A while ago, I painted an Eldar Wave Serpent tank. It looked like this:
I had another Wave Serpent, kindly given to me by my friend Mark (thanks Mark!). I thought I'd have a go at painting it in similar, slightly trippy colours.
The tank was already assembled. There were quite a lot of nasty mould lines, especially on the two lascannons (or brightlances as the young folk call them). I filed them down as best as I could, but it wasn't perfect. The aerial on the turret had snapped off, and I replaced it with the barrel of some kind of Dark Eldar gun.
For a lot of my Eldar, I've been inspired by paintings by people like Chris Foss, Roger Dean and Moebius. I had a look at various psychedelic science-fiction pictures for inspiration, and eventually found this painting by Roger Dean, who used to draw album covers for the prog band Yes:
I tried to copy these colours onto the front prongs, or wings of the Wave Serpent. I painted the rear part in blue, shading some panels into purple, as I'd done on my jetbikes and Vitriol skimmers. I used a Turbo Dork paint to colour some of the small bumpy bits, and painted the big spirit stones to resemble gems.
As with some of my other skimmers, the cockpit was painted to look as if it was reflecting the landscape outside, as the Wave Serpent flies over it. Red was used on the gun barrels to link the Wave Serpent to the rest of the army's heavy weapons.
So that's Wave Serpent 2! I have learned that red and yellow is hard to shade. I can't help but feel that this thing needs a bit "more", especially on the front end, but I'm not sure what to do without making it look worse. I'm quite pleased with it, though.
Well that is just lovely! Great colors that will help it to really stand out on the table (but still work with your army). Weirdly, I really like the small blue panel that you kept at the leading edge of the wings.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean though about needing "more". Since the red and yellow are further away from the main hull color having them stop at a panel line is a more abrupt transition. (as compared to your first Wave Serpent). You might consider having the color either spill out onto the large panel around the engines, or all the way along the wings. However, since it is great as it is, maybe just stop!
Thanks, that's really helpful! I wondered about extending the yellow to the small panel on the outer edge of the wings, next to the purple bit. The trouble is that this yellow is really hard to blend without it looking dirty - I've no idea why. I also wondered about putting stronger black outlines around the red sections. The blue/purple panels at the front were a very late addition - I'm pleased that they work!
DeleteIt's brilliant! I thought the butterfly one was fantastic, but I may like this even more With all those wonderful colors! Seeing those prog rock covers I'm certain they were inspiration for the original eldar. I'll have to keep your work and theirs in mind when I do my "very eighties" eldar pirate crew!
ReplyDeleteThanks - I look forward to seeing them!
DeleteThat's fantastic! What an inspirational work. The daring colours and the way you painted the whole thing is really quite something!
ReplyDeleteBTW, I didn't know about the illustration, but it does scream Eldar to me!
Cheers! There's something very sleek about those old illustrations, that reminds me of the original Eldar models. Likewise all the colour fading.
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