Spring cleaning Challenge: Blanchitsu Aeldari

I replicated the original method on some unpainted guardians.

First a heavy white dry brush then a light coat of the varnish. One it had dried a watered black wash and before it had completely dried added some more of the woodstain in to the recesses and then teased it out. And hour or so later gave it a light bone dry brush on the raised areas

I also had a go with a farseer. I copied the same method as the guardians. Because this figure has robes on rather than armour I increased the wash on the cloak and added white highlights to his robes.

One of the comments I got for the Giger’s Genesteal project was that they looked very Blanchitsu. In a strange twist of fate, on paper I can replicate Giger’s work with some modicum of success, but I’ve always had trouble replicating John Blanched which as always been slightly frustrating. It would appear fate has a sense of irony.

The first thing is to look at how John Blanche depicts Eldar

To be fair he depicts them in the same way he depicts everything in 40k. Lots of browns and yellows with the shock of red in the mix.  This is perfect as the woodstain effect I had developed already gave this effect.

At my parents house there is an old airing cupboard, where I’ve kept all my old models. In this cupboard is a silver box with all my Eldar models in.

Theres a lot in there. Some painted others in various stages and various colour schemes.

I managed to dig out a farseer, a few more guardians and a wraithguard, all were unpainted.

When I first discovered 40k it was through visiting this shop Something Wicked in Huddersfield West Yorkshire

It was 1994 and  I decided to go with Eldar. As a teenager I wanted to be more elf like (I hadn’t accepted my inner dwarf at that point) so decided to go with one of the hardest army to play.

Anyway this long preamble is just to set the scene on the models I will have to use. Most are 30 years old, and those that were painted have been painted badly. So I will have to investigate how to strip both metal and plastic models.

The method I developed, was purely accidental, and formed out of technical issues and cost cuttings. There is more detail on this in the Gigers Geneatealers project and why certain discussion made.

First the model was given a heavy white drybrush

I then painted the woodstain on all the armoured sections.

During my step back I had realised that the stain has varnish and I should embrace this rather than fight it. So once the stain had dried I added a very watered down black paint to darken the recesseses and then a second coat of the wood stain. Because of the varnish I could drag and blend the colours in a similar fashion to watercolour paints.

This project started out of my other spring cleaning Challenge project.

I had decided to have a go at playing kill team and rather than use any Imperium factions I would use a xenos one for a change. It was only a few models so wouldn’t be that difficult or expensive.  To make do something different again I would try to copy the style of the artist H. R Giger and from the recommendation of a friend use Woodstain.

Well it didn’t go to plan. What was meant to be fun, turned out to be soul destroying. The techniques just didn’t seem to work. I was copying what I was shown but it just wasn’t working. Along with other life issues this became the straw that broke the camels back and I had to leave it for my own sanity.

After a break, I decided randomly to paint an eldar guardian that was kicking around using the same method… And it worked. So along with the geneatealers I have decided to create a second 40k kill team along side the geneatealers.