Double Army Painting Update

Hey there, Internet. I've been plugging away again at some painting projects. For one reason or another, I've gotten the Eldar bug again. I played Eldar a while back, lost four games in a row terribly then put them back up on the shelf. This was about a year and half ago. The issue I think was that I wasn't playing to the Eldar strengths by having the army support each other. The Tau list that I played required a certain amount of synergy to be successful. If I can take those skills and tactics, I think I can apply them to Eldar with some modifications.

Anywho, painting. The models that really set the Eldar apart for me were the Wraithguard and Wraithlords. My starting army had three lords and a small 4 man guard unit. I'm now up to the full 10 man Wraithguard unit with Warlock to make them a troop choice.
I'm working on the original 5 man unit to start.

They start out with a solid black base coat (courtesy of Black Gesso), then coat the whole model with Astronomicon Grey. I do a really rough stipple/dry brush on all the top facing surfaces with White then wash the entire thing in Vallejo Smoke. Vallejo Smoke comes out super super thick so I add a lot of water to it. Why Smoke instead of Devlin Mud or even an oil wash of Sienna? Smoke has this really nice dirty quality to it that does some solid weathering without a lot of effort.

From there its got to dry for a while. Take some Desert Yellow (one of my new favorite colors) and put down some base colors on the top facing surfaces again. The Smoke layer is now your shadow colors. Allowing a little bit of that edge to be seen gives it a great chipped up effect. Heavy dry brush some Bone color, and follow up with White for the best contrast. Done. The gun was done up with some watered down Chardon Granite then washed black. The head is just straight black for now but it'll be getting some attention soon.

My other army, the Raptor Legion, has just received a nice shot in the arm for base colors. The Vallejo Surface primer painted on looks just like the olive green I'm aiming for. Pictured here, you got 5 Terminators, 10 Tacticals, 10 Assualts without jump packs, 5 Assault Termies, and a Baal Predator. All done within about an hour or so.

The Surface Primer brings the primer and base coat to the table so you save a lot of time overall.
Here's a close up of one the Assault Terminators with a resin sheild from MaxMini or Scibor, I can't recall.

Close shot of the Predator.

BLOOOOOOOOOM Lighting

I apologize for the image quality. During the move, I found my camera but the battery died and the charger is still missing. As soon as I track it down, I'll try to do a tutorial or two so you can see my process.

Until next time, have a safe Thanksgiving!