The year so far has been packed with new Aeldari model reveals, from Guardians to Autarchs, and the armies of the Craftworlds have been popping up everywhere. One in particular caught our eye, because it was painted almost entirely in Contrast paints. We caught up with its creator, Wenqing Du, to find out how he brought the dead to life.
Wenqing: I first picked up the Warhammer hobby in 1998, but believe it or not, I’ve never painted a full army before. The idea to paint a force with Contrast paints came to me when I found myself enjoying using Iyanden Yellow to paint a classic Orcland Raiders Blood Bowl team, and I wanted to paint an entire army using it.
I settled on an Iyanden spirit host for a number of reasons. First, I've been a fan of Aeldari since I started the hobby, and the low model count would make this a relatively quick and easy army to paint. Finally, the paint itself is called Iyanden Yellow – clearly this was fate.
I envision my spirit host as having two halves in balance, composed of close combat Wraithblades and ranged Wraithguard, each led by a Spiritseer and supported by a Wraithlord. The Spiritseers are themselves proteges of the famed Iyanna Arienal, seen in Gav Thorpe’s Rise of the Ynnari: Ghost Warrior.
The majority of the features on the Wraithguard and Wraithblades are painted with a single coat of Contrast paint over Corax White undercoat, then edge highlighted. I mainly used Iyanden Yellow for the bodies, Leviadon Blue for the heads, and Gryph-Charger Grey thinned with Contrast Medium for the weapons, back vanes, and cloth.
To round it all off, most of the green gems on the weapons were done by painting two coats of Ork Flesh straight out of the pot.
The Spiritseer was mainly done with these colours too, but I spent more time giving him a few coats of highlights and shading, given that he’s a character. The addition of metallic colours and the white helm help him to stand out as the only living soul amongst an army of the dead.
The bases may seem quite grim for the pristine Craftworld Aeldari, but the idea was to contrast them against the bright appearance of the army. I also littered them with skulls and painted them to look like a dead and barren landscape, as a callback to Iyanden's tragic past.*
I’m very happy with the results and my progress so far. Working on this project alongside some friends, who are also progressing their armies during the pandemic, has really motivated me. In fact, I had my first tabletop game in about 20 years just the other day – a game of Warhammer 40,000 using the first 500 points of this army, all fully painted! We had an absolute blast.
I’m still working on expanding the army. My next goal is to get it to 1,000 points, and I’m almost there. I’d like to push it beyond that, if my friends and I don't get distracted, which is a distinct possibility – venturing into the Mortal Realms has been mentioned more than once…
Thanks for giving us a look at your progress, Wenqing. If the idea of building a wraith host rouses your spirits, keep scrying Warhammer-Community.com for further upcoming Aeldari reveals, and check out Start Collecting! Craftworlds for your own Wraithguard and Wraithlord.
* The Craftworld just about survived a catastrophic Tyranid invasion, thanks to the intervention of Prince Yriel.