It's such a beautiful, coherent and dynamic looking army. Really this kind of blogs make dakka such a joy.

I love the scourges and the vehicles the most.

I can't emphasize how cool it is to be shown so much appreciation for my minis! It's extremely motivating.

Here's a couple photos of the army as it looks on display down at my local store, Atlier Fun, here in Hong Kong. Stop by if you're in the city! I wonder if I've got enough Dark Lances to take care of all those superheavies...





The long awaited picture of the undersides of my vehicles. Shame nobody ever sees them since they suck up a surprising amount of painting time!



I finally gave in and bought a new camera. I'm extremely impressed by how far the technology has come in 6 years. Makes taking photos so much easier.

It's been a long time since I checked out this blog. The whole army is fantastic!!!!

Your gona have to hanf you tanks from the roof, so everybody can see the awesome underside

You have a display case??! Woof! I have some "gorilla racks"... basically shop shelves.

Everything looks beautiful Jon. Very impressive. Should be in a nice case where people can enjoy them.

Hey guess what Jon I am in hong kong right now, I was already thinking about going to atelier fun. How far away is it from Langham place mongkok, which is in shanghai street?

@Techguard: Fun Atlier's website seems to be down for a server upgrade so here's the address, 2nd Floor, Bayfield Building, 99 Hennessy Road, Wanchai. Here's a link to a map:
http://www.funatelier.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=569&FID=3&PR=3
You can get there from Langham Place in Mongkok in about half an hour if you take the MTR (subway, including walking time) so you're actually reasonably close.

@Gitsplitta: That isn't my display case, it's the local shops!

Not the usual DE scheme, but it sure does look awesome. Excellent weathering and battle damage.

simply stunning.

after long long break from 40k, ive watched tons of pictures over last few days, still i was undecided what army to restart with.
ur DE army, good sir jon, is a true inspiration !

also big thanks to ur helpful tutorials on how you achieved various effects.
my first deed as new archon will be: steal and copy all the goodies you provided and combine it with a personal note.

last but not least, prolly not archon like: give credits to "turqoise 'tastic" scheme founder mech jon.

ps.: ordered already that turq primer

Had an unexpected day off work due to an unusually strong typhoon. The track was way south of us but we still got hit by some high speed wind gusts. The take away: having a painting day wins over having a work day!

The beast pack is coming along nicely, already looking quite gribbly. They're all at least basecoated now, with a few washes and details already applied. Now comes the fun bit of making the muscles look nice and gory. I just got my Forgeworld order in of flying Rippers to use as Razorwing flocks. Beautiful models. Can't wait to get them painted up.

Those beasts look great, though I'm looking forward to the winged rippers. How do you plan to paint them?

I didn't think that the typhoon was all that bad, Melbourne weather is worse almost every day in winter. I had a look at your army whilst I was in hong kong and by god it is amazing. I mean they look beautiful in person, after seeing them it makes me want to do more with my own painting. Thanks Jon for putting them on display, really was a amazing.

Just got home from a trip to Beijing! Saw some incredible sights but didn't have time to stop by any hobby shops like I usually like to do. I was staying with some relatives at Tsinghua University which has a stunningly beautiful campus but is too big to get around (and in or out of) convieniently without a bicycle.

Back to hobby comments now:

@clash0r: Great to hear I've given you some forward momentum for the hobby! I actually went out two weeks ago to buy a few more cans of the Turquoise spray so I don't have to worry about them dicontinuing the color before I finish!

@prime12357: I'm going to try either red wings with the pattern I've used on my Raider sails or turquoise wings to match the rest of my army. I'll sort of develop the rest of the scheme around one of those once I decide.

@Tech Guard: It's surprising cool to hear that my Dark Eldar became sort of a tourist destination in Hong Kong (at least for 1 person). Take any photos?

I couldn't take any photos, I was saving the battery for the national day fire works. Unfortunatly I left my camera charger back in australia so I couldn't charge the battery. It worked out well to stop by because I was on my way back from the peak. There seemed to be a painting comp on when I was there, did you enter?

Finished painting the actual beasts themselves, just need to do the bases now. I'll be starting on the flying Ripper Swarm "Razorwing Flocks"and the Beastmasters themselves next.



@Tech Guard: I did enter the painting competition but wasn't lucky enough to win anything. While I had hoped for a decent chance, I wasn't really expecting to win because, as slowly as I paint, my goal is to paint enough models to make an army to regularly play games with. There's a whole extra level of detail and polish that goes into painting smaller groups of models for a painting comp.

They look great mate, really looking for forward to the rippers and beastmasters. Are you planning on converting the BM's masks to be similar to the faces of the rippers?

Loving the shiny muscles and gore on those beasts


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just looking back up at that display cabinet, it's nuts to think how much all of those miniatures cost, I can see £1200 in titan and thunderhawks alone!

I like them more than the GW models! Price wise they are smarter too, great job.

Three quick things:

1. Congrats on earning a spot in the display case at the FLGS. You invested a lot in that army and it shows.
2. The beasts are great and they represent what I love about 40k, namely, the possibility of great kit-bashes a.k.a. conversions.
3. Looking at your Hellions, did you paint the rider and the board separately or did you glue the riders on first?

Keep up the inspiring work.

I know it sounds like an odd question, but what are you going to do once you have finished the DE?
Also which model was it that you entered in the comp?

Mechanicum Jon
Wan Chai, Hong Kong, 1985

Dry Gardens, 2011
Sand, Milliput and Plastic: approx. 4 x 1 cm

With Dry Gardens Mechanicum Jon once again invites us to contemplate both imperfection and limitation.
We know there are 15 stones, yet in this imperfect world we do not see them all.
The viewer is free to rearrange the groups of stones.

Wouldn't it be easier to get, you know, real rocks?

Bases are just about ready to go!



@kitch102: That's a great idea for the Beastmasters' masks. I don't have any spare rippers but I do have some spare 'Stealer and Tyranid Warrior faces. I'll try to shave them down to see how they look.

@Dark_Gear: I paint the riders and boards separately. In fact, I've found that painting the upper and lower halves separately makes painting some of the copper parts easier. I love conversions too. But after doing a near 100% converted Mechanicus Guard army it was kind of refreshing to work on a straight up painting project. Although obviously I couldn't entirely resist the urge to convert either.

@Tech Guard: I honestly have no idea what I'll do after the Dark Eldar. There's still probably a year's worth of painting to do within the Dark Eldar range of models! I entered the Reavers and the Venom on the advice of the shop into the competition.

@whalemusic360: Real rocks might be easier but I couldn't find any of suitable shape and size for basing around Hong Kong. Also, the fact that the Milliput can be easily shaped (by breaking bits off) makes it easy to fit the "rocks" to the base size and adapt the base to a model's pose. Finally, the bases are also still really light so I don't generally worry about the mini flying off the base if I drop it.

Really nice bases and your entire army is just amazing. Also congrats on getting it into your local FLGs.

Nurgle seems to have taken an interest in me today. Just a minor head cold for now since I seem to be passing my Toughness tests.

These Winged Rippers are going to be used as counts as Razorwing Flocks. Gorgeous models. Quite a challenge to put together though since there are so many small breakable resin bits involved.



I also made good progress on the Khymerae bases and intend to post pictures of the completed models tomorrow! Unless I'm afflicted with something else during the night...

@Farty Wiffmas: Thanks for the comment! My FLGS said that anecdotal comments from customers suggest that I've increased their sales of Dark Eldar.

The rippers look nice. It must be interesting to hear that you're increasing sales. You should ask for a commission

So, those of you who have been following this conversion project on this blog will know that I was having some trouble getting these to look right. Your suggestions and constructive criticism really helped me to pull this unit together through several iterations. But enough talk, time for the wildlife photos!

First, two photos taken among the beasts:





Big photo from above, Wilde-beast stampede style:



The "magazine" cover shot:



Finally, the end you'd want to be facing you on the battlefield!

I applaud your effort on these Jon. I know you've struggled with them but the final result is well worth while.

Agreed. All the effort has really paid off. They look great together as a unit, and should contrast really well with the rest of the army. The exposed muscle is a nice touch.

I Love this scheme the colors and all. GREAT work The Kymeraes are beautiful, great idea fluff-wise. I especailly like those glowing green eyes

Amazing...your first Khymarae were, I admit kind of iffy, given the outstandingness of your other models...now they are definitely the best I've seen, and that includes my friends (and he's pretty awesome too). Very nice.

Great looking army. Awesome minis getting awesome paint job.

The contrast between the bright turquoise base color and the dirty weathering and chippings is really nice.

So, I decided to use the same technique on the Ripper wings as I did on my vehicles' sails. That way these "Razorwing Flocks" will help tie the Beastmaster squad in with the rest of the army. These took so long because I kept accidentally breaking wings and legs off! Ended up doing a lot more pinning than I wanted to, but I think the end result was worth the trouble.

I changed the arrangement of the Rippers from the in progress pictures, looks better from more angles. I'm going to paint one more of these swarms and then it's on to the Beastmasters themselves to finish up the unit.

If I hadn't seen it I wouldn't have thought it'd have worked, but it totally does - nice work mate

Those are fantastic Jon.... wow...

Gitsplitta wrote:Those are fantastic Jon.... wow...

What he said. Love the rippers man; great work. Would probably fit in really well with the rest of the army too! Look forward to the finished beast-packs man, beautiful job as ever.

Wow, I love how the Rippers remind of the Raiders sails...

Epic !

Amazing, The carapace is just stunning!

The rippers are looking great. I wasn't fully sold on the idea before, but I am now. Can't wait to see the full pack.

So, I spent a couple hours last night and tonight trying out different combinations of parts for the Beastmasters. I've seen various people use the Reaver "faceplate" heads but I wanted something a bit more feral in appearance. I tried shaving down various heads and skulls to use as helmets or masks, which I think was a really cool concept. But, the scale always seemed a bit off and so the skulls looked a little goofy.

Here's my latest concept which I'm liking so far. The Dark Elf Warrior head gives the model an appropriately brutish look, bringing to mind an executioners mask. I also shaved down the Clawed-fiend skull from the Venom to add a bit of bone to tie in with the rest of the Beast Pack.

That looks amazing! The use of the clawed fiend skull is amazing, can't wait to see him finished!

I really like the concept and pose, I'm just not too sure if the heads a little out of proportion... Could just be the picture as its displayed on my phone though...

Other potentials could be kroot, and the (i think its a) kroot skull from the raider 'spikes', wdyt?

As always, keep up the awesome work

Great pose! There's a great sense of motion which totally works with that character. The beastial shoulder pad really fits as well, nice catch.

The head on the other hand seems to be of a wrong scale, as though the head is too broad for a Space Elf. Have you thought of possibly using the Scourge's bare head? Adding Krott spikes or one of the many Dark Eldar hair extensions would go a long way to tie everything in yet sticking to similar features.

Regardless of critique, I'm sure you'll amaze us.

Your models are absolutely gorgeous, especially the wings on the Scourges. I was considering getting a DE army after my Daemons but I've had so many ideas for painting by reading through this thread. Definitely stealing the naturalistic wings (and having them all feathered).

Can I ask however, how did you do the beautiful hair on your Dark Eldar? It sort of looks like Astronomicon, Asurmen, Skull to me, but I'd love some tips .

Feth! I typed up a fairly long post and the Dakka Ork decided to eat it ! Actually, I clicked submit, got the Dakka Dakka maintenance page and accidentally closed the window instead of clicking Back ! Well I've go to go get dinner so this will be brief this time around .

Your comments helped me decide to change the head. I had concerns that the head was a bit big and since you guys saw it too it wasn't just me! I think that having the Beastmasters all with bald heads, tatoos, whips and the Clawed Fiend skulls should be enough to distinguish them from the Hellions.



Also started on the second Winged Ripper swarm. Only two on this base so I can be a cheapass gamer and have the option to field 4 bases out of a single 3 Ripper x 3 base Forgeworld order.



@LadyCassandra: Glad to hear you got some usable ideas out of the thread! The hair is Skull White and Vallejo Electric Blue. You need surprisingly little blue.

Can't believe I've not seen this thread. Tagging it for reference to great painting techniques. The army is absolutely stunning. Great color choice and consistency throughout the entire army. Will be coming back to this thread when I have more time to really digest all the details. Thanks for posting.

The new head works a lot better. As you said so eloquently yourself:

Beastmasters all with bald heads, tatoos, whips and the Clawed Fiend skulls should be enough to distinguish them from the Hellions

The bald head will indeed make for a better canvas for some tattoos which, based on your painting skills, will surely be awesome.

Looking forward to seeing the end result.

Time for your daily dose of Dark Eldar:

The second Beastmaster conversion, but the first to be painted. I think I painted him first because I was more confident that the first guy would look good. If that makes any sense. I painted one model to completion (sans Skyboard) first because I wanted to make sure that the concept worked before working on the others. I'm really pleased with the pose and overall look of the model with him getting ready to lash out at a beast. The empty hand was actually the hardest bit of the conversion as I had to scrape away the splinter pistol from the original Helliarch arm.







@Sarigar: Feel free to post if you come up with any questions while looking through the thread. Thanks for the complements!

@Dark_Gear: Sort of cheated on the tattoos for this guy since the head had them pre-sculpted!

Your army is just stunning! The beast master is looking great so far, I'm really liking the facial tattoo.

Hrmm, the bronze and the brown seem a little too similar to each other, especially when they're placed right next to each other, such as the brown glove holding the whip. That's pretty much the only thing that's nagging me, otherwise, great paintjob!

Looking really good, the beasts especially, love the use of all the different parts, waiting for more goodies

Loving the Beastmaster! (glad you changed the head)

I think Lady Cassandra hit the nail on the head, though. I think the whip needs to be brighter so it doesn't get lost. It looks kinda meh on an otherwise super-awesome paint job.

The beastmaster looks ace, nice detail with the face tattoos.

Keep it up

This is a great looking army, lot's of really good ideas to loot and modify!

The painted beastmaster looks really savage and on edge. I dig it!

Quick update today.

Changed the whip handle to silver to help visually separate the whip from the hand.



Started the basecoat on the other two guys.

Yep, that did it Fantastico!

Yup, that works to break it up. Do like their almost swarthy skin tones and all that brown leather. Makes them look really outdoorsy .

They look really great, and should go well with the beast pack, too. The skull on the shoulder is especially nice

The rippers look great, as do the beastmasters. The paint scheme is excellent. I like your decition to change the handle to silver, it definitely finishes the model perfectly (sans the skyboard )

very inspirational

Thanks for all the complements again! I've got a tournament coming up in a bit less than three weeks and still have a bunch of stuff to paint to get ready for it. It crept up on me faster than I expected! I'm pretty sure that there's enough time for me to finish but I'm going to use most of my free time to make sure I do ! That means that there's going to be a bit of a lull in the blog until then, but look forward to lots more painted mini's in a few weeks! That being said, I'll try to put some progress photos up during the weekend.

Remaining models:

3 Skyboards for Beastmasters
1/2 of a Ravager
1 Venom
5 Trueborn, 2 with Dark Lances

Working on the Ravager first.

This is simply amazing, I just went through all 12 pages! I would love to be able to pain like that, it is almost defeating to attempt something like this and know you will come well short of it.

Love that main color, ravager looks great as well

Good luck for the tournament - the army is looking amazing.

So, I should be painting but I wanted to show these guys off!





@Quinthalas: Glad you liked the thread! Congrats on your first post on Dakka!

Nice work Jon. They turned out great!

Are you going to take pics of the battles too?

Wow. Those guys are just special. The shoulderpads look particularly nice.

Hey John with the Tamyia coral blue did you prime the models with it, or did you prime them with another colour?

Finished a Ravager over the weekend and made good progress on a Venom. 12 days to go and the to do pile for the tournament stands at:

1/2 Venom

5 Trueborn

I'm sure the list looks laughably small to many of you, but you all know how slowly I paint!


@Gitsplitta: Thanks for your consistency in commenting on almost everything I've posted!

@Quinthalas: I'll snap a few shots for the blog, but probably not every turn. I forget things enough during tournament games enough already without the extra distraction!

@Foxtale: Thanks, I've found that the skulls a good "Not a Hellion!" visual cue for the models.

@Tech Guard: Sometimes I spray models with a white undercoat to help the blue get a "grip" on the model. Other times I can't be bothered to switch cans or I'm running out of blue. It's either one light coat of white and two light coats of blue or three light coats of blue. Doesn't make a big difference to the end result. I couldn't tell you which of my models I did in one way or the other.

*shrug* I like your work.

Gitsplitta wrote:*shrug* I like your work.

What he said.

Don't let your work back up...I was up until 5am the night before the NOVA Open painting...but then, I'm excessively slow.

Thanks Jonh!! I was thinking of getting some Tamyia red for my blood angels and some of the plague green for my plague marines. So I thought I would ask before I sprayed them.

Any way the army has come a long way since I was in hong kong. And I managed to find some pics of your army amongst some of the other pictures. Can't wait to see how you do in this tournament, hopefully you will snag players choice or best painted .

So, I was trying to take some pictures of the new Ravager in natural light this morning. Didn't work too well, but I did get this neat picture of the Ravager's shadow. There's something compelling about the silhouette, but I can't quite define just what that is. I'm imagining a scene where a Ravager is silently gliding above the snow on a bright moonlit night, casting a long shadow. That sort of thing.



Here's a shot of the actual Ravager. Natural morning sunlight seems to be too bright for good photos. The ones I took in the game store of another Ravager in much poorer lighting on page 1 look a lot better! But, I hope it might be useful for someone to see the blue in sunlight.



I'm almost finished the Venom, just have to paint the two Splinter Cannons.

The ravager looks awesome. The weathering is top notch, and the rune on the front looks really good too. Can't wait for the venom.

The picture of the shadow makes me hear the theme song for Jaws in the background for some reason.

Venom's done! Well, minus the gunner, but I've got to make sure I finish everything that's critical before the tournament!





5 Trueborn left to go!

Go Jon!

You're golden! The venom looks great!

I love this blog; it always has something that makes my jaw drop! That venom is just beautiful, in fact it's a piece of art!

Pumpin' out quickly!!

makes my DE army look like #$%&!

Those of you who have been following the blog for awhile, and a number of you who have just discovered it and read it through in one go , will be familiar with just how iffy my stuff looks during the early stages of painting. So without further adieu, get the goggles ready for this one.

Freshly sprayed shiny teal Trueborn on a field of pink!

ARRRRRRGH!!!! It burns us! It bites!!

Takes it away!

*gollum*

I think how terrible they start out makes the end result all the more stunning, Jon.

Damn, I'm glad I don't play DE and have to face the fact that mine will never look so good. lol

Strangely, you last pic reminds me of Andy Warhol.

"Sigh" If only I had of known.

SlaveToDorkness wrote:
Damn, I'm glad I don't play DE and have to face the fact that mine will never look so good. lol

Seriously, i came across this blog because i was thinking about creating a DE army because they just seem fun. But at the moment Im glad i dont have any to be put to shame by this. Jon i know it was discussed awhile back but the symbol/icons on the front of your vehicles are inspiring. and your color scheme is brilliant.

Pfft, learn to paint, noob.

Okay, but seriously, thank you. These are absolutely amazing. I've been struggling to finish my own dark eldar army because I wasn't satisfied with my color scheme, and my new color scheme wasn't "dark" enough. You've inspired me to keep going and to learn how to properly weather my models.

Mechanicum Jon wrote:Those of you who have been following the blog for awhile, and a number of you who have just discovered it and read it through in one go , will be familiar with just how iffy my stuff looks during the early stages of painting. So without further adieu, get the goggles ready for this one.

I always thought it helped us appreciate the final product...

Great stuff as always Jon!

This in progress shot might be interesting because it shows how my stuff looks before washes and highlights. For some reason the Trueborn as they are now remind me of World of Warcraft characters. Might be because of how "flat"they look right now. Back to painting! I've got some practice games scheduled tomorrow and hope to have these mostly done tonight, minus the bases!

The weathering looks really good, it's just the right amount. Can't wait to see them done.

awesome, as is this whole thread. good luck!

Trueborn are almost done, just need to do the rust. The bases are also built but need painting. Hopefully I'll be finished tomorrow and have some time on Friday night to review the latest FAQs.

Had two really good practice games last weekend against Blood Angels and Deathwing. Lost both, although the Deathwing game was close. I'm blaming dice luck for the Blood Angels loss . Shot about 20 darklight weapons at him on the first turn, only managed to shake a Landraider and immobilize a Razorback.

He shot back, exploded 3 Raiders and a Ravager, two of the Warrior squads that dropped out pinned themselves! Still it helped me get into the tournament frame of mind since I made sure not to give up and managed to claw things back to where I had destroyed or disabled over 1/2 of his army.

Love the look and the progress on the kabalite skewers.

Never seen anyone do such amazing painting on the sprue...

Sounds like you had a good time at your tournament. That's the most important part. Tweaking your list and play style will come with time.

Great as usual on the trueborn, and good luck at the tournament!

weathering is beautiful
highlights are very straight and even
nothing not to like about your painting

I was actually a bit surprised at how excited I was to stick the last model to it's base and complete the army for the tournament. I started this army just a couple weeks shy of a year ago and it feels really good to have completed this long term goal ! Really appreciate all the comments and support everyone has been giving!

I'm actually using almost everything I've painted except for the Scourges (who will feature in an Incubi heavy build), a handful of Hellions and a few Reavers. So it seems like my discipline held pretty well. But I'm now really looking forward to painting some other Dark Eldar miniatures without the tournament looming over me!

Those are some really nice Dark elder

Cool, glad you got them done. It is a great feeling having all your stuff finished. Although that feeling usually comes to me at 3am the morning of a tournament. lol

Gotta love a hard deadline for keeping you focused... well done Jon. Best of luck in your tournament.

Good look at the tournament, you've put so much hard work into this you should insta-win!

Awesome stuff bro. I really like the symbols painted on your hulls, I think I'm going to do something similar with my vehicles.

Whats the list that you're taking to this tournament?

I just checked GW, and some of your models are on there (the jet bikes). Congratulations!

Good luck with the tournament
Happy Soul Hunting!

I'm leaving for the Day 1 of the Tournament in 20 minutes! Couldn't wait till after the tournament to get started on some new stuff so I painted up a test Incubus. I wasn't too sure of the horned heads because of the Chaos vibe so I was saving up the plumed Warrior heads for this. Let me know what you think.

Looking good for a test unit. The idea of changing their helms from the horned to the plumed variant is also a great idea.

Looking at the sword though, the blue runes seem to get lost due to the prevalence of that colour throughout the model. Maybe using the same that's in the eyes would help break up the colour a bit. Other than that, the level of pigment on the sword is "just right". Paint them all like this one (with different coloured runes) and you have another winner of a unit on your hands.

P.S.: break a leg during that tournament.

I think it'd still be cool to see your style on a horned Incubi. Think of it more as trophies from the baddest mother they killed, maybe an initiation, and not a mutation.

Day 1 of the tournament is done! I did surprisingly well and am at two wins and a draw right now going into Day 2! But the coolest thing might have been finding out from my opponents and the other players there that my mini's were featured on GW's Facebook page! I was getting congratulated all over the place . Would be really cool to get some comments from DakkaDakka on there !

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.316731285008375.98741.172179092796929&type=3

@whalemusic360: That's actually a neat idea! I might settle on one unit of plumed Incubi and one unit of horny ones.

@Dark_Gear: You're right, I think I'll give green a try. I'm just a bit concerned about them looking too plastic!

Congrats Jon! Good to hear you're doing well man, particularly with such a beautiful army and kind of unconventional list. Fingers crossed for a painting award too man!

I won Best Painted (or Best Servitor as it's known here) and Best General at the tournament!



To be clear though, Best General doesn't mean I won the tournament. It's a somewhat unique award here in Hong Kong for the person who killed the most victory points and gave up the least! So, I guess you could say that I was playing in character and ignored the objectives in favor of causing the most pain ! I was really surprised since usually the Best General is someone who is at least in the Top 3! I almost did manage 3rd place but couldn't roll the 4+ I needed for the game to continue! Still, a very successful tournament overall that was lots of fun!

Congrat's Jon, well deserved!

Best painted? Eh, considering how utterly gorgeous your Dark Eldar are, that's pretty much a given.

Well done on your tourney results though, really excellent. Any hope for batreps, or even brief overview/summaries?

Wow! Excellent result Jon. I imagined Best Painted would nearly be a given (as your army is clearly beautiful), but best general too and ~4th place!
Really well done man, all the hard work has clearly paid off.

What's next on the to-do list? Incubi and...?

Congratulations, and excellent work! I am glad you had a good time at the tournament!

Congrats Jon, fantastic achievement!

How do you do the damage effect on the armour? It looks fantastic. And congratulations on the trophies.

congrats!

First time I've seen this thread - brilliant work - subscribed.

Congrats man
I'll be back home in HK over the Christmas break
might I have the honor of playing against you?

Wonderful job at the tournament! Congradulations

Seeing your army the Best Painting isn't a surprise. Seeing that you play DE Best General isn't much of one either.

Congrats!

The image of my blue die sitting on the table showing a "2" when I needed a 4+ keeps replaying in my head . Although I suppose it was balanced out by me rolling a 6 for the result of a glancing hit on a Stormraven in Game 3 to immobilize it and force a draw!

Thanks to everyone for all the congratulatory messages!

@Warboss Gutrip: I'm probably not going to do full battle reports but I'll put up some quick impressions in a later post.

@Just Dave: As you said, Incubi are definitely next. I'll probably paint a squad if eight first and then start on some Wracks. Which will mean that I'll then need a Haemonculus. I'm almost through the giant stack of boxes of models I had at one point so we'll see if I finish those up first or if something else catches my fancy. This decision is complicated by the fact that the store gave everyone who took part in the tournament a coupon for 20% off one receipt!

@Imperial Monkey: I put up a weathering tutorial on Page 3 of this thread. You can also click through the thread to find the series of WIP posts for my Warriors which show the process pretty well.

@CalasTyphon216: Sure I'm up for a game. Send me a PM when you know what your schedule's like.

I actually didn't take pictures because I was so keyed up on playing the games! Also, the staff and other people were taking a lot of photos so I was pretty sure I could get some off them! Here's one taken at the end of the movement phase during my first turn of the tournament.

Wow. They really look great all together on the table.

The green glowing runes really give the model some extra "pop"! I also tried a horned head just to see how it looked. I think the horned look is growing on me, especially since I went for an all white helmet. I realized that a big part of what was bugging me about the horned helmets was the default GW paint scheme. For some reason having the top of the helmet black made the models look a little goofy, like they were wearing skullcaps with widow's peaks, or something like that! The white helmet really helps differentiate the Incubi as an elite unit on the tabletop. I just wish the Incubi were more viable as a foot unit so I could deploy them at the start of a game instead of hiding them in a Raider. Although I suppose if they're not out by Turn 2 I'm probably not using them right! I also repainted the back trophy racks blue to help frame the helmet and let the bronze horns stand out more.

Overall I think it's a big improvement! Agreed ?

Hmm... liking the overall effect but he's a bit over chipped IMHO.

As much as I love EVERYTHING else about this blog...

I can't quite accept the chipped white. Maybe it's just a little done? The rest looks absolutely fine, and it may just be the photograph, but at the moment I can't quite get on board with it...

Of course, it's still really well done/absolutely amazing/better than anything I could do in a million years; it's just compared to what I know you're capable of (ahem *scourges* ahem) it isn't quite there...

<3 the glowing runes though.

The green runes definitely work really well. You might want to feather out the glow a little wider to soften it up as well as use a slightly lighter green on the runes themselves to make them pop just a bit more, but they still look great as is.

Brass horns and white helmet... Golden. nuff said.

Weathering that appears too strong to some... The Incubi are in the thick of it, getting dinged all and struck all day long, they should be more weathered.

As far as thinking you're not using the Incubi properly if they're not out by turn 2, don't worry about it. In my last tournament, I actually kept my Wyches in their Raider for a whole round. They kept to the edges, taking Lance Shots at Terminators for most of the game and didn't do anything until turn 4 and 5 where they swooped in and dumped some poison shots to finish off a lone Marine before zooming off to claim an objective. Tactically, they were more useful as a threat than in combat for that first game but they still played an important role in the battle. Much like Wyches, Incubi are the sort of unit that can be held back to deal with threats reactively rather than pre-emptively. Anyone who's seen them in action before will remember how quickly they can chop up a squad and that lesson will keep your opponent 18-24 inches away from wherever the Incibi are positioned. In one sense, you don't always have to "make up your points" to measure a unit's return on investment. If you create a safety bubble for other squads and prevent your opponent from getting KP's on the charge just by keeping your Incubi as a counter-assault unit, they've fulfilled their role in my mind.

I think he looks REALLY good. Such close-up shots are almost always unforgiving on models, so I think once he's taken at usual squad distance he'll look brilliant.
Definitely looking forward to you getting some Wracks too! That 20% off could go well with a Razorwing too.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mechanicum Jon wrote:@Imperial Monkey: I put up a weathering tutorial on Page 3 of this thread. You can also click through the thread to find the series of WIP posts for my Warriors which show the process pretty well.

You could also filter the thread to just Mechanicum Jon too (button under his profile picture) which could help whilst having all the brilliant work in 1 place!

I'm sure the jury didn't struggle much to decide which army deserved the "best painted" award...

Congrats on the tourney, and on flooding the GW site !

Congrats on winning and the new incubi is looking good, apart from the chips on the white: possibly a little to many!

Its perfect! Dont change a thing..

Congrats on the wins, Still loving your work on these guys.

This looks really sweet!

Earlier in the thread I mentioned that I had some bad Finecast casts that GW replaced. The replacement box also turned out to have two bad casts. However, this turned out to be a good thing overall since I can now field two units of 8 instead of the two units of 7 that I had originally intended out of buying three boxes.



These are the first Finecast models I've worked with and I have to say I'm not overly impressed. Right now I'd have to say that I prefer plastic and it's a toss up between metal and Finecast.

The Klaives in particular seem to have been slightly misaligned in all three finecast boxes. It's not noticeable on the tabletop because of the way they're posed. But when you look closely, especially at the fingers, you'll see that they don't quite line up. This also means that the top of the Klaive needs to be shaved down to hide the difference in height between the two halves. All in all the cleanup job on these probably took me longer than it would on plastic or even metal models. A lot of this was because the material is so soft that I constantly have to pay attention so that I'm not taking too much off or accidentally cutting off a fine bit of detail. On the plus side, they are MUCH easier to glue together and stay together much better than metal models.

I've kept the heads and the back vanes off for ease of painting.

nice job overall

Is finecast really that crappy? I've not yet had any... my flgs still has a lot of metalboxes. Especially when it comes to something exotic like Chaos Raptors

Glad to hear that your misfortune turned into a bonus of sorts.

As for the quality of Finecast, I share your sentiment. While glue does set really quickly compared to metal, it's not enough of a bonus feature compared to metal to make me like the new material. It is often misaligned an, as you pointed out, so soft that you just can't apply too much pressure or else too much material will be removed. So basically a 15-minute clean-up job turns into 2 hours.

When It takes 30 minutes more to clean up a Finecast Heamonculus than it takes to clean, pin and glue 3 Metal Hive Guard, something just isn't right.

Can't wait to see those 2 units all ready to go. They'll be fearsome sight on the battle field.

Finecast in itself isn't that bad
I have the following things in finecast: incubi, haemonculus, wracks, raptors, plague marines, skaven warlords, archaon, etc
the only thing that was really a problem was the incubi
even after using hot water to straighten the klaives, they keep bending out of shape and/or curling in the case
also i believe the problem with the halves not quite linning up is universal regarding the incubi box atm

Congrats on the trophies jon, very well deserved!

Re the incubi, why not reverse the helmet colours, so you have a brass / bronze helmet with white horns (for instance). The white stands out a little too much for me, as it doesn't really tie in to the rest of the colour scheme imo, whereas reversing it would still give you that accent colour, yet the bronze would tie in nicely to the rest of the mini.

Good call on the green runes to whoever suggested that, looks great!

On finecast, I now have 10 mandrakes due to miscasts, but I'm not complaining! And yes, I absolutely will be using them at some point, somehow, somewhere, for some reason!

The incubus looks really good, though I think that the white helmets should be spared the usual weathering so that they stand out a little more. In the same vein, maybe the armor could be a darker shade of blue so that they say stick out a little more.

hey jon how did you go about doing the feathered wings on your scourges?. Awesome log by the way I totally stole your marking on your raiders

Congratualtions on the trophies. You're army is beyond well done and you more than deserve them. Personally though I've always imagined Incubi more pristine, but what you've done you've done very well. Eager to see some more done.

Loving the Incubi. Keep it up

Felt like putting up some thoughts and observations on a number of scattered topics today, so here we go!

1. Enthusiasm: The Contagion
I had the pleasure of watching a friend get really excited about getting back into the hobby after about 8 or so years. He heard that Necrons were getting re-released and I offered to take him down to the local FLGS to take a look. It was just like we had stepped back into our old high school gaming group admiring mini's, discussing possible conversions and trying to decide what units should be purchased first. The difference of course being that now that we have jobs we can afford to think about buying an entire decently sized army in one go! Seeing someone so enthusiastic was surprisingly motivational.

2. Incubi Progress
I'm almost done basecoating the Incubi bodies. I'll put up some progress shots tomorrow. It's actually pretty useful to be getting so many, sometimes conflicting, opinions on the paint job. It sort of lets me look at the model with a fresh pair of eyes to see what could be improved. Sometimes it takes several iterations, but the end result tends to be much better, as you've all seen with the development of my Khymerae scheme. Although in this case I'm happy with the way the scheme is now. The one thing I've done is tone down the weathering slightly. I was really eager to get the first model done and was slightly too liberal with the paint chips. I don't necessarily think that there were too many chips but I do think that some of them were a bit too big.

After reading your comments I did stare at the test model for a while trying to imagine it in other colors. But I realized that for me the white face-place is a key feature of the Incubi's look. It was probably ingrained in me twelve years ago when Dark Eldar were first bundled in the 3rd edition boxed game and Incubi featured in White Dwarf! The old Incubi models are still my favorites out of the original DE range of mini's.

@Dark_Gear: That being said, you did come up with the perfect justification for them being a bit more banged up. It fits with my background too! Thanks for the very well written tactical tips as well. I'm also thinking about keeping a unit in reserve to keep those pesky kids out of my backfield.

@CalasTyphon216: It's good to hear that the misalignment problem is combined to the Incubi since I plan on building a bunch of Wracks. Misalignment is the one problem that's generally un-fixable!


3. Erotica is using a feather, pornography is using the whole chicken.

@Dahlberg66: I had a look back through the thread (can't believe it's 15 pages long now) and it seems that I haven't given a detailed tutorial on the Scourge wings. I was thinking of typing it out just now but the problem is it's fairly involved and will need some more thought. The short versions is to basecoat each layer of feathers with a different brown, do several layers of very light drybrushing, wash the darkest and lightest layers with Devlan Mud, and re-drybrush. That's your feather of a technique for today, I'll try to put up the whole chicken tomorrow.

I love how this army looks and feels. I'm very jealous of your talents displayed here. I espeacially love how you've done the etheral sails and the markins on your Raiders. Fantastic stuff! (I couldn't do that if I tried).

On a related tactic's question: What would you field against a 2'000 pt Blood Angels Mech list? I keep having to play this guy and I have'nt had much success of late with my list, so I am llooking to other DE player's to see where their heads are at.

Mechanicum Jon wrote:Felt like putting up some thoughts and observations on a number of scattered topics today, so here we go!

1. Enthusiasm: The Contagion
I had the pleasure of watching a friend get really excited about getting back into the hobby after about 8 or so years. He heard that Necrons were getting re-released and I offered to take him down to the local FLGS to take a look. It was just like we had stepped back into our old high school gaming group admiring mini's, discussing possible conversions and trying to decide what units should be purchased first. The difference of course being that now that we have jobs we can afford to think about buying an entire decently sized army in one go! Seeing someone so enthusiastic was surprisingly motivational.

I know when ever I look through the window of GW (I very rarely cross the threshold) it's full of 'kids' but I think it really is a big kids hobby!

@Dahlberg66: Here's a quick tutorial on how I painted the Scourge's wings. I've re-posted some photos from the thread so people don't have to go back through the thread to find reference material!

The finished squad:



An the wings. I still think this is a really cool image!



There are basically three “Sections” of feathers.

Section 1: Dark brown
Section 2: Warm brown
Section 3: White with black tips
Section 4: Turquoise armor (There’s a tutorial on Page 3 so I won’t go into this Section here)

I paint the wings as follows:

Step 1: Basecoat Section 1 with Calthan Brown + Chaos Black mix. Basecoat Section 2 and 3 with Khemri Brown.

Step 2: Do a “damp” drybrush of Bestial Brown over Section 2. A “damp” drybrush is where you dilute the color with about a 1:1 ratio with water and then proceed as you would with a normal drybrush technique. The point is to tint the base color and develop a softer texture. An airbrush would probably be easier but I haven’t got one!

Step 3: Very light drybrush of Deneb Stone + Khemri Brown mix over Sections 1 and 2 to highlight the feathers.

Step 4: Paint the ends to the feathers in Section 3 to about 1/4 to 1/3 the way up the feather with a Khemri Brown + Adeptus Battlegrey mix. This is to create a smoother transition from the browns into the black.

Step 5: Paint the tips of the wings in Section 3 with Chaos Black.

Step 6: Do several successively lighter drybrushes of the feathers in Section 3 with Skull white (except for the black tips of course!).

Step 7: Wash Section 3 with Devlan Mud and wait for it to dry.

Step 8: Do a very light drybrush of Skull White over Section 3 to re-highlight the feathers.

Step 9: Paint the wires and armor bits on the wings.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Steady progress on the Incubi, the basecoat and preliminary washes are done:



@worldwarme: I'd encourage you to give my techniques a go! I'm actually quite confident that I've developed techniques that can relatively easily be repeated by other people. I don't even think that there's any that I came up with on my own either! As for Mech BA suggestions, first I don't think you should or even need to build your list with an opponent in mind. A balanced list should give you the tools to feel like you can threaten any opponent even if you aren't completely optimized against them. That being said, at 2000 points the main thing you need to make sure is that you have 20+ darklight weapons in the army. This might sound like a lot but you can try figuring it out in your head or rolling it out with dice against Razorbacks with smoke up or otherwise in cover. But I wouldn't go full on darklight spam since you also need some anti-infantry to round it out. I've found a big beast pack to two to be a pretty good investment for counter-assault and screening purposes. And despite FNP, Venoms are still a great investment. I'd also recommend a couple shock prows for light tank-busting and anti-infantry.

@monkeyh: True, I'd actually be really interested in a spending by age bracket breakdown, although I doubt that information's available anywhere!

Thanks for the tutorial, although I don't do dark eldar it's still extremely helpful. The incubi look amazing already, so I can't wait to see them finished!

Looking good Jon! What did you do with the bat wings by the way? I have my first set of scourges on order and want to see what folk have done with them

Those Scourges are SO BEAUTIFUL.

Actually, I'm glad to have had an excuse to repost the Scourges. Out of the miniatures that I've painted they're near or at the top of the list of my favorites. I'll admit though that they aren't the most fun to paint (the wings in particular require huge time and attention commitments). It's more that they're the kind of miniature that I love having painted!

@kitch102: I've been thinking for a while about painting another squad of Scourges and using the bat wings on them. It just occurred to me that my Raider sail pattern might work on them, echoing the Winged Rippers as well.

I'm thinking Jon probably did the same thing I did with the bat wings, traded them for more feathered in order to get the same throughout the force.

The Incubi skewers are coming along nicely. But tomorrow is likely to be a non-painting day due to Thanksgiving dinner. So happy Turkey Day!

Mechanicum Jon wrote:The Incubi skewers are coming along nicely. But tomorrow is likely to be a non-painting day due to Thanksgiving dinner. So happy Turkey Day!

What color did you highlight the armor with?

is the base color hawk turquoise?

The base color is a Tamiya Coral Blue spray:

http://www.tamiyausa.com/product/item.php?product-id=85041

For touch-ups I've recently found that a mixture of Vallejo Ice Blue, GW Scorpion Green and Skull Whilte is the easiest to mix up and seems to be the closest match.

The highlights are done with Skull White + a tiny amount of Vallejo Light Turquoise. I've used other light blue colors for highlights on my other models and it doesn't seem to matter much as long as you get a slight blue tint.

Awesome stuff Jon! What do you call your DE army? I apologize if I missed that some where in your fantastic blog.

Your DARK ELDAR ARE AMAZING! i would love to see mandrakes or incubi from you :3 you are a god at painting! :3 You have truly inspired me to get better! ^_^

Reall good DE! Neat painting and good color scheme make them really stand-out. Good work

The Incubi skewers are coming along nicely.

=u= i didn't even see this post xD how didn't I? lol but looking AMAZING so far :3 now i just wanna see those mandrakes!

I never thought Dark Eldar would have an "auto win" build until now.

If I ever see yours across the table from me I don't think I'd bother unpacking mine. Instead I would just concede the game because my mini's are obviously unworthy of being on the same table...or even in the same building.

Great job!

I'm still making steady progress on the Incubi but I got sidetracked into putting together a conversion for a female Haemonculus. I've already got a stock Haemonculus model (unassembled and unpainted) but my Incubi list uses two Haemonculi and this conversion was the more exciting project. I really like the idea of each Haemonculus looking really different because they've all got different views on what the "perfect" form is and are constantly testing uniquely twisted and eccentric modifications on themselves. I had this conversion floating around in my head ever since I saw the Lhamaean model. The contrast between her slight build and the bulkier Incubi should make for a cool unit.

The conversion doesn't involve much but actually took me several hours! Most of this time was spent trying out various different bits and the particular posing of the arms. I actually am really pleased with the end result since it keeps the elegance of the original model while making it clear that she's a Haemonculus. I thought about giving her a mask of some sort but I'm kind of torn since I like the original sculpt a lot.

The only thing missing is the "spine levitation"but I've come up with some fluff that justifies it in my mind. Namely that this Haemonculus is a former High Lady who has just been inducted into a Coven and is "learning the trade." Hence she's got the extended spine "backpack" but it hasn't grown long enough to support her yet.

Looking forward to hearing what you think of her! She also needs a name, any ideas?







@IceAngel: The name I've been running with is "The Kabal of the Drowned Gardens."

sweet That is scary!

Oh, gawd damn it.

Another update, and just when I was starting to feel good about my own Dark Eldar again.

Kudos to Mechanicum Jon, fantastic as always

Really nice conversion there Jon. That leg coming through the part in the dress just really sells the elegant & viscous look.

That really works. I like how organic the back looks. It's like it's really part of her body (as opposed to how it looks on the stupid wracks).

Those look bloody amazing. the color scheme is epic other people usually go for dark colors with these models :p

Lovely looking conversion (as ever!) man! Looks great; doesn't even look like a conversion, but a proper model to me. Can't wait to see her painted up. My suggestion for her name would be 'Wendy'.
Like the title Cabal of the Drowned Gardens too. As ever, great job all round.

Epic conversion dude

i hope you don't mind I'm gonna steal that idea off you for my own Haemonculi

Man that is a sweet Conversion. i wanted to figure out a way to turn that model into my Archon. when i finnaly get funding for my own Kabal. Seriously thought Jon that is beautiful. Definately not the kind of woman i would wanna be on the bad side of.

Totally pleased by all the positive feedback! I love it when a conversion comes together. Must be how Haemonculi feel after a particularly grotesque experiment. With one big difference. If I mess up I'm out $20, if they mess up, well, plenty more where that one came from!

Right now I'm trying to work out how best to incorporate my paint scheme onto her. The easiest way to do it would be to do the dress in brownish red and the armor blue, but I'm not sure if that would be too much red. The Incubi are going to be finished first so I've still got some time to think about it!

@CalasTyphon216: When you wrote that you wanted to nick the idea it reminded me of the Durona Group from the Vorkosigan Saga and how cool an idea for a Haemonculi Coven that would make. For anyone who hasn't read the books (go read them they're brilliant), the Durona Group is a bio-medical service provider and research organization staffed entirely by the clones of its founder.

Looks pretty damn good. It's nice to have some variation in Haemonculous design if you indeed to field a few, I find that the default model repeated would be quite uninspired.

Maybe go for very muted colors on her robes and armor as well, but have her hair be turquoise?

The rust is still a bit wet on some of these and they aren't varnished yet, the rust will look a bit lighter once that's done. Finished the glowing runes. I didn't bother with super smooth blending work (too much other stuff I want to paint!) but I'm still pleased with the overall effect. Particularly when they're looked at as a squad.

Looking rubbish as ever Jon.

The OSL is looking sharp
I also like how you've gone about painting their robes. They really do look great all together.

Really cool models
Any advice for your weathering? I am going for the same designs, but I will be using a pale rose/salmon color.

@Just Dave: I read your comment in the mouse-over preview box of the forum and automatically mentally added the winking Ork to the end of it!

@prime12357:The robes were kind of fun to paint. Reminded me of my Ad-Mech army since they, and my avatar, were painted using roughly the same colors.

forruner_mercy: There's a tutorial on page 3 of this thread on how I do the weathering on my models. The most important thing is not to overdo it. I often go back over my models with the base color to remove some of the chips or use a q-tip to wipe off some of the rust.

Thanks Jon!

As usual, great stuff!

Almost done with the Incubi, just the back ornaments and bases left to be painted.

I'm getting exited to see them finished. The white on the helmets looks cool.

Incubi. When an Archon just wants something to be dead.

Completed the first Incubi squad today. I actually said "Holy F*ck" under my breath when I lined them up for the first time because of how cool the squad looked!

Can't wait to paint up my Haemonculus to see how she looks with her bodyguard!

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Really nice work Jon.

Looking rubbish as ever Jon.


Seriously; they look great. Incubi are among my favourite models from the new DE range and as ever; you've done them great justice! I don't think the scheme works as well on them as it does some other units, but as ever man, it looks brilliant.
What's next?

I do believe that the phrase is "Holy F*ck!" The incubi really look great all together.

Just Dave wrote:What's next?

Indeed. I can't wait to see what comes up.

They look awsome jon!!!

Well Done Jon!

Prime12357 said:
I do believe that the phrase is "Holy F*ck!" The incubi really look great all together.

I concur. these models are beautiful. The scaled back weathering on the heads really works and i love the green runes. And i know its been talked about before but your basing really does look great.
Cant wait to see the Haemonculus all painted up keep up the fantastic work

BossSlurpee wrote:Well Done Jon!

Prime12357 said:
I do believe that the phrase is "Holy F*ck!" The incubi really look great all together.

I concur. these models are beautiful. The scaled back weathering on the heads really works and i love the green runes. And i know its been talked about before but your basing really does look great.
Cant wait to see the Haemonculus all painted up keep up the fantastic work

Really? I thought it was "HOLY FETH!"

@Just Dave:

Seriously; they look great. Incubi are among my favourite models from the new DE range and as ever; you've done them great justice! I don't think the scheme works as well on them as it does some other units, but as ever man, it looks brilliant.

I'll agree that the scheme works better on some models than others. Which has the upside of keeping me from feeling like I'm doing the painting equivalent of running a razor-spam list! But honestly, I am really pleased that the scheme has worked out so well. When I started painting Warriors I remember worrying that they would look too blue and wouldn't tie in well with the Hellions I had just done!

@Boss Slurpee: Every time I start assembling and painting bases I sort of regret not just buying pre-made resin ones since it takes so long. But once they're done the finished models generally succeed in convincing me that the effort was worth it!

@Captainsolstice: Please. "Holy Feth" for weak willed Mon-Keigh who cannot bring themselves to utter the true words.

Mechanicum Jon wrote:@Captainsolstice: Please. "Holy Feth" for weak willed Mon-Keigh who cannot bring themselves to utter the true words.

I concur!

Loving your Kabal Of Cunningly Hidden Vowels Jon Another brilliant job. Do me a favour and completely screw something up for once?

HAHA!

saw your stuff in person today
they look awesome together as an army

Such a tasty and consistent army. The scheme looks great.

I've slapped on some paint to start with. Thinking hard about what color the various bits should be.

She's going to look really nice. I'd think a lot of dark, oily metal for the mechanical arms with gold accents, perhaps. As for the hair, purple or green maybe?

Looking pretty wicked for a start. Im going to have to agree with Prime on this one darker metal colors most definitely. and i think the right purple would be a great choice. Fluff-wise Haemonculi live in like the deepest darkest almost sewer places of Commorragh. I think the trimmings at least should reflect that. greasy dark metals and strange arcane wargear that glows. Glowing arcane stuff is best.

Loved when you started! Loved When your in the middle and STILL LOVE HOW YOU DO IT NOW }~{ GET MANDRAKES!!!!!

Painting on sticks, if I had that much planning I'd try it. I was stressed I had 3 marines to paint!

Quick update before I leave for work! I brought the highlights up another level. The hair is still in it's early stages.

Gotta love that bustiere. Nice work Jon, good mix of colors and form.

Awsome! Love the blue on the DARK eldar. Not expected but amazing result

Gitsplitta wrote:Gotta love that bustiere. Nice work Jon, good mix of colors and form.

Female elf = massive boobs, dont know why, its just the rules.

Female elf = massive boobs, dont know why, its just the rules.

They call it heroic scale for a reason

I've painted her glowing scabbard and vials as a visual link to her Incubi bodyguard. Or maybe she just likes glow sticks. I also realized that I'd now have a fully painted Lhamaean, if it wasn't for that grotesque mutated growth on her back that needs painting!

Looking really good so far! imo she needs more blue! maybe blue on the middle part of the bionics and black for the metalbits on the ends (with a really extreme final highlight) I think that would tie her in with the army and look cool

So, I had a really productive day of painting and finished my Lady Haemonculus! A big thanks to everyone who commented and helped me think through the color scheme. A particular thanks to SnakeByte for the suggestion to use blue on the arms. Just that little bit more blue on the model made the color-scheme "click" in my mind and tied it in with the rest of the army!

I've also come up with a short bit of fluff for her and her Incubi bodyguard:

Suvarsara "The Maul"
(I fully expect this to be bastardized into "Sara the Harmonculus." )

Suvarsara's petition to be inducted into a Haemonculi Coven was unremarkable. Just another noblewoman grown numb to all the more "civilized" depravities available in Commorragh after several centuries of reveling in them. However, unlike the thousands of Commorrites who were inevitably turned into mindless Wracks by the Haemonculi after several weeks or months of growing addicted to increasingly extreme mental and bodily modifications, her petition actually succeeded. The Coven's reasons for accepting her are unknown, but rumors spreading among the Kabals center on the enhanced abilities of the sizable Incubi bodyguard she has surrounded herself with. It is thought that she has taken the unprecedented step of distilling a new variety of combat drug which is actually acceptable to the Incubi. Some have taken to derisively calling her "The Maul" due to the brutal and straight-forward way she throws her bodyguards into every battle, the unparalleled martial skill and controlled killing intent normally displayed by Incubi transformed into something more akin to a berserk rampage.











and finally a shot of her with a few of her bodyguards, I'll be trying them out for the first time on the tabletop tomorrow!

I'm amazed at how well that works. And the paint looks great!

Sweet.

All kinds of awesome congrats on a great conversion and fantastic paint job. Good call snakebyte on the back pack colours too

this is looking really really nice! She ties in with the squad perfectly! really nice work! I am especially impressed with the face! I think faces and especially eyes and the impression you can give with them are really tough to make look good and right! *

Once again really great work.

Wow. That looks brilliant man. I was a bit unsure of her on the side close-up shots, but on the near and far (with Incubi) shots, "Sara the Harmonculus" (it's already started) looks absolutely amazing.
I completely agree with the blue on the arms and the dark red 'leather' really works well with the blue. Honestly, it's just an amazing job all round man.
I think she may be amongst your best DE yet, which is saying something!

Can someone tell me how to make that blue colour using GW paints?

There's a colour chart in the articles section of Dakka that can match non-GW paints to GW paints.

This one infact:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Paint_Range_Compatibility_Chart

Looking really rather good, and nicely tied in with the incubi.

grrr

It's really, really cool that this project has gotten such a good response ! I'll say again that all the positive feedback is really appreciated and is a huge motivator!

@JohnnoM: I've been experimenting with different paint combinations to try and match the Tamiya coral blue spray I use to base coat the miniatures. So far what I've found works the best is approximately 4/5 Vallejo Game Color Electric Blue with 1/5 Citadel Scorpion Green and just a tiny bit of Citadel Skull White. Hope that helps!

@Just Dave & Ovion: First time I've seen that chart, I've bookmarked it as a useful reference!

And now for a short digression into gaming stories:

There was a "campaign day" at the local FLGS today, really just an excuse to play some games with a loose storyline, and I tried Sara and the Incubi out for the first time. I'd say their first outing was success overall with a total kill count of 29 marines over three games. I got tabled against Space Wolves the second game but the Incubi still managed to cut down 9 Grey Hunters and wounded Arjac Rockfist.

But overall my "Unit of the Day" award has to go to my big squad of Beasts (4 Beastmasters, 8 Khymerae, 4 Razorwing Flocks and Baron Sathonyx) who were dead set on munching their way through multiple squads throughout the day. The shining moment has to be the unit shrugging off a heavy flamer and heavy psycannon attack by a Dreadknight and then going on to beat it in combat! On an unrelated note, "Worst Unit of the Game" had to go to my opponent's Vindicare Assassin who over a five turn game managed to miss three shots, and only succeed in stunning and then immobilizing a Ravager. On the other hand, he was really good at ducking since I couldn't get him to fail a cover save!

Amazing work, as always.

Congrats on the kills

Hey Jon when are you next in Fun Atelier?
I'm around atm with nothing to do
I might pop in tomorrow morning to mid afternoon

Amazing! wonderful finish and good fluff. the OSL on the little pouches is extra beautiful! i love her. Congrats on the kill count.

Haha, I agree with you completely about beast squads. They can get a bit hard to control past a certain size, but they just eat everything, shrugging off the worst of wounds. I think they're the best unit in the codex.

Your haemonculus looks perfect.

Loving the female Haemonculus. Looks stylish and unique.

@CalasTyphon216: Sent you a PM with my availability for this week.

@Foxtale: I think I'll need to paint up some more Flying Rippers since the magic number of Razorwing Swarms seems to be four to each Beast Pack. I've been running two and they just don't soak enough hits from small arms fire.

Beautiful job on sara! very inspirational, especially as i'm hunting for alternate models suitable for Haemonculus! :-) so thanks dude! love everything you have done so far! very cohesive and well executed! a very striking force you have managed to produce!

Nerdfest09

She looks fantastic! Really quite shocking how quick you put out these models- I'm sure there is alot of hard work involved!

Mechanicum Jon wrote:@Foxtale: I think I'll need to paint up some more Flying Rippers since the magic number of Razorwing Swarms seems to be four to each Beast Pack. I've been running two and they just don't soak enough hits from small arms fire.

I guess it depends on who you're playing against, but I usually run six to eight with five beastmasters, and flesh out the rest with 10 khymerae. The rending destroys everything, even when I have to roll 6s to wound.

Now that I've painted Sara and her Incubi, I'm finding myself short on available Raiders. Although I generally like the way the standard Raider looks, if I were to nitpick one thing I'd say that the single sail is a bit lacking in visual impact. Several people have done dual-sailed raiders and I've wanted to try out the conversion for a while myself. A particular early inspiration was the Eldar Addict Blog:

http://eldaraddict.blogspot.com/2011/02/venom-mark-ii-airbrushing-dark-eldar.html

I've managed to pull off the conversion in a way that gives the mast a slightly more streamlined look, with the help of a spare "mast" bit. Although I'll admit that I couldn't wait to get home from work today because I had left the conversion halfway done, covered in drying putty, hoping everything was lined up correctly, and worried that I had blown it and would have to hunt though bitz sites for another mast bit. Fortunately it turned out to be job's a good 'un when I got home and I just needed to do some sanding to finish it up.

I couldn't wait to see how the Raider looked so it's just held together with Blu-Tack right now:



Really quite pleased with how tidy it looks for a first effort!

I like it a lot, actually. It changes the profile of the raider just enough to make it interesting, but not so much that it wouldn't fit. I think I might have to give it a try myself.

prime12357 wrote:I do believe that the phrase is "Holy F*ck!" The incubi really look great all together.

Just Dave wrote:What's next?

Indeed. I can't wait to see what comes up.

Which fire emblem is that one? My generals could never use swords, probably because they would have ended up being uber-defense paladins.

Anyway, this blog is fantastic. I really love how well the blue shines through all the 'muck and grime'. I try to do the same thing with my chaos marines, but I just get lazy and wash the heck out of them, which isn't the best. Great work.

Another fire emblem fan It's Amelia from Sacred Stones. The generals get the full weapon triangle, and with her stats, it's just a little ridiculous.

It's Saturday, December 17th, 2011, and you're reading Mechanicum Jon's Dark Eldar, a blog about painting and modeling and a little bit more. The reading time for this post is 20 seconds. (Shameless ripoff of the Fear the Boot intro, since that's what I'm listening to right now! )

Over the course of painting and assembling a bunch of Raider hulls (four Raiders and three Ravagers to be exact), I've developed a relatively workable and low stress method of getting Raider hulls from the sprue to the tabletop. I thought it might be interesting for people if I posted a few more in progress shots to show how I went about it.

So here's how I start. I've actually found it easiest to begin by spraying most of the parts separately before gluing anything together. The exception being the parting making up the large "keel" section (brown piece in the upper left), since all those pieces are the same color. I spray the thusters (small parts in the bottom middle) separately from the "keel" because I find it hard to get a brush in once their glued. The base plate (upper right) is sprayed in two halves with just a bit of masking tape to cover one half once I'm done with it. The only other notable bit is the Dark Lance, which I do separately from the gun shield for east of painting. I've cut slots into the peg holes of the gun shield to let me slide the Dark Lance in once it's painted.

A lot of this is minor stuff but it's worked well for me. Drop me a comment if this series seems useful!

...seems useful

Yes! It does

Very interesting - definitely would like to see more!

Jon, your entire army is amazing and very inspiring. The Dark Eldar are going to be my next project and you've encouraged me to look for a color scheme far beyond GW's standard "black with neon highlights." Keep up the good work.

Now for the next couple stages of the Raider's paint job:

Before I do any assembly, I paint and weather all the bronze parts. The process is very straightforward.

1. Basecoat in Calthan Brown.
2. Paint two layers of Dwarf Bronze.
3. Wash with diluted Vallejo Turquoise.

At this point I also do some of the paint chipping effects on the blue part of the Raider floorplate (the large and flat piece left of the sails in the photo) since this will be hard to get at later (not yet done in photo). Anyone who wants to play spot the difference look for the Raider piece I've accidentally left out of the photo.



I then glue together the main hull assembly.

Now come the runes. I'd recommend spraying the Raider with a layer of varnish at this stage so that if you make any mistakes on the runes you can just rub them off. But I've gotten confident (or lazy and impatient ) enough to skip that step. I just make sure to cover up any rough spots with paint chips during that upcoming step. I'd say that in my FLGS the number one question I get asked is how I paint the runes. Unfortunately, I have to tell people that there's no special method. Like most freehand it's mostly patience and practice. I'm actually fairly rubbish at freehand, have terrible handwriting and found Chinese calligraphy lessons incredibly fruitless as a child, so I tend to paint the runes in a very piecemeal fashion. I build the runes up by first lightly brushing in the general centerlines of the stokes and then gradually broaden them out, smoothing the lines out as I go.

I have been tempted to ask my grandmother who is an excellent Chinese calligrapher and painter to help with them. She could probably do each in a few minutes with a few bold strokes!







That's it for today's tutorial. Next up: paint chipping.

@prime12357 & Arakasi: The encouragement is much appreciated!

@Phaeron:

Jon, your entire army is amazing and very inspiring. The Dark Eldar are going to be my next project and you've encouraged me to look for a color scheme far beyond GW's standard "black with neon highlights." Keep up the good work.

Thanks! The standard GW scheme actually turned me off the Dark Eldar models until I saw them done up in some other colors and fell in love with them. The "Tron" colors make them look a bit too "plasticky" and toy-like.

Everything on this blog is amazing.

Jon, you really are a constant source of inspiration for my own Dark Eldar, an embodiment of the lofty heights that I will aspire too, but likely never reach

Just keep posting, it's all awesome

The picture below presents the Raider once the paint chipping effect has been applied. Although the Raider's hull has been assembled in the picture, I'd actually recommend doing the paint chips first before assembly because some parts can be hard to reach otherwise. The paint chips are applied with a small piece of foam (actually a piece of pluck foam out of a Sabol Army Transport tray), a piece of firm sponge would probably also work fine. The key is to keep the chips fairly random and not to overdo the effect. I use a toothpick to scratch off some of the chips where I've dabbed them on a bit to uniformly or heavily. The color is Adeptus Battlegrey mixed with black.



@Warboss Gutrip: Post some pics of your stuff!

You might remember that fellow Dakka user CalasTyphon216 who's in Hong Kong for the Christmas Holidays asked me for a game earlier in this thread. We finally managed to match schedules and have got a game set for this Friday. So now I've got more motivation to get this Raider up and flying (but probably sans crew) by then! Here's the highlighting stage completed on the Raider. The highlight color is Skull White plus a tiny dot of Vallejo Electric Blue. The technique is also nothing fancy, just run your chosen brush along all the edges. I find that the Citadel Standard Brush is a good compromise between holding enough paint and being small enough to reach into the tighter corners. Neatness helps but isn't too big a deal since the upcoming weathering stage will cover up a multitude of sins.

Looking good as usual Jon - those colours really work well together.

Quick Christmas Eve update before the festivities. I ordered a PACK Air case from Battlefoam during the Black Friday Sale (shipping fees for bulky items to Hong Kong are pretty rough otherwise) but it''s taken me a month to settle on exactly what I wanted. I've heard that you can just send them your model traces and that they would take case of it but playing with the tray creator was kind of fun.

I just sent an email with the details of my order in, so fingers crossed that they can do this. If it works I'll have managed to fit a whole 2000 point tournament army, plus an extra 200 points or so to swap out, into a case that can be carried onto a plane. That's including 12 vehicles (3 Venoms, 6 Raiders and 3 Ravagers)! It doesn't hold everything I've got but sometime down the line I'll be getting separate trays for my Hellions and Reavers to swap in and out.

Thought some of you might find these tray designs to be useful references, keeping in mind that I've gone for larger cutouts than is usual because of my bulkier bases.

Merry Christmas!

thats sweet! I love battlefoam!

Finished painting the crew this morning, glued them to the Raider, and took it down to the FLGS for a game and some photos! Here are the two best. Jobs a good ún!





In my hurry to finish the Raider for my game against fellow Dakka member CalasTyphon216, I forgot to take in progress photos for the tutorial! However, there actually wasn't anything complicated happening in between the last set of photos and the completed Raider. First I weather all the pieces using MIG powders, spray them with matte varnish, and assemble the Raider (all these steps are described earlier in the thread). Then I paint the "dot" pattern on the sails and weather them. The "dot" pattern is just that, a random pattern of dots painted in successively lighter colors (again described with photos earlier in the thread). The crew are attached last.

The Raider did what it was supposed to during its debut game against CalasTyphon216, delivering Sara and her Incubi into a squad of Plague Marines. However it then got stolen by the two surviving members of a Warrior squad, who went on to immobilize it in terrain the following turn. I said it was like some teenagers had taken their parent's luxury car for a joyride and crashed it!

I keep having a play with the battlefoam tray creator, but keep coming unstuck working out the best configuration for what I want to add to the army... it is good fun though.

The new raider looks great. Apart from the joyriding Warriors, how did the rest of the game go?

I love the color scheme, the teal is so clean and your metals are excellent.

He trashed me pretty badly, by the end of turn 5 i had 2 immobilised rhinos left
Just wasn't used to coping with so many dark lances (17 in 1750 points i think)

That raider looks really great, love the way the sails contrast well against the other colours.

The Raider Looks Fantastic! Glad to hear it did well-ish. How did Sara do? Is there maybe a battle report or at least some pics of the game for us here on dakka? Cant wait for the next update.

endtransmission wrote:I keep having a play with the battlefoam tray creator, but keep coming unstuck working out the best configuration for what I want to add to the army... it is good fun though.
The new raider looks great. Apart from the joyriding Warriors, how did the rest of the game go?

I find myself occasionally pressing Ctrl-Z (Undo) while using the Tray Creator. That function would really help!

The game was good fun overall against a great opponent. Super quick summary of the highlights as follows:

We were playing a Nova Open style mission (Quarters, Objectives, Kill Points). CalasTyphon216 was playing Chaos Space Marines and had the first turn.

The first couple turns had me a bit worried as Sara and her Incubi almost bounced off a unit of Plague Marines. I only killed one on the charge and luckily made my saves and only lost one Incubi in return. I also had a hard time finishing off Obliterators, there were a couple hanging around for the next few turns with one wound happily exploding my paper aeroplanes. I charged the Beastmaster unit into another Plague Marine squad on turn two and they got stuck. However, the Incubi incredibly shredded the rest of the Plague Marines (with the help of some Fearless wounds).

Turn three saw the arrival of the Terminator death-star (I think they blew something up with Reaper autocannons). Unluckily for CalasTyphon216 his luck with saves deserted him in my shooting phase, never to return this game. The terminators had the Mark of Tzeentch (4+ invulnerable save), but instead of passing 50% saves against Darklight weapons I think he passed about 2 out of 10 over the next couple turns. I remember that one of the couple times he passed an invulnerable save he lost another terminator from a failed 2+ save. The Razorwings, perhaps inspired by the Incubi, killed 5 Plague Marines with rending wounds during turn three's assault phase.

Then honestly, from turn 4 on it was mostly me rotating around the surviving bits of his army picking stuff off, with the occasional thing being blown up by obliterators until I got the last one.

CalasTyphon216 wrote:He trashed me pretty badly, by the end of turn 5 i had 2 immobilised rhinos left
Just wasn't used to coping with so many dark lances (17 in 1750 points i think)

I thought you were a great opponent. Two things that stood out, you played at a good pace and you didn't give up when things weren't going your way. Wouldn't hesitate to have another game anytime!

Great memory! It was exactly 17. I was playing my relatively close combat focused list. The shooty variant has 25 Dark Lances! I take so many because I find it incredibly frustrating not being able to so anything against tanks. To apply some mathhammer it takes, on average, about 18 Dark Lances to kill an armor 12 vehicle in cover (12/18 hit, 6/12 penetrate, 3/6 get through cover saves, 1/3 results on chart destroy vehicles). Before I played against you I got massacred by a marine army with six twin-autocannon dreadnoughts. Admittedly my luck was abominable, I shot 15 Dark Lances at a dreadnought in the open and did...nothing. My opponent mentioned that I was probably going to roll over my next opponent since the luck had to even out. I told him that my next game was against someone who had come from overseas and I didn't want to demolish them with dice rolls!

@mekbadzappa & monkeyh: Thanks! I remember the first time I painted a Raider I felt like it took forever. Probably because I was trying out the scheme. Now I see that I can paint one really comfortably in two weeks time and I could probably do one in a weekend if I concentrated!

@BossSlurpee: Thanks! As you've seen I did a drive by recap above. No pics because although I had told myself to bring my camera, I was so focused on getting the Raider done and packed properly (since I had to bring it to work on a packed subway), I forgot the camera!

Hey Jon, I love the shots of your models in the terrain! it really brings them to life! I am actually going to attempt the sails on my raiders in a similar style to yours after reading your tute on them (I hope i can do something similar in quality!) I felt my own needed a shot of colour wthout going ott and the sails you do are a great blend of subtlety and vibrancy that only accentuate the style and purpose of the mini's!

What else do you possibly have to paint for the army? it appears after all these pages you've nearly got all your army completed!

whatever you do next i'm sure will be fantastic!

Nerdfest09

Just had a glance back through most of your blog. First time reader but love the work you have done!

Love to have another game against you
You were fantastic, and it is an honor to play against such well painted minis

@nerdfest09:

I felt my own needed a shot of colour wthout going ott and the sails you do are a great blend of subtlety and vibrancy that only accentuate the style and purpose of the mini's!

That's the best summary of what I was going for I've seen! The "dot" method is very forgiving as if you make a mistake you can just paint over the dot with the basecoat color and try again. Post some pics if you try the method!

What else do you possibly have to paint for the army? it appears after all these pages you've nearly got all your army completed!

whatever you do next i'm sure will be fantastic!

There's actually still quite a number of Dark Eldar miniatures I haven't touched, despite the length of this thread! New mini's I've bought but not painted include Wracks, Wyches and the Razorwing Jetfighter. Mini's I haven't bought yet include Mandrakes, the Talos and the Court miniatures. I've also got another Raider and Venom, as well as more Trueborn, Incubi, Scourges, Hellions and Reaver Jetbikes that need paint at some point. So there's definitely enough bare plastic, metal and Finecast to keep this blog going for some time yet!

@runmymouth: Welcome to the Kabal of the Drowned Gardens! We hope that you'll be with us for a long, long stay. Can we offer you any...refreshments? (That's how I'd imagine the recruiting pitch for potential future Wracks going.)

@CalasTyphon216: Let me know when you're back in town again!

It seems to be a recurring theme - a lone obliterator or two surviving for ages and making a nuisance of themselves.

I know in one of my games against a chaos army out of his 3 squads of 2 obliterators in the first turn I managed to kill 1 with a hex rifle (turned to glass), 2 with lance fire and one with splinterfire, the next 2 turns, 1 goes down to liquifier guns and hex rifle fire, and 1 makes about 20 standard saves and 10 invun, then on turn 4 proceeds to eat the combined firepower of a razorwing, 2 venoms a talos and 2 raiders (at this point I was starting to hold a grudge against it) and only take a single wound. Thing was ridiculous and most certainly man of the match.

The sun happened to be shining through some terrain in my FLGS and I decided to take some photos on a whim. The first one of Sara emerging from the shadows actually turned out to be really atmospheric! I just noticed that you can see her shadow, showing the spine mutation, when I was editing the photo to upload. It's a neat detail and I'm sure there's an appropriate metaphor in there somewhere but I'm too tired to attempt anything literary tonight!



Here's another shot I took in more normal lighting. It shows off the mini quite nicely. For me this is one of those rare mini's where you look at it and sometimes there's this split second feeling of "I can't quite believe I painted that"!



@Ovion: I had a similar experience with an Eldar Exarch on a Jetbike with a Fusion Gun. He survived two turns of fire from 1/3 of my Guard army. This included about 10 instant death meltagun or mutilaser wounds! 2/3 of those turns he also wrecked a vehicle. The game ended with him still alive stuck in combat against the survivors to two veteran squads (I was definitely holding a grudge against him at that point).

I know what you mean about the split second recognision. You step back and take a look at your handy work and the words "Holy Poo, how the hell?!" pop in your head and you start grinning to yourself. Apparently, thats what i did when i was really proud of a model i painted anyway. It is an awesome model and paintjob. And your army is Epic.

One quick question, i may have missed it, but what colours for the green glowing effects on runes etc?

@S'jet: So that feeling wasn't just me then! Because of what you said I just went and took a look at your recent posts and Gallery images. The gold on those Sisters is a really nice finish! That test scheme on your Wyche also looks very promising but I'll post more in your thread instead of here.

You were in store today? I must have just missed you

S'jet wrote:I know what you mean about the split second recognision. You step back and take a look at your handy work and the words "Holy Poo, how the hell?!" pop in your head and you start grinning to yourself.

I feel like that alot

Last post of 2011!

I couldn't decide exactly what I wanted to do next so I figured that I'd put together another Raider first so I have options when I play larger games. This one may not get completely painted before I move onto a new shiny, my immediate goal is to get it to state where it stays together on the table!

I was going to be lazy and just build it the normal way, but I liked the two sailed version so much that I decided to put in the extra effort. In the few games I played during the past few weeks I've found that having a couple distinctive looking Raiders really helps me remember what's got what in it! The dual sails are also good for having WYSIWYG for Enhanced Aethersails.

So, now that's I'm doing this for the second time I think I've come up with a better method. You'll need an extra "masts and controls" bit for this conversion. Shouldn't be hard to find on bitz sites since I don't think it's in high demand (at least until this tutorial gets out ).

Here are some photos of the WIP conversion with the steps afterwards:



1. Separate the two "masts" by cutting the rod (with the hanging chain) that join them.
2. Clean up one of the masts using a modelling knife to remove any remaining bits of rod. You can keep the other mast for another conversion.
3. Cut the cleaned mast at the thickest part of its "bulge." Keep the top part of the mast and throw away the bottom part.
4. Sand the cut surface flat.
5. Scrape out a notch in the bottom of the truncated mast bit, this will allow this bit to sit on top another "mast and controls"assembly.
6. Assemble the second set of "masts and controls"as normal.
7. Test fit the truncated mast bit on top of the "masts and controls" assembly, you will probably have to scrape out the notch some more, and stick it when you're happy with the fit.



8. Use putty or greenstuff to cover the gap and leave overnight to dry.
9. Sand the putty smooth.

I'm still at the "leave overnight to dry stage"so this conversion won't be finished until next year!

@CalasTyphon216: I wasn't in the store that day, I was looking through some extra photos I took with the Raider photos and thought these two were particularly good. I've been hearing about your games with other people here!

@Capitansolstice: That a good thing right?

And with that:

Wishing all of you a Happy New Year from Hong Kong!

Nice little tute there jon, might have to steal that one for my self.

The second two sailed Raider is coming along nicely. After putting 8 Raider hulls together it seems that I've gotten pretty good at it. However this will be the last boat out of the shipyard since I've now built all the Raiders I'll ever need for games. Speaking of which, I just played a game against a fully mech IG army where I failed to destroy even a single vehicle! This included several instances where I put several Dark Lance shots into the side of a Chimera only to roll all 1's for the pen rolls. Neither myself nor my opponent could really believe it. Time to change the batteries on my Darklight weapons!

Tech Guard wrote:Nice little tute there jon, might have to steal that one for my self.

Give it a go!

Hi Jon, looking good as we all expect with your amazing army of sadistic killers! I need to thank you for your inspiration with my own DE army, seeing you work keeps me trying to get mine painted quickly, and as such i used your tute for the sails recently, i didn't follow it exactly but you can tell where i got inspired from! i'll pop a link so you can check it out at your lesiure? http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/690/356350.page it was actually quite fun to paint them and was quicker than I thought it would be, and of course the end result is a great looking sail that adds a spot of colour and a great focal point for the raiders/ravagers so thanks for showing us dude!

Can't wait to see more!

Nerdfest09

Rolling lots of ones Jon? I feel your pain my friend, you are not alone - when I battle, if we were playing 'see who can roll most ones in a game' I would be the master.

Mechanicum Jon wrote:Speaking of which, I just played a game against a fully mech IG army where I failed to destroy even a single vehicle! This included several instances where I put several Dark Lance shots into the side of a Chimera only to roll all 1's for the pen rolls. Neither myself nor my opponent could really believe it. Time to change the batteries on my Darklight weapons!

I know that feeling...

Shot at a bunch of SW Rhinos and Razors all game, accomplished a single weapon destroyed by the bottom of turn 6. He basically looked at my vehicles and they caught on fire

Still won though. Thank god for last minute contesting!

So, there's this fuzzy rumor on the News and Rumors page that GW is going to change their paints in some way. I'm just back from my local FLGS where I bought out their stock (admittedly it was only six pots). While I don't necessarily put too much stock in the rumor, why risk running dry on the Devlan Miracle? I was starting to run low anyway as you can see from the pot in back.



@Warboss Gutrip and Monkeyh: The possibility of infinite shake/stun results (especially when a Rhino or other cheap vehicle absorbs more than half your army's shooting) is one of the few things I would really like changed in the game. There are definitely some other issues with 40k but that's one of the few things that has the potential to really annoy me in what is otherwise my favorite edition of the game by far.

LOL!!! I went to my FLGS to buy all of their hawk turquoise, but they said someone already did...Off to the battle bunker!

O damn it Jon you beat me to the Devlan mud
I've only got 2 1/2 pots of it and I go through it like an Australian goes through beer......

Capitansolstice wrote:LOL!!! I went to my FLGS to buy all of their hawk turquoise, but they said someone already did...Off to the battle bunker!

If I relied on a particular color for my army I'd probably be buying a few pots of it too! Fortunately my Dark Eldar use mixed colors from other companies. I remember having lots of trouble years ago when GW switched away from the Cote D'arms paints and completely changed the shade of green that Dark Angels Green was. It was years before I found out that 1. the old paint line was made by Cote D'arms and 2. you could buy the old colors, and I had gone on a hiatus from 40k by then!

CalasTyphon216 wrote:O damn it Jon you beat me to the Devlan mud
I've only got 2 1/2 pots of it and I go through it like an Australian goes through beer......

I asked the staff and they said that they would get more in stock next week. I'll race you for 'em! But really, I'm ok for now and won't be buying too much more unless the rumor pans out (or will it be too late since confirmation of the rumor will trigger a wave of panic buying?).

Also, you've made me think of doing Devlan Mud shots. The pots are about the right size...

Finished the second of my two-sailed Raiders! No crew yet but I'm calling it done. That's nine Raider hulls completed and I have to say that they've actually been surprisingly fun to build and paint. But unless Forgeworld puts out something amazing (not a fan of the giant gunboat) I'm done with the kit! Full disclosure here I ripped off the runes on this Raider from VanSan's amazing work over on Warseer because I had completely run out of reference material! I'll be doing fancier rocky flying stands for my Raiders soon to match the rest of the army.





I don't think I've posted a top down shot on the blog yet. I painted the Raider bits separately partially because I had this obsessive hang up about wanting to paint the cowling under the mesh blue. It's hardly noticeable if you stand the pilot over it!



Finally, here's the bit I left out of the tutorial. If you clip the "post" in the rudder you can paint it separately and attach it later. This makes the Raider much easier to handle while painting as you can put it down without a flying stand and not worry about the tip of the rudder. If you cut the post even shorter you can even store the rudders separately for transport. That tip is from DarkGear's blog (http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/389364.page). The second tip is to cut out one side of the holes in the Dark Lance shield so you can paint the gun separately while also smoothing over the seam in the shield.

By cutting one side of the hole in the dark lance shield I assume you mean make it into a sort of backwards C shape? And does taking out the rudder bend it in any way? Would love to try this out if I ever do get any Dark Eldar stuff.

Great painting as usual, your blues ever vibrant.

I've said it before and I'll no doubt say it again - great work Jon. Those colours work really well together, the weathering is well done and those sails look great What'snext?

Swordwind wrote:By cutting one side of the hole in the dark lance shield I assume you mean make it into a sort of backwards C shape? And does taking out the rudder bend it in any way? Would love to try this out if I ever do get any Dark Eldar stuff.
Great painting as usual, your blues ever vibrant.

A backwards C shape is exactly right. As for the rudder I forgot to mention that you need to be careful while cutting the post as I had one snap in half while cutting the post with clippers. I haven't tried taking the Rudders out since I'll be storing everything in Battlefoam on the flight stands. But I'm pretty sure you could get away with it by cutting the rudder post so it's just long enough on both ends to stay in the "hinge."

"Your blues ever vibrant." Sounds to me like half the greeting of an ancient brotherhood of painters. The first half being something like "Your reds rich and deep."

monkeyh wrote:I've said it before and I'll no doubt say it again - great work Jon. Those colours work really well together, the weathering is well done and those sails look great What'snext?

Thanks, I was thinking people might be getting tired of Raider posts but you've been a constant encouragement! The theme of the next project will be " MORE DAKKA ." Specifically what may be my favorite sub-60 point unit in the game. Any guesses? That being said, I'm just going to build them to try out in games. The next thing I paint is going to be Wracks.

Really loving the latest raiders and I can't wait to see you paint the wracks. Keep up the amazing work!

It's gunna be a shame when you finish everything. Really enjoying this blog =)

The basic Splinter Cannon pose is such a characterful sculpt that I've found myself lining them up and making rapid compressed air, or blowgun, noises (what I imagine splinter weapons sound like). In fact I'll admit to having done it more than once! I'm still missing a Splinter Cannon and will either have to bitz order one or see if anyone has a spare.

Their tabletop performance is nothing to sneeze at either! Three squads of thee Trueborn with two Splinter Cannons mounted in Venoms with two Splinter Cannons = lots of Dakka (or Fffffsht).



Wracks incoming.

No, they are most certainly not, a friend of mine runs two venoms with splintercannon /carbine armed trueborn for 'green tide & marine management' an boy does it hurt once they get within 18''

Send me a PM Jon and I'll send you my spare cannons and any other bits you need mate! :-)

Jon I think your work is very impressive and it gives me (as a lesser painter) much incentive to try and up my game a little!

I certainly dont have the time to dedicate as much to my models as it seems you have but there are some very good tips in here I am going to try and use going forward (Scourge wings and Raider sails are first in my mind)

Are all the paints you use Citadel or do you use other ranges? In particular the Teal and the blue for the hair. I have Hawk Turquoise as a secondary colour but it could maybe be improved now I look at my army as a whole.

My models are more of the common variety (purple/black) but some of the colours you have used are very smart and set off the models well so was just wondering.

Was considering doing a blog on mine but they'll be shot down in flames next to these haha!

I'll save it for my next army!

Excellent work

@STC_LogisEngine: I've also found that you can quite happily put the Venoms in the open, because when they get blown up or wrecked they provide a nice patch of cover for the Trueborn to set up and keep shooting!

@nerdfest09: That's super generous of you! Will send PM.

@wildboar: The main "Teal"color I use for the armor is a Tamiya "Coral Blue" spray paint. I've found that Vallejo Game Color Electric Blue with a tiny bit of GW Scorpion Green and Skull White is the best match for brushwork. The blue for the hair is again Electric Blue with lots of white. Thanks for the kind words!

I've been absorbed by the Battlefoam Tray Creator for the past few days. But now that I've got that sorted out it's time to get started on some Wracks. One of them was unusable due to casting defects, but I used its back for Sara the Haemonculus. I'm quite concerned about some of the back spine parts since they look really fiddly and prone to snapping off so I may just trim them down a bit preemptively. There's also some detail missing on a couple of the helmets with the pattern of small holes. On the plus side I really love the way these models look and can't wait to get some paint on them!

Looking forward to seeing these - they look cool on the sprues.

You got lucky...out of 4 boxes, I had about 6 that were actually of good quality. Unfortunately, I needed them for a tourney and couldn't wait around to get some good casts. As far as the backs go, I haven't had any problems with those bits coming off...I have, however, had 4-5 guys lose their weapons.

(and I'm actually one of those who PREFER Finecast...sigh)

I havent actually played with finecast yet so i cant say much on the modeling, but i truly cant wait to see these all put together and painted

So, I've had a few solid sessions of building and painting Wracks and have started to rough out how the color scheme works on them. I basically just followed the same general approach I used on Sara (my female Haemonculus) since the mini's share a lot of the same details and it seems to be going well so far. The one thing I've decided to change since taking the photos is to repaint the blue knee pads in the copper color once I get to that stage.

What actually took the most time was trying to figure out exactly how many usable Wracks I had out of the parts from two boxes. My earlier post was actually a bit too optimistic since I found some more broken on miscast bits and I now think I can build seven. I'm painting the best six first since that's what's immediately needed in my list.



@monkeyh: I just didn't post the one where the space between the sprue was a solid mass of flash!

@spyguyyoda: As far as I'm concerned Finecast has added the '"thrill" of collectible games into GW products. Except given GW's great (I mean this sincerely) customer service response to Finecast replacements you'll end up with a few extra useful bits instead of useless cardboard. If you're not pushed for time that is...

@BossSlurpee: I'm going as fast as I can in the free time I can find. Well, that and playing Skyward Sword.

Finecast is why I'm afraid of continuing my Eldar army.

The wracks look good so far. Just gonna wait for the final product to give my full verdict.

Lol. Yeah, the main reason I haven't had too many problems with Finecast is because it's very easy to get them replaced, regardless of how "minor" the flaw may be. For me, the wracks are an exception. I've just had too many problems with them...

Swordwind wrote:
Just gonna wait for the final product to give my full verdict.

Don't fool yourself =p We all know they are gunna look Epic!

I'm particularly happy with how the color scheme seems to work on Wracks. This first one is looking suitably savage. Now back to the Kabal's surgery pits with me to finish up the rest of the brutes...

That' ssome amazing work! Sorry to hear about the finecast problems!

That is some really amazing work there Jon, as a squad the will look just stunning!

Ooo, me gusta. Can't wait for the whole squad.

Also you paint rather fast, to me at least. Takes me about 3 days to get 1 colour down. ):

CommissarKhaine wrote:That' ssome amazing work! Sorry to hear about the finecast problems!

Tech Guard wrote:
That is some really amazing work there Jon, as a squad the will look just stunning!

Thanks guys! I wasn't expecting responses so soon! Now I'm motivated for another session of painting!

Looking good.....really like the metal on the bludgeoning stick. The blue armour translates well to the wracks. Cool

This may sound a silky thing to get excited about but those trousers are DA BOMB lol Seriously, they look almost metallic, really well shaded, really like the mini as a whole.

And I second swordwinds comment, you paint unnaturally fast

Thats awesome Jon, the colour combination is fantastic.

Looks much better with the brass kneepads.

Loving the skin!

Awesome wrack, can't wait to see the rest of them painted up to a similar standard!

very nice
would love to see some wyches in your colour scheme