Very short on updates as of late. Life is not being kind and giving me much free time to get some painting done, or kind in general for that matter. Got some work related problems that have really got me down right now, a change in management, a new boss, that may mean my position will no longer exist next month. Anyways, no more lame life drama, on to the painting.

I got some base colours put on a Wych, nothing worth showing off yet, and I finally finished my test Kabalite. I like him, I think this is the look I'll mimic for the rest of my Kabalites. What do you guys think, I hope you guys like him. Oh and interesting side story, as soon as I finished taking his photos I was packing away my light box and dropped him on the floor. Snapped his helmet spike right off, pretty much my whole week in a nutshell. Any comments and critiques are welcome.

Bummer on the life front, but the Kabalite looks great really striking colour scheme.

I especially like the little glowing green vials/things on his back

Thank you Ynneadwraith. Glad you like him.

Oof. Sorry to hear the work stuff. Hope things settle out OK. Don't make me drive out there to commiserate, there are only two habitable places in Canada, and one of them is only a slightly insane drive away. No idea where in the great white north you are, but odds are a coin flip for beer range.

Love the warrior. Tons of little details for a rank and file guy.

Haha Nev that beer sounds like a great idea. I live in Alberta, I doubt it factors into your list of "two habitable places" however. Just out of curiosity what would those places be?

And thanks for the comment on the warrior. Despite the details he wasn't too hard to do, many of the details use the same colours as lots of other things on the model so it's a quick deal to spin him around and just dab paint on each spot that needs it. I use more metallic on my DE too and it's just a metallic base and a wash so that helps speed things along nicely too.

I love the armour plates!

The amount of detail that you picked out also looks awesome!

Great job!

I'm really sorry to hear about the life stuff man, hopefully stuff works itself out, as it usually does!

Keep it up!
~Mikey

Inevitable_Faith,

The Kabalite looks very good, nice blends, similar to the rest of the army, etc. The only question I have is on the loincloth, is that green similar to your other green in the army? It might just be the lighting and it is the same, but I seem to remember the other models being a little more turquoise. (Just thinking about your army theme colours)

On the other stuff, it has not happened yet, so do not worry and just work hard and it will all work out for the best in the end.

Cheers,

CB

@Gummyofallbears: Thanks man, appreciate the comment

@Captain Brown: Thank you very much sir. The loincloth is painted with the same colours as the other cloths in my force but it was painted in a very different style, I tried something new with it that to be honest I'm not entirely fond of and will not likely replicate for the rest of them. I'll probably go back to my old way of painting cloth on the rest.

And thank you everyone for being very supportive about the life stuff. No matter what happens I'll find a way to make it work, just gotta keep my head up.

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
Haha Nev that beer sounds like a great idea. I live in Alberta, I doubt it factors into your list of "two habitable places" however. Just out of curiosity what would those places be?

And thanks for the comment on the warrior. Despite the details he wasn't too hard to do, many of the details use the same colours as lots of other things on the model so it's a quick deal to spin him around and just dab paint on each spot that needs it. I use more metallic on my DE too and it's just a metallic base and a wash so that helps speed things along nicely too.

Well, as you are on the internet, and not delivering messages scratched on tree bark via moose/geese, I assumed you were in one of the major cities up there close enough to the US to leech our WiFi. So Vancouver or Toronto. I’d have added Montreal to the list, but frankly there is nothing on our side of the border to hijack a signal off of. Although looking at a map, Toronto is a bit farther around the lake then I though. Somehow I thought it was just across from Buffalo.

Anyway, on topic of the mini:

It’s important to have a good system for banging out your rank and file. Especially one that gives great results. Not quite as necessary as when painting actual rank and file for fantasy games where you need multiple 20-30 man blocks, but it’s still good to have an efficient process to get your troops to the table in a reasonable amount of time.

Actually Nev you'd be interested to know that Canada has it's own country-wide federal wifi. And just like our healthcare, it's totally free, though some people do tend to abuse it to download too many episodes of "Canada's worst driver".

On topic: I know it's a weakness of mine that I have a hard time "simplifying" my paint schemes for my rank and file guys. I see details and I'm compelled to paint them and to strive to paint them the best I can, regardless if it's an HQ choice I'm painting or a chaos cultist. It's hard for me to tone this down.

I know it's rich coming from me (the world's most reluctant painter), but that's a good attitude to have if you can keep up the motivation.

We pay enough for our little plastic aliens. It makes sense to take care on their paintwork

Excellent work on the Kabalite warrior, he's looking sick.

Sorry to hear about the job issues, hope everything turns out alright.

EDC

Thank you Ynneadwraith and EDC. I'm really hoping tonight I can find some time to paint, I'm dying to try these armor plates on a Wych.

Looking forward to it

Ok got a small update here. I've got some work done on a Wych testing out the new armor plate style that I did on my Kabalite. The plates aren't done yet, they need another highlight and some touchups on the recesses. Let me know what you guys think, so far do you think it'll be an improvement on the Wyches with just edged plates?

Looks good man personally, I think both that and the pink-edged armour looks cool so whatever you prefer!

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
Let me know what you guys think, so far do you think it'll be an improvement on the Wyches with just edged plates?

Inevitable_Faith,

Going back to the Wyches back on page 9 I think it will, but how much extra time will it take you? I mean the ones you posted are great already.

Cheers,

CB

Soz havent been around much recently but be keeping a wee out on this lovely lot. LOVE that wych. Looks awesome - really sweet colour scheme choice too. Great stuff I_F

Looking good dude!

EDC

Thanks for the comments guys, really appreciate them. I stayed up much later than I was hoping to tonight but I wanted to get this model done because I just couldn't wait to see how it'd all come together. Overall I like it and I think it is an improvement over my original 10 wyches. Would love to hear your guys final verdict and critiques though.

@Captain Brown: Overall doing the armor this way is actually easier than my original method. I won't be in any hurry to go back and fix the original ten but it'd be something I could do here and there on the side while I wait for washes to dry or have company over and don't want something that takes too much attention. The way I see it if you can paint up a full unit of 50 conscripts then I figure I should be able to fix up the armor plates on ten wyches

I really really like it!

I personally think it is a huge improvement over the edging, it really draws the eye and helps show off the highlights on the black a lot more.

I also like how the purple wash on the skin interacts with the pink, they really complement each other.

Overall, I think it is a big improvement.

Awesome stuff!
~Mikey

Thank you very much gummyofallbears. I'm really glad this test has seemed to garner good results.

Spent the evening getting some base colours down on my wyches and watching Januines stream on twitch (which I highly recommend checking out, he's hella entertaining and a font of painting tips). Nothing really exciting as far as WiP pics go but it's a fair step forward to having my second unit done. Very stoked to finally get to paint razorflails as well.

Oh and by the way for anyone who has Instagram I've finally gotten a page up. If anyone would like to follow me on there you should be able to find me by searching up ivory_spider.

Looking good so far your army's coming along nicely!

Looks very nice!

may I ask your recipe for the pink?

~Mikey

Of course you may gummyofallbears. I put down pink horror as a base (usually two coats) then wash with carroburg crimson making sure to get a good coverage in the recesses. I then add a layer of pink horror starting about 2/3 of the way down the plate making sure to leave the darkened spots of carroburg crimson in the recesses. Lastly I edge highlight with emperors children.

Looking good matey.

EDC

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:

@Captain Brown: Overall doing the armor this way is actually easier than my original method. I won't be in any hurry to go back and fix the original ten but it'd be something I could do here and there on the side while I wait for washes to dry or have company over and don't want something that takes too much attention. The way I see it if you can paint up a full unit of 50 conscripts then I figure I should be able to fix up the armor plates on ten wyches

Hah, hah...I still have not finished all 50. :(

Cheers,

CB

Doesn't look like much has happened since last I updated but I assure you I'm a good chunk of the way closer to finishing. The pinks are done and the skin has two layers down, two to go. After that it's touch ups, washes and details such as the drug pumps. Squad two almost ready for battle, I'm very excited.

Very nice scheme, the unit is looking great.

Thank you very much JamesY, glad you like them.

Unit is looking very nice.

I always hate those WIP shots where I know I’ve put in a few hours between it and the last one, but when I upload them, I can’t tell from the last pic I snapped. Very disheartening. But you know the progress is there!

You're putting me to shame!

Looking very nice

Thank you very much Nev and Ynneadwraith. Yeah some WiP shots just don't do the progress any justice at all sadly. Ynneadwraith I ain't putting you to shame at all dude, you've got great stuff on your plog and I'm ever envious of your kitbash/conversion stuff.

Making good progress IF. Keep plugging away.

EDC

Looking good!

As somebody with something like three WiP units almost finished, I can relate that the feeling of working on a unit is nothing compared to actually finishing it!

Keep it up!

Thank you EDC, I fully intend to.

The shared pains of the hobby community are a sense of relief for me at times like these gummyofallbears.

I've been away for what feels like forever but I did manage to get some work done tonight on my DE. I'll spare the details and just leave them in spoiler for those that are curious as to why.



Haven't had the drive to paint much lately so just did a wash on my Wyches skin but I did get my Bloodbrides built as well as my second Rader. Nothing super exciting but I think the small conversion job I did for the bloodbrides looks alright so far and does a decent job of distinguishing them from normal wyches. Hope you guys like them.

The man is back, if not temporarily!

Im really sorry to here about your work, that must really suck. I can relate to an extent, although nothing so intense.

The bloodbrides are looking really nice, the little head swap sets them apart quite a bit, especially if you paint their heads something bright, maybe a bright gold or your trademarked pink.

~Mikey

Thanks gummy, I hope to be back to more regular updates but currently I just don't feel confident enough to promise that. There is a painting competition for the end of February a couple in a city 200km away from me I'm thinking of entering in. I may go for it in hopes that it'll help keep me motivated and give me a goal to work towards.

The plan for the bloodbrides is to either do their heads in either a copper colour or perhaps do the rosed silver like I've done on the shoulder pads of the wyches I've done already.

If you are looking for a short term motivations thing, this month’s unofficial painting challenge over in the P&M section is "Rouges and Scoundrels”. 1-5 minis from start to finish. I’m sure something you have on the bench could qualify. <Looks at the bloodbrides> If I can manage to do one mini a month, anyone can. And this month’s topic is a soft pitch across the plate for someone painting DE.

You ever thing of doing a year-end review? Sometimes a look back and can you move forward. At the very least, it gives you a benchmark to see where you are.

