The Eldar Project

Chapter 1: The Planning Stage

By Anthony Karl Erdelji

Planning is the most important step when beginning a new army. It would be foolish to jump in and start painting without first figuring out an army theme, laying out your colors, and blocking in a test figure. Many times in the past I've jumped headfirst into a painting project, then end up stuck in the middle because I didn't plan out my colors correctly. If you plan on painting an army based on an established paint scheme and theme, then most of this work is already do for you. Myself on the other hand prefers to build an army the hard way; from the ground up. This is slightly harder to build than an establish army theme, but its the only way to have a truly unique army that is yours and yours alone.

There are three schemes or visual "anchors" you can use when building an army. The first is troop choice. Obviously figures that all look the same will look like they belong with each other. Armies made up of a solid core of one troop type are very effective at giving a cohesive look to your army. Most any space marine is a good example of an army with a troop anchor. Almost all the figures are in power armor. This anchor is by no means necessary when building an army, and is the least popular of all three visual anchors. Most people want to use lots of different troop types in their armies which is more fun and perhaps more effective on the battlefield. Nothing wrong with that, of course!

The second, and most important, visual anchor is your color selection. Your palette should contain only one or two main colors, with just a couple additional colors for smaller details. When choosing your colors you must not just think of how they look on the first miniature you paint, but how it will look on the rest of the army. This is particularly important for armies containing radically different figures, such as the Eldar with their Guardians, aspect warriors, vehicles, and walkers. Not all the figures have the same areas to paint so you must work out how to carry the colors from one figure onto the next figure. 

The third and final anchor is your icon, the symbol that stands for your army. Like the first anchor this is not necessary, but does give another way to tie your army together. You icon or symbol can be almost anything, an animal or some sort of rune being ideal. The icon can be used minimally on the models, say a decal on the shoulder pad or helmet, or another area of the body, or it can be use extensively all over the model as trinkets, trophies, or pets. The choice is yours to make.

This Ultramarine army makes good use of all three anchors. The entire army is made up of space marines. They are all blue with yellow and red details. They all have the stylized Ultramarine omega symbol on their shoulder pads. Photo from Los Angeles Grand Tournament 2001.

An icon can be more than just a symbol on a shoulder pad. It can be a theme for your entire army. I have seen space marine armies based around ancient periods such as ancient Rome. I have seen goblin and dwarf pirate armies. I have seen fantasy armies based on movies such as Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Army of Darkness. Each of these had a source of information used as an icon to base their army around instead of a simple symbol. If you want to build something as extreme as these armies, do your research.

This Legion of the Damned army uses the theme of death as its icon. The artist could of just painted on skulls and other death symbols, but instead went heavy on the icon anchor of his army. They just don't symbolize death, they ARE dead! Photo from Los Angeles Grand Tournament 2001.

When I decided to build an Eldar army I already had my troop anchor figured out. I wanted Guardians. Lots and lots of Guardians, and lots of Guardian-powered units like support weapons, vypers, and warwalkers. I had several reasons for deciding on a very large core of Guardians. First of all, and most important, I like the models available. Second, Eldar armies that contain a squad of each of aspect warriors are difficult to build into a visual cohesive army due to a myriad of different models and colors. I would avoid this by simply not painting them, or at least painting just one or two aspect squads. Third, I like the idea of a sixty Eldar Guardians charging across the battlefield shuriken catapults blasting away. I decided to use the Ulthwe army list because it already fit into what I have planned to build and paint.

Before going on I have to make an important point. I am 90% painter and only 10% gamer. What troops I use in my army is based on what I want to paint, not how they perform on the battlefield. If after reading this you want to go out and buy an Eldar army I recommend checking some other sources if you want an army that can stomp over anything it faces. Now back to the painting.

Now that I had the models to paint I had to decide how to paint them. I began by studying all the photos in the Eldar codex. I then searched the Internet for every photo of painted Eldar models I could find. I was not looking for a color scheme to copy, but for clues on what colors and schemes others had used, and if the colors they used work well together. If I was thinking of painting my Eldar blue and red, it would save me the time painting a test model if I could find a blue and red Eldar on the internet. Ironically, I finally got an idea of a color scheme from my own web page. At Gamex 2001 game convention in Los Angeles the model that won Best of Show was an excellent Dark Eldar model. Instead of using contrasting colors as one normally would, the painter used several different shades of blue. The scheme worked very well, and I decided to try the same concept on my Eldar.

This Dark Eldar model would be the concept behind my Eldar army. Many blues and little contrast.

While I find research extremely important when beginning a new army, nothing will help you more to decide on a color scheme than actually putting paint onto a miniature. Turning to my paints I  pulled out a bottle of Vallejo Blue Violet. It's a nice color that I have not used on many models to date. This would be my main color. I then pulled a few more colors that I thought would work well. Now to try them out.

I first needed my test figure. Your test figure should be one of your basic troopers since these guys will be most prominent and numerous in your army. For my Eldar army this is a Guardian, of course. Now comes the fun part. I began by attacking my little Guardian with every color imaginable. I tried out several colors, going back and other between some colors, or trying them out on different parts of the model. It took about a week and several coats of paint until I made up my mind.

My poor Guardian had about 20 coats of paint covering him by the time I finally decided on my color scheme. These are two scrapped versions of my test figure.

After all that work I finally decided on the following colors:

Remember these colors would not be the basis for just my Guardians, but for every model in the army. After a quick examination of the rest of my unit I felt these color could be used effectively on them, too. My scheme ended up not being as blue as the Dark Eldar model, but almost every color contains some amount of blue which would help tie everything together. Without realizing it, I also ended up using all cool colors; greens, blues, and violets, instead of warm colors like reds, oranges and yellow. The only exception being the yellow ochre, which is a dull yellow and would be used sparingly. Using all cool colors gives my Eldar a cold, sinister look to them, which adds to their alien mystique.

The final version of my test figure. Of course, the actual final product would be much cleaner than this poor guy!

Now that I had my colors, I'm almost ready to paint. I just needed one more thing; a symbol. My colors were nice, but I needed something on the Guardians' helmets to spice them up. Whatever it would be I would have to carry it over onto the vehicles, too. My options were open at the moment since I wasn't looking for anything in particular. I went through all my decals looking for something suitable, scoped out my local hobby store several times, and searched the Internet with no luck. I was about to give up with I found some decals for the game Demonworld by Hobby Products. They were perfect. Being blue they fit in with my color scheme, they were right size for my Guardians' helmets, and gave me a name for my Eldar Craftworld. I present to you the Kuras JiorQuas. The Serpents of the Warp.