Armies on Parade 2015

So I did eventually manage to just about finish off the Eldar Alaitoc army off, but only just! It was a 2am painting session the evening before that finally saw the last of the work completed. Overall I'm really happy with how they came out and it's been a really good learning experience. Here's the very last units that were completed before the force was displayed at the local GW in the annual Armies on Parade competition.

Insert zooming noises here.

I mentioned in an earlier post about the possibility of adding some of the old jet bikes to the force but didn't actually come across any at a reasonable price until a month before the deadline.  These were good fun to paint and really add some mid-level height to the army as well as the opportunity to whizz around the house like a dick with them. They're really simple four-part figures (not including rider) and have a proper weight to them. The castings were a little off in parts, but nothing a little greenstuff and filing couldn't fix.

Proper flying bases! I always preferred the old hex style base.

Bonus shrieker cannon.

I would have preferred to spend a little more time on them and come up for a slightly more exciting design for the carapace, but they look okay and fit with the rest of the army. I really feel as if I've (finally) cracked using yellow with this project too and I've started adding glazes into the painting process so that should be something fun to play around with in the future. I can't describe how much of an epiphany it was when I realised how much more vivid they made certain colours pop, which is especially useful when painting 1990's inspired armies!

Last of the boy Scouts

The very last thing to finish was the last group of five Scouts. These were okay to paint, but nothing particularly special and felt like a bit of a chore (as the last of any project is want to be). I also had to do quite a bit of modelling work to clean them up as some of the casting was iffy. Still great figures though and it's nice to have had the chance to paint up all nine of the Jes Goodwin Scout models! Anyway, here are some of the entries from the event.,..

Chaos Iron Warriors with Thunderhawk.

Amazing Khemri Undead Army.

Fantasy Ogres on an amazing display board.

Fantasy Goblins on another great board - love those Squigs and Trolls.

Chaos Thousand Sons force that won - some rad airbrush stuff going on with these guys!

My Eldar on the day - stoked to have finally finished them!

The guys at the local shop really do go out of their way to hype up the event and it really paid off, with 18 entrants this year which turned out to be a record for the country! There were loads of other great boards that I didn't get to photograph, including a rad Werewolf-themed Fantasy display and an Undead graveyard scene.  I was really impressed at some of the scratch-built boards and the amount of narrative that was happening in some of them (something which my board had none of). In the end I didn't place in the top three, but wasn't really fussed as the event is always used as a deadline rather than a competition for me - seems to be the only way I manage to finish stuff off! In true hobby style, I've already started working on the next army and will be posting an entry on that in the next few days as there's some really exciting stuff to start working on! If you've never done an Armies on Parade project before I'd defiantly recommend it -nothing better than seeing other people's work and chatting about little men.

Alaitoc Parade Part One

The past couple of weeks have bore witness to some actual work (who'd of thought it?) for the annual Armies on Parade competition entry at the local GW. I posted a fair while back about some of the inspiration behind the choice of army and I think I'm just about to hit the halfway stage with it. Sadly, I doubt that I'll be making a force-specific board to display these guys on as I can't justify the amount of space it could potentially take up, so will instead either mod one of the Realm of Battle tiles I already own or just lame-out and re-use the one pictured. I'm just hoping the manager isn't too bummed that I'm submitting ANOTHER old army. Anyhow, here's how things are looking so far,..

You can totally see Siobhan Fahey's naked back in this photo. Siobhan Fahey would well play Eldar.

Harlequin troupe shot with the Troupe Master leading - so stoked I finally got to paint this figure up! Kinda reminds me of Martin Degville from Sigue Sigue Sputnik!

More Jes Goodwin radness. Cannot fault these figures for design. Again, always lusted after these and felt a massive sense of accomplishment after finishing them. Really hyped on painting purple gems right now.

Alaitoc War Walker. Again, faultlessly designed model. The pilot has massive sideburns for a space elf!

Three of five Guardians. Love these photo Guardian / Avenger designs. The sculpt on the female armour in particular is really well realised.

Eldar Scouts. These were the models that really kicked off the idea of an Alaitoc force.  It's rad that the modern figures take so many design ideas from them.

Totally camouflaged. Ain't no one spotting us.

Feeling pretty pleased with the progress so far, especially now all the Harlequins are done. Painting up the Craftworld stuff is actually really nice and it's great to be working with such a vibrant palette. Still having issues with yellow though, it's satisfying to get right but can be such a ball-ache as it's such a thin pigment. The only thing I'm concerned about is the dominance of the blue on the larger models - undecided as to whether or not to take the plunge and freehand some bold Craftworld symbols to break it up. May leave that until the end of the project! So now all I have to paint up are the following,..

1 x Eldar Farseer (Pointy rad one)
2 x Eldar War drones (Never, ever thought I'd own, let alone get to paint these guys!)
5 x Eldar Scouts
1 x Eldar War-Walker
1 x Eldar Support Weapon

If I have the time, I've a squad of five of the original Howling Banshees and an Exarch, but I'm pretty sure that list alongside some other little bits I have on the go will keep me busy until October. I really wish I had a little more time and that was a faster painter as I've some of the amazing metal/plastic Guardian troops and would love to include them alongside the proto Guardians/Avengers.

Right, best start getting on with it!

New Stuff Times!

After a few weeks away from painting it seems like it’s a good time to get my teeth in the first of this years projects! The main inspiration for this (as always) is the excuse to paint up some of the figures I missed out on as a kidling. Other inspiration comes in the form of the amazing artwork that was around during the late 80’s and early 90’s, in particular, this amazing piece by Dave Gallagher.

You don't know how disappointed I was to find the vouchers were out of date.

This was the cover to issue 147 of White Dwarf and I remember coming across this at a car-boot sale. The cover image instantly affixed itself one of the cannon Eldar visuals in my head (which was helped by my innate love of red-heads and the fact that one of the troopers looks a bit like Sweet Dreams era Annie Lennox!) I still love the vibrancy of the colour scheme and little details such as the banner/sash squad markings and the power-fist giving the horns gesture. I think this must be the only artwork that makes guardians look hard too. I never got around to painting an Alaitoc army as I was all about painting Ulthewe black as a baby bat. However, looking back over their fluff as a Craftworld full of wistful, potential rangers, it seems odd that I never went down the path of painting blue (i think it was my loathing of Ultramarines). A year or so ago when this project first came to mind, I decided to do some test models to see what they’d be like.

Primary colour camo schemes!

Still an amazing and iconic design after nearly 30 years.

The guardian was a fun paint job, although I’m not looking forward to all the yellow! The aim of this was to try and make it as vibrant and clean as possible, just so I knew it could be done without it being a chore. The Dreadnought was super easy as all the components could be painted as sub-assemblies, reducing the danger of secondary colours. It's not going to be a huge force, but will definitely have a heavy Craftworld feel to it as I'm not too fussed on painting up any Aspect warriors right now.

Project times!

So here’s the first batch of trimmed and based figures ready for undercoating. It’s going to be a predominantly ranger force with a small squad of guardians and a large troupe of Harlequin allies. I’ve also got a Warlock and Farseer on the way soon, but still need to snag a couple of the more dynamic Harlequins as I reckon I'll need about ten in order to brake up all the blue and yellow. I'm also considering putting the effort in to track down around five of the original guardian jet bikes, but they seem to be well expensive at present. Will give it a few months and see how the army is looking then. So incredible to think these were all sculpted by Jes Goodwin over twenty five years ago and they still look amazing.