Sorry to hear about all the gak u've had to deal with I_F. Hope it all sorts out soon and you get your mojo back soon.

Jan

Bloodbrides are looking great, what are the heads from?

Hope things make a turn for the better in the new year.

Thank you for the kind words everyone, definitely helps keep my head up to have a vote of confidence from all of you.

@Nevelon: I entered into that comp Nev, it seems like fun so I'm actually pretty excited to produce an entry for it. I've never really considered doing a year-end review, to be honest I don't even know what I did in 2016 other than my DE, I may have to do some digging and see where my 2016 posts started and compile them.

@Januine: Thanks dude. Watched you paint up a storm last night and learned a lot of cool tricks, particularly that metal trick you showed up using the blue and brown washes. Learning new things has always kept me inspired and motivated in the past and I feel much more drive today than I have in a while.

@ChaoticMind: Thank you very much. The heads are from the dark elf witches set from fantasy. In the box there is an alternate build you can do called "the sisters of slaughter". I robbed those heads, carved off the DE head from it's collar with drug pump and mashed them together. Couple little spots I need to fill with liquid green stuff as they didn't seat perfectly together but it came out alright so far I think.

Sucks about your job man. One of the things a lot of people forget is that it's alright to feel pretty crappy and unmotivated after crap things happen in your life. Whenever it's happened to me I've always felt like I was lagging behind in some way, or standing still or something. Definitely helped me move forward quicker just giving myself a set time to mope around in

Glad to have you back though! The Bloodbrides look excellent a subtle conversion but one that looks absolutely perfect can't wait to see them painted

Thank you very much Ynnead. I clawing my way back and hopefully I can keep the momentum. If all goes well I plan to base the bloodbrides tomorrow and start base colours on some other models such as my Kabalites and Raider. Id also like to do the skin on my Wyches (time permitting) and in a perfect world I may even have my second unit of wyches done for tomorrow.

@I_F - anytime man. Glad you found the stream useful Gonna be finishing up the enginseer on tomoro's stream . Doing a little something something with shading greys wth browns. Should be fun

Oooh that sounds awesome man, I'm looking forward to it, shading with colours different from the base colour is something I want to start doing more of.

Shading greys with browns? What is this witchcraft?

Small update for a decently productive day. I got my raider primed and ready for painting, the Bloodbrides are all based and ready to be primed. I did manage to get the skin done on my Wyches as well as some small details and touching up the black. It's all coming together nicely and I'm feeling pretty excited to be back on this project.

They're looking great dude Not sure what the difference with the shot is, but these guys look particularly grimdark which is very cool!

Such a great colour scheme

@I_F - sorry you missed the bit this evening with the brown shading. Happy how it turned out. I'll throw a photo up on my instgram in the morning. Gives a nice tone and depth to the otherwise quite plain grey. The power of glazing. Lol
DE are looking tight. Love that colour scheme

The Bloodbrides look great. Sorry to hear about the work situation.

CB

The wyches look ace.

I am excited to see what you do with the bloodbrides, and to see that you are picking this project back up

Thanks for all the kind words everyone. Definitely feeling the drive again and I'm feeling a lot better in general to boot, Not sure which is feeding which but I'm grateful for it.

In other news it turns out that when you sit down at a table with a paintbrush in hand your models tend to just... paint themselves? At least I'm pretty sure that's what happened. I'm fairly happy with he results, liking the armor plates much more than on my first batch of wyches. I also made a small change to how I paint the skin and I'm pretty happy with how that turned out too. I still have a long way to improve on painting flesh but I'm seeing progress... at least I think I am. So anyways here's the finished 9 wyches as they are, I'll take better photos in the booth once I get the 10th model done. I left the Hekatrix separate while painting for some reason that I'm sure made sense at the time. I included a close up of dubious value of one Wyches face to show how it came out, I think it's an improvement from my previous efforts.

Sorry to hear about the job situation. I hope things pick up soon.

On the bright side the Wyches look great!

EDC

Nothing like actually sitting down to pain to get painting done!

Nice looking wytches.

Very nice stuff as usual I_F.

The armor plates are definitely a lot better looking, and the skin looks awesome!.

If you're still having trouble with skin, for my Deldar skin I use a base of rakarth flesh, a wash of 2-1 seraphim sepia and druchii violet, and then highlight up again using rakarth flesh and Pallid Wych Flesh. Hope that helps a bit!

The Wyches look excellent I_F, like the new skin tone

It's great when you sit down and the paint just flows. Doesn't happen to me so often but it's nice when it does!

Thank you for all the kind words everyone. I'm Excited to have these done (apart from a lone Hekatrix) so I can move on to another model type. Kinda. I have to do 5 of my Bloodbrides for this months painting challenge so that'll happen first, unfortunately they're the same Wych bodies with just a head swap so I don't think they'll be too different from the Wyches I've done to date.

Thank you for the painting tips Gummy, I'm not normally a fan of mixing paints for custom colours cause I'm notorious for forgetting what paints I used and I never write anything down. I may try out your style all the same though cause it'll be a good learning experience and it's always good to try something new to broaden your horizons.

My raider is primed and for once I am actually excited to paint a vehicle (I normally hate painting vehicles, far preferring infantry) and since the hard work of figuring out a scheme was done on the first raider this one should go much quicker.

There's a painting comp next month the next town over and I think I'll enter into a couple categories there again this year. Last year I took silver in the FW category with my Wraithseer so I got a bit of motivation to see if I can come home with a medal again. The only FW models I have left now are some shadow spectres, and since the comp is single model I'm not holding my breath that one tiny infantry model will win me any placement. For the 40K category I think I'll paint my Wraithknight. So there's a rough idea of what to expect for the next little bit, hopefully it all goes according to plan and the execution on the WK comes out how I'm picturing it, it's by far the largest model I'll have ever painted and I'm quite nervous.

I'll be gone for the next couple days outta town. I hate to leave while I've got this great drive going but some things can't be helped. Looking forward to when I get back and can start on some new models. Thanks again everyone for following the project and being inspirational, I really appreciate it.

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:

Thank you for the painting tips Gummy, I'm not normally a fan of mixing paints for custom colours cause I'm notorious for forgetting what paints I used and I never write anything down. I may try out your style all the same though cause it'll be a good learning experience and it's always good to try something new to broaden your horizons.

One of the (many) perks of blogging is having a record of your actions. There have been a few times when I sifted through my old posts looking for how I did something earlier. So if you mix paints, just add the ratios/paints used to your next update.

Looking forwards to what you do with a Wraithknight provided you've got a big enough brush, I've found that painting the odd bigger model is quite good fun and very different to painting lots of little ones

Small update on the Bloodbrides. I really wanted to make my Bloodbrides stand out from the main force of Wyches so I opted for some colour swaps to go with the head swap. I was hard pressed for inspiration until it dawned on me: Bloodbrides...Brides... Wedding dress... white... man I hate painting white... oh well time to hate life!

So here's the beginnings of my Bloodbride test model. Most of the colours are unchanged but you can see the beginnings of the white undersuit, I'm building it up from light grey and the final colour will be an off-white grey with white highlights. Hopefully it works, this is my first time painting white in this manner. Let me know what you guys think.

Sounds like an interesting concept. Should look fine. Black/white swaps aren’t disruptive to the color scheme of an army.

And I hear you about painting white. I’m not going to say it’s my least favorite color to do, but it’s up there.

Agreed Nev, black and white are interchangeable in almost any situation as they are neutrals, shades rather than colours.

So this was my first time painting "white" in this manner: layering light greys up to a final "off-white" grey. For my first time doing it I'm quite happy with the results, it's not perfect but that'll come with practice. Painting this way was definitely much more enjoyable than my prior attempts at white as well, still more tedious than many other colours but I feel the effect is worthwhile.

I also learned this evening that taking photos of near white models is very difficult, it reflects so much that it's hard to get a photo not blown out with flare that drowns out any amount of colour variation. Took a lot of experimentation with the light box to find photos that "sucked less than the last one". Anyways I hope these photos can even come close to doing the actual model justice.

Please let me know what you guys think, does this look alright? Is it a stupid concept? I present to you, my first Bloodbride. (Or is it a Bloodgroom in this case? )

Bloodbride is looking great!

To help reduce burnout you could try a neutral grey background.

The wyches are looking ace! I really like the subtle purple shading, it really compliments the pink.

Going with white was a great choice, it definitely differentiates the models up from your other wyches, which is important for such an elite unit.

Im incredibly excited to see what you'll do with a wraithknight. If it is in your craftworld eldar scheme, I am certain it will be astounding.

@ChaoticMind: Thank you. I'll definitely be trying out different ways to photograph these models, I'll see what I got that will work as a grey background. I'm thinking I may try to diffuse my lights even more than what the light box does too.

@Gummyofallbears: Thanks dude. The shading is carroburg crimson but I heavily dilute it with water before applying it and in person it actually comes out more pinkish, the joys of photography though, nothing looks exactly as it does in person. I'm glad you like the white scheme, I was worried it wouldn't look good but the model is growing on me the more I look at it. I'm going to finish the other 4 bloodbrides first for this months comp then move on to the Knight. It'll be in the same colours as my Craftworld Eldar but I'm not sure I'm going to do the water ripple effect on it yet. I have a ton of reference photos to go off of and hopefully that'll help me with a scheme.

Love the colour of the bloodbrides they'll definitely stand out from the rest of your Wych Cult

Definitely looking forward to the Wraithknight too, and the rest of the Brides/Grooms

Thanks Ynneadwraith, part of me is excited to start the Wk aswell but most of me is terrified by the sheer size of the thing and scope of the project.

I thought the same thing with my Carnosaur but the moment I wasn't painting it with a fine detail brush it was really enjoyable and not intimidating at all

Wyches you say? Color me intrigued.

Natural light (but not direct) can help improve the photos of White models if they are on a dark background.

Nice Bloodbride/groom...although with Dark Eldar it likely does not matter or bother them.

Cheers,

CB

Blood Brides are looking good.

EDC

@YnneadWraith: I'll see when the moment comes, not quite there yet. I'm sure once I got my final plan figured out it won't be bad at all.

@War Kitten: Thank you, I hope you enjoy the progress on the Wyches/Bloodbrides. The full Dark Eldar project starts on page 5 with some wyches if you want to see the whole thing from the start.

