Aspects of Love

Not all Spocks are logical, calculated perfectionists. Some are vibrant, passionate arty types. I like them.



Leofa has modelled all the original Eldar Aspect warriors from his stack of Dark Eldar bits and bobs. This week, I've finished the first two units.

Fire Dragons are first up, the heavily armoured anti-vehicle specialists.

The broad plan for the Aspects was to aim for something based on nature. There's usually an animal of some kind linked to the warriors, and where possible, I'm aiming to do something sort of realistic and then add in some of their classic GW colours to help identify them.

Of course, this is out the window for the Dragon-based types. Also Banshees and Reapers. I did look at Komodo Dragons for a bit, but tan and grey just weren't doing it for me.

So red, gold and yellow it is, all appropriately Dragony colours. Just ask the High Elves I painted way back when. The blue/white plasma spot colour for the guns lifts them a bit. I did think about the same colour for their gems (and seriously, six tiny gems to paint on each gun barrel? Bling it down a notch, Eldar, please), but went with green instead.

The Exarch's gun is so big, I can't get both him and it in focus with the damn camera. His helmet has a bit more detailed layering than the others, not that you can tell here. 

Painting Guide:

• Basecoat - Mournfang Brown
• Gold - Balthasar Gold with gloss Agrax Earthshade, then Auric Armour highlights and a Sigmarite drybrush. They looked a bit monochrome after this, so I went over selected armour panels with Red Ink after the varnish was on
• Red: Khorne Red, gloss Agrax, Evil Suns Scarlet and Wild Rider highlighting
• Yellow: Averland Sunset, gloss Agrax because I'm lazy, Bad Moon Yellow + Averland then plain Bad Moon highlights
• Eyes and Gun plasma - Temple Guard Blue with watery White Scar

The Swooping Hawks were next up. Lovely models, Dark Eldar Scourges with some weapon swaps basically. The wings make them a bit top heavy, so they got twopeed for a bit of weight.

Real hawks, alas, have quite complex wing colours. With loads of every painters' favourite colour white going on, mixed with blacks and mid-browns. Bloody birds, what arseholes. Why can't they be nice and simple, like blackbirds?

I decided the best bet was to paint the wings really white, then drybrush all the browns and blacks on over the top, giving the illusion of that lighter underplumage. It didn't come out too badly, but it needed a bit of work with watered down paints afterwards to crisp it up a bit.

Hawks don't actually have bright yellow beaks, but I only did grey-to-black lining on the Exarch, because she's special. They all got diamond gems on their right chest armour, which came out very nicely. The gems, by the way, look a lot better in real life. The camera doesn't catch them well, there's a really dynamic twinkle when you see them in person. And of course I'm blaming the camera, but it's also because I'm a lousy photographer.

Gordon's alive?

Painting Guide:

• Basecoat - White
• Armour - Karak Stone, Seraphim Sepia wash, Terminatus Stone drybrush
• Jumpsuits - Seraphim Sepia over the undercoat, Ulthuan Grey highlights
• Blue Flashes - Temple Guard Blue, Drakenhof Nightshade wash, Skink Blue drybrush
• Guns - Ulthuan Grey then White Scar highlights. Lightning effects done with Wild Rider Red, Troll Slayer Orange and White Scar, ammo tank in Balthazar Gold
• Feathery Headdresses - White Scar then either Yellow Ink or Red Ink
• Skin - Slaanesh Grey, Reikland Flesh Wash, Kislev Flesh and Pallid Wychflesh highlights. Didn't work out as well as the Corsair flesh, I'll stick to that in future
• Yellow Bits - Averland Sunset, Yellow Ink, Bad Moon Yellow highlights
• Red Bits - Evil Suns Scarlet and Wild Rider Red
• Wings - White Scar watered into the basecoat. Progressive drybrushes of Scrag Brown, Rhinox Hide and Abaddon Black in various amounts depending on the part of the wing
• Stone Bases - Abaddon Black, drybrushed with Iron Legion Brown, Karak Stone and Eldar Flesh

Tell you what, glad you don't need to rank these guys up. In fact, with those wings, good luck with two inch squad cohesion.

A bit of a rest next week as I finish off a couple of personal projects. I'm due one, I seem to have painted over seventy models this month, which may be a personal best for a short February. They aren't all up on the blog yet, though, so stay tuned!