Asurmen mows the lawn.

First (almost) finished Eldar Dire Avenger. As usual, my crappy camera skills present the generic colour scheme for the army as a whole. There are a few parts I haven't done, like the camera/sensor thingy on the backpack (wtf is that exactly?!) and the stones need to be redone with greater detail, and the white needs tidying up, and the bone needs highlighting, and the blue needs improving, and...

I plan to build the entire army without helmets, Exarchs aside, and so I made use of some Wood Elf heads courtesy of Mr. Golding. I was hesitant initially, but decided that the half-masks really make stylish alternatives to helments*. With the hair colour, I juggled between blonde, brown and grey tones until I gave convention the proverbial poke in the nipple and went with radioactive anime green. 40k fanboys might seek my demise, but I want to explain my position. I feel that many hobbyists get overly concerned with being completely loyal to the fluff of whatever game system they happen to be playing, and this often turns budding creativity into obsessive canonism. I've never gotten on well with the dark, gothic, overly 'real' theme of the 40k universe and usually seek to break away from/bitch about this whenever I can**. So my girly Space Elves have anime hair.
Anyway. white takes forever to paint. This prototype taught me a lot about using white as a major colour:

• Study your miniature in great depth before you commit to painting it. By contrast to more paint-by-numbers models such as Space Marines, Eldar armour is functional and stylish*** - or in other words, it's psycho-reactive and is both clothing and armour simultaneously. Specifically, I found that the rear-knee 'trousers' flow into 'armour' as it approaches the ankle which wouldn't be too difficult to shade were it not for the fact that i'm painting white. White cannot be highlighted, but exaggerating the lowlights of the recesses worked for 'Eavy Metal Biel-Tan Guardians, so I went with that.
• Use a seperate water pot for white. Polluting your white-water mix isn't at all obvious until the paint dries on the model. Certain sections of the guy you see above used to be slightly pink.
• Paint white last. That way, you avoid having to repaint several layers to cover up any mistakes.

I also tried doing NMM (Non-Metal-Metal) gold on the handle trim of the catapult. I think it looks like 'metal' but also a lot like toffee cheesecake (there isn't a very clear picture of it above) and not at all like gold. Something I will need to research properly before I attempt it again...

I'll post more pictures as I produce them. I plan to finish another four Dire avengers, then a Wave Serpent, then probably do at least one Fire Dragon and a special Farseer conversion.

I'll also be posting a step by step guide on how to paint the above Spelf, complete with shaky camera pictures. Watch this Space!

*Us girly Elves just love to accessorise!

**If I ever do a Space Marine army, i'll do Ultramarines, except i'll call them UberMarines, call their Chapter Master Mr. T, and declare that the Games Workship fluff is incorrect and that my protrayal of the Emperor's finest is much better. And i'll be right.

***I should be on 'Changing Rooms'. Christ, I didn't realise painting Eldar would require a camp alter-ego.