@Captain Brown: Thanks for the tip, I have a spot I can take photos that gets a fair amount of natural light, I'll try it out next time I'm shooting and see if I can get better results.

@evildrcheese: Thanks dude, glad you like them.

Bloodbride/groom/fella is looking well tasty. And yes - photoing whites n off whites is an utter @$%#%#% in the ass! He's looking great though

Thank you very much Jan. I must thank you by the way for this scheme. I used to paint white with just a white paint but it was while watching you on stream you talked about painting "off-whites" instead. That go the ball rolling for me to change to this style of painting to achieve this model. So thanks man, I really appreciate the tips and the feedback on my models.

no worries bud. Anytime. Just shoot me a message here or over on twitch if you ever have anything you want a sounding board for

Little progress update for a decent afternoon of getting to paint. The second Bloodbride is coming along not too bad in my opinion, got a lot of the bases blocked out and the white undersuit is coming along nicely.

I also figured it'd be fun to show a bit of what I work with. When I start a project I pull all the paints I'll need and organize them on my portable paint tray (I sometimes travel with my painting supplies so all my hobbying gets done out of my portable kit) and this way I know I always have every single colour I need for the project on hand and within easy reach. For this reason it's difficult for me to jump between two projects such as my Craftworld Eldar and my DE as this would require me to re-shuffle and select the paints necessary for either force. So below you can see all the paints that go into painting one Wych, yup every single pot there is used in either some small or large manner (for example the red is just for the soft part of the grip on the melee weapons). It's crazy to think that in the process of painting a single DE model every single one of those pots will be used at some point, I never really thought about it much until this afternoon while painting up my second Bloodbride and I looked over to see my tray and it's like I noticed what was on it for the very first time. Anyways that's enough of my insane ramblings, it's just something I noticed today that I found interesting and figured I'd share.

Thanks for that, I recently pulled my old DE models out of storage and glued them back together (10 Wyches and a Succubus). So I'm looking for some painting inspiration for my own Wych Cult if I decide to re-invest in them

Lots of people hate on DE for being a very underpowered army right now and while I can see where that comes from (DE isn't close to top tier right now) I feel they aren't really all that bad either. Most of the codex is pretty useable with a couple exceptions. While I love Hellion models I think they are too situational as to where they can be useful and they will always be outdone by reavers. Wyches are really hated right now but to be honest I feel that's more from the guys who played them as Haywire tank destroyers previously and now can't adjust their tactics to a new playstyle. I quite enjoy running my Wyches and they have served me quite well. The 4++ in CC is actually super useful and if you roll good on the drug table (there are some combat drugs I sincerely wonder why they put in the list at all, they're so useless) you can actually put out some pain.

A succubus and a unit of Wyches is a good start to a Wych cult, throw in a raider and that's the beginning of a decent casual game build (if you want competitive kabalites are still better). Hopefully you get inspired to paint them up and if you do let me know, I'd love to see them.

Yeah I have wondered whether people are using Wyches properly, or whether they're just bad at their intended purpose.

You can't just throw them at a big blob of Guardsmen/Cultists and watch them chew through them. a 4++ is still just a 50% chance of not dying.

Would they do better thrown at something with squad-wide AP CC weapons? A 4++ is much better than armour when there's AP3 (or even AP5) around, and units like that tend to come with a relatively low volume of attacks.

I wonder how they mathammer against Wraithblades...

The ideal list I had in mind is based off the Cult of the Red Grief, so lots of Wyches in Raiders backed up by Reavers/Hellions/Scourges/Razorwings/Voidravens etc. Fast and (hopefully) lethal

And I've always thought of Wyches sort of like Assault Marines for my UM. Send them at units that you know they can win in combat against, and use your supporting units (Hi Reavers) against those other units that are a bit too hard for your Wyches to kill

Yeah I love throwing my Wyches against things like termies, monstrous creatures and essentially anything with a low volume of attacks but good AP. It's also important to remember that you have FNP so by turn 3 you have a 4++ 5+++ in combat which is actually pretty survivable, by turn 5 you're fearless to boot so even if you lose combat you won't be running away. Even if you do lose combat early on your high initiative helps keep you from being swept. Also don't forget to fire their pistols whenever you can, they get half as many shots as Kabalites but they're still poisoned, that's still worthwhile and is tons of fun against MC. For my Wyches I tend to use them as tie-up units to lock down the enemy big hitters, if I want something dead then I'll usually assault multiple wych units at one target and drown them in dice, that usually does the trick.

Wyches in raiders are the way to go for them War Kitten imo. I used to do dark lances but lately I've been favouring the disintegrator cannons, wyches don't have any AP 2 (and a Hekatrix with agoniser, while cool, is just really far too exensive) so it helps out and it's got more shots which is nice when you jinked the raider. Haywire grenades on every hekatrix is what I do, you get one to throw and one in the assault phase, so far I've been pretty lucky with them and have been able to put out a couple HP of damage from each Hekatrix per game.

Reavers are good and really versatile, caltrops for assault or blaster/heat lances for vehicle hunting. Hellions are... hard to use and hard to justify the points over just taking more reavers, they just look so damn sexy though. Scourges are fantastic and super versatile too, they can give some beta strike punch to your otherwise lacking AT capabilities. Razorwings are good, all them pie plates make short work of hordes which leaves your wyches to clean up duty where they will shine. Voidravens are... less good. The model is gorgeous but the bomb just isn't impressive and it's too expensive points-wise for what it can do, in a competitive meta I wouldn't take a voidraven but in casual games I can't wait to get one.

Hopefully that gives you an idea of what you'd like to do War Kitten, they're a super fun army to play but they are a scalpel, really hard to use and require lots of precision. Keep in mind that all this is just my opinion, others will say differently on how DE perform, I'm just talking from my experiences.

As for the hobby side of things I am almost finished my second Bloodbride. I put the washes on last night and today I just gotta layer up the skin, layer up the pink armor plates, clean up the rose metallic and do some details highlights. After that is paint up the base and it'll be done. I think I'll batch paint the last three Bloodbrides after this one. I was still nervous about getting the model to look nice even after the first so I decided to do this one as another single to practice some more.

Honestly, Wyches are a good tarpit. With S3 they will even have trouble killing things like marines, but they are amazing to tarpit with (Hi 4+ invuln)

Hellions are bad IMO, simply because they can't jink and have no way of improving that terrible 5+, and if they wanna use cover, they risk dangerous terrain (which will kill them because of a 5+ save.

Theres a pretty long DE tactics thread that is going on pretty strong in the tactics section if anyone is interrested

I really do love your scheme, and I am very excited to see how the bloodbride turns out!

That's actually some pretty good advice, thank you. And yeah, Disintegrators look like a good choice on Raiders, since they'll end up jinking more often than not

Got any pictures of the new Blood Bride?

@Gummyofallbears: Yeah Hellions aren't impressive in any real way, they lack anything that they can do that something else can't do better. Want poison shots? Kabalites are cheaper and better, want fast moving unit? Reavers are faster and more survivable (jink+toughness and skilled rider I think). Want some melee power? Reavers once again have caltrops. The only time my hellions impressed me were when I rolled +1strength on the drug table. It was turn 4 and I charged with all 5, 3str base +1 for glaive +1 for drug and +1 for furious charge meant Str6 hellions bearing down. It was hilarious but they're still AP 5 I think and don't have very many attacks. In short, awesome models, disappointing rules. Thank you sir for liking the Bloodbride scheme, that makes me glad.

@War Kitten: Indeed I do! Just finished up the second Bloodbride this afternoon.

Edit: I see in the photo I got a dab of seraphim sepia wash on my Bloodbrides leg while washing the base. I'll have to correct that.

Looking awesome I_F.


I can't wait to see a full squad of these hekatrii!

I like how the pink is not too prevalent on the model, but it still seems to match very well with the rest of your force!

Thank you very much Gummy. I feel there's just enough things tying these into my main force as for them to be unique without seeming like they're taken from a different force all together. It's a balancing act but I feel I achieved it. We'll see once all five are done and I put them on display with the rest of my force if that holds up

The squad is going to look amazing when they're done! I'm assuming the scheme is for your own custom Kabal/Cult? I've yet to have the time to go through the rest of the blog so I don't know

Indeed they are for my Cult. I wanted something other than the head swap to be a way of differentiating them from the rest of my force so changing one of the neutral colours of the scheme felt like a good way to go.

Warkitten, I heard that you wanted to start wych cult.

Keep your ear to the ground to listen for rumors as gangs of commoragh is coming out, and its rumored to be 6 reavers and 10 hellions for $60 which is an awesome deal, so don't buy any reavers/hellios just yet

These are going to look stunning as a squad they'll really stand out from the rest of your forces, but still blend in.

It would also do really nicely to pick out Kabalite Trueborn as well. I've heard rumours of a new kit for those at some point which would be very interesting...

A dedicated Kabalite trueborn kit would make me really happy, GW could make them so epic. I'd be disappointed to hear if they came out with a Bloodbride kit though, not because I don't want to see one but more because I'm working on these ones and that'd be just my luck. The new craftworld jetbike kit did come out just 2 weeks after I finished my old-school jetbikes...

That's exactly my reasoning for why I'm not sure I want an exodite codex/models. On the one hand new rules! On the other, I've just spent bl**dy ages making my own!

I really hope they do come out with a kit. I have utmost faith in whoever made the rest of the Dark Eldar range. They would be stunning

 gummyofallbears wrote:
Warkitten, I heard that you wanted to start wych cult.

Keep your ear to the ground to listen for rumors as gangs of commoragh is coming out, and its rumored to be 6 reavers and 10 hellions for $60 which is an awesome deal, so don't buy any reavers/hellios just yet

I've actually been keeping an eye on the rumor thread for it. Its certainly on my to-buy list

Feels like forever since I've given an update but I suppose that couldn't be helped since I was out of town for almost a week. I did bring my portable painting setup with me while I was gone and made sure to get some progress in. And by progress I mean the Bloodbrides are done! I'm fairly stoked about that and I think they look much better as a unit than they do individually. Please let me know what you think of them, all comments and critiques are greatly appreciated.

I've also started basing my Wraithknight, next up will be magnets. I'm officially not putting it off anymore either... the Wraithknight will be the next project I complete.

Those are looking badass!!!!! Great work. Wraithknight next...................sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!!

You're not kidding about them looking good as a unit! They're phenomenal really stellar work dude!

They look absolutely killer!

I can't wait to see what you do with that WraithKnight!

