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Hey.

So my new project I decided to work on was to modernise my 8 years old dark eldar army that is sitting in a heap under a pile of 3rd edition codex's. I always liked the limited background available to the evil ones but the lack of decent models and inspiration put me off from ever trying to paint them. I also have a dark elf army sitting around I never intend to play again (yey for bent rules) so they would be a nice source of cheap bits to steal.


First things first were the warriors...I really really don't like the models...the guns are cool but the heads and lack of detail makes me sad. Also the fact they have random spikes all over the place...

I decided to use corsair bits like most people do for their dark eldar warriors, I had 60 of the poor buggers sitting on sprues so it would be a waste not to. I didn't like the fact they have metal chest pieces though..so I stole some dire avengers legs + front torso bits and went to see if they could fit together with the corsair back piece + head. To my surprise with a bit of filing here and there they went together nicely..and to round the model of the dark eldar arms + guns.

I made 25 of them, 5 squads of 5, with dark lances to be made later. I cut down the splinter rifles to make blasters..I cant be bothered to buy metal ones =P. I forgot to take a picture of them pre undercoated stage..but here is a shot of a few anyway to give a rough idea how they look.



I then painted 1 very quickly as a test colour scheme (I'm talking 30 mins here =P)..I always liked dark blue, with purple as the secondary colour. I also decided to do a very dark skin colour..almost grey, you probably can't see it much on the models though they don't have much skin bare! Here was the result...




I liked how it came out, next job was to sort the details out, and to iron out the scheme for the rest of the warriors.
I also built and undercoated 7 raiders and 3 ravagers which were sitting in my box being all dusty as well, along with 10 wyches which I primered white since they have a lot of skin exposed. I have some ideas regarding my HQ choices, but not sure on those yet =P.

Hopefully I'll update this blog another day with more progress =).

Dude, I swear you have stolen my DE paint theme!

Minus the purple capes its identical- down the the grey gun and skin!

Im really liking the conversions too.

Very nice mate!

I noticed your location, and I too live near Leicester

On that note I don't suppose I could buy some of those corsair cloaks from you?

Cheers,

Jack.

Awesome conversions. I really love how all the components go together, it makes for a characterful conversion that looks much better than the current DE line. Well done!

Thanks guys (and girls).

Blightdron drop me a pm about it.

Absolutely fantastic!

It always annoyed me that a race of vain, egotistical pleasure-seeking sado-masochists have the most generic uniforms possible. The added bits from the DE line jazz them up perfectly. They really needed the personality.

Can't wait to see more!

I agree with Mastiff,the added bits give them a personality.I hope to see more in future,nice work thus far.

I like these as well I wondered what those kits would look like bashed together and the out come is super cool .

Not much of an update..I painted 3 more dark eldar warriors this morning..they really take no time at all to paint, I reckon these 3 took me an hour and a half? They aren't my greatest work but they are decent tabletop standard I guess and that's my aim for this army really.4 down 21 to go =P.





I have the Archon and dracite model purchased, now to convert >_<.

Oh and I'm off to finish the hair on those warriors, I noticed I haven't quite got it right yet =P.

ooooo... they look all piratey!

I'm liking them more and more. I've always liked the concept of eldar pirates, which is what they called eldar in the Rogue Trader days. This really introduces the individuality and the swashbuckiling flair they were lacking.

Mind if I steal your ideas? I'm not sure if I'm going to do an eldar or dark eldar army, but these look like waaaaay too much fun!

they look awesome!

I second Scrazza!

Mastiff wrote:ooooo... they look all piratey!

I'm liking them more and more. I've always liked the concept of eldar pirates, which is what they called eldar in the Rogue Trader days. This really introduces the individuality and the swashbuckiling flair they were lacking.

Mind if I steal your ideas? I'm not sure if I'm going to do an eldar or dark eldar army, but these look like waaaaay too much fun!

Oh of course, they aren't really 'my' ideas =P I used inspiration from lots of people who have done similar corsair-DE models.

6 more 1/2 done...probably finish them tomorrow.

