Lord Celestant Eidolon of Sigmar's Children rides in, heresy and all (with another big banner tutorial)

Those of you following along with my blog may have noticed I've had a rather over-productive weekend last week. I couldn't resist sharing the more or less last model to come out of that painting fugue. It is the second Stormcast unit for my very own Stormhost of dubious originality: Lord Celestant Eidolon of Sigmar's Children.

The exemplar all other Stormcast can only look up to in envy: Lord Celestant Eidolon. The only thing tempering his perfection is his loyalty.

Earlier this year I finally set myself upon a color scheme I like for my Stormcast. With a wink to the Emperor's Children in Warhammer 40K I decided to go for Sigmar's Children, skipping the loyalist' purple and going for pink right away. The model above is the Lord Celestant that was in the launch edition of Age of Sigmar. He used to have one of those silly oversized hammers in hand but the pose was just too excellent not to add a seriously big banner. Because heresy is only any fun when you compound it, I used a classic banner from the 1988 Citadel Journal's Baneful Banners page. I had the page on hand as I used it earlier to equip Grom the Paunch with a properly massive personal banner. As opposed to my rather lazy application of a printed (and subsequently weathered) banner on Grom, I went all out here and hand painted (well brush-traced) the entire design,. This is a properly painted 'freehand' and it shows. Heresywise I think this is about as good as it gets: a 2015 Stormcast holding a hand painted 1988 banner. 

I have been reconsidering my Stormhost, because I really like the in-game background for the Hallowed Souls. In the end I realized I really, really don't like the way blue and silver interact on Stormcast (especially when I paint them), so with a sigh I recommitted to this crazy idea. 

This banner marks the first time I've used brass rod to make a banner pole. Brass rod was something I kept meaning to buy, but never got around to. In hindsight, I should've gotten around to it years ago. It is solid, properly sized and super easy to work with (as opposed to plastic rod that snaps at inopportune moments and bends with the weight of a banner). As to the rest of the paint job. I painted VGA Magic Blue over a black primer, following up with a (sort of Zenithal) coat of VMA Tentacle Pink. The gold was based of Scalecolor Dwarven Gold followed by an Agrax Earth wash and highlighted by mixing Antique Gold Pigment by Green Stuff World with Dwarven Gold. It blings even more golden in real life.There's some added highlights here and there (mostly by mixing white into the original color, I've gotten lazy on that count of late).  

The colors of the cloak are a truly happy little accident in the spirit of the late and great Bob Ross. 

I painted both the cloak and the back of the banner with VMA Nato Black. I decided to highlight the cloak with GW Screamer Pink. As I was brushing this on (thinly) I realized that I accidentally stumbled on a very cool way to make a gradient to almost pink in the cloak. I kept that. As to the lizard itself or Draconian (no that's Dragonlance) Dracoth, I decided not to go for blue, but to give it a more lizard like appearance by picking green. I coated the model Loren Green, painted the belly Nurgling Green and then had a bit of fun washing and highlighting by adding white to these colors. As a final step I blacklined various transitions between golden armor plate and lizard skin and between individual armor plates on the Stormcast itself. Sormcast modes are quite well served by a few properly applied black lines on their armor. I finished the model by painting his plume white, followed by VGC Livery Green with pure white highlights. Lord Celestant Eidolon isn't just striking, his pink and bright green livery makes him suitable on any eighties tabletop dancefloor (time for a dance off with Prince Adam). I followed the same basing philosophy with this model as I did with Skarloc's Wood Elf Archers. 

Crazy big banners for modern gamers step one: paint banner and attach.

If you are curious about painting big banners. I used standard printing paper to make this one. I used this Baleful Banners design page I found on Stuff of Legends. The print was made at 50 percent opacity (set in Photoshop). I covered the back of the printed paper with PVA glue to give it a bit more durability and substance. In the past I used to cover the front with PVA before painting as well, but this occasionally gave me trouble with unwanted crackle effects, so I skip this step these days. Using the print I carefully draw in the lines (in this case in black, but I usually go for a deep brown). Then I color between the lines, using thinned down paint (Ushabti Bone) for the book and the scroll. I add darker paints where needed to get transitions (for instance Zandri Dust in the fold of the book). I finished up adding fresh black lines on the lettering and the outer lines of the book. I lept the scribbles pertaining to be text in the book vague.  

Step two: cover your hard work in PVA and hope it'll dry properly.

With the banner painted AND fully dried I cut it to size and use PVA to add it to its banner pole. With this dry I watered down more PVA, took a nervous breath and added it to the entire front of the banner. This layer will later protect my precious paint job as random people love to pick up my miniatures by the banner. Especially right after eating crisps it seems. 

Step three: give a relieved sigh at it all works out in the end. 

If all goes according to plan, the PVA dries up transparent. I had the model rest on its back to keep the banner flat for the drying stage (not pictured) this prevents the PVA from running and forming ugly, visible droplets. By applying PVA to the front and back you turn it into a piece of plastic. Its becomes visibly thicker and you can bend it very slightly. Always useful if you want to pose your banner. If you have ambitions to do more than extermely subtle posing you should use a foil instead (see this article on my blog for more information). The final step after applying PVA (and waiting for it to dry) is to add a matt varnish. I still use Vallejo Polyurethane Varnish from my airbrush for this step. This knocks the shine of off the PVA glue. It's also an excuse to actually varnish a model (for a change). And there it is. Now on to new projects in the coming weekend (Well okay I did apply some paint to other models last weekend, but those are for another not quite finished project I'll talk about later...).