Wow thanks guys, good reviews all around so far. Thank you all very much, means a lot to me. Man I'm getting more nervous about this Knight now, excitement levels are way too high, I don't want to disappoint. I'll be chipping away at him tonight, hopefully have him primed. Tomorrow the painting shall begin.

Nice work on the completed unit.

Excited to see what you do with the Wraith Knight.

EDC

How much weathering do you do?

Looking at the pristine white armor, and all those choppy/stabby/killy weapons makes me wonder how long it’s going to stay white.

Part of me wants to see them splattered in gore. Blood everywhere. Maybe a few skulls taken for the...

... One sec, the Chaplain is calling me. BRB.

They look fine as is. Or as well as a filthy xenos can expect to be that’s not a bullet riddled corpse.

Thank you EDC, I hope to impress with this upcoming WK.

To be honest weathering is something I don't tend to do a lot of. I might dirty up some well worn areas like the feet or the weapons but I tend to leave the armor alone. It's something I want to get into doing, I have some ideas for a hyper-weathered Tempestus Scions force and a rag-tag group of Harlequins but I haven't practiced it much. I agree with you about the blood though, something about the white bodysuit that just demands it be covered in gore, I never once thought of putting gore on my Wyches but for these ones I really considered it. The reason I didn't follow through was because I thought it might look odd that my Bloodbrides were all covered in gore and the rest of my force was clean. Almost like the Bloodbrides were doing all the work.

The nice thing about adding some blood is that I can always do it afterwards, I may practice on some models first to get the splattering and streaking right then come back to the force and give them their gore. For now unfortunately I have some competition models to finish for February, wraithknight and shadow spectre then of course whatever the monthly painting challenge is here on Dakka I may enter that too.

Those Bloodbrides came out gorgeously!

Thank you very much War Kitten, I'm glad you like them. I have 5 more to bring the unit to a full 10 models but for now 5 will do just nicely as a retinue for my succubus. In the mean time I have the magnets installed on my wraithknight and his weapon options now and as I type this the primer is settling on him. Tonight... tonight the brush will be taken to him and the real work begins.

Nice work, love the Bloodbrides. Keen to see your Wraithknight!

Thank you very much sir and welcome to the plog. I'll post a pic update on the knight tonight, nothing too exciting going on, just putting base colours down on some spots before drybrushing them.

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:


Feels like forever since I've given an update but I suppose that couldn't be helped since I was out of town for almost a week. I did bring my portable painting setup with me while I was gone and made sure to get some progress in. And by progress I mean the Bloodbrides are done! I'm fairly stoked about that and I think they look much better as a unit than they do individually. Please let me know what you think of them, all comments and critiques are greatly appreciated.

I've also started basing my Wraithknight, next up will be magnets. I'm officially not putting it off anymore either... the Wraithknight will be the next project I complete.

These are awesome.

What makes them so striking is the tonal range. Those whites against the darker colours. It does not hurt that the dark pink sets off the green extremely well.

I suggest everyone goes to the gallery
https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/852960-.html
to vote on this image.

Thank you very much ColonelFazackerley for your kind words and critique. I'm glad you like them.

Voted a very deserved 10/10

Very cool bloodbrides, great choice of colours, and they look very compact as a unit!

10/10 dude?! Not sure my work is quite that good but thank you all the same, I appreciate it

Thank you very much b-tone I'm glad you like them. For now they're just a small unit of 5 to go as an honour guard with my Succubus for a tactic I like to call my "fear bomb". I have the other 5 built up and will paint them down the road when I've finished some higher priority projects.

I can't wait to see that Wraithknight finished! Love that model....

Sorry to disappoint War Kitten but I don't have a finished Wraithknight to show you just yet. Currently it's just... progress. For how much paint I've used this really doesn't feel like it's moved much closer to completion. Hopefully that changes once I put the orange on him.

Looking good so far dude once the main armour plates get colour it'll look a whole lot closer to completion

I;m liking the definition on the bone-coloured elements

*Grumble, grumble*
How am I supposed to get ideas for an Eldar or Dark Eldar army if you don't give me glorious painted minis to make me feel better about my own glacial painting speed?

Thanks Ynneadwraith, I agree, once the main plates get even their base colour it'll look a lot more complete. I love painting that bone colour, it's so cathartic.

If it's any consolation War Kitten seeing that my painting speed is fairly arctic itself should make you feel better. All the same I am sorry to disappoint and I will endeavour to correct this mistake by finishing this model as fast as possible

Looking good so far!

I am really excited to see how this mini turns out!

Although I must agree, it is really annoying to put a lot of effort in to a mini (Or in this case a big-i, GET IT) and see little pay off.

Keep it up!

Honestly it's a big surface area thing. I've put a lot of paint on him, just straight up using tons of paint but I'm still only in the very beginning stages of what he'll become. It's just weird to me to go through that much paint is all. It's not like my infantry models where a small dollop of one colour will paint the bits on 5 infantry.

I'm going to throw this out here right now for anyone who even thinks of painting a Wraithknight. This is very important and will save you hours of headache later. Paint the bloody thing in sub-assemblies, it's a miserable experience trying to work around all the parts and getting a brush into the nooks and crannies without mucking up what you've already finished. Ok rant over.

Little bit of an update on the WK front. The grey sub-structure is finished and I've started the orange armor panels. Really not much else to say really. Will be putting in more hours tomorrow, we'll see how far we get then.

Looks great man! Turns out your so called glacial painting speed isn't so glacial after all

I'm with you on the sub-assemblies front. Learning that lesson with a Raider at the moment :S

Still a lot slower than I'd like to be but progress is progress. Yeah for raiders I build the main body, the sail is another piece and the crew is another. I magnetize the weapons so those are painted separately too I suppose.

Been away for a while. The Bloodbrides look great Inevitable_Faith.

Cheers,

CB

Your painting speed is still blindingly fast compared to mine

Everything is looking great!

I cannot wait to see that guy finished!

Hindsight is 20/20. That said the beast is looking good!

Thanks everyone for the kind words. Took yesterday off from painting as my GF was in town and we decided to host a small party at my place. As of this morning the bottles have been recycled, the dishes washed, the counters wiped and prepped for use and the painting station has been set up again. Painting shall recommence after a break this afternoon and a trip to the gym.

Small update again. Got the orange base down on the model. Now to the actual orange colour he's going to be... that's for tomorrow though.

Its lookin good so far I_F!

I agree that it's a grueling process to basecoat the entire model, but I am excited to see how it'll turn out!

Oooooooo.

Ahhhhhh.

Looking good so far mate. I totally understand why your saying about wishing you'd done sub assemblies, it looks like a rather cumbersome model to work with.

EDC

Hindsight is always 20/20 I suppose. Thanks for the words of encouragement Gummy and EDC, they really help keep me motivated.

Looks great so far. I really like the orange, nothing you see that often Which colour will you give the gems?

Neat! He's looking really goof I_F

Coming along nicely!

Looking great so far! I assembled mine completely, too, and if I ever paint it I am sure to know your pain.

Thank you all for the comments, they're greatly appreciated.

SoaJ, I'll be painting the gemstones in purple as I've done for the rest of my craftworld forces. I'll be attempting some new techniques to make them really pop as while my old method of painting gems was "ok" I'd love to improve upon it.

Youwashock, Thank you kind sir, and if I'm not mistaken you're a first time poster, welcome to the thread and thank you very much for commenting! You totally should paint your WK too, it's annoying to work around a pre-built one but once you get past the base colours and it starts to take shape it really is quite rewarding to see it come together.

And disaster strikes... So I was going to keep progressing on the WK when I open up my pot of Troll Slayer Orange to find that it was completely dried up, utterly unsalvageable. Being that this is my primary layer colour for the majority of the model I'm more than a bit out of sorts, especially since the nearest GW I can get one from is 200KM away. I called up my GF (who actually lives a short 15 mins drive away) and asked if she could get me a pot and bring it down on her next visit next weekend and she said sure. She grabbed two of the three paints I needed and what's the one paint they were sold out of? Troll. Slayer. Orange. Ok, enough ranting, on to plan B for now.

I've started work on the model I'll be entering into the Forge World category at the end of this month so time is not completely wasted right now. I'll also build and start painting my model for the Dakka painting challenge as well.

Bugger :S sod's law that's the paint they don't have.

What's the availability of next-day shipping like where you are? Could be an option

Also, is that Irrilyth? Awesome!

No next day shipping here, I live in a small town so services like that aren't offered. GW is usually not too bad at shipping in a timely fashion but I really just need one 5$ pot of paint and I don't want to pay the shipping cost for that. Free shipping from GW is 80$ but I have neither the desire for that much stuff (my shelf of shame is piled too high) nor the funds. I'll have to try and find other ways of getting it here fast enough.

Oh by the way it's not Iryllyth, that would be awesome but sadly I don't have him. This is just a random Shadow spectre from FW that I ordered about 2 years ago and still hadn't managed to assemble and paint them. Him and his 4 squadmates are all the FW I have left at the moment after making my wraithseer.

Ah bummer :S I forget that GW's distribution system outside of the UK is pretty pants.

Shadow Spectres are really cool can't wait to see what you do with them

Oh, and I prefer 'Primered Legion' to 'Shelf of Shame' less depressing that way!

Progress has been quite slow lately as I'm pretty put out of sorts without the colours I need but I did manage to get some more paint on the shadow Spectre. I hope tomorrow is a more productive day for me, Resident Evil 7 is done now so I can't use that as an excuse not to paint anymore.

Looking good dude it's a bummer when you're stopped mid-flow, but I do find that's sometimes when I end up being forced to paint something different that's been languishing low-down on the list, so your Shadow Spectre is definitely a silver lining

I'm actually getting pretty happy with how this guy is turning out which is helping my enthusiasm again. He's also a model I need to paint for this month's competition anyways so it's time well spent. Will update his progress tonight with a pic, for now I'm just plugging away at him.

He is looking quite nice, and I too enjoyed RE7 greatly too!

I've always been a fan of colored shading on whites, and you did a good job on it.

I can't wait to see the talos painted too!

Thanks gummy, yeah RE7 was quite enjoyable, much better than 5 and 6 but I'm not sure if I liked it more than 4. Maybe if it was longer, 4 felt like it spanned such a big story and had much more play time. Leon also seemed to have way more personality than this wet paper sack Ethan is. Overall though RE7 is a huge step in the right direction for the series.

