Harlequins: Solitaire

The Harlequins are here, and being an Eldar fan, I have obviously got swept up in the hype. The amazing Solitaire model was the first one that I got hold of and he had the honour of being painted first.




He was actually also the first model that I ever used my new airbrush on. Being new to this sort of thing, I have only used it to apply a black basecoat using Vallejo Surface Primer as opposed to GW Chaos Black. I am very impressed with it as the thing mist gives great coverage without obscuring the details. I'm going to be using it a bit more for applying base colours to large flat surfaces for future projects.

But back to the Solitaire. This model is really a dynamic and exciting figure, which only really needed a light adjustment to the right arm to get it looking more natural. Given how he is jumping, having him posed like on the package just seemed wrong, so a slight 90 degree turn of the wrist and it looks much better. The picture at the start of the post is really striking of this sinister figure leaping over some wreckage to punch you through with the viscous Harlequins Kiss.

When I was thinking of what colour to paint him, I knew that it had to be colourful, yet dark to reflect the fact that he plays She Who Thirsts. To that degree, I chose purple to be the main colour, and the mask and hands were white with a very thinned Druchii Violet to get that Slaanesh vibe.

Looking at some other examples, I think purple will be a popular choice for this particular character, but fitting nonetheless.

This release has really relit the Eldar flame in me, and I am looking to use that to create a combined Eldar army, finally getting around to painting more Dark Eldar, and also really focusing on the Ulthwé army to get it looking really nice and uniform on the tabletop.

The Harlequins will be a nice challenge, having painted too much black in the past few years, I'm aiming to avoid that colour completely with these models. With it being a nice small force too, I am hoping to fill out the Detachment, I've not had much luck finishing projects I start, but maybe painting non-black will be the kick up the butt I need.