The Wraithknight

Last Wednesday I picked up the newest Eldar model, the Wraithknight!  I've always loved bringing the Wraithlord in my games because of the size of the model, but this is a whole new level.  I was very impressed with how well the model was designed; everything seemed to almost "snap" together while still allowing a lot of room for posing preference.  I went with what seemed to be the default pose though, because I like he way it looks.  Here were my steps in the process:

After putting together the chest and leg components, I erected the model using sticky tack to test out some posing options.  I decided that since I like the basic pose and I don't want to mess up such an expensive model on my first try, I decided to go with what seemed like the default pose.  Here's some of my other wraith units and a guardian for some size comparison.

The Wraithknight has a few options for weapon loadouts, each bringing a different role to the table, so I wanted to make sure that he is magnetized in the most effective way possible without sacrificing looks.  Through luck or fate, I actually have several magnets that I bought a while back to magnetize my grav tank's flying bases, and it fit nearly perfectly into the shoulder socket piece.  The piece is actually supposed to go in the other way with the hole facing into the chest and the rounded ball end going in to the arm piece, but by carving out a little more room for the magnet and partially filling the inside of this small piece with green stuff so the magnet has more contact area to be glued to, it made for a perfect magnet configuration.  The picture above shows the small shoulder piece with the magnet set inside.  The second magnet you see on the outside was simply to give me something to grab when I was pushing the magnet into the piece.

Here is the piece glued into the shoulder socket area.  Again, it is backwards of how it is supposed to be inserted, but the piece has plenty of contact area with the inside, and the hole prevented me from having to drill my own in the rounded part.

I then partially filled in the arm pieces with green stuff, and pushed the magnet down into it while it was still malleable.  I used a wetted plastic knife to push the green stuff tight around the magnet to hold it solidly in place.  I did not use glue, and after drying they all managed to stay very tightly in the green stuff.  I have only since had a problem with one of the arms that I didn't push the green stuff up against the magnet during the process, but a little glue was all it needed.

All of the arms now fit perfectly on to the knight, and the magnets will be painted and mostly covered by the shoulder pads.  This worked out perfectly for all but the scattershield arm.  Since the arm is straight up-and-down, this arm looks kind of dumb in that pose.  I may fix this by angling the magnet in the arm some time in the future.

I painted the model before gluing it together.  I started with a black coat, and then decided to do some detailing in the cracks and vents using sky blue, giving it kind of a tron or cool efficient machine look.  

I couldn't find too many areas that this blue theme would work well on the legs, so I did the knee parts, but I end up painting back over these black later in the process.  I found a way to incorporate the blue later in the process after adding the bone.

This is what the model looks like held together by sticky tack.

To match the Ulthwe theme of my army, I then painted the raised armor plates, head piece, and shoulder/hip/knee pads with bleached bone before gluing anything together.  I also detailed the areas where the bone meets black with the sky blue to carry the theme down from the chest on to the legs.  Below are some more shots of the model from several angles as well as the other weapon attachments and how they look with the magnetization.  Hope you guys like the end result as much as I do!  Still need to paint each of the weapons and finish the base.