On to painting stuff, that pic is so messy I cringe to look at it, I went over with my second pass and I think it looks a lot nicer now. I'll be adding some detail colours to this one and then I think we'll finally see what it's intended to be come within sight. As for my talos/cronos kit this one will be a Cronos since I've already got a Talos. I'm really excited to do this one because I'm really going to push the envelope with my painting with what I got planned on it. I hope it turns out nice and that you guys will like it.

The shadow Spectre is coming along pretty fast in my opinion, in fact he's almost done barring that blasted orange I'm missing. Here is the progress pic as of this evening.

Nice work on the Spectre so far, the white armour is looking brill.

EDC

Dude that's looking really cool pale desaturated armour with a riot of colour on the cloth. Right up my street

Looking forward to your Cronos saw the pic on the painting contest and thought i was looking forward to what you came up with

Thank you EDC and Ynneadwraith. The photo and lighting killed a lot of the colour variation on his armour (it's super hard to photograph white and near-white well) but I actually have a bit of light blue shading coming up from the bottom of his armour plates, as a spectre I'm trying to give him a bit of a ghostly appearance that steps away from good clean armour. Hopefully I can showcase this better in the photo booth when he's finished. The orange and purple are there to tie him in to the rest of my craftworld force, the goal is to paint all my aspect warriors in their traditional colours but sneak in some orange and purple to link them to my forces.

In other news my GF was able to pick up a pot of Troll Slayer orange that I needed and will be heading down my way for a visit tonight! Looks like I'll be able to get right back into it in time as the spectre is also at a stage where he needs that orange. I'll build the Cronos today and get started on him soon, she's bringing me the paint I need to achieve the effect I desire on him as well.

Make sure you don't get right to painting yeah? she did come 200km was it with your pot of paint? I don't think they've got brushes in the dog-house

And yeah it's really tricky to get good shots of whites. Took me ages to find anything that was soft enough to show proper colour distribution.

Can't wait to see them both done though

She's down for three days so yeah I'll make sure to divide my time more than fairly, to be fair I don't think I'll get much painting done at all for the next 3 days

The Shadow Spectre is looking damn good... god I love those models, it's a shame I'm not looking for craftworld eldar allies :( maybe once day....

I like the orange and how it plays with the white, white is a very cold color (especially with the hints of blue) and the orange adds contrast perfectly (and I think everyone knows I'm a sucker for high contrast).

Keep it up!

Gotta play with those warm and cool tones! All part of colour theory 101. It's one of my three criteria for painting a model actually.

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
Gotta play with those warm and cool tones! All part of colour theory 101. It's one of my three criteria for painting a model actually.

And the other 2?

An interesting color scheme for a Craftworld, consider me subbed!

The three things I strive for when designing a paint scheme for a model Nev are:

1) Complimentary Colours
2) Use of both warm and cool tones
3) Varied textures

If I can achieve all three of those things in a model then I should be on the right track to painting an interesting and pleasing model. This is by no means the entirety of how to make a model look good but it's a decent foundation to start with until you learn more techniques and styles to add to your repertoire.

Thank you very much JustaerinAtTheWall! Happy to have you here and hopefully this should be an interesting an enjoyable plog for you to follow. I welcome any and all comments and critiques so if you ever have ideas or suggestions then please feel free to speak up. In fact any amount of banter is most welcome. Thank you very much for the sub!

Okay update time! Got some paint down on the Wraithknight, just starting to layer up that troll slayer orange (finally!), we'll see how tomorrow goes but hopefully I can finish the troll slayer and get my first wash down on it. More importantly I finished my forge world entry for the comp. Got my shadow spectre done. I wanted to get him in the same photo as my Wraithknight but wouldn't you know that attention seeking bugger just stepped right in front of the shadow spectre to hog all the limelight.

I say that's good enough anyways, you can see his gun after all, I'll break out the light box tomorrow and get some real photos of the shadow spectre to share with you, hopefully the WK can keep his jealousy in check long enough for a phot-op to happen.

He looks great I_F! Looking forward to the Shadow Spectre too

Really interesting seeing your categories for picking colour schemes, and interestingly how much they differ to mine which is probably the basis for how our differing painting styles have developed

My 3 criteria for a paint scheme are:

1. Complimentary colours
2. Single tone (warm or cold)
3. Majority of model painted in very low contrast similar colours, with sparse splashes of a bright vibrant colour

Very interesting indeed

There are lots of ways to establish your paint scheme and no one way is totally right or wrong, you're completely right that the criteria in which we design our models is what distinguishes our styles as painters and hobbyists. Over time that criteria grows, shifts, changes and evolves with our skills and techniques.

With my next project I hope to expand upon my skills even more and not only evolve the style of painting I use right now but to also take on a brand new style of painting that is very far removed from what I currently do. It'll be quite the learning experience but it'll be lots of fun and completely worth it. For now however I have the last remnants of my to-do list of CWE and DE to finish before I jump onto the new force.

Absolutely right it's part of what gives each of us our own unique style

Ooh interesting! Any hints what this new force might be?

Well since I've been painting Eldar for this long, both CWE and DE, and I'm still loving everything about them all I figured it'd be the next logical course for me to make up some Harlequins. I have one Troupe on sprue and a Shadowseer that I'll start out with and I'll build up form there. I'm just not at a point yet where I'm redy to start on that project, I want to add some more to my DE before I go down that road.

And as promised I have the photos of the completed Shadow Spectre! Bright colours are still hella difficult to picture, I'm thinking I need to get some filters for my lights to dim them down so it doesn't blow out the photo so much. Here he is, my entry for the Forge world category at the end of the month is done, hope you guys like him and please let me know any comments/critiques you may have. The photos have blown out a lot of the gradient on his armour sadly and there is a slight blue tinge to a lot of the model that doesn't show up well in the photos, I think a better camera may be a good investment in the future for this.

Spectre looks very good. I like the purple as a counterpoint to the orange.

Thank you very much youwashock, I'm quite happy with the interaction of the colours for my CWE, they took me a while to settle on but it was worth the time in my opinion. Here's a couple extra photos I forgot to add in the batch.

He looks phenomenal! You definitely have an eye for colours I can picture the slight bluish tinge, even if the photos don't quite show it. Would work really nicely with the warm orange and purples

Excited to see you're looking at some Harlequins too here was me concerned that your next army might be some filthy mon keigh not that there's anything wrong with that of course

I think you'll enjoy Harlequins. I've found them a real joy to paint

Thank you Ynnead for the kind words. No threat of me going anywhere away from Eldar for the foreseeable future, they're way too much fun and their lore is just phenomenal.

Small update on the painting front. The Wraithknight has officially pushed me over the edge, maybe it's just the size of the model, maybe it's the lack of any real inspiration as to how to make him stand out, perhaps it's my lack of experience in painting larger models holding me back. It's probably all of these things and more to be honest but I had a breakdown a few days ago where I got so angry while trying to make progress on him that I just had to stop, I wasn't enjoying painting anymore. I tucked him away into a cabinet so I wouldn't have to look at him and pulled out my Cronos parts and started painting those, instantly relaxed and loving the hobby again. Below is a pic of the WK progress, I got the wash applied to the orange, it ran in places and ruined my greys, that's another part that drove me nuts. I'll get back to the WK before the end of the month but for now the Cronos is keeping me sane. I got a little WiP pic of the cronos here too, I'm much happier with how he's turning out.

The chronos looks ace I_F!

I'm sorry to hear about the wraithknight, I'm in a similar place with the Yncarne, but hey, you can always come back to it! That's the beauty of this hobby I think

Yup you're right Gummy, I just need a break from him to get my head back on straight, in the mean time the Cronos is a welcome distraction.

Well that's a bummer about the Wraithknight, but not to worry really it's a massive departure from your bread and butter, and TBH I've yet to think of something fun to do with the model either (probably fuelled by my bias that superheavies should be in Apoc games...). Stash it away somewhere and let your subconscious ruminate on it, perhaps you'll get some inspiration

Cronos is looking great though love the bloodied tips of his tentacles, and the red raw skin on the underside is a great touch

Ouch, always sucks when a model fights you. Thankfully you made the right choice and took a break before you had to give it flying lessons.

Big vehicles normally have a tipping point for me.

I start excited. New thing to field, so much potential on the paint bench.

Then the actual mechanics of painting it start to sink in. It starts to get tedious. So much space to paint, and inks and glazes never work the same on something that size.

But after a while of glacially slow progress and getting scared away from my bench, eventually I see the light at the end of the tunnel and get motivated to finish it. Some things take longer then others (damn drop pods)

It’s good that you realized that the WK was sucking the fun out of your hobby and were able to switch projects. I’ve had to do that myself. Again, drop pods. Just keep it in the background. I might suggest not totally hidden, so you might work on it a little bit at a time. After enough touchups, you might get to the point where you need to see it done, and get remotivated.

But if you are angry at it, some time apart might be the best thing for your relationship.

The DE murderbot thing is looking fun.

Thank you everyone, I'm glad I made the choice to put it aside for the time being. Already I'm starting to want to reconcile with the model and start painting it again but I'm not quite there yet, another few days and more work on the Cronos and I'll be ready to go on him again.

Ynnead: I don't mind the superheavies in games but I think they need big point adjustments across the board. It should be a real decision on a players part to choose the superheavy instead of the plethora of smaller things he could take instead. Currently the big things like Stormsurges, WK, imp knights and riptides are total no-brainers for list building.

Nevelon: I totally agree, there's a huge difference between painting infantry and vehicles, I know I'm a fan of infantry painting and that's where my love of the hobby comes from. I got a friend who hates painting infantry but man he loves sitting down and painting militarum tanks for days on end. It's a different mentality and style to paint these things. I think it may be time to break out my airbrush and get it ready to go to work before I do any more large models or vehicles...

ChaoticMind: Oh man your post had me almost falling outta my chair! Flying lessons most certainly crossed my mind when I saw a huge drip of my wash roll its way down into my greys. It reminds me of the time I had a friend, chaos player, have a very unfortunate series of events happen to his defiler and it was removed from play before it even got to do anything. We played at my first house at the time on the kitchen table. He was so angry he grabbed his defiler, yelled "Perils of the warp b**ch" then proceeded to dropkick it down the hallway. It was funny right up until we saw his foot and the massive laceration a spike from the Defiler had made in the top of his foot. Driving on our way to the hospital where he received stitches was when we agreed it had now moved over to "hilarious" territory.

