![\"Over](\"https:\/\/www.rocketshipgames.com\/blogs\/tjkopena\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/autarch-scene2-blue.jpg\")
<\/a>Over the dust of a thousand worlds shall we ever chase the slaves of the foul ones.<\/p><\/div>\n
I just finished the Autarch, but the two squads of Guardians and small pack of Windriders I’ve completed have actually already hit the tables a couple\u00a0times<\/a>.\u00a0These are some beauty shots and notes on the process I’ve developed for them, which goes really fast but produces nice results.<\/p>\n Playing around\u00a0among my piles of unassembled plastic, I somehow got the base for a Wraithlord mixed up with that for the Autarch. I couldn’t fathom why a T3 infantry model had such a huge diameter but accepted it as GW proclaiming\u00a0“Yo, space elves are the biggest and baddestest!” So then I started thinking about how to fill up all that space and came up with this little\u00a0scene.<\/p>\n This mini-diorama was quick to\u00a0do, and though simple I like it a lot. It exemplifies much of the appeal of 40k for me, in that even this tiny\u00a0vignette\u00a0has a story. What just happened?\u00a0Maybe they’ve been brawling and the Autarch just got the upper hand, knocking the Chaos Marine down and leaping into the air to strike down with the death blow. But how’s it going to play out? The 41st millenium\u00a0is a dangerous place where anything can happen. Does the Autarch see the hastily wielded ritual blade coming at him? Is he shooting just in time with his fusion pistol? Who knows, but either way\u00a0there’s a lot of backstory and possibilities just in this one little scene.<\/p>\n Fortunately I eventually realized that I’d switched the bases, but I was already committed to\u00a0executing the scene. Everything is magnetized though such\u00a0that the Autarch can be played on his standard smaller base. Unfortunately the magnetization scheme isn’t great. The\u00a0size of magnets I used is\u00a0not quite strong enough under a couple layers of paint to really lock the Autarch in place; you can’t\u00a0hold the base at funny angles or he’ll fall off. However, the\u00a0arrangement does let me break everything down for transport in a standard Chessex figure case, as well as swivel the Autarch around so that he can\u00a0have a more level pose when not diving onto the poor traitor. If I had to do it again though I would use\u00a0poles and tubes instead of magnets, carefully setting tubes in the two bases at the appropriate angles to enable the slightly different\u00a0angles of attack.<\/p>\n This is actually the first Chaos Marine I’ve painted, so that was kind of fun as well. I have an older box of them for which the casting doesn’t seem super crisp, and I didn’t want to spend a ton of time\u00a0detailing him either, so he’s fairly basic but fine\u00a0as\u00a0a simple display base. The only real work\u00a0I did was a bunch of cutting and repositioning of the wrists and elbows to get this pose of being knocked down and thrusting\u00a0backward with a blade held upside-down.<\/p>\n Working on these guys I’ve focused on just getting them done. I’ve consciously not done a lot of\u00a0detailing, and have a whole methodology to crank them\u00a0out.\u00a0The 20 Guardians and 3 Windriders I did\u00a0from shrink wrap to finished\u00a0in the course of just a couple\u00a0evenings in order to have them ready for one of our club events<\/a>.<\/p>\n The process is basically as follows.<\/p>\n Prep<\/strong><\/p>\n Painting<\/strong><\/p>\n Bases<\/strong><\/p>\n Finishing<\/strong><\/p>\n Putting all that\u00a0in writing seems like a ton of steps,\u00a0but it’s actually a really fast process that produces consistent, tabletop worthy figures. In particular, having the components separated by color and on skewers on the blocks makes them really easy to work with and is much faster to prep than temporarily pinning or gluing to bottle tops\u00a0as many do.\u00a0With the sprays and airbrushing I can do a whole block at once pretty easy. Then picking out the details and so on I just slide a skewer out of the block, do some brushwork, and slide it back into the block. It’s a minor thing, but it makes\u00a0working with the individual bits really quick\u00a0and clean, no messing around trying to hold one part\u00a0while brushing another, getting paint on my fingers, holding them to dry before putting them down on the table, and so on.<\/p>\n Bodies ready to be primed.<\/p><\/div>\n Bodies done.<\/p><\/div>\n Heads done.<\/p><\/div>\n Bases being textured. Nearly all the gravel piled on will shake off and be scooped back into a cup to be used again later (use a clean sheet of scrap paper under them to help with this).<\/p><\/div>\n Bases drybrushed.<\/p><\/div>\n Of course there’s other steps in reality, like doing the sergeant’s head or brushing the sensor stalks grey for the second squad. But I’m pleased with both the process and how these aliens turned out. I’ve also been pleasantly surprised\u00a0with how they’ve performed\u00a0allied up with my Kingbreakers Space Marines<\/a>, so I’m excited to continue fleshing out my\u00a0Eldar army\u00a0and getting them on the table.<\/p>\n After a couple years of threatening, I finally put together\u00a0some Eldar! I just finished the Autarch, but the two squads of Guardians and small pack of Windriders I’ve completed have actually already hit the tables a couple\u00a0times.\u00a0These are some beauty shots and notes on the process I’ve developed for them, which goes really fast but … Continue reading Autarch<\/h2>\n
<\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nDude-Bros<\/h2>\n
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