Spring cleaning Challenge: Blanchitsu Aeldari

To expand the force away from just guardians, I dug out an old Howling Banshee.

I’m not going to go through all the stages as its identical to the guardian, but the she came out well

The worry at the back of my mind is how will I do other aspect warriors that don’t fit the bone scheme.

It’s been a bit, but I’m starting to feel upbeat about this project, in a way I never felt with the Giger project. The Genestealers were only ever intending to be 8 models, but it felt like a mountain to climb. Whilst this project feels far more inspiring to the point I’m contemplating continuing to make it a full 40k force for this new edition.

As a weird aside I found the codex I bought when I last played the army

As a default I went with my defacto basing method.  This wasn’t done more out of habit rather than thought…but if I’m going to go with this Blanchitsu theme surely the bases need to fit.. But then what would a Blanchitsu Eldar base be.

The issue I’ve had with stain is photographs.  To the eye the model looks fine, but the gloss varnish in the stain plays merry hell with light on photos. Also I’m a bit chuffed with how this army is looking so I think it is time to have a go at varnishing.

I went over the farseer with a vailaho matt varnish. Hoping that that it would knock some of the shine off the model…. And it worked

I replicated the original method on some unpainted guardians.

First a heavy white dry brush then a light coat of the varnish. One it had dried a watered black wash and before it had completely dried added some more of the woodstain in to the recesses and then teased it out. And hour or so later gave it a light bone dry brush on the raised areas

I also had a go with a farseer. I copied the same method as the guardians. Because this figure has robes on rather than armour I increased the wash on the cloak and added white highlights to his robes.

One of the comments I got for the Giger’s Genesteal project was that they looked very Blanchitsu. In a strange twist of fate, on paper I can replicate Giger’s work with some modicum of success, but I’ve always had trouble replicating John Blanched which as always been slightly frustrating. It would appear fate has a sense of irony.

The first thing is to look at how John Blanche depicts Eldar

To be fair he depicts them in the same way he depicts everything in 40k. Lots of browns and yellows with the shock of red in the mix.  This is perfect as the woodstain effect I had developed already gave this effect.

At my parents house there is an old airing cupboard, where I’ve kept all my old models. In this cupboard is a silver box with all my Eldar models in.

Theres a lot in there. Some painted others in various stages and various colour schemes.

I managed to dig out a farseer, a few more guardians and a wraithguard, all were unpainted.

When I first discovered 40k it was through visiting this shop Something Wicked in Huddersfield West Yorkshire

It was 1994 and  I decided to go with Eldar. As a teenager I wanted to be more elf like (I hadn’t accepted my inner dwarf at that point) so decided to go with one of the hardest army to play.

Anyway this long preamble is just to set the scene on the models I will have to use. Most are 30 years old, and those that were painted have been painted badly. So I will have to investigate how to strip both metal and plastic models.