How can I query raw via Eloquent?

You can use hydrate() function to convert your array to the Eloquent models, which Laravel itself internally uses to convert the query results to the models. It's not mentioned in the docs as far as I know.

Below code is equviolent to $userModels = User::where('id', '>', $userId)->get();:

$userData = DB::select('SELECT * FROM users WHERE id > ?', [$userId]);
$userModels = User::hydrate($userData);

hydrate() function is defined in \Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Builder as:

/**
 * Create a collection of models from plain arrays.
 *
 * @param  array  $items
 * @return \Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Collection
 */
public function hydrate(array $items) {}

You may try this:

// query can't be select * from table where
Model::select(DB::raw('query'))->get();

An Example:

Model::select(DB::raw('query'))
     ->whereNull('deleted_at')
     ->orderBy('id')
     ->get();

Also, you may use something like this (Using Query Builder):

$users = DB::table('users')
                 ->select(DB::raw('count(*) as user_count, status'))
                 ->where('status', '<>', 1)
                 ->groupBy('status')
                 ->get();

Also, you may try something like this (Using Query Builder):

$users = DB::select('select * from users where id = ?', array(1));
$users = DB::select( DB::raw("select * from users where username = :username"), array('username' => Input::get("username")));

Check more about Raw-Expressions on Laravel website.

use DB::statement('your raw query here'). Hope this helps.

I don't think you can by default. I've extended Eloquent and added the following method.

/**
 * Creates models from the raw results (it does not check the fillable attributes and so on)
 * @param array $rawResult
 * @return Collection
 */
public static function modelsFromRawResults($rawResult = [])
{
    $objects = [];

    foreach($rawResult as $result)
    {
        $object = new static();

        $object->setRawAttributes((array)$result, true);

        $objects[] = $object;
    }

    return new Collection($objects);
}

You can then do something like this:

class User extends Elegant { // Elegant is my extension of Eloquent

     public static function getWithSuperFancyQuery()
     {
         $result = DB::raw('super fancy query here, make sure you have the correct columns');
         return static::modelsFromRawResults($result);
     }
 }