Warp Spiders exarch w.i.p.

Collecting an Eldar army is something I've wanted to do for years. Only in the last year or two, though, have I felt up to the challenge of painting them to the standard they deserve... they're a beautiful army, and I just wasn't sure I could do them justice.
In particular, I wanted to go for a Biel-Tann Swordwind force, partly because of the background and imagery of the force, and partly because it was the perfect excuse to try my hand at every last one of the Aspect squads!
One of the first that caught my eye was the Warp Spiders, thanks in no small part to the opening movie for Dawn of War 2... the exarch was just too cool, and I decided I just had to have a squad. There was just one problem, so far as I was concerned, and that was the exarch.
There's just something about the vaguely 'He-Man'-esque pose of the model that I don't like; it's a nice enough model, don't get me wrong, but it just feels out of place to me. A conversion was clearly in order, to my mind at least. After several good chats with the other FlashGitz and some of the staff at our local GW, and a great many cups of tea, it was obvious that it would be tricky but quite do-able, involving lots of careful clipping of model parts and filling with Green Stuff.
And it was about that point that someone joked "You might as well sculpt a new one!" Oddly, that's the idea that stuck...
The model below is the result of that stroke of genius (or outright lunacy, as some have suggested). Seen here, it's about 1/3 to 1/2 painted, give or take. The body is from a basic, plastic eldar guardian, with the back clipped away, the gun removed and some repositioning of the left hand to make it into more of a fist. The head got scrounged from a High Elf bolt thrower kit. And the rest (aside from some brass rod supporting the frame of his death spinners) is pure Green Stuff.
My sculpting isn't the most amazing you'll ever see, not by a longshot, but in all I think it went quite well. The hardest parts of the model were the guns and the backpack... lots of complex angles and shapes that needed to be done in small stages. The hardest part of all was getting a smooth finish on the backpack; as anyone that has tried to get a smooth surface from the stuff will know, it's quite hard going. For me, it wasn't until BigMek suggested using a layer of Humbrol filler putty, then sanding it flat, that it all came together; it has a finish similar to the 'powder coats' used to give a flat painting surface to motorcycle and car parts (see American Chopper for an idea on what that looks like), and with a coat of thinned PVA glue over that, it looks as smooth as I could ever have hoped for.
As I write this, the model (and his squad) are nearing completion... something of a miracle for me, as my painting speed is normally in the kind of ball-park range normally reserved for tectonic plates :). I'll post 'finished article' pics, as well as a more in-depth sculpting guide, at a future date. 'Til then, enjoy the pics of the model so far, and let us know what you think!
~MyBlueOblivion