eldar gemstones

[DakkaDevil]

ive been painting my eldar, but ignoreing the gemstones. think i should paint the gems? id like to, but im afraid that id screw up. any ideas?  

[DarkElf27]

The nice thing about the way Eldar models are is that you have a -lot- of gems that you can practice on.

Paint the gem black first. Then, use a -dark- version of the color you want the gem to be, and dry-brush it carefully onto 3/4 of the gem, leaving the upper right black. Then use a lighter version and dry-brush it onto the lower-left portion, and then an even lighter version on just the lower left. Then, put a -tiny- dot of white in the upper right, in the center of the black area, and go over the whole thing with a gloss finish if you have one available.

Here is a Farseer I painted using this technique for the gems, it's absolutely covered with them, for an example.  

[DarkReaper40k]

You really don't need to dry brush though, I paint my gems with wet paint and they work just fine.

Should it help visualize what Elf is talking about, here's a quick sketch I did up to help illustrate painting a gem.

I only used green in this example because it's what I'm used to using, you can apply this to any colour however. So no worries there, just remember to keep your highlight dot and line and dark on opposite ends and you'll be good!  

[Andre_kelfar11]

Thats Excatley what i do but if your basic colours are darkish like that blue waveserpent in the painting and show - off thread .

i use Fort Gray as base coat for gems then start with the colour of the gem you want.
iv got a Blue Colours/ Yellow and sub white to break it up so i went with a Mid Green to join it all up.

Dark angels green
enchated blue ( on the long sides of the gem)
dry brush hawk turquoise gw paint down the middle but not covering all of the Enchated blue.
the a thin white curved if possible or just add a normal brush of white to one side of the gem in the middle part of the enchanted blue.

its a cheap way of painting gems if your in a rush the amount of gems there are when you got nine eldar tanks:p
painting up for apocalypse is a pain in the back side especialy when theres only a few people at the club that will play a game that big.  

[DarkElf27]

Still around, jollydevil? I'd love to see pics of how it turned out if you are.  

[reiner hetzau]

that's basicly how i paint mine but i use the same colored gem for only one squad and then another color if any of you can put some pics up of your eldar I'm really looking for some good tips biggrin