Three Eldar Harlequins, painted

The first models of any new army are always the most challenging ones to paint. They establish the way you're going to paint the other ones. Sure, you can and will always improve your techniques, but you will have to do it subtly enough that the older models still share a consistent look with the newer ones.
As I guessed last week, I ended up painting my Harlequins as members of the Masque of the Twisted Path. Being known for allying with non-Eldar and for fighting against the Thousand Sons, they are about as natural an ally for my Space Wolves as Harlequins are ever going to be, which is still not very. Besides the frosty bases, I don't really expect to tie the two armies together too much.

 The combination of motley and gradient is not a simple one to pull off. I eventually ended up painting the diamonds first, as described in GW's YouTube tutorial here, then drybrushing the area with thinned down White Scar and finally carefully repainting the black diamonds.

 I decided that my first troupe would be the Twilight Troupe, as evidenced by the rune on the Troupe Master's knee. Admittedly, it was a little strange that he has a shuriken pistol magazine on his belt, but isn't wielding a shuriken pistol. I imagine him throwing the magazine to one of the other players gracefully during a firefight.

The Harley Quinn harlequin ended up looking pretty good, even though purple isn't in the DC Comics character's colour scheme, and honestly, she should have a laughing mask. For now, however, this will do, at least until I custom sculpt a laughing mask with more feminine features and make another go at the character.

I already am working on a Starweaver for a transport for these guys, and the kit still makes another three Harlequins, so there will definitely be more in the future.

Two Eldar Harlequins and a Troupe Master

So I decided to take a little break from the armies of the Imperium, and the one army that interested me the most was the Eldar Harlequins. They balance out my Space Wolves well with their trickery and androgynous look. I haven't quite decided on the masque yet, though the Twisted Path seems a likely candidate at the moment, as the common enemy in the Thousand Sons would make it somewhat plausible to ally them with my Space Wolves.

 First, the Troupe Master. I was a little disappointed by the fact that there was only one troupe master torso, and it was a male (well, boobless) torso. I chose to arm the model with a Harlequin's Caress, since the he has more attacks than other members of the troupe, and a Neuro Disruptor due to his higher ballistic skill.

 Harlequins, at T3 and with just a 5++ save, are quickly killed by shooting, so I decided to have at least a couple of models with no upgrades in the troupe. This was the first one. Incidentally, I didn't notice that there was a nearly identical model in the assembly instruction until after I had made this one. I probably would have made it differently if I had noticed it, but didn't want to bother to go back.

I'm pretty sure most Harlequin players have had the same idea, but I wanted to have a Harley Quinn model in the troupe. I originally wanted her to be the Troupe Master, but the master's chestpiece and Harley's established DC Comics female character physique meant that wasn't to be.
I gave the model a Harlequin's Embrace, but left the shuriken pistol, as I don't want to put too many eggs in one basket.

I hope to paint these by the end of the week, depending on how tough the diamond pattern turns out to be. We'll know more next Sunday.

Terrain pieces

While the actual models take the priority for me as well as most people, I sometimes like to take the time to make some new terrain pieces, too. After all, they do have a huge effect on the visual appeal of a game, possibly even more so than the models.
This time around, I decided to make a couple of new trees, one of them by itself, the other connected to a barb wire barrier.

GW's resin skull sprue comes with a few ready-made piles of skulls, for which I have some trouble finding a use in basing. For this one, I decided to have a small tree growing over and around them. Maybe the tree was planted over a shallow mass grave, or maybe the scene speaks of a less than wholesome ritual. I'm not making a declaration one way or another.
With my previous tree, I found the branches didn't exactly look like coniferous trees, as they were a little too thin and regular shaped. I decided to glue some sand to the branches on this one.

The extra bulk brought by the sand made the brances look a lot better and more coniferous.
I used Doombull Brown to drybrush the bark, which, through the red tint, gave the tree a lot more pine-like appearance.


I plan to append this post a few times. The other terrain piece is still unpainted and will remain a lower priority for the time being, but I do intend to finish it.

Three Grey Hunters, painted

Though Codex Deathwatch was released a few weeks ago already, I still haven't really started building my Kill Teams for it. I have one plastic kit, and I recently made a related order from ForgeWorld, but it will still be a while before I'll get to it.
In the meantime, I'll keep building up my main army, as evidenced here by me finishing another pack of Grey Hunters.

 All of the models in this batch had somewhat unusual knee pads. This model's right knee's zigzag pattern didn't really correspond to the pack markings, so I decided to make it an honour marking instead. I decided against repeating the pack marking on the left kneepad, painting Ragnar Blackmane's army badge there instead.

 This model had plenty of warm tones on his shoulders and kneepads, so I decided to paint the gem in his chest blue for contrast. I noticed the right side of his face was a little rough, so I painted some reddish scar tissue there to explain it.

 The meltagunner's face was painted black, even though there was another model with Mk.VI helmet in the pack with a black face already, although without the wolf tail crest or the runes on his face. I decided the two warriors would have been recruited from the same tribe, with the meltagunner having seniority.

Here's a shot of the entire pack. Instead of just having them standing around, I decided to arrange them in a fighting formation. I think they may come in handy with the new Kill Team rules now out.