A Farseer, a Skaven and a lot of Eldar

After finishing the Mighty Fortress I looked at the other projects on my paint station and decided it was time to add a few. I've been mulling over my instantly crossed out New Year's resolution (don't buy new stuff until the old stuff is finished). Obviously as a plastic and lead addict I can never keep that resolution, but after the fun I had with the bingo card last year I wanted to give my hobby life some guiding direction. So for this year my focus with (almost) every project will be to reduce my pile of overtly ambitious purchases.  I think finally building and painting a the thirty year old Mighty Fortress was a good start tot that.

Did I break that generator? Woopsie...

I spent a rather large part of last week's evenings and this weekend sorting out my collection of second hand and unassembled Elder. I also started speed painting a large horde of Guardians and friends (more on that in a bit). Aside from that I took some time to at finish a character and a unit. The Farseer above is said character. The terrain the friendly psyker vile alien fiend is standing on was mostly sponge painted. It is an MDF kit I ordered with my paint racks from TTCombat last year. Building this I learned never to basecoat an MDF kit before building (even though it is nice and flat and you have a paint roller with MDF basecoat in hand). I had a lot of trouble assembling the swolen MDF and a number of small wooden slats broke, hence the odd combat damage/repair in progress on the part the Farseer is standing next to.

I tried to cover up the Dark Matter text on the generator with Liquid Green Stuff. Obviously this did not work.

I glued this set to and MDF base, sanded it and then used a cheap silver rattlecan to paint it in a bright aluminum color. More trouble ensued as it turned out this cheap paint needed weeks (seriously weeks) to harden. I tossed the two generators in a basket and stored them on a shelf where I found them (paint now completely dry) almost a year later. I painted these quickly by sponging Khorne Red and Wazzdaka Red on the top part. I used a brush to splatter a thick coat of Typhus Corrosion beneath the top, then drew it down a bit and blended it out with another bit of sponge. I finished up by airbrushing some orange colored rust spatters on with an airbrush with splatter cap. As an afterthought I airbrushed the top sides (glowing) blue. It makes no sense when you look up close (there are pre-printed chevrons there), but that does not ruin the overall effect (in my very humble opinion). An hour's work and another bit of shame gets removed from storage and placed into the display cases. I can also make an Empire Strikes Back style 'target the main generator' scenario with these.

Another Skaven finished, squeeee!

Between the scenes I painted another Skaven. No matter how thoroughly I clear out my paint station, I always have some in progress Skaven in reach. This one I recently bought second hand. It was covered in a thick layer of goop, its weapon had broken off and it looked just like one of the Skaven high on my wanted list (the General with Warplock Rifle of course). It wasn't him (same body but different equipment and head). No problem, I'll keep looking and this one will be a nice addition to my Island of Blood Clanrat horde.

My newly colored Shining Spears can proudly fly in to save the day. 

As I said I spent rather a lot of time assembling Eldar. Aside from Skaven I have a weak spot when it comes to Space Elves. This mostly translates to me buying large lots of them when people offer them second hand and when stores drop their GW collection and offer boxes at a discount. I therefore have declared a moratorium on second hand space elves until I've finished what I have. To celebrate this decision (I won't stick to) I stripped some of my existing Eldar. If you are scratching your head at this point, I understand, it makes no sense. When I got back into the hobby in 2008 I started off with Eldar because of fuzzy memories of the  Jes Goodwin redesign in White Dwarf 127 (July 1990). My painting skills have increased a lot since 2008 and I want my Eldar to reflect this on the tabletop. So I've decided to add 'repainting where needed' to my to-do list. These six where repainted over the course of a Monday and Tuesday evening as I really wanted to use them in a battle on Wednesday. I obviously forgot the 'curse of the freshly painted model' and these where unceremoniously destroyed before achieving anything useful that evening. But hey, fresh paint job!

On display: my overtly ambitious plans for the coming weeks.

From my pile of Eldar models I managed to build 30 Guardians, 2 heavy weapon platforms 2 support weapons, 1 War Walker, 4 metal Warlocks, 3 Farseers, 1 Eldrad Ulthran and 1 Bonesinger. I still have a Falcon, a Fire Prism and a bunch of Dire Avengers in storage, but this seemed like an interesting first wave, especially as I also stripped (and restarted my Banshees and Swooping Hawks (and dug out the Phoenix Lords and a 'story unto itself' bunch of Dire Avengers). I decided to try and paint my Biel Tan colored troops using this movie. Unfortunately I'm not Lester Bursley, but I'm still hopeful I can make it work up to a reasonable standard. The picture above is what the lot looks like after the oil wash. Not pictured the unbelievable stench of white spirits (I accidentally grabbed the bottle of smelly stuff instead of the odorless one standing next to it (insert eye roll here)).

I need to start doing something with these Stormcast.

Last but certainly not least I've made a smallish start on my resolution to build and paint a Stormcast army. I own the contents of the two Age of Sigmar starter boxes, but I've never done anything with them. This Friday I managed to buy a wonderful second hand lot with enough extra models to build a rather larger Stormcast army then I planed on. I've made a start trying to learn the difference between a Fulminator, Protector, Liberator and Castigator. I'll get back to these models in a later post. Let's finish the Eldar (and some sneaky Skaven in between) first.