Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.
Putting my craftworld space elves on hold for the time being, I decided to dive into my stash of their dark kin and try to get an army finished in this lifetime.
Here's some fluff I whipped up a few nights ago:
Spoiler:
Telepathic Duct: Astropath Quinzel
Ref: Ordo Xenos/87699154/C97.2
Author: Interrogator Eregoss
Date: 6432976.M41
Rating: Gamma Epsilon
Destination: Inquisitor Graelin Von Wolffe, Ordo Xenos
RE: Xenos Incursion
Greetings, milord. In the interests of brevity and succinctness, I shall forego a full and formal report for now. Your intuition proved correct and this ghostly fleet of Dark Eldar has struck again, this time on the world of Taegan. As in the previous instances, the attack was conducted in daylight hours, approximately 14:37 local time, by xenos in bone white armor. Four different Guard and auxiliary installations were hit simultaneously, sowing chaos and ensuring no one installation could reinforce the other. The xenos were brutally efficient, eviscerating any organized resistance in a matter of minutes with no appreciable casualties of their own.
At 15:03 local time, the xenos moved into the city of Vargarde(pop: 19.2 million) and targeted civilians. Where they struck like lighting at the military installations, the pillaging of Vargarde continued for eleven days. On day two, aerial reinforcements from Colmar were intercepted and destroyed 200 km from the city. On day seven, Colmar sent in a massed Guard offensive from three directions - all were ambushed en route at multiple points from multiple directions by aerial interceptors, bombers, and Ravagers and either destroyed utterly or forced to retreat(ref: pict files ii7653091 through ii7653202). From collected accounts, not a single xenos set foot on the ground during the ambushes. On day eleven, the xenos retreated and vanished from all auspex and sensorium banks mere hours before an interdiction fleet of the Imperial Navy(ref: Admiral Gavin/battleship Wrath of Terra/file ix954781) translated in-system.
Casualties of the raid on Vargarde are still being tallied, but conservative estimates place them in the range 350,000 - 500,000 with a further 40,000 possibly taken as captives. Xenos casualties recovered thus far are in the low three-hundreds, but there is some small flicker of light in this tragedy milord - a live subject was recovered. Though it appears he was left behind as a punishment or sacrifice, bound in some sort of monofilament trap that took the lives of four tech adepts, some useful information was obtained through mundane and psychic means by your able servant, Talvus Kurg.
This xenos indentified his brethren as the Kabal of Bloody Bones under Archite Azathina Trethek. He offered up rather proudly that his kabal had either left Comorragh or had been exiled - the translation of either meaning are extremely similar - and that they were a roving flotilla, striking when and where they pleased. He related that his brethren who struck only at night were cowards, and that the daylight raids and clearly visible white armor of his kabal garnered more delicious/nourishing/powerful fear - though there were more translation issues with the descriptor, the word "fear" was reiterated numerous times as if this was some sort of commodity to be gathered and whisked away like their captives.
At this point, Talvus Kurg had been at the xenos for the better part of fifteen hours, and took a short break to rejuvenate himself. A team of twelve guardsmen as well as agent Anthora were set to watch over the captive when it triggered some sort of warp bomb that atomised everything within a ten metre radius. It is my sad duty to report that your loyal servant, Ina Anthora, did not survive.
I shall file a more formal and complete report within a tenday.
Your humble servant,
- Interrogator Ulin Eregoss.
Thought for the day: To underestimate the Xenos is to empower the Xenos.
I wanted to do something different from the "dark base with bright edge highlight" thing and decided on a bone white scheme. Here's a test figure:
It's not the best I can do, but it's a happy medium for me with speed and quality. I have the other 9 members of her squad basecoated and the first few layers of washes down, so I hope to have them knocked out shortly.
While digging through my DE stuff, I was surprised to find I had 4 Raiders and 1 Ravager, and wanted to make 3 of them able to swap between transport and gunship. Cue the magnets!
To start off, this big guy here in the lower hull:
It was a real PITA to get the two connectors to either side and enough material tug out to let it sit flush beneath the Ravager sponson piece, which you can see here:
Now I can easily change from a Ravager to a Raider!
I just have to bits order the two more sets of Ravager sponsons and gunners and GTG!
That's it for now, but if anyone has some ideas for basing, lemme know.
