Sunday Painting - Eldar flyers

As part of my recent Eldar update, I purchased two of the Eldar flyer boxes - these became one Hemlock Wraithfighter and one Crimson Hunter. I have already used them both in battles but I really prefer to play games where all my models are painted.

The paint scheme for my Army is based on Biel Tan - green and white. However, I'm getting a bit bored of painting and shading green so I decided to paint the Crimson Hunter in red and black (I know, very imaginative). I still want the Wraithfighter to tie in with the rest of the army so that will be in green with white trim.

Now, I'm not an expert painter - far from it - but I thought I'd share my approach with you all. Feel free to comment with your techniques and experiences.

I started by spray undercoating both models with Chaos Black. I then did a couple of coats of the core colours making sure that both models were completely coloured. For the Wraithfighter green, I use the old GW Orkhide Shade green which I have managed to source from Good Games in the city. The white is the GW Ceramite White base colour as this has the best coverage on a black undercoat (it still requires a few layers). The main base colour for the Crimson Hunter was Mephiston Red with black as the alternate colour.

The layering and blending can be a real pain, especially with greens. For the Wraithfighter, I started with some of the core green then added a little GW Warboss Green to make it slightly lighter. I then use a dropper to add some Lahmian Medium to thin the paint - this means more layers but makes blending a lot easier. Then, it's just a question of painting over the highlight areas with a big brush, adding more Warboss Green and thinner, and repeating. You end up building up the lighter colours while maintaining a smooth gradient (with practice). This is harder on vehicles with lots of flat panels but works well on smaller models.

For the Crimson Hunter, I decided to try some new paint. I took the core Mephiston Red and added some Game Color Bloody Red to the mix. I then again added some thinner. This paint was great to work with as it allowed me to use the big brush to 'wet-blend' the paint into the base colour. I added the paint to the brush and covered the highlight areas. Then, without adding any more paint to the brush, I painted towards the shade areas. This produced a good gradient without having to repeat the layering process.

I am happy with the initial results and I think I'll need to purchase a Game Color light green for highlighting the Wraithfighter further. I am also unsure as to whether to have a white underside for the Wraithfighter or leave it green - feel free to comment your thoughts.