The Eldar Fire Dragons were one of my favorite squads back in my 40k army days. There wasn't much a full squad carrying melta/fusion guns couldn't take down, plus their coloring really made them stand out! I had four fully painted miniatures for the last two decades. It was time to fill out the squad.
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| And now we number seven. |
Now I really only needed one to fill out the squad, but like them so I ended up painting three. So here you have an exarch, and two more dragons.
As with the rest of the project, I set out painting them to match ones from 20 years ago. That didn't stop me from hitting them with more modern techniques. You can see in the comparison pictures below how they pop verses the flat coloring of their squad mates. They still blend together cohesively, but also serves as a good example of my improvement over the years.
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| Left is the old, right the newly painted model. |
Overall they were pretty fun to paint, and I can say for certain yellow is a whole lot easier with contrast paints. The one thing that really dragged the project was the gemstones. Back in the day I painted any bump as a gem. When I painted the Alai I only picked a few as I imagine the others are just visual styling of the space elf armor/weapons. In this case I was matching the squad, so I went ahead and painted them all.
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| The pike is such a cool looking weapon. |
On the old models the only updates besides cleaning up some chipped paint, was a color change to their sashes. I'm not sure why I painted them red back in the day, but I decided since they are part of the overall Biel-Tan army I should change this to emerald green. This gives them that little pop of color to tie them to the rest of the army.
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| Hand painted symbols, because transfers are a pain. |
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| All the gems... |
Another squad completed and updated for the cabinet! So now as we continue the Summer of Eldar, who's next? It's likely either Dire Avengers, or a scout squad... but first, and Adventurer and company.
Really nice! I like these first aspect warriors, especially the Fire Dragons. The colour scheme looks really good. I ought to get some of these guys!
ReplyDeleteThank you. They are great! If shipping across the pond wasn't stupid I'd offer some trades. I think I still have a few more in the case.
DeleteAmazing. I do love them, the Fire Dragons have always been among my favourites. Really cool job with those yellows and oranges!
ReplyDeleteThanks. Yeah it's a cool color pattern. Maybe I'll expand to 10...
DeleteThat is a heck of a lot of bumps/gems to deal with. I suppose the model count was so low back in the day it made sense to have a million gems per fig...
ReplyDeleteThe forehead symbols look pretty sharp. Are they free hand?
Thanks. In second when I started this army it was ok... later editions made it difficult. Today I just think it's too much for my tastes so I limit how many I end up painting.
DeleteThey are freehand. I've been practicing with that, and a clear symbol isn't too bad. Plus I don't want to deal with the water transfers.
Hobbs, I love the comparison of the old technique with the new. It's quite instructive! I wish my own painting style had evolved so distinctly over the years.
ReplyDeleteAs Daveb said, there are a lot of fiddly details on these figures, and you got them all, right down to the weird little colanders on the Eldar backpacks.
Thanks for the kind words Matthew! I'm not sure I evolved so much as the painting supply choices opened up quite a bit. A lot of the shading, particularly the yellow, is just through layering of contrasts. The vent colanders just have a nuln oil wash over them, making sure to leave excess in the holes. I just watch some good how to video's to pick up some lazy techniques. My eyes aren't good enough for much more than that. If you are interested I'd recommend TabletopMinions. He has a ton of stuff on youtube, and even does some twitch streaming twice a week. His goal is to make tabletop quality painting for everyone and not a competition.
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