It's got a touch of red in it. With the now OOPGW washes, I thin down Ogryn Flesh and do several coats to build up the color and then come in with Devlan Mud to darken it and shade the deep areas.
I'm still fussing with my camera and lights set up, and the colors are a little washed out in comparison to the real thing.
I like the looks of your DE as well, and will probably be stealing that underslung cannon idea for my Venoms.
For my Archite, who will be using the rules of Sliscus(is he not the most awesome special character?), I haven't decided what to do yet. I have some ideas, but will have to see how they pan out.
Wondeful Idea to magnatize your ravagers... but lets face it... you're just going to leave them ravagers 100% of the time
Even if they buff flyers survivability next edition, I prefer the humble ravager. DE survive on the table top by using LoS blocking terrain to pick apart their foe with superior maneuverability. The two flyers, while impressive looking, can't hide. Pretty much anything the enemy can see will be turned into a flaming wreck by the end of turn one, or shaken/stunned.
Been busy so didn't get much done on the squad of warriors, but I did have a little time to start basecoating my Lelith Hesperax figure that I've had sitting around assembled and primed since the day it was released. Originally, I had no intention of getting into yet another army, but I think this vile vixen slowly corrupted me over time as she sat on my work table.
I forgot she was barefoot until I opened these pics up in Photoshop. Oops.
As you can tell, for those evil space elves what have bare skin showing, I'm going for a darker "tanned" look to contrast with the white armor, and all hair will be red. I also never noticed Lelith had a power source on the back of her sports bra until I started putting paint on. Although hard to tell in this shot, her "clothing" is going to be a brighter white than the armor plates, and will probably be something I carry over to the Wyches, once I start building some.
I also bought a Finecast Lelith some time back that might end up mounted on a Hellion board, or might get a different weapon loadout and sub in for a Succubus. We'll see.
-BCK
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2012/05/09 21:17:39
I've always wanted to paint a bone white army of some kind and I thought it would be a nice twist for the aptly named "Dark" Eldar.
As for Lelith, I normally try to stay away from the studio schemes, but I needed to have some red on all the figures to tie the scheme together(most of the warriors won't have visible hair, but all of their skin trophies/tabards will be red), and the hair was the easiest way to work that in with the Wyches.
l33tninj4 wrote:Interesting idea, the purple-ish shade to the bone really adds a nice contrast.
Yeah, the Ogryn Flesh has a red tint to it and then the Devlan Mud on top does make it look a bit purple. In doing the bone color, I wanted to mix it up from the norm a bit.
quote=wildboar]I'm 4 Grotesques and 1 Ravager away from completing my army so will be putting it up on here in a week or 2 (hopefully!)
Will be (embarrassingly ) my first ever completely painted army (until they release the Voidraven and Vect ofc!)
Looking forward to seeing your Duke getting underway, I cheated somewhat and used this guy:
You're much closer to a finished army than I am, and congrats on that. I had a Blood Angels army years and years ago, right when 3rd ed came out, but it wasn't painted to my satisfaction. Since then, I've not had a fully painted or even close to a finished army since then. I have a bad habit of being so terribly self critical of my work that I make myself give up on projects. I'm hoping to carry through with the DE here, and I have restrain myself with the relatively quick paint jobs on my troops to keep from going back and taking more time to make them look better.
As for Lokhir, he's a very cool figure, not to doubt, but it just doesn't really have the DE feel for me. While googling for Duke conversion ideas, I saw someone who had removed the kraken helm and replaced it with a DE helm and it went a long way toward making it fit in better, but still stood out too far from the pack imo. Since I've decided to go with a female HQ, I can't go that route, even with some hefty converting.
I wouldn't worry about doing a lot of work for nothing. With a new edition just around the corner, everything could be dumped on its head.
If they allow transports to grant relentless to units inside while it moves (one of the rumors) raiders filled with Kabalites would become an amazing unit. Or a swing in flyers power could end ravagers reign of competitive play.
Either way, I look forward to seeing more of your Kabal!
Goresaw wrote:I wouldn't worry about doing a lot of work for nothing. With a new edition just around the corner, everything could be dumped on its head.
If they allow transports to grant relentless to units inside while it moves (one of the rumors) raiders filled with Kabalites would become an amazing unit. Or a swing in flyers power could end ravagers reign of competitive play.
Either way, I look forward to seeing more of your Kabal!
Very true, and a very good point. In fact, that's first of several reasons why I put my Craftworld Eldar army on hold - to see how the chips fall with a new codex.
