?

Who said Eldar are just the interstellar versions of the pansy elves from fantasy? As you can see from this particular Eldar model, I made a teeny-tiny conversion in the form of a shriveled human head being clutched in his right hand. The head quite likely comes from one of my Imperial Guardsmen. (In actuality, I think it comes from a Vampire Counts Zombie Regiment sprue.)

I'm pretty happy with the paintjob on this model. I picked the Iyanden Craftworld for the color scheme because I hadn't yet worked with a bright color like yellow. The yellow I used was Cadmium Yellow for the basecoat coupled with a Gryphonnia Sepia wash and then Lemon Yellow for highlights. The blue was True Blue and a very light, sparsely applied Asurmen Blue wash. I chose green as the color for the various decorative gems and bits scattered throughout his armor; since yellow and blue mixed together form green, I felt it made sense, color theory-wise. I also highlighted much more thoroughly with this model, and the results are about average, in my opinion. Still a bit harsh, but I'm just getting used to the interplay of shadow and light at this stage in my highlighting training. I think to fully master the art of highlights, I'm going to have to dive into the various layering/ blending techniques at some point in the far, far future. Right now, I'm just happy my brush control is at the point where I'm able to apply small highlight dabs and jots here and there without totally ruining the underlaying paintjob.

Overall, a very enjoyable model to paint due to its balanced combination of clearly defined sharp edges and soft curves. While I don't plan on collecting an Eldar army, I do have 2 Eldar Guardian Squads (which is where this miniature came from) complete with Heavy Support Weapons in my collection. I'll very likely go back to them every once in awhile when I need a break from my main armies.

BTW, Part I of the Blood Ravens Sternguard tutorial is practically complete. I'm just dotting the i's and crossing the t's. I should be able to post it sometime before or during the weekend.

Again, click here for more pics.