New army time and this force is a special one for me, Aeldari! I’ve decided to jump on board the Webway train and ride the pointy-eared express and start a 1000pt Asuryani Crusade army. In this post we’ll take a trip down the infinity circuit and then roll the fate dice dice to see what lies ahead for my 3rd Aeldari army before finally following the path of the artist where I share my Fire Dragon painting guide.

Back in 1994, I was 13 and after school I rode the train to the end of the line and visited the only toy shop I knew that stocked Games Workshop (back then hobby stores were few and far between), I had £6 in my pocket and I wanted to buy something for my Blood Angels. The choice was slim and I ended up walking out holding an Eldar Shreiker Jetbike. That was my starting point for Eldar. During the 90s, I amassed a large collection of 2nd Edition Space Elves including Avatar, Wraithlord, Vyper and loads more all painted in Ulwthe colours.

That 90s Ulthwe army is lost to time, donated to a mate’s kid brother for free. It was 30 years ago, a time when digital cameras, mobile phones and the internet were in their infancy and rare. However, 20 years ago in 2004, I started my 2nd Eldar army in a custom blue, white and green scheme. Above you can see my Farseer conversion with green stuff robes. I think I’ve always had more ambition than talent.

Fast forward to today and I no longer need to borrow my boss’s company digital camera (they were that rare and expensive back then) and I’ve just finished photographing my first unit, the Fire Dragons! I’ve decided to go with Ulwthe again this time round. I’ve had so much fun painting my retro-inspired orangey Blood Angels, which were based on my first ever army, I thought I’d do the same for my second 90s army. I’m really inspired by Darren Latham’s contemporary take on the Ulwthe (link to his instagram) and our very own Stahly’s incredible Aeldari models (link to his Tale of Painters’ posts) both painters are incredibly precise and consistent, traits that I want to aspire to for my Aeldari project.

I choose to paint Fire Dragons first because their guns are awesome and melt power armour but mainly because of the helmets. Their helmets are a good test platform for classic Ulwthe Guardians, who wore yellow helms with black faceplates, not the modern wraithbone helms. I do want the wraithbone colour featured prominently across the army, so I’ll trying to paint al the gun casings wraithbone a bit like how Stahly does his. You’ll notice my Fire Dragons have black grenades, tassels and gun pipes… this is to tie them into Ulwthe. When it comes to the guardians, I think I’m going to keep some of this gear black, and maybe I’ll paint the armour with blue highlights to differentiate the blacks? Not sure on that yet.

How to Paint Aeldari Fire Dragons

No new army would be complete without one of my reference cards. These recipe cards are essential to me being able to paint so many different factions and maintain a colour consistency across a single faction that I might paint for many years.

To get my trademark rich, soft colours you’ll see there are lots of layering thinned colours. This is sometimes referred to as glazing. It’s a technique of applying thin translucent layers that let some of the colour underneath show through. It creates nice soft blends without having to mix colours. I don’t mix colours very often because the consistency isn’t always there and it’s harder for people to follow recipes.

My one tip for painting Aeldari after having painted Primaris sized Space Marines is you need to slow down and concentrate more. Aeldari detail is smaller and finer. I found myself trying to paint thinner panel lines and thinner highlights. It was harder, but way more rewarding.

I hope you follow me on my path of the warrior as I paint 1000pts of Aeldari to play some narrative crusade games. I can’t wait to paint contemporary equivalents of models I owned over 30 years… Striking Scorpions, Swooping Hawks, Avatar… all of it!