And thanks! I look forward to seeing more of my Kabal too, lol.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2012/05/10 03:35:21
I saw the Avengers today and spent most of the evening out with some friends, but I did get some more work on Lelith's skin tones. Unfortunately, none of the front or side pics turned out very well, so here's the rear view I didn't include previously.
I started over on Lelith for several reasons, but the two biggest were some casting defects I hadn't noticed initially and that the goofy strap going from her left stocking to her thong really bugged me. It makes no sense and incredibly odd and impractical if it were real, so I scraped it off, let her soak in Simple Green overnight, and started fresh earlier today. I also kept her arms off for now because it was becoming a real PITA to paint her face with my brush constantly bumping the knife in her right hand. Since both arms have some sort of armor to fit flush against the arm stumps, I don't have to worry about trying to match up the skin tones from different painting sessions.
I primed her with zenithal lighting in mind to help guide where the shadows and highlights will go. I also think I finally came up with a good camera and lighting arrangement for better pics, so without further ado:
Next I started laying down the skin tone, thinned down somewhere between a glaze and a wash. If you build it up slowly over the primer like this, not only does it make for a smoother base overall, but you can also get a jump start on your highlighting by simply putting less paint on the high areas:
And here's the first couple layers of shadows being worked in as well as the hair and tankini getting a few thin basecoats:
C&C welcome as always,
-BCK
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2012/05/12 04:01:19
Naw, she's gonna be pretty well tanned, as will any other models with exposed skin. Part of that decision is that with the bone white armor, really pale skin on Wyches would just be too much of a similar shade, where the darker skin complements the white armor quite well.
The other part is that I can do darker skin tones much easier than the pale ones. I tried to paint the old GW Red Duke figure for a friend's VC army years ago, and he wanted the skin to be a light grey color - I had the hardest time with it.
That being said, it's still been a LONG time since I painted this much bare skin on a figure, and I'm feeling very rusty.
*edit*
I think the hardest thing about painting flesh is that to looks good, the base, shadows, and highlights all have to be smooth. In contrast, most armor or clothing you can get away with much rougher transitions and it can still look great.
The way I do skin tones is to use a lot of very thin layers. Years ago, I wanted to get into airbrushing and took some private lessons, and after some basic stuff, the big project to learn on was a painting of Clint Eastwood from one of his Man With No Name movies, and lemme tell ya, it was quite a surprise to see how this guy started on the skin with a bright yellow color and then sprayed on lots and lots of very thin layers of reds, blues, purples, and even greens to make this incredibly rich and vibrant skin tone. He never used pure white or black as shortcuts, nor was I allowed to either.
So start with a base color and plan where you want it to go. For this tanned skin tone, I mixed small amounts of red and green colors(P3 Sanguine Base and Cryx Bane Base to start) and thinned them down until they look like tinted water. Even a normal wash consistency is too strong. It might take longer to do, but it ultimately gives you much more control and if you happen to accidentally put the brush somewhere you didn't mean to, the color is so light it won't be noticeable in most cases. I also think that layering colors like that also makes a more vibrant and realistic skin tone by mimicking subsurface scattering(light passing through our translucent skin and picking up colors from muscle tissue, blood vessels, blood, etc).
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2012/05/12 09:13:12
I appreciate the compliment! You're pretty good yourself. I used to be a lot better than I am now, and even did commissions for a little while, but I am cursed with a bad habit of having too many hobbies. I got away from painting for so long that everything I do now I think looks terrible and have to fight to with my internal critic to keep going.
Vanq wrote:Thanks for the breakdown Kage, I've gone an made my Splinterborn with bare heads, so I'll try to put those tips into production!
I hope it helps.
And an update on ol' Lelith:
The camera wasn't cooperating today and kept giving me problems with focusing. The shading I did on her stockings and sports bra got washed out. Ah well. Still, some progress is good, right?
Correct. Despite countless millennia of evolution, technological advances and civilization, we're still monkeys throwing feces at things we don't like.-Zed.
Imperial Flyers don't actually "fly" they just go fast enough that they fall in an arc that keeps them parallel to the ground. -Clockwork Zion
Revilers 6,000pts
Dark Eldar 4,000pts
Cadian 229 regiment 3,000pts 
) my first ever completely painted army (until they release the Voidraven and Vect 
