Eldar overview and current workings

Eldar.

Hands down my favorite race of the Warhammer 40k universe. I highly enjoy the look and feel of them, and also the way each unit is a specialist in a certain art of war, over being a jack of all trades. 

I have been collecting Eldar for a while, they are my oldest current collection, before them being Space Marines which was my first ever army (which tends to be the case for many people). But after looking into other areas of 40k, I purchased a box Farseer and Warlocks shortly after they had been redone in 2006, and I was set on Eldar. Since then I sold off my Space Marines to fund my Eldar army, and it has grown to a decent size, but of course not a whole lot is actually painted, and much of what was painted has been stripped of paint. 

Nestled safely, but for what reason without paint?

I nearly have at least one everything, minus Swooping Hawks, Jetbikes and Wraithguard- all of which I'm awaiting new kits, and I lack War Walkers, Heavy Support Weaponry (which I mostly have equipped in other areas anyway) and a Wave Serpant. The last 3 more because I just haven't really thought about them, bar the Wave Serpants, which I would like to get, but want to finish the current grav tanks I currently own.

Grav tanks and Grav unassembled mess.

The army currently consist of (based on model count)

2 Farseers and 3 Warlocks

Eldard Ulthran (Which may end up being kitbashed/converted since I'm not overly keen on the model)

10 Guardian Defenders

10 Dire Avengers

5 Rangers

6 Striking Scorpions 

6 Howling Banshees

6 Warp Spiders

6 Fire Dragons

6 Harlequins- Including Death Jester and Shadowseer

5 Dark Reapers

2 Vypers

1 Falcon Grav Tank

1 Fire Prison/Night Spinner (magnetized to allow for both weapon configs)

2 Wraithlords

1 Wraithseer

and last but definitely not least, 2 Avatar of Khaines, the GW and Forgeworld Variants.

Father and Son?

Definitely a major size difference between to two, but still will be cool to have both painted up and side by side. The list also reflects my love of aspect warriors and Wraith lords having nearly 1 of each Aspect Warrior and 3 Wraith lords (including the Seer). I would like to bulk up on troop choices however, and will probably pick up another unit of Dire Avengers and would like to get some Storm Guardians.

I am currently torn between what craftworld I would like to represent. Its up between Saim Hann, which is what I originally began with, or Ulthwe. I enjoy both colour schemes, thou I do usually prefer brighter colours for Eldar, and I enjoy the background of Ulthwe more, and the rune symbol of the Saim Hann more. So its going to be a tough decision. 

Wraithlords

One reason why I have ended up stripping paint of a lot of models is since the collection is one of my first, my painting level and the way I painted at the time were very different to how I paint now. When I first started out, and for the first few years I painted straight out of the pot without using a pallet, and I NEVER water down my paint, which leads to blotchy and pasty result of paint on the model. An example of that is the Wraith Lord in the above picture, which I painted around 4 years ago. While he may look nice, he would most likely come out much smoother and cleaner. I think I may leave him like that so I can compare him to the other Wraith Lord when he is painted. Thou depending on what Craftworld I decide on, that might be hard to do effectively 

Wraithseer/Lord bits

So that's the general lot of it. Most are assembled and just need to be based and painted. A few need assembly. One of my Farseers, a few Warlocks and some of the Exarch's are in the process of being converted, which I will show in the next Eldar post. I will probably do a test paint on some Guardians to work out what Craftworld to pick, and also have that up, but for the moment will continue posting up the other armies/projects current states.

I'm also currently working on a commission for a friend, which has kept me busy.

Blood knights and Khalidia

The first half is mostly done minus attaching the standard to the blood knights, Matt varnish and flock. I also have a Vampire lord on Zombie Dragon to do, which should be fun to do.

Hopefully the next Project post will not be as long. This one took longer due to being more over the place than my other projects, which are more neatly sorted due to being newer. 

Current Projects

Lately I've been sorting through all my current projects, and there are quite a few that have been sitting around, slowly being built up, but of course are still in the boxes and on the sprues. So I guess my goal for this year is to get a majority of them off the sprues, assembled and ready to be painted, or painted. Of course, that's easier said that done. I tend to be quite finicky about assembling models, and try to make them as unique as I can, but hopefully I can restrain that when it comes to models that are meant to be rank and file :P

Most of everything currently reside inside tool boxes and in plastic storage drawers

Some of the Pile

At some stage I need to invest in some proper cases to store models in so they are kept secure and protected form damage once they are painted and such. The tool boxes are nice, but really only are useful for storing unpainted models since they do move around quite a bit.

More stashed away

Currently I have the following projects/armies in the works:


Warhammer 40k:

• Eldar
• Inquisitorial/Ecclesiarchy Project

Warhammer Fantasy:

• High Elves
• Dwarfs

Lord of the Rings/Hobbit SBG

• Basically a mix of both Good and Evil. Really any model/characters I enjoy get added to the collection

Historical:

• Early Imperial Romans
• Thirty Years War (Imperialists and Swedish)
• Sengoku Jidai Samurai
• French Napoleonics
• Flames of War Germans
• a Hand full of Wars of the Roses Plastics from Perry Miniatures

I believe that is everything, plus a few models I have picked up just to paint, which are not part of a project or army. There are many more projects and armies I'd love to sink my teeth into, but I would like to focus on getting these ones further progressed and closer to being "complete" before starting anything new.

