Showcase: Eldar Guardian Defender Squad of Iybraesil

You’ve already seen my working on a wave serpent lately, so that can only mean my guardian squad of craftworld Iybraesil is complete! Check out more pictures after the jump.

I’ve already painted twenty guardians for my Saim-Hann army years ago, but painting another ten didn’t actually become a drag. I really like these classic models and I’ve grown very fond of my Iybraesil paint scheme. I spent a lot of time crafting my paint schemes, thinking about colour theory and the like, and it’s always great when my imagination comes to life at the model.

My favourite guardian in the squad is the male one with the bare head. I really like how his hair colour turned out – I heard this reddish blonde is called ‘strawberry blonde’ in women magazines 😉 It was basecoated with Skragg Brown, layered with VGC Filthy Brown and highlighted with Screaming Skull.

My Guardian squad consists of five female Eldar and five male. I would have liked to have even more female models, as the background depicts Iybraesil as a matriarchal society. However it would have been quite hard (and expensive) to accquire even more female torsos through bitz sites. Also some of the arm pairs really don’t fit with the female chests. At least there is gender equality – originally the kit comes with only two female Eldar bodies out of ten.

In case you’re wondering, the head of the female Guardian with the long black hair comes from the High Elves’ mage kit. I carefully trimmed down the facial features to make the face more feminine. I did the same conversion in my Saim-Hann army and liked it so much that I repeated it for my Iybraesil collection as well.

Now all that is missing from the squad is a Warlock. I’m craving for some new Warlock models – maybe we’ll get a plastic Warlock blister in a future Eldar release wave?

These pictures are also the first ones with my new DSLR (a Nikon D3100). I still try to get the hang of it. How do you like them?