In 2004 Eldar product line Eldar Rangers are more than ten years old. Yes, you read it right. They were already featured in Citadel Miniature's 1991 Catalog, whose purpose was to cover majority of miniatures produced from 1986 through 1990...
Sure, they have been sculpted by Jes Goodwin, but he was probably barely eighteen at that time. Despite his undoubted talent, they show up their age - potentially older than you! - and I didn't want such venerable relics of history to join my Eldar host. I expected models more up-to-date with the rest of my army: more easily said than done.

Since I wanted a unit I had to find out some consistent way of producing more than one Ranger. Their appearance is not too rigid since they show the wears and tears of all their adventures outside Eldar Craftworlds they originate from, so I had some fexibility over their design. But they still were Eldars: a unit of Rangers had to be consistent.

The Eldar Long Rifle

The rifle was a big problem from the start. Eldar Rangers carry a Long Rifle, a variety of sniper weapon exclusive to Eldar race and, of course, unavailable as a bitz. Even if you are a bit flexible rangers' weapon are their hallmark, the identifying item giving coherency to the unit. I discovered that there was a salvageable Ranger model from which an Eldar Long Rifle could be extracted, but this approach would have been too expensive.

I had therefore to design a custom Eldar weapon, and have it available in several numbers. Since I wanted to keep my options open, I couldn't rely on hard-to-find parts which would have made new Rangers more difficult to create. I decided to use the Shuriken Catapult as a basis, cutting the barrel and filing the striker and the outer gem of the weapon body. This gave me the starting point of a Long Rifle without bothering about the arm holding it, since it was still the guardian one. The magazine was the only distinctive feature remaining but I didn't see it as a problem; after all, both weapons could share the same type of ammo.

Eldar Long Rifle, finished but mostly unpainted.

Since a long range rifles usually features a long barrel for enhanced accuracy I searched for a nice piece that could do it. I could have used wire in a straight line but I opted for plastic banner poles. Those came from the rear of Eldar Jetbikes, but I had some spare ones since I did not use them for the jetbikes. Cut appropriately, they gave nice Long Rifle barrels. A small piece of beveled plastic tube was glued to the end.
To distance the weapon more from the Shuriken Catapult, I used extra parts from the Guardian plastic sprue. A small camera was glued on top of the weapon, and a demolition charge was added on the outer side (this is more easily seen on the finished model). Those additions completely changed the look of the rifle.

A Rapid-fire variant.

With all those changes, the Eldar Long Rifle and the Shuriken Catapult were nearly unrelated to each other. I worked on the arms to have some of them stiff just for the sake of variety.

As usual, I described the process of making a custom Eldar Long Rifle as mere guidelines. You can do as you please. I tried various shapes like the one shown on the right. The double barrel is made of two Epic banner poles. The output was okay but more appropriate for a high rate of fire weapon in my opinion, rather than the careful aiming required for a sniper's weapon.

Turning a Guardian into a Ranger

To keep things simple I decided to use plastic Defender Guardians as a frame. Being useful for Defender Guardians, Storm Guardians and Dire Avengers, it seems there is no limit to their variations. Using them for Rangers would just be another addition to the long list of Eldar unit based on them. Of course, they would require suitable bending and camouflage.
To make a further distinction between Rangers and their craftworld cousins, my rangers wouldn't wear any helmet. Since Guardian Sprue offers only one bare head I worked out a distinctive appearance for each ranger to get more variety. I added a gas mask to one, modeled hairs a different way for another, and so on.

Rangers are supposed to snipe enemy from afar, while concealed from enemy fire thanks to their cameleoline cloaks. Since a sniper is rarely standing up on the battlefield - his attitude is slightly more remote than, say, a Khorne Berserker's - I wanted each of them crouching or down on bended knee, crawling, glancing through from behind a cover, and so on.
To give the guardians a Ranger attitude, I carefully cut Guardians' legs at waist, knee and hip level. Each of the five rangers was modeled differently in that regard as I experimented widly with not much respect for anatomy...
It proved more difficult than expected because Eldar Guardians aren't too flexible for that purpose. They are thin and exposed, very close to human beings, and any odd angle is immediately seen. Filling gap with green stuff or small plastic pieces requires a lot of attention because of the smooth appearance of Eldar mesh armor. I planned to hide glaring errors with the ranger cloak a bit later.