I agree - the current DE line is crap and yours are great - much more what DE should be. The current line it too much "chaos eldar". I too want to do "eldar pirates" as opposed to dark eldar someday - are those the corsair heads or did you do some conversion on them? Being pirates, I'd mix in some other colors too - but that's just me. I was always inspired by the Eldar Pirate Kill team that appeared in the 4th ed. rulebook. Or maybe it was 3.5?

okay, lets get things straight lots of people dont like the da models, but there clean,crisp and dont have too much detail that it murges together and looks crap, ala chaos termis, i like the current da models, and i like your version at least twice as much, the models are baddass nice job mate 9/10!!

Very enjoyable, the lizard skin looking cloaks are nicely done, maybe include a lighter colour in there, in really small spots, on the front that is, just to make the models stand out

10 finished.

Wow, these look so good!
Are you going for a full army!?

These guys look really really great. A whole army like this would be amazing.

Triple nice to see some well painted DE! 1. you rarely see any DE, 2. nice models are always nice, 3. Nice DE is more than the sum of its parts?

firebat wrote:Wow, these look so good!
Are you going for a full army!?

I hope so..but here is my big problem, there is only 5 or 6 different corsair heads without armour =(, even with only 25 warriors it's going to get repetitive. The hunt for new heads continues...I like the bare guardian head so I will use that most likely, and the 2 bare dark eldar heads (that crazy afro is awesome) but other than that =/.

DaOrkBoss wrote:These guys look really really great. A whole army like this would be amazing.

I'm already getting down looking at all these raiders....imperial guard tanks I could paint easily since I knew how to do it..raiders may seem smaller and easier to paint but I'm not even sure where to start lol...not to mention all that flesh on the wyches >_<. Must..finish...

Looks amazing! have a similar color scheme/models.

What I did to make the helmets not all look the same is cut and file down some of the long bits at the end of the helmets. Some are full length, some half length, some short. It turns 6 different heads in 18.

Here is my dracon, good enough for now I will probably add more detail at a later date.



The skull doesnt look quite as odd in real life =P.

Here an update from what I've been doing with the army..

Finished up a 3rd squad of warriors, 4th almost done-I have 6 planned but it shouldn't take too long.

Heres the grotesques:


(not the one on the left isn't failing over in real life =)).

Haemonculi number 1..went for a plain look with female + male parts to create that ambiguty.




Finally here's the whole army undercoated/made, raiders need guns, pilots + bits but yeah its pretty daunting >_<.



I personally think the painting so far is a lot brighter in real life, think i'll try and get some new pictures when I can in better light.

You can officially color me impressed.

No, not for the very nice conversions (I've done similar work with Guardian bits but clearly I have to check out the Dire Avenger stuff).

And, no, it's not for your blue/purple paint scheme that is eerily close to mine. (though I use less blue and more purple, gawds those are good DE colors)

No, sir, you can color me impressed because you have one more Raider model then I do. That just really doesn't happen to me much...

Great looking pieces, love the basing too. Am I to judge by this most recent picture you couldn't think of an alternate option to the Wych models?

Thanks, yeah raiders are dirt cheap on ebay if you can find the right deal..I actually have another on the way lol =P.

It wasn't the fact I couldn't find another alternative models (daemonettes seem a great base for those) but I really like the metal ones they are very dynamic =].

Very nice work! Your warriors look excellent.

I have never really been a fan of DE, but man, these are looking awesome. Very well done.

Thanks..finished 5 squads of warriors now, just the last to go and they are the ones with the banner which should be fun :/.

Going to do the wyches after ( I have 10 to do which should take a while, they have so much skin exposed.)

Uhm so heres a shot of how the army stands right now at 1500 points..base colours for the raiders are on, still have to paint the gunners, drivers + all the bits I'll add later. I also started converted a lord with a punisher using the jain zar model , got alot of work to go on her yet, right now I think her punisher is way too long xD...more to come soon I hope..I have a practise GT tournament next week and hopefully the army will be pretty much done by then..onwards to 1750 after that =P.



Also a quick question..what do people think of the raider edges..I tried on purpose to make them slightly different sizes and kinda fade into the brighter colours..but perhaps I should have done them neatly? Which would be the best do you guys think?