Eldar Ulthwe, the next Jawa-project

So, I finally decided upon my next major army project. I am putting the finishing touches up on a lingering commission this week, and am clearing the slate for a while so I can focus on my own stuff, sorta.

I will be painting a NMM GK terminator to be given away as a charity promotion at Templecon in February. That won't take a day though.

And of course, there is the 2012 "Heroes" project.  I have no clue what it is going to be yet!

Before that though, I want to try to pump out an Eldar army.  I have always wanted to, and at one point had a good start to an Iyanden army.  But as my interests grew, the Eldar faded to the back burner and beyond.



So why Ulthwe?  At Nova I was speaking with a fantastic painter and modeler named Dan and we started thinking about doing a team army project based on the Horus Heresy.  He was planning an Emperor's Children army, so I thought that doing the confrontation between Eldrad and Fulgrim!  My Eldar army was instantly born.  Plus, if the rumors are true, they should be getting some outstanding love next summer with a new book and an appearance in the next box set.  By the way, I will be trading away any chaos crap I get in the new box sets for your Eldar.  :)  Bottom line here, 2012 is going to be the year for the Eldar. It's a great time to start.

My army is going to be fairly diverse and fun. So, I don't plan to win a lot of games with it at first. Oh well! This is the age of artsy Jawaballs I guess.  I like a lot of the Eldar units, and plan on using as many as I can.  I like that the Ulthwe focus on their super guardians, but it would not Eldar without aspect units, so here we go with my first draft of a list:

Eldrad of course
Eldrads Warlock council (converted)

Avatar

Guardian jet bikes with warlock

2 squads of guardians converted from various high elf and eldar parts

Fire Dragons with serpent. (Gotta have the dragons!)

Pathfinders of course

Harlequins

2 wraith lords. I ordered the Forgeworld Wraithseer model. cant wait to paint it!

1 Falcon grav tank.  This is gona be the ride for the harlies.  I am going to paint it all decked out in harlequin stuff. It should be sick!

Wraithguard with lock in a serpent

As you can see there is quite a variety, chosen for artistic purposes. I plan on doing some sweet conversions for the guardians and warlocks.  Also, I plan on doing some sweet hand painting on the serps.  I love them for their large open spaces.  They are like blank canvases. Jetbikes are also great for this purpose.  I love the eldar because they have a lot of great imagry and use banners.  Lots of chances to make this army truly special.

As the army evolves, I will of course add to it. Especially when the new dex drops and new competitive Eldar lists pop up.  My considerable ego cant take yet another year of beat downs in the GT circuit, no matter how pretty the army is!  :)  I have to have an army that competes.

Now, to figure out how to paint these things, and that is where you come in.  I suck at web searching. I looked up "how to paint ulthwe" "painting ulthwe master class" and you name it.  You see, I need these to look special.  Black spray with grey highlights just wont work.  I plan on doing blended and shaded black, but i have no idea how!  I am not too worried about the bone color, though suggestions are welcome.

So, perhaps those of you who are adept at web searches, or more familiar with the forums can help! I need masterclass level tutorials for painting black.  I'm talking Golden demon level difficulty.  Honestly, a tutorial on bone color would not hurt either. Most of what I have found relies heavily on washes.  I prefer to use washes as an accent, not primary painting tool.  What do you guys think? Feel free to share links. In fact, we can make this a new resource for painting Ulthwe and or black.  Share your links and information, and I will edit them into the copy of this post.  Or email them to me. we can make this a work in progress!

So there you have it. The new Jawa army, a community project!  This is a chance for me to do something completely new, and for you to help!

Now to give my wife my wish list, and the Spikey Bits phone number. :)

Jawaballs

8 comments:

Foid said...

Awesome! I'm glad your taking interest in my favorite army cant wait to see them!!!

wargamestudios said...

Great to hear jawa. Check out this tutorial . It focuses on red but it has some good tips and an interesting way of painting black. The black is definitely up to a high level. Tell me what you think!
http://chestofcolors.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=5888

Ted Nagel said...

This is exciting news Jawa!
I am looking forward to seeing how this turns out.
I painted an IG army years ago, which had black as a primary color and used Blue as a primary highlight for the black.
It gives a very "Comic book" look to the overall effect, so it may not be what you are looking for, but thought I'd mention it.

Jawaballs said...

Thanks guys! And thanks to the couple of dudes who also emailed me. Lots of stuff already for me to pour over. My first mission is going to paint some test guardians. Once I have this current commission packed and away, I will be started! Im actually pretty excited. Hopefully I will be able to do with black what I do with red.

Asmodai said...

Here's another way to paint black that looks similar to the artwork above: http://www.the-vanus-temple.com/?p=1365

Can't wait to see how this project turns out!

Brian P. SChmidt said...

I look foward to this project....I gave my list and spikey bits number to my fiance and she laughed @ me...

KaiserSozzie said...

did you do anything with the Black Arc of Nagaroth dragon head I gave you?

Jawaballs said...

Hey man, sadly the project got shelved when the Eldar codex release rumors for last year turned out to be bunk. The thing is still sitting on a shelf! I can send it back to you if you want. Email me your address. jawaballs at hotmail

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