40k Exodite Eldar – Avatar of the Tanelorn Wood painted!

by | Feb 6, 2018

Sometimes what makes sense in the mind's eye doesn't necessarily translate to the miniature and today's model is a case in point I'm afraid! The seed for the Exodite army I've been working on was centered around the idea that the Sylvaneth Treelord model would make a cool Avatar, and that jumpstarted the whole project. Finally got around to getting some paint on him and the irony is that for it being the model that got me into the project, it turns out to be the one I'm least happy with overall. Doh!


The main issue is one of colors, I knew that as the model was a vanilla build, I needed to rely on the paint scheme to drive home its Avatar-ness. That meant a fiery burning interior and the bloody hand - Simple enough! What I hadn't really taken into account was the fact that on the earlier models I'd gone with an autumnal color scheme which is also heavy on the yellow/orange/red spectrum which meant once it was all combined the model is just sort of a mooge of those colors. It turned out all right, but isn't particularly striking - for all of the colors it still feels a little monochrome.


That's not to say that I am completely displeased. I rather like how the ember-to-charcoal-to-wood transition worked on the model, and while it could be a little more refined I'm pretty happy with it as a first time try! The bloody hand turned out pretty decent as well, with a nice gory drippy feel to it.


The little green of the grass on the base helps the model pop a little, and I quite like the small leaf litter that ties together with the leaves on the model. Overall I'm only about 75% pleased with how it turned out. Workable but not particularly exciting - Part of me wants to start over with a new version and do a witchy green internal flame rather than the orange-y red. Probably a better way to go from a pure color theory standpoint!


On the other hand, I started laying in the base colors on the Wraithguard squad and am much more pleased with how they're coming along!