August was a bit of a bumper month. I was inspired by July’s return to painting Eldar models so had a dig to see what else I could finish off, turning up some Striking Scorpions. In addition I wanted to continue the Phoenix Lords by completing a converted Fuegan, and paint up the limited edition Bonesinger. And, on top of that I entered Yaktribe’s monthly modelling challenge with a Guilder and his servant – fresh kitbashes and in the case of the Guilder, it’s an essentially scratch built model, so not entirely in keeping with the “finish your stuff” ethos, but I’ll take whatever wins I can.
Here are the Eldar parts:
With my Aspect Warriors I already have a squad of each type painted up in what for Eldar are somewhat muted tones. With the second go around on each Aspect (which are all either alternate kit bashes or 2nd edition models) I’m definitely stretching my wings, colour wise. This vibrant browny, yellow green harks back to some of the insect inspired colour schemes that were shown in the 2nd edition Eldar codex, and almost stings the eyes.
Aside: I really enjoy painting up these second edition models, because it reminds me of my first ever 40k army. Some of my earliest memories of the game are browsing the racks of blister packs in the local game shop trying to decide which Eldar models to buy next. If memory serves Aspects came in packs of 3 for £3.99, which put a slow growing army well within pocket money range. I would never be able to contain the excitement at opening the blisters until long after leaving the shop – most were opened in the street outside! Also among these early memories is the fond struggle of trying to put together an old metal War Walker. The first one I got ended up with thick layers of superglue from repeatedly reparing it, and with the engine block/torso piece the wrong way around. I remember painting it while sitting (of all places) on the lawn in the back garden, using drybrushing for the first time to paint the metal parts, and running in to the house to show the incredible effect I’d achieved. My stepdad looked thoroughly unimpressed. “You’ve painted a metal model, and made it look… metal?”. Anyway…
Fuegan, like Asurmen, is a the culmination of a rather long converting journey to try and slightly modernise the model and give it a bit more height. I have a post dedicated to the conversion: Converted Fuegan, the Burning Lance. This month I finished the conversion (it was about 25% done) and gave it a suitably elaborate paint job. It looks like the NMM gold on Asurmen is going to turn out to be a precedent.
The Bonesinger is the stock model except I’ve never been a fan of the wraithbone branch it stands on, so I shortened it and removed some of the thorny protrusions so it can stand in as a chunk of fallen tree, which I think fits with the ice world basing scheme I use on the Eldar. I don’t even like the model and I have no idea what it’s for in game, but painting this one up satisfies the completionist in me (in much the same way as I want to have one of every farseer and warlock model, even though a seer council of such preposterous size will perhaps never be used in a game).
Finally here’s that Guilder and his retainer. Obviously they are from Necromunda’s corpse guild, the guild in charge of collecting corpses for recycling into corpse starch. I could not get the corpse cart scene from Monty Python out of my head here. The Guilder is based on a dwarf but has largely been obliterated by scratch built parts including the padded coat and medieval plague doctor mask. The servo skull is kitbashed and the cloak, arms, hat and cane are all from other models as well. I actually built another two models for this group (the cart itself, and the big guy hauling it along), but those were not finished. Perhaps they’ll appear in a future FYSC month??
