Showcase: Farseer

Another showcase from my growing Eldar army today, in the shape of my farseer. Of the several different makes of farseer that GW make, this one has got to be my favourite. The pose and flow of the model is just plain gorgeous, and it was a real treat to paint.
In particular, I wanted to try to refine my blending techniques, and to try out a technique for painting crystal weapons that I found in White Dwarf a few months ago. Here's a brief rundown on painting the model, starting from a black basecoat:
The white sections of the robe started with a coat of Astronomican Grey, followed by a thinned down wash of Badab Black. This was then highlighted with a layer of Fortress Grey, before two thin coats of Skull White were applied. The red waistband and wrist banding were painted in Red Gore, then highlighted in four stages by adding increasing amounts of Elf Flesh to the first colour. This was then finished with a wash of Leviathan Purple, to add depth to the colour, and a good deep set of shading.
The black sections were highlighted with a 50/50 mix of Codex Grey and Chaos Black around the edges, followed by Codex Grey, then Fortress Grey, each stage getting progressively thinner. These sections were then given a coat of Badab Black, to combine the highlights.
The green cloak was tricky. I started with a coat of thrakka Green, to get a nice deep shade in the cloak recesses. I then layered on Dark Angels Green, then blended on about seven more layers, through steadily lighter mixes of Dark Angels and Snot Green, until the most raised edges were highlighted in pure Snot Green. A fun tip for blending is to tie the layers together visually by going slightly lighter than you normally would, then tying the whole shebang together with a wash of the darkest colour, very VERY thinned down into a glaze... foundation paints aren't great for this, though, so the glaze was Dark Angels Green.
The crystal blade technique is fairly tricky, but soooo worth the effort... it goes something like this: start with a coat of 50/50 Hawk Turquoise and Space Wolf Grey. Each time the object you are painting changes aspect or facet, the colour will alternate between light and dark... see the photos below for an idea on what I mean. So pick where the 'light' on your model is coming from, and highlight accordingly. For the dark sections, add a small amount of Regal Blue to the original mix, and blend it toward the centre of the dark sections. With each stage, add more Regal, until you get pure Regal Blue in the very centres of each 'lowlight'.
For the light sections, first start by increasing the amount of Space Wolves Grey, until you have pure Space Wolves Grey; use this to hard-edge highlight the very edges of the item you are painting, too. Then start highlighting further, adding small amounts of Skull White each time, until the final highlight is pure Skull White. Finally, add small reflective stripes to the dark sections of the item; again, see the pics below... they aren't amazing, but as always they're the best of a bad bunch :)
All comments are welcome, as ever. Hope you like the pics.
~MyBlueOblivion