Sorry to hear about the Wraithknight...had a similar problem with the Riptide. Looking forward to the Cronos.

Cheers,

CB

Made some headway on the Cronos, the mask is done and ready to be glued on once the body is painted, the back carapace shell is done and just needs the top spikes glued in and all the spinal tendrils are finished. Just the flesh and some odds and ends to do. I'm quite pleased with how he's shaping up so far.

He's looking really cool I_F! I always forget how awesome your cherry-blossom motif is

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
Ynnead: I don't mind the superheavies in games but I think they need big point adjustments across the board. It should be a real decision on a players part to choose the superheavy instead of the plethora of smaller things he could take instead. Currently the big things like Stormsurges, WK, imp knights and riptides are total no-brainers for list building.

Yeah that's a good way of looking at it. I suppose the ideal situation is for the vast majority of things in a codex to be broadly similar in cost-to-ability so that it's a genuine decision whatever you take. Interestingly, aside from Scatterbikes, Wraithknights and Warp Spiders I think the Eldar codex is pretty much where it needs to be for that...

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:

Nevelon: I totally agree, there's a huge difference between painting infantry and vehicles, I know I'm a fan of infantry painting and that's where my love of the hobby comes from. I got a friend who hates painting infantry but man he loves sitting down and painting militarum tanks for days on end. It's a different mentality and style to paint these things. I think it may be time to break out my airbrush and get it ready to go to work before I do any more large models or vehicles...

Your friend's mad as far as I'm concerned! Definitely with you on the love of infantry, and I can't think of a worse experience than painting a dozen tanks!

I do get that it's a personal preference thing though, as well as likely army-dependent. With Eldar/Dark Eldar we're blessed with some of the most kickass infantry models around. Comparing them to painting 40 Cadians for a single troops slot and I might be able to see where he's coming from...

WOW! I love the cherry blossom pattern on the talos, it looks baller!

Ynead - I'm afraid thats the issue with the eldar codex, it has awesome internal balance, and almost everything is good, and balanced compared to everything else (except a few of the Phoneix lords, howling banshees, and wraithlords are situational) but compared to the rest of the game, they are stupid good

Thank you for the kind words guys, I'm glad you like him. From my first attempts at the cherry blossom pattern to now I'm quite pleased with how it's improved, I've made small adjustments to it here and there as I've repeated the pattern and I like it more now than when I first did it.

Ynnead: Yeah there's a few things that could use adjustment, another reason superheavies and gargantuans (as well as many of the OP MC, looking at you riptide) are so common too is that they can score objectives. Back when I first started playing this game troops choices were the only FOC that could score which meant you had to take some if you wanted to get obj points. Now since everything scores that's not required and since formations are a thing the restrictions of the FOC is out the window. You like riptides? Take nothing but the riptide wing and that's a legal battle forged army. I like the idea of formations, it's a way to build a fluffy themed list around some of your favourite units, but in practice they got way out of hand for most codexes. For most of them too their points cost is way too low comparatively to the amount of firepower you need to take them down, unless you happen to have that one specific unit that hard-counters it then you're fine but at that point we might as well be playing rock paper scissors instead of 40k, not to mention in most situations you don't know what you'll be up against so you can't really plan a certain list against it, that also gets into the counter-list argument which is frowned upon. All in all the game can be great fun and there's lots of great ways to play against any army but there's more than a handful of really stupid design choices that are really hurting the game right now. I don't mind the game evolving, they wanted big models to be part of it? That's absolutely fine by me, some people want to play with the big things, some people want to play with the infantry and lighter tanks, some want flyers. I think it should all be allowed in game to have the broadest appeal to the most players and playstyles but it needs to be balanced appropriately which it absolutely has not been.

Gummy: I agree with you for the most part on your feelings on the Craftworlds codex balance. With a couple exceptions (as you mentioned) the whole codex is very well written and balanced. Howling Banshees suffer not from their own unit entry in my opinion but rather in the terrible transport rules we currently have, wraithlords I have little experience with but I think they probably suffer from the poor assault rules and perhaps a bit too high of a points cost on their weapons but that's debatable. I think the Eldar codex as a whole is pretty well balanced against any Dex written after the necron codex, necrons included. Anything from before that is far too underpowered. What I love about the Eldar codex is that each unit has a purpose and is written in a fun way to do that, striking scorpions are super sneaky until they act beyond moving, swooping hawks have cool grenade and flight rules, fire dragons kick vehicle butt as they should. On top of that if you add an exarch to a unit you get another fun fluffy rules for the exarch such as the striking scorpion assault bonuses or no-scatter DS for the hawks. It makes each unit feel unique and fluffy with the tactical decision to add an exarch for more options. It's in my opinion a wonderful way to write a codex and more of the other dexes would benefit if they followed suite. I can't tell you how disappointing it is to add a squad leader to my DE forces for what... +1 LD and access to ridiculously overpriced melee weapons? Whereas their craftworld kin get cool fluffy rules that greatly aid the unit in their chosen role. The other problem with newer dexes is formations, too many of them are "take these already awesome units and add them together and get these super awesome bonuses that just crank them up to 11" and that design has to stop. They used to make formations to Band-Aid units they knew were weak, that was also a poor choice as it doesn't address the real issue with the unit. What they need to do is, for the beginning of 8th, scrap formations and go back to the classic CAD. Balance everything in the game to each other in a CAD then add formations later, and these formations need to either simply be an adjustment to the CAD so you can modify how your army is built but have no extra rules and if they do have extra rules they cost extra points.

Oh wow this turned into a rant... really sorry guys, my last few matches were against absolute cheddar cheese Tau lists abusing formations and the crazy-good units and I have been tabled before turn 3 twice now without getting any wounds out there. I may be a little bit bitter. Sorry.

The thing about formations and how strong they are is it really needs to be all or nothing. If everybody has stupid good stuff, then theres no such thing as stupid stuff.

Wraithlords are bad because they are too slow to get stuck in, and they are really really expensive when decked out for shooting (more expensive and worse at shooting than a scatpack) T8 is misleadingly tough, as its immune to small arms, but anything at all that ignores that toughness really really breaks the wraithlord, (I love seeing my opponent bring one as DE ) Howling banshees just need something to modify S3 and an assault transport and they become awesome skirmishers.

Haha! That is a wall of text, but very insightful agreed on all fronts

Tiny update on the Cronos, I've done step 3 of his flesh. I don't know how many steps there are, just that this was the third.

Hopefully it shows up well in the photos, the colours are quite similar to each other. For this guy I decided to try out painting him to look like he's had his skin flayed off, hopefully it works out.

It definitely looks like he's just pure musculature, no skin looks great!

Perhaps some little bands of white would add to the effect, like the bands of fat you get when you look at human musculature.

He looks awesome already though

Yeah I still got a long way to go on his skin but it's getting there, I will be adding a highlight to each muscle striation (ugh that's gunna be tedious) and I do plan on adding the lighter coloured tendons/ligaments (the white parts you speak of) once that is done.

Lookin' pretty good here IF! I like the flayed look, probably cause i'm a 'cron player and FO are very prominent in my builds.

Lookin neat I_F.

I'd totally borrow that from you if I was gonna paint up much more HC, but I think the Ynari have taken that from me

Thank you very much for the compliments guys, I got a lot more work done on the muscle and in my opinion it looks a lot better now, just gotta do the ligaments and tendons to finish it off. I'm really digging the flayed look and I think it works especially well for the Cronos to help him stand a part from the Talos engines.

Flayed ones are gorgeous models Justaerinatthewall and loads of fun to fight on the tabletop, they have lots of good potential to be a real standout unit on the table to get away from all the necron silver paint.

The beauty of painting flayed flesh is you don't have to paint only flayed covens units Gummy, you can paint flayed Eldar, flayed Orks, flayed guardsmen or even flayed Tau. In fact if it has skin it can be flayed! So don't worry about specific units just go ahead and flay them all!

That model is a real chance to flex your muscles (heh) from a painting perspective. You can really get in there and play with glazes and gloss coats to make it very rich and visceral. Looking good so far.

Shadow Spectre came out really nicely. Loving the Cronos. flesh work is sweet

It's been a great challenge painting this muscle, so far I think I've had moderate success. I'm reluctant to start playing with glazes and glosses at the stage it's at right now for fear of butchering what I've done (in a bad way). I'm not confident enough in my skills or knowledge to know how to apply them to good effect. I was also thinking blood for the blood god would work but I'm pretty worried it may just botch the whole job instead. If you have any suggestions on how to apply glazes and gloss to improve this I'd love to hear it, always nice to learn new things.

Thanks Jan, I had a blast painting the Shadow Spectre, the bloodbrides were great practice for doing that much off-white work. I hope the Cronos comes out nicely as it's looking like it'll be my entry for the competition at the end of the month instead of my wraithknight.

Here's the latest update on the muscle texture, let me know what you guys think please, as the one who painted it I have a hard time discerning the quality of the work with clear eyes.

Wow that's impressive!

I get the fear of applying glazes in case it ruins it. I'd steer away from Blood for the Blood God for this purpose. I've found it's actually pretty viscous with a high surface tension to allow it to clump up like blood globules do. It's very, very clever, but not quite what you need.

I know it's probably going to be a ton more effort, but could you paint up something else as a test piece for your glazes/washes?

Depending on time I can do a test piece. The only problem is that I leave on Monday to visit my girlfriend for a week and don't know how much painting I'll be able to get done while I'm there. I'm really pushing to try and have this guy done by tomorrow.

How have I missed 2 pages of stuff since I last checked in?!

Loving the flayed skin look, I'd say you've nailed it!

EDC

Chronos looks great, I see the flayed look clearly in the photo.

Cheers,

CB

Thank you very much EDC and CB, I appreciate the comments, helps me know if I'm doing things right or just messin em all up.

That skin is coming on great.

Thank you very much SJM.

Wow, the actual Cronos is creepy, yours is just even creepier...
Maybe you cold try diluted Blood for the Blood God? I think indiluted it will darken everthing too much and your painted details will disappear. Otherwise some Bloodletter and gloss varnish could result in something similar but much more controllable.

Thanks for the comment and advice SoaJ. I'd like to experiment with it more but unfortunately I'm out of time now to do anything else on the muscle, I still have to wrap up the rest of his parts (the tiny arms on the side and the plethora of glass tubes and vials all over the model) so for now it'll stay as is until after the competition. I do like the idea of mixing some gloss and paint together though, I have a feeling it may dilute the gloss factor as well so perhaps trying out those tints that GW makes may be in order.

