fragile army transport bag

 

 
 

armies

boot camp

battle reports

articles

world tour

 
           
  Iyanden: Painting

 

 
 

Army List

I want this army to be close to the Iyanden theme as possible: so I want to minimise the number of warm bodies on the field.  I'm not the deadliest of generals and see no point in adding to the population shortage of the Iyanden Craftworld.  

I had originally worked out a list that was entirely made up of ghosts – except for the wave serpent pilots and the spiritseers.  But thanks to the new Eldar codex (writing November 2006) this list isn’t going to be possible, so I’ll have to incorporate some warm bodies in there somewhere.   More on that later.

Basing

Basing seemed to be one of the easy ways of adding some individuality to the figures.  I had an idea to reposition the heads and so used miliput to make some figures appear as if they were stepping up onto a mound, or stepping down, or aiming etc. 

I did cut a few legs off – and make them look like they were running, but didn’t really like the look of sprinting wraithguard and so didn’t bother with more. 

I also added some bits of debris – because I wanted them to look like they were somewhere war-torn. 

As far as colour schemes – I’m thinking something that will contrast with the yellow and blue of the figures.  I've been captivated by the brilliance of tropical fish ever since I learnt to scuba dive and have tried (unsucessfully) to reproduce this in an armies colour scheme.  But they do have some interesting colour combinations, and I'm thinking of using purple base with a green drybrush. 

 

 
 

 

 

 

These two figures have the exactly the same torso, but by building up the base to make them look like they're on slopes gives them a lot more individuality and distinctiveness  

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 

Remodelling

I knew that with this many of the same figures I’d get very bored of painting them – and the easiest way to ensure a crap paint job is to be a bored painter.  I have a blind spot as far as power armour as well, having taught myself on citadel, chronicle and ral patha figures way back in the 80s – which were all skin and cloaks and cloth.  So how to make painting 18 identical power-armoured figures interesting?

I found my answer while researching colour schemes and painting styles.  I came across an excellent article by Fiend which was very revealing at just how easy it was to add a little personality to the wraithguard figures.   I spent half a day sawing frenziedly: and repositioning and drilling and all – and was delighted with the results.  Just pivoting the head gave the appearance of the model looking to the side, pinning it out at an angle gave even more indiiduality to the figure. 

In fact, after sawing off the first head I was so impressed  head I thought I'd do another.  As I finished each one I arranged them on the table in front of me and in a frenzy of excitement I had 5 heads off and 5 remodelled figures.  In the end I did all 18.   And most importantly as I remodelled each one they begin to take on personality, which - for me - means that the process of giving them a good paint job has begun. 

Top tip: Part of the secret to a good paint job is making a little character for each figure!

I also added some gems and breathing holes to break up the identical silhouettes and some little banners and clothes. 

Some examples below: