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.

Hiya thanks for reading!
I'm going to paint up a few more troops for my eldar and then I want to ally in some venoms, ravages and raiders.
I copied my current scheme from anarchy models but I'm a bit torn on using the same technique for de or something different.
Included is a current pic of my eldar style and a pic of each dark eldar I'm looking at

Anarchy models dark eldar
Pros: very fast to paint, similar style to my eldar, I like airbrushing
Cons: a bit to polished for DE in my opinion

Table top tactics dark eldar
Pros: look fantastic when finished and opportunities for freehand
Cons: sooo very slow to paint by hand

I would go with the Tabletop Tactics style.

Although I have never really considered DE paint styles to be "dirty" per se, most of them are very dark and muted. The Anarchy models style of DE makes me think more Corsairs because it is very bright, even brighter than your CWE IMO.

If you still wanted to do the airbrushing, I would probably go with black or grey as a base color with the hexagon pattern in a deep jewel tone. Since your CWE are predominantly purple and blue, a good offset would be red, although green would work to keep your models more towards an analogous scheme.

Why not a combination of both styles? The hex patterns are nice, but if you use them a bit more sparingly, you won't discard your opportunities for some freehanding on other spaces - like the sails, perhaps, for either hexes or freehand. You can also slightly invert the hex scheme so they are darker than the base colours. You like both styles, there's nothing to be lost by playing with the idea of a combination of both.