Wow!!

That flesh is disgusting and unsetting, Perfect for a chronos I guess

Awesome work however, I really don't think the skin needs much more, its looking amazing.

Looking real good. Nobody will mistake what you are going for. I will also suggest staying away from BFTBG. It is a neat tool, but not subtle enough for your paint job.

Got the Cronos all finished up tonight. Thank you very much for all your comments and critiques everyone as I worked on him, they were a big help even if I couldn't test out all of the suggestions. I did notice one issue once I put him all together though, one that I'm sure will cost me any chance at medalling in this upcoming painting comp (if that was even possible in the first place). It's the model itself, his pose means no one will be able to see his chest and stomach on the table during voting and I feel that's his strongest feature. Voting at this comp is not by judges but rather open voting to the public but they can't touch the models (probably for good reason) so with his hunched pose they'll really only get to see his shell, which is kinda "meh". Oh well, can't be helped now. Anyways here's the pics. Hope you guys like him and of course comments and critiques are greatly appreciated.

Wow now that is a thing of beauty it is a real shame that it won't be immediately visible, but what an achievement!

I think you're selling yourself short on the carapace as well. The pink blossom motif is very striking, and might be just enough to make people look just a little bit closer and spot the underside

Thank you very much Ynneadwraith for your kind words. We'll see what happens on Saturday if either of my models are good enough to medal in their respective categories, I won't be holding my breath though. I do still like the carapace, the motif is still something that pleases me visually, we'll see as well if it's well-received by the public vote this weekend.

At the end of the day however I am still proud of what I've done with this, the parts that are similar to my Talos in my opinion I've done better, cleaner lines, neater edge highlighting, the flower motif is a bit tighter and the spine tentacles far outshine the one I did on my Talos, clear improvement in all those areas. The muscle texture was tons of fun to paint and, for my first attempt, I am pretty happy with the results. This was another learning experience that I feel paid off pretty nicely in the end.

Those muscle fibres are looking sweeeeet

is it possible to use a longer stem to the base and file the top so it's at an angle so he's a bit more tilted up?

Looking great though

I'm drawing more and more parallels to 'crons with this boy, now with the green piping! Maybe I need to stop reading my codex so much...
Looking excellent IF, a worthy entry for this competition!

Wow!

It all looks awesome as per usual!

It's a shame the body isn't as noticeable, however, the cherry blossoms are absolutely striking and quite creepy paired with the skin and idea of the mini.

Good luck at the competition!

Thank you very much for all your kind words everyone, they're greatly appreciated and really get me stoked on starting my next piece, likely a Haemonculus.

@finnan: welcome back to the thread dude, glad to have you! I did try different poses and with a longer stem it'd still be awkward to see his chest properly, you really kinda have to just flip him upside down to get a good look at it. I did find a way to showcase it though without touching the model, a small makeup mirror, it sits right under the base and reflects the chest quite well so you can see it without touching the model. As long as the organizers at the comp allow me to place it there with my model it should be adequate to get a decent look at the whole thing.

@justaerinatthewall: At the end of the day what's the difference between one bloodthirsty murder machine and another?

@gummyofallbears: Thank you always kind sir. I do like the play of the different themes at work here, the tranquility of the blossoms is really at odds with his flesh, I was worried they would clash in a negative way but I think overall they're working together not bad.

I'm back from 8 days away from home. The painting comp I went to was a ton of fun but unfortunately I didn't do very well at all. There was a ton of entrants in each category and there were some amazing standout minis for sure, it was quite intimidating. I asked the organizer how my minis fared overall and while I'm not surprised I didn't medal this year I was a bit disheartened at where I stood, both my minis were quite near the bottom of the pack for the public voting. Oh well, it can't be helped I suppose, hopefully I do better next year. On the bright side my Cronos seems to be fairly well liked over here on the Dakka painting comp so that's got my spirits up.

On that note a few people in the voting thread had mentioned they wanted to see close ups of my cronos. With my limited photography skills I've done the best I can for now I believe so here's some extra shots of him. If anyone wants to see any specific angles or spots let me know, my photo booth has a semi-permanent spot now so I don't have to tear it down anymore.

That's a really lovely painting with some truly fantastic attention to detail, love the contrast between the delicate black and blossom carapace and the meat beneath.

Very nice!

Yes, what inflatablefriend said, except in my voice.

Really awesome work dude I'm sure that painting comp you went to must have been attended by philistines and blind folk

Thank you for your kind words inflatablefriend (love your name!) and warboss_waaazag, I greatly appreciate it.

The voting for this comp was public vote so it was just anyone who passed by the place were asked to vote. There was so many entrants this year that I'm sure my entry just got drowned out in the sheer volume of competitors, it was open class too so my cronos was up against gargantuan creatures, tanks and infantry alike. I'm sure it didn't help that the selling point of my cronos is the muscle and you can't see that without flipping him upside down, I'm sure most voted solely on looking at his back shell which I admit isn't nearly impressive enough to compete. I feel confident that if it was official judge voting I may have scored higher as they would have taken a closer and more in-depth look at my entry. It's not a huge deal though, I'm still happy with him and will seek to improve for next year.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Really awesome work dude I'm sure that painting comp you went to must have been attended by philistines and blind folk

Honestly, this ^^

your attention to detail on this model is fantastic

You should be happy with him. He looks great, and it wasn't a safe call to try the muscle effect. It paid off and paint award or no, you have an awesome model to show for it.

I wouldn't worry if it was just random people off the street they asked to judge. Not knowing 40k, their eyes were immediately drawn to the largest models there. The freehanding of the cherry blossoms is unique and excellent, all while his sinewy body is clever and well done.

Thank you very much Guildenstern, youwashock and justaerinatthewall. I am quite proud of him, I pushed my skills in new directions and I feel I'm a better painter for it so it's a win all around. He's garnered good reviews online and on my Instagram account (he's by far my most popular model to date) so I'm happy.

I want to thank everyone for your support all this time and I look forward to updating with more things that you'll all hopefully like soon.

That Cronos is a amazing piece if work, top job IF!

EDC

Been a while since my last update, figured it was time to show what I've been working on. I finally put the finishing touches on my second set of wyches, I'll take some proper photos later today. And my next project has been settled upon, today I'll be opening that box and getting to work on my second DE HQ.

Sounds good IF, looking forward to the haemonculus!(Gawd I hope I spelled that right)

As promised here are the photos of my completed Wych squad. This one has the razorflails (my favourite wych weapon aesthetically) and utilizes my newer way of painting the pink armor plates and back pieces. I much prefer this slightly updated look and it's actually easier to paint as well. Once I get my purchased to painted ratio under control I'll be going back to my original wych squad and raider and making them match.

On a side note I started breaking down my sub-assemblies for the haemy as I'm prepping him for painting and I noticed something that I've never seen in any photos of the haemy before. He's got an open part on his right side back and you can see inside to what looks like some guts and mechanical things. It's a really neat little detail that I thought was really cool to see. If anyone is on the fence on getting this kit I highly recommend it, the details and sculpt on this guy are some of the best I've seen out of GW in my opinion.

Inevitable_Faith,

The Wych squad with the new pink method looks really good, the colours seem to pop out.

Cheers,

CB

The wyches look incredible, I always look forwards to your DE!

The haemi is definitely an exciting project, are you gonna do the flayed flesh look on him too?

Sweet looking squad. Cool color scheme.

Thanks guys for the kind words.

For the Haemy I think I'd really like to try out the flayed flesh look on him. I'm contemplating instead of doing all his flesh like that instead I'd pick out certain body parts and do them flayed and others with skin, kind of try to really push the frankensteined piecemeal look that Haemies have. I am struggling to find any good amount of spots I can put pink on him though...

Looking at the model in my hand, I think go for the chest and one of the pairs of arms.

That's very close to what I was thinking too, perhaps the back part of his head too as he has that other face stapled on it'd make great contrast.

Cool! Loving the Wyches. They look absolutely stunning

I'm amazed by that Haemi sculpt. I've always been leery of it because Finecast, but that level of detail is just amazing. Never noticed that before.

Really looking forward to what you'll do with the 'frankenstein partially flayed' look brilliant idea

Great looking squad there!

Going back a bit, how did you do the tubes/vials/etc. on the chronos? (which looks very nice in the close ups, by the way)

Thanks guys, I appreciate the comments. Ynnead the Haemy is actually plastic. He got re-done in plastic for the DE 7th release.

I was actually really lazy for the tubes and vials Nev, I really ought to up my game on them as I know I can do better but once I saw how many were on him I just got lazy. Anyways it's a base layer of Caliban green, then I "fill" the vial or tube with moot green. I then used a watered down coelia greenshade wash just in the recesses of the vials or connection points of the tubing. Some hard highlights with white and lastly slather them all in 'ardcoat for that glossy look. Duncan Rhodes actually has a painting tutorial on the vials and it's fairly close to what I do but I think his is better as he has bubbles and more realistic shine painted on, he also uses yellow with the green instead of white if I remember correctly.

He's plastic?!

BRB. Getting one right now

Thanks for the how-to on the vials that's really helpful

You won't be disappointed with the kit Ynnead, it's full of character and so many cool bits. Here's my update on my first real day of painting the Haemy, things are coming along nicely I think.

Wow thats good! I absolutely love the mottled look of the skin, and you've got so much definition between each piece. Wish i could paint half as well as that!

Is the mottled look selectively applied washes, or a basecoat with a highlight applied leaving patches showing through?

When that picture first popped up on my screen, my first thought was “someone’s cat loves then and brought them a gift” Looks like some sort of dismembered small bat/bird. Which I guess kinda works for a homunculus.

Love the patchwork cloak! Any thoughts of putting a tattoo on any of the sections? A fuer de lie or an aquila might be fun. Skulls are also popular.

Always a joy to see what you're working on. I just wish you didn't make DE so tempting.

Thank you for the kind words everyone, I'm thrilled that there was no "what is it supposed to be?" comments. This was actually a ridiculously easy look to achieve Ynnead, I'll post a step by step below.

I've never though about putting any tattoos on the skin patches Nev but now that you mention it I think that could be a fun addition. It'd test my ability to freehand but could really add some character to his designer coat. Thanks for the idea Nev, I'll do some research on painting tattoos and making them look believable.

