Time to solve my Eldar Jetbike problem

Welcome back to my little corner of the miniature hobby world.  Today I'll be talking about my process for coming up with new scratchbuild ideas and how I try to minimize the monetary input required.

Since completing the Juggernaut the other day I looked upon my hobby shelf and thought it might be fun to return to my Eldar for a while.  For those who are new to the blog, this is what they look like.

Now, I've never been a big fan of the bases and felt they didn't work as well as they should.  I've since moved on to some great bases which fit the flavor of the army better.

Same models, crappier picture quality, but the bases are much nicer.  I'll take proper images of this later in the week, I promise.

This led me to something I've always wanted to do, and that's to put my slew of warlocks on jetbikes.  I love jetbikes and always wanted to have more than the three I currently have.  Unfortunately, price is a DEFINITE barrier for me.

So what's a poor wargamer to do?  Well, if you have a site called Scratchbuilt 40k, you better try to make some Jetbikes!

To start, I gathered up one of the few Jetbikes I have.  No matter what it looks like in the end, it's important to me to get the size close to the original model.  This prevents complaints about your custom model and helps keep things accurate for games.

I then traced the model on a piece of paper and cut out my silhouette template.  This will serve as my reference for potential builds later on.

Next I examined the Warlocks and the Farseer which I have on hand.  Each of these models are really, really old.  How old?  They're metal, if that's any indication.  They are not able to sit in the seat of the model no matter how much I try to modify them, so the Jetbike will need to be a standing delivery vehicle.

This brings me to where I'm at now.  The list of requirements I've gathered are now-

1. Riders must be able to stand in the jetbike
2. Jetbike must be easy to duplicate.  Since I'll need 20+, being fast and easy to put together is very important.
3. Materials must be cheap
4. Must still look Eldar inspired.  Now, it doesn't have to be perfect as they'll be the only vehicles I play to run, but I want smooth curves to fit in with the Wraithguard aesthetic.

There you go, my checklist which will need to be applied to the design I create.  Check back next update to see my progress (which I'll document successes and failures) and give me suggestions.  Till next time, happy hobbying all!