Archira, Part 1

This week, I've been back on the Eldar. First up, I painted an ancient model that dates back to Rogue Trader days. It's an Eldar Guardian (actually, probably just an "adventurer" back then, as Guardians hadn't been invented then) with a big gun that I suspect is meant to be a lascannon. 

The armour is quite different to modern Eldar armour, with some odd tear-shaped bulges, but the shaped plates and conical helmet are there. I painted him in the same colours as my Guardian squad, with some extra detail on one shoulder pad (I think this tiger-stripe pattern denotes particular skill on Craftworld Zandros). 

I think he looks like something off the cover of an old Science-Fiction novel, which is what I was aiming for.

Then I thought that I'd try to finish off an old conversion. Many years ago, I chopped off the back of an Eldar jetbike and stuck it to an engine (at least, I think that's what it was) from a broken Zoid toy, to make a sort of huge-engined flying bike. I found the pieces of this conversion, which had long since broken, and realised I could do a lot better now.

I added the canopy of an old Eldar jetbike onto the main chassis, so that it would look a bit more "space elf". That looked a little obvious, so I used DAS clay and green stuff to fill in the gaps and blend the canopy into the engine. This was an absolute sod. My respect for people who can sculpt in this stuff grows and grows. I'm still not sure that it looks any good.

I found some "wings", which came from an elf chariot that I dismantled years ago. They were a bit on the delicate side, but they counterbalanced the huge and clumsy engine somewhat. To tie it all together and for bonus Eldarness, I added bumps made out of green stuff to the front.

So here's where we are so far: 

Any thoughts and suggestions would be very welcome!