GW arts have always shown eldar to be inhumanly lanky. but third party game studios have made them human looking. i think its best for the mass market audience if they are just pretty humans with pointy ears.
Yeah, no. In the Eldar codex there is a grand total of one inhumanly lanky Eldar, which would be Warlock T-Rex Arms. On top of that, the proportions of the models are anything but inhumanly lanky. If these two things don't count as official GW sources I don't know what does.
yes there are difference varied from artist to artist. but most of the "important ones" are portraying eldar as inhumanly long and tall. here i took the time to draw out the silhouette. u can clealy see how inhuman they are.
you have to remember miniatures don't represent the actual size and proportion of the characters. everything on the tabletop is squashed. some more than others. but don't get me wrong here. i'm totally pro eldar looking like humans with pointy ears.
For every Warlock - Trex and Yiriel who looks like he's spent time on the rack, there is as much art of Eldar looking less weird and more awesome. Maugan Ra Looks positively bulky as do his aspects, who look like another species compared to the admittedly WIP version of them we have so far. (Please tone down the 12 head to a 5 head and give them some armour, not paper plates superglued to a lycra body glove.) Neither of these has weird, alien proportions. Instead they look like bad asses.
Neither Baharroth or Fuegan suffer from too tall too thin syndrome either, yet both have less bulk compared to the Dark Reapers. I mean look at that thigh on Baharroth, he does not skip leg day. Mostly this is an excuse just to post awesome Eldar art. But I don't think one particular artists impression should rule the proportions of a 3d model that we want to look good in game and sticking closer to the mini's who don't have weird, stretched proportions will help with that.
Feanor makes a good point. There are so many artworks portraying Eldar as proportionate tall and lithe figures, and only some 3-5 overstretched ones. Maybe those artists had the wrong premise or weren't quite sure how you draw a tall figure?)) Eldar figure must not look anomalous or weird, it's just when they stand near some normal tall human, they appear considerably taller, about couple of heads length, but not just 'stretched upwards' or having double legs. And there is another factor in place! 40K universe is told and explained through human eyes. I know, they intentionally post the warped pictures of the Eldar, to bolster xenophobic effect and convince the average mon'keigh soldier that we are more alien and abominable than we are. So don't believe these rare propaganda images. We are shapely and nice, proved with the majority of official artwork))
Oh darn, he actually does know Death Jesters! I knew it! Anyway, to add something, anything, to the conversation. Jain Zar has... big thighs in this picture. Her hair also tries to rival Lelith's. Anyway, these two are both representing the lighter aspects, and they seem pretty tall (the one on the right, we actually have quite pointy ears!). Especially Jain's shoulders and knees look quite bulky. Asurmen looks fabulous but doesn't seem to have a lot of weight in his armour. But I would put that to him being the oldest one, presumably owning one of the first and most advanced suits. I think he also had some force-field stuff (he is one of the few phoenix lords on TT with an invulnerable-save, not just their armour)
I'm a big fan of the long, lanky look and thin armor (even for heavy armor wearing classes). I really hope they don't tone it down to make Eldar look more human proportioned. If I wanted to be bulky with massive armor, I know where the mehreen recruitment tent is.
