Learn a simple method for painting your Alaitoc craftworld army, with an easy to do scheme that contrasts bright yellow and dark blue!
Painting Craftworld Alaitoc
The Alaitoc craftworld is perhaps the easiest to paint simply and achieve a great look.
We are going to use a mix of vivid blues and Nuln Oil to replicate some of the camouflage that is an Alaitoc staple, to simplify it without compromising on the overall look.
This will be contrasted with bright accent colors and a vibrant base.
Blue
The trick here, because this method is intended for a whole army, not single display model, is to find a simple way to mimic the camouflage effect that is on Alaitoc models.
While it is worth it on vehicles, getting the various blue ‘patches’ on your infantry is an incredibly time consuming process that leaves very little to show for.
So we want to shortcut this as much as possible, to get the right color, but without the hassle.
This starts on a base coat of Caledor Sky. If we were painting a full craftworld, using a shaker can of The Army Painter’s Crystal Blue would be a quicker option, for a color that’s very close.
Next we highlight with Lothern Blue. We do this with an airbrush, and here we can start our faux-camo pattern, by highlighting extra areas a little bit at random. Essentially, we want the highlight part ot be minimalistic, and the patchy look to be the main feature.
You model will look a bit odd at this point, but nothing Nuln Oil can’t fix. And unlike the shading on most of our other tutorials, we are going for it here, no holding back.
Yellow
Unlike the craftworld Iyanden scheme, we can’t really airbrush the yellow here without some serious sub-assembly and masking. As such, we will be doing a very straightforward technique that does not require too many layers.
Start with a Skrag Brown base coat, that you will highlight with at least two coats of Flash Gitz Yellow. The goal here is to have some of each coat showing and create a transition that should go something like: brown – brown+yellow – yellow. The more coats of thinned down yellow you apply, the smoother the transition will be. Beware, this can become quite time consuming.
To help the colors blend together, glaze Casandora Yellow over the helmet.
Bone
Alaitoc’s weaponry and the vehicle frames are all in a classic aeldari bone color.
We start on a base coat of Wraithbone. You can use other colors, but this one also comes in a shaker can, so it is much simpler to do your bikes and tanks if you paint them with sub-assembly.
Next we shade with Seraphim Sepia. This will give a yellow tone to our otherwise bland bone color, and it will also tie it in a bit more with the yellow. Lastly we highlight with Skeleton Bone. This will crisp up all of the edges, and it’s the most important step on the grav-tanks to make them look clean.
We use bone for this because it’s the official scheme. In my opinion, you get much more impact from the yellow in this scheme if you paint the weapons and such black instead. Do with this as you please, as bone certainly does not make our model look bad.
Red
Lenses and gems are painted red, starting with a base coat of Mephiston Red. I tend to keep it minimal on the gems, as painting too many of them on the model kills the overall look.
Next we highlight with Evil Sunz Scarlet, and add a dot of Flash Gitz Yellow, to make them pop.
Base
This scheme is arguably the easiest when it comes to basing, as almost any color will look nice. The one we went with is a reddish desert color that’s Fur Brown , drybrushed with Steel Legion drab and Skeleton Bone. We painted the sides with Fur Brown (or Doombull Brown) but they look nice with black trims.
