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| Rogue Trader Era Eldar - Tony Hough |
The Polysmith built an Eldar Gladiator a little while back that captures some of the alien weirdness of the Eldar that was present in the old Rogue Trader imagery. Its elongated limbs really help to illustrate that it is not just a human with an oversized helmet, but a truly alien creature. Ever since seeing that model, we have wanted to try our hands at creating a model in the same spirit, but were not sure where to start. When the Ossiarch Bonereapers were released for Age of Sigmar, it occurred to us that they would be a great, albeit unconventional, basis for such an Eldar conversion. The bone warriors would allow for us to create armor that looked organic and ossified, as if made from wraithbone.
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| Nameless Aeldari gladiator - The Polysmith |
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| Eldar warrior sculpted in zbrush - The Polysmith |
When the army was released, we purchased the basic infantry unit, the Mortek Guard, and started to consider how to use them to build an Eldar warrior. As we thought about this, we realized how infrequently people convert Eldar for Inq28 projects. This lack of Eldar in Inq28, and Xenos races in general, seemed like a huge missed opportunity. We decided that this would be an excellent time to challenge the community as a whole to build some Eldar models, and use the Ossiarch Bonereapers to do it! And thus, the Bonereaper's Challenge was born. We would love it if you all took part in it!
+ Bonereaper Challenge +
The rules are for the challenge are simple: build an Eldar model that is partially based on one of the new Ossiarch Bonereaper models (they have a whole army’s worth of models to choose from!). We encourage anyone participating to be as creative and otherworldly as possible. There is no need to stick with the anatomy established by Games Workshop with their Eldar model ranges.
Feel free to post pictures of your creations on any social media platform with the tag: #bonereaperchallenge. You are welcome to email pictures to our blog email address (betweenthebolterandme@gmail.com) so that we can feature them on Between the Bolter and Me, showing Games Workshop that Eldar need more love and that their models could better reflect some of the classic and modern artwork. We do not have a fixed deadline for the challenge, knowing that people are busy with all sorts of other things. Just to name a few, Iron Sleet has an Invitational going on, people are preparing for LarsonicMiniatures Ondroma event, while others are building models for Ana's Sunhold event.
Adam’s work-in-progress Eldar
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| Both the torso and legs of the model were lengthened to accentuate the lithe and alien nature of the Eldar pirate. |
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| Special care was taken to craft smaller weapons for the Eldar: a Shuriken pistol and power axe. |
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| The Eldar warrior is about the height of a Primaris Space Marine, but much more slender. |
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| Fight! |
- Adam, Eric, and Greg Wier
The robed arms and helmet ridge give it a very cool 40s SF pulp look, something a bit Flash Gordon perhaps, but then the teeth and armour push right back into Giger and 40K - very nice.
ReplyDeleteI am glad you like the helmet! I really tried to get a lot of different influences to show in it.
DeleteCan't wait to find the time and take part in this challenge! This is such an inspiring model and so damn well executed. Adam, I salute you and keep up the great work guys!
ReplyDeleteThank you for the kind words! I can't wait to see what you can come up with. It is sure to be wonderful. :)
DeleteI like where you're going but I'm not convinced by the proportions at the moment; the arms are very, very long. If we take it that proportions of a figure are used to tell us something, in this case I'm not sure what the long arms are telling us. Normally it would suggest a more bestial creature, but that doesn't seem appropriate here. I know you're going for slender and alien, but I feel that needs to be matched with the legs for a space elf. Maybe as much as a third extra length in both the thighs and shins would work. That way it would still have decidedly non-human proportions without the focus on the arms.
ReplyDeleteThe use of Nighthaunt arms is interesting because they generally have very long, exaggerated forearms, something that adds to their creepiness. I'd play up that theme with this elf by having the shins proportionally longer than the thighs. That's already kinda the case (partly due to armour design) but could be pushed more along with lengthening the legs.
Thanks for all of the suggestions. I am planning to rework the legs a little and lengthen them (I was unsure if I wanted to have the shins noticeably longer than the thighs). The arms need to be tweaked a little too. The feet also need to change; they look pretty comical...
DeleteOh, so this is the full details for the new challenge you've been pitting to us! However I was intending to thoroughly pilfer the illustrations of Tony Hough a lot for this! I'll keel a weather-eye on my mailbox for your donated pieces. :3
ReplyDeleteHis work is a wonderful source of inspiration!
DeleteI'm really loving the Eldar Pirate so far... It has a real sense of "otherness" to it. something the official miniatures lack, no real sense of the alien.
ReplyDeleteI've got a couple of ideas of what I'd like to make for the challenge... We'll see what blooms once I get some bits in hand to play with :)
I am hopeful that Games Workshop will one day rework all of the Eldar ranges and make them a little stranger.
DeleteInteresting! Certainly seems more alien.
ReplyDeleteI think your figure loses a bit more of the "Eldar-ness" than you might want. If you want to steer it back to that direction, while still keeping the interesting alien aspects you have added, I might suggest some (or all) of the following:
Fluted fin backpack, such as on wraithguard. - easily adds to both "bone" and "Eldar" looks
tabard - ties in with the sleeves a bit, and gives you more of that soft fabric flow (and space for iconography)
horse hair crest - make the head seem longer, which is another Eldar look, and also gives you more flow.
For the feet, you could just cap the toes to make it look more like a shoe, but keep the gap between the cap the ankle as toe bones. That way you have a few textures going on, and keep some of the bone look.
And trigger discipline seems unneeded when you fire a gun psychicly. ;)
Thank you for all of the suggestions! I am still busy working on the model and tweaking the different details. For this model, I wanted it to show visual elements from the Eldar, Dark Eldar, and Harlequin range of models.
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