In my next few posts I'd like to detail on each project specifically and show its current state and such before I begin working on them. I jump back and forth between projects so will be working on one thing here, another thing there and then a few other things at the same time to help keep things fresh and driven. 

I will do my best to show my progress on things as I go rather than suddenly having a load of things done out of nowhere, but occasionally I may get carried away :P

Work space and other trinkets

I thought I would start with showing how I generally keep my work space.

Recently moving allowed me to get a new desk and reset up my work space, which was really needed since my old one was quite anti productive. While it was a good concept, the design of the desk was quite horrid since it had a top panel which was design to allow for more room, it ended up creating less due to it being to high to put a computer monitor, and then having back openings of the top panel completely closed of so anything needing power was limited in being placed. Basically I had little room to do much other than use my computer, which I needed regularly for my Studies.

So I purchased a large flat top desk from Ikea, which pretty much allows everything to be placed in the one spot, and the house we moved into also has adjustable shelving fixed to the walls, so I was able to raise the shelves higher up and put the desk underneath them to create more storage space.

The general layout of things

I pretty much have things laid out nicely at the moment, but I presume as I go along I may find better ways to keep things organised, and of course new things are always going to end up being added and will need to adjust accordingly. I have a few Back 2 Base-ix desk organizer products which are really great to help save space on your hobby area, so most of my tools and brushes are stored on those. I also have a rack that fits 42 Vallejo sized paint bottles, and may end up getting some that fit Games Workshop pots since mine currently reside the tool box to the left, making it awkward to get to.

Le other angle

I keep two jars for water, one for general colours and paint, the other exclusively for metallics, so I don't get any metallic pigment mixed into other paints.
Then I have the general hoop-bla of cutting mats and paper desk mats so I don't damage/mark the table. I currently use a wet pallet for my paints since in the summer the room get quite warm so the paints tend to dry quickly on a normal pallet. I generally use a floor tile as a pallet since it works nicely and is easy to clean.

But of course, my workspace extends into further areas like some of my desk drawers, which have been dedicated to my Andrea paint sets, blu tack and other material.

The Andrea paint sets fit snugly

And of course the top shelving with more...shelving

Shelfception...

I also have an airbrush and compressor, which hasn't seen a whole lot of use yet. I have done some basecoating and messed around with it slightly, but nothing serious as of yet, but definitely looking forward to delving into that soon. I have the compressor nestled under my desk with the outlet hose coiled around the desk leg so it wouldn't pinch.

Compressed Compressor

Well that's generally how things are kept.

I would like to go into my current projects and such but this post is already quite long and it is quite late, so I will save that for the next one.

New Beginnings, First Blog entry

Hello!

Welcome to my miniature painting/wargaming blog.

Before I delve into anything interesting I would like to start with a introduction and why I am creating such a blog.

My name is Sam, I live in South Australia, and have been in the miniature painting hobby for around 7-8 years roughly. I am only 20 (well nearly 21), so started when I was around 13, give or take a year, so the first few years of my hobby might not really count :P. It was probably around 4-5 years ago when I started actually getting into it a bit more seriously and developing it something I actively did in my life.

I more of a painter and modeler over wargaming as a game. Not to say I don't wargame, its probably more I'm not much of a social person, and don't really know anyone in my locality who shares the same hobby to really game much. I started in the Games Workshop ranges, and as I've gotten older started taking interest in Historicals as well.

But over the last 2 years up till around July last year I had gotten little done in my hobby in terms of getting anything assembled or painted. In 2008 I was diagnosed with Ulcerative colitis/Crohns disease, which at first wasn't overly an issue, but as time went on and I went into High school it started to affect me greatly. I was frequently sick and lost most of my motivation. I still hoarded models and expanded my armies but few items ever left the box/sprue.

However, over last 6 months I  have begun to overcome a lot of my medical issue and get it under control. I haven't been ill directly due to the disease in around a year now, and as my body has repaired itself and my health has gotten up to scratch my motivation has risen closer to what it once was. I also moved mid September last year, and was able to re-set up my work space with a new desk which allowed me to do pretty much all my work from it rather than separate areas for painting and computer use. I am also currently working on some models which a friend of mine commissioned me to do, which has been a great way to light the wargaming fire.

So my reasoning for creating this blog is to help keep myself motivated, to share my hobby and my collections with others, but also I am almost starting a new. Many of my older collections I sold off since I was no long interested in them (My old Space Marines I first started with for example) and many of my current collections under went a lot of stripping of old paint jobs from years back or are still in the box/sprue.

Within the next day or two I would like to post up an overview where I will show you my work space, and go over my armies/projects that I have reving to go. I would also like to get a post for each project specifically and lay out what I have currently and my plans for each one, and since many of my models are on the sprue or in the box I will try to review all those items before I start assembly and painting them.

Well this probably is a good point to end this ramble of a first post :P

So join me as a rekindle the fire, pick up the brush and start off a productive year