Eldar Jetbike Squad

 Over the last couple of weeks, I've been quite busy setting up my new writing website and mailing list (at www.tobyfrostauthor.co.uk - join mailing list, get free stories). However, I've been chipping away at some old Eldar jetbikes as well.

There have been three incarnations of Eldar jetbike: the really ancient all-metal ones, the early plastic models, and more recent versions where the pilot lies forward along the length of the bike. In the plastic models that I own, the pilot is positioned more like the rider of a Harley-Davidson type motorbike, with high handlebars and a stretched-out seated position.

Unfortunately, although I had all the pieces to make the bikes, I didn't have the right bits to make the riders. The old plastic jetbike rider consisted of a pair of seated legs, a torso/head (they didn't seem to have necks back then), and two special arms. The hands were cupped, so that they'd grip the handlebars in standard bicycle fashion. 

I realised that I could use old left arms from Eldar Guardian models for the left arms of the riders. The Guardian left arms also ended in a cupped shape, although the other way up in order to hold the barrel of a shuriken catapult, like a left hand supporting a rifle. All I needed to do was to cut the hands at the wrists and turn them to be able to hold the handlebars.

I had no such luck with the right hands: it seems that all Eldar are right-handed. Instead, I used some very old Guardian right arms to hold pistols and a sword. The chest pieces were fine (the riders seem to be wearing leather waistcoats over their armour) but one of the heads was a bit miscast and had very soft detail. I replaced it with a spare Guardian helmet, like this:

By the time I'd got to making the squad leader, I'd run out of jetbike rider legs. I hit upon a good idea: some of the rank-and-file Guardians have braced legs that are quite open and have the weight spread about equally between them. I took such a pair of legs and got to work. I had to cut the legs behind the knee and bend them a bit, and Green Stuff was needed to fit them onto the body. The leader's body was found online. I added some grenades to the waist to hide the iffy join marks.

I didn't convert the bikes at all. The leader's bike was equipped with a shuriken cannon, which was a metal conversion/upgrade piece that GW made for this purpose, which I found on ebay. I decided to paint them in a similar scheme to the other skimmers that I've made for this army, without a lot of freehand detail, but using a bit of blending.

I started to paint a design on the leader's bike's canopy, but I decided that I didn't like it enough and started again.

Here they are. This is the only unconverted pilot.

This guy has a replacement right arm:

And this guy has a new right arm, left arm and head. The design for the helmet is slightly different to the others: I assume that GW changed the style of Guardian helmets in this period.

The leader got a power sword and a raised hand, both of which came from very old Guardian models. I painted the canopy with a tiger-stripe design to reflect that of the lead Vitriol skimmer, which in turn was nicked from a Chris Foss painting.

And here is the whole squad.