Once happy with the shape and attitude of my Ranger-Guardians, it was time to turn them into real Eldar wanderers. A cloak would hide the mesh armor and break the appearance from the Guardians. I designed a cloak in three parts: one covering the exterior of each leg, and one making up the hood. All parts were attached to the backpack of the model, a plastic snippet making the join (of course I ensured this particular snippet was available in sufficient numbers).
All cloak parts were coming from a ball of green stuff of roughly the same size. I tried to be smart while keeping a fourth ball aside as a reference to be consistent on all rangers, hoping it would avoid me creating tails will be longer than others, but I was wrong: I was unable to achieve a consistent thickness for the cloak, so the same amount of green stuff yield different surfaces. I just had to be careful and keep a completed model as a reference of what I tried to achieve.
Since I wasn't restricted by casting constraints like Games Workshop's sculptors are, I could create cameleoline cloaks flowing naturally around the shapes of rangers wearing them. I added drops of White Spirit to make the green stuff less sticky and easier to sculpt. Once the fabric in hand, I attached it to the backpack of the ranger, then modeled it along the legs or around the head for the hood. As usual, a single toothpick was my tool of choice along with my bare fingers.
The work was a bit stressful because there was no room for error when "dressing" the model with the cloak - cleaning a plastic guardian model soiled with green stuff is impossible. The trick is to know when to stop; adding a last little fold to the cloak can lead to disaster.
Once the three parts in place, I finally added a "communication antenna" from Eldar Guardians sprue accessories to change the appearance of the model further. Despite my reference green stuff ball, not all cloaks were created equals. I simply cut off the excess length from those where it was obvious.

Painting

Since Rangers were based on Guardians I had to choose a distinctive paint scheme for their common components. My Ulthwé Guardians wear a black uniform with yellow helmets and kneepads, the traditional paint scheme of their Craftworld. My Rangers would avoid such constrasts like plague - both to be concealed and to be as different as possible from their brethen (from which they shared a good deal of their own body).
I started with flesh colors for the face, knowing I'd add details later.
Then, I went on to the body. I had absolutely no idea on how to paint a Cameleoline cloak, but Games Workshop Studio's own approach over the matter is quite unimaginative as their Rangers are in plain green. I decided to go for a traditional camo scheme, but extended to the Ranger's body as well. The whole model would be in shades of green, in form of patches on the cloak. I planned the mesh armor's highlights to be different than from a Guardian, hence I stressed shoulders, chest plates, calfs and forearms with the lighter green I was using. The rest of the mesh armor was either painted in darker green or concealed with the camo pattern.
To get better results out of a paint scheme, you should underline each colored area with a line of black paint. It's especially true when you want to highlight different items worn by a model (amulets, chains, badges) but it holds true also for the camo scheme. I started painting the cloak in black, then painted loose curves for the darker color. After filling the spaces, I drew outline for the light green, ensuring that a thin line of black paint would still separate the two shades. The same technique was used for the ranger body. Highlighting was made with lighter shades of green.

The ranger's body was ready for the last details. I glued additional grenades and magazines taken from the Eldar plastic sprue on each Ranger, both to hide some unfortunate modeling details and to provide additional details that would show up from the camo scheme. They were painted in grey for a sober appearance and because this color contrasted well with the rest.
The Eldar Long Rifle was drybrushed in boltgun metal and highlighted in chainmail. I kept the barrel black. The end received the brightest yellow available and a small black dot for the bullet exit.
All metallic gear on the Ranger body was painted gold.

Finally, I painted tiny white runes on either side of the ranger's backpack. It's the kind of attention that gives the impression the model carries much more details than what is actually painted. The stand received much more bushes, grass and rocks than I usually do. It reflects the ambush tactics typical of Rangers and increases the camouflage effect given by the paint scheme.

The complete unit

For the moment the full squad features only 5 Rangers but I never planned to field an Alaitoc army. Their stand are so laden the unit seems in cover even while in the open - which perfectly fits with their Cameleoline cloaks. Some poses are a bit extreme but I was experimenting. If I add some Rangers later I'll give them more standard attitudes, even if it brings them closer to Guardians. Trying to have them crawling or on one knee proved too difficult and unnecessary: from my finished models it's clear that my Eldar Rangers can't be mistaken for Defender Guardians.

published on 19 May 2004