Any sugestions on how I could make DE less tempting ChaoticMind? If I painted with exclusively home reno paint roller brushes? Perhaps I should construct my models by putting the bits in a box with some glue and shaking it violently? Actually both of these ideas sound kind of fun. At any rate I'm glad I can disappoint you by painting appealing DE.

Ok so the cloak was really easy to paint, here's the steps:

1) Use Rakarth Flesh, Cadian Fleshtone, Pallid Wych flesh and Dryad Bark to base the skin patches. Just make sure that no two skin patches of the same colour are touching. Also make sure to paint the corresponding reverse side of the skin patch on the inside of the coat the same colour as the outside.

2) Give the whole thing a heavy wash of Reikland Flesh shade.

3) Paint all the staples in leadbelcher

4) Selectively use Carroburg crimson wash in the recesses between skin patches letting it creep out and stain the edges of the patches.

5) Use leadbelcher again to add a little bit of shine back to the top of the staples but leave the sides of the staples tinted crimson.

And that's it, pretty straightforward. I'll be adding some blood for the blood god once the model is finished but otherwise the cloak is done.

Nice and gruesome. Looking good.

The Haemi looks ace!

Thanks guys, I got a lot more work done on him today, I'll be updating later tonight on the progress as I think I'm going to put a couple more hours into him before I call it quits for the night.

Figured in this update I'd show a bit of process. Not sure how well it'll translate but hopefully it goes well. Also I'd love to get your guys advice on one part. I got this of--whitish dress thing for him that I will be smattering with some blood for the blood god but I'm also curious if I should dirty it up some first, maybe apply some selective washes to make it dirty, particularly around the base. What you guys think yay or nay? If yay then what colours and techniques would you use?

Looking fantastic dude thanks for the how-to on the skin. That's not far from what I was up to, but goes a little bit further so it's useful stuff same with the how-to on the flayed skin

He's looking stunning so far I love the idea of the white surgical apron, and although I have no idea how to go about it I love the idea of dirtying up the lower edges. Perhaps with some sort of dried blood look, like a ruddy brown.

Hmmm, one thing you might try on a test model. If you stick a blob of Blood for the Blood God on something and then dab it away ever so slightly with a tissue, you get a sort of translucent circle of blood with a more solid line around the edge which looks a lot like blood staining.

Not sure if that was something I stumbled upon accidentally and it won't work again, but might be worth testing out somewhere

I might just keep it put white. He’s got that floating/hover thing going on. How’s he getting dusty? Getting dirt on you is for lesser races. Not blood splatter, he makes sure there is plenty of that.

If you do end up with weathering it, I’d keep it light and on the hem.

Seconded on the lightness of the weathering, but i do think it'll look beter with a little bit

That looks amazing!

I like the idea of the blood for the blood god on the apron, it'll look quite fitting. About the weathering on the apron, Because of his sump supporting him, I feel that he would never let himself actually get dirty.

My vote goes to painting the apron and the rest of the mini, and deciding if you should add weathering afterwards.

Thanks for the tutorial on the skin!

Inevitable_Faith,

The Haemonculus' cloak looks fantastic, thanks for the painting guide as well. That's what PLOGs are really about, sharing the great methods we use to achieve the results with others and growing the painting part of the hobby. Wonderful work.

Cheers,

CB

Thanks everyone for your kind words, I think before I dirty up his surgical apron I'll do a dry-fit of the pieces and see how the colours are interacting. One problem with painting in sub-assemblies is that it's very easy to lose sight of the big picture. It's funny, ynnead, as I was doing some experimentation with blood for the blood god last night and I found if I add water when it dries it'll dry with a hard ring on the outside and leave the center fairly clean. I agree Nev that if I do dirty up the apron it'll be just on the bottom hem and it won't be too overpowering.

For painting I have his base and arms to do so I'll be chipping away at those but I'll also experiment with different techniques and washes to see about making the surgical apron more realistic, perhaps once everything is put together it'll look less out of place as it currently does.

Ah that might be what I ended up doing as I was trying to dab away an errant big blob with a variety of different things (one of which was a slightly wet paintbrush).

Definitely worth doing a trial fit to see how it looks before finishing it off I doubt it'll be a make-or-break decision though so no sweat, and it'll likely look good either way

He could probably do with a little gritting up, but not too much. You have a lot of great work done already and don't want to cover it up.

Super well done. The patchwork coat is simply superb and really works with your scheme.

Thank you very much guys. The Haemy is nearing completion, if I get a few good hours in tomorrow I believe I should be able to finish him up.

Nice how to on the flayed flesh look. Really useful.

The haemonculus is looking awesome so far.

EDC

I definitely appreciate the tutorials on the skin and the flayed meat. When I get around to painting up my old school warp beasts, gonna steal me that meat technique.

Welcome to the thread goblinpaladin it's nice to have you here. Glad you found the tutorials helpful. I like the term "meat-technique" I 'll definitely be using that from now on.

Been catching up. Love the exposed musculature look you've started using.

Thank you very much Aku-chan. Hopefully I'll have the Haemy ready to show off soon, he's painted but I just gotta finish up the base on him now. I did him up with the same musculature style as my Cronos.

Haemy still hasn't been based but I did get a small 5-man unit of Kabalites done. Here's the first Kabalites to join my ranks, for now I'll probably use them as cheap backfield objective holders as without a venom or raider they aren't likely to be too useful. Comments and critiques welcome as usual.

Nice! I like a lot

I love the pink just so much. Have you named your Kabal, by the way?

Thanks guys, glad you like them. In fact, goblinpaladin, I have not named my force. Currently with its makeup I'd say it falls in the Wych cult category. I'm really terrible at coming up with names unfortunately.

Very nice! Almost reminds of Slaaneshi marines. Though i'm sure that's not what an eldar would like to hear.

Looking good dude.

EDC

Thanks guys, I got 5 more that I'll be getting done soon, likely after doing up another raider.

I don't mind hearing that at all Justaerin, after all the Eldar birthed Slaanesh, if anything Slaanesh marines are copying me not the other way around.

Finally got around to finishing up the base on my Haemy and taking some photos. It is ridiculously hard to get any good shots of inside his coat with my current setup, it's either too shadowed or if I try to add more light it blooms up and turns too white. Oh well hopefully it's clear enough in the photos for you guys. I want to put a little shoutout to Januine who's Haemy inspired me to pick up this model a long time ago (even before I started a DE army) and it was only till recently I felt comfortable to try and do it justice, I hope you like it dude. And a huge thank you to everyone else who has been so insanely supportive of my work since I started this thread, you're all amazing and I probably wouldn't be where I'm at without your critiques and comments. With the Haemy done that wraps up my Dark artisan formation and next up for DE will be my second raider. I have a small side project I'm experimenting with at the moment too, mostly just something to satisfy my curiosity since I keep hearing how yellow is hard to paint. As always comments and critiques are much appreciated.

Great work IF! The coat is suitably grimy and patchwork, and the base was worth the wait. Glad to see you finish a formation, that always feel good. Maybe some CW Iyanden there?

Thank you Justaerin, I'm amazed at how easy it was to do the cloak and how it goes from looking terrible to looking really good after just one wash application. The stitching and extra wash were like icing on cake after that. Actually my yellow experiment doesn't have anything to do with any form of Eldar (shocking!), I am quite excited to see how it turns out though.

You can't tease us like this. Tell us about your secret WHFB Nordland or 40K Scythes of the Emperor or whatever!

As for Haemy the Haemonculus, I'm wasn't thrilled by the current models (I'm a cranky old man) but this is great. I'm really excited to try out your meatechnique on my old warp beasts.

He came out all sorts of cool. Take a bow.

Thank you very much goblinpaladin and youwashock. By all means goblin have fun with the meat-technique™, I look forward to seeing how it turns out for you.

Looks incredible! I adore the blood on the cloak, its a great touch.

The kabalite also look pretty fun, They fit your force well.

Thank you very much Gummy, glad you like them.

Nice little hovering evil butcher/mad scientist!

Washes are often like bottled miracles. They can take a model from “meh” to “wow” in one sloppy step. Or used in more precise applications for a lot of other things.

Fantastic work I_F he's absolutely stunning!

Just thinking now that your meat technique would work wonders on Khymearae

Thank you very much Nev and Ynnead. I totally agree, the proper applications of washes and selecting the right wash can be all the difference between a model that looks ok and a model that looks amazing.

I think you're right Ynnead, it'd look great on Khymerae. I likely won't try it out however as those are one of the models GW hasn't put much effort into making easily available for a decent price. In fact any of the beasts as well as grotesques suffer from single model/mono-pose and stupidly priced for what you get. It really sucks because I wouldn't mind trying my hand at running beast packs in games.

Inevitable_Faith,

Haemonculus was outstanding...at your usual level.

Sorry for the later reply, had very limited time and access the last week.

Yellow is not a hard colour to paint as long as you do a sand or ochre base coat.

Cheers,

CB

Thank you CB, I picked up an averland sunset spray can from GW to try out my yellow with, I'm seeing where people get frustrated painting the colour, it feels almost like painting white. Many thin layers trump fewer thick layers as always.

Personally, I find yellow hard to paint and I really don't know why.

I love painting white, its honestly one of my favorite colors to paint. But yellow just always seem to be streakier and hard to get a good base down for.

I can understand that sentiment gummy. I'm using a second hand model to try yellow on and the paint stripping was... less than perfect. I feel my yellow is going on streaky as well but I wasn't sure if it was the irregularities in the models surface or the paint itself. He's coming along though and I'm learning a lot so it's all good.

You sir, are a tease. Speaking of some delicious new project and not sharing.

Soon-ish I'll show off what I've done, I have some colour combos I did that I didn't like and had to restart certain parts of the model. Truly don't get your hopes up though it's just a little experiment so it's nothing spectacular.

The thing is, your 'nothing spectacular' is usually leaps and bounds above my 'put a decent amount of effort in' looking forward regardless

Ok it's been a long time coming but I finally finished my little experiment. This guy was a learning experience through and through. Yellows are definitely higher on the list of difficult colours to paint (they just take more layers than you'd expect, paint them almost like how you'd paint white) and dealing with second-hand models is tough. This poor guy had so much thick paints and and far too much glue on him that much of his crisp details were lost. I stripped him down as best I could but stripping models is also fairly new to me and what I was left with to paint was, less crisp than I would have hoped for. those aside I had fun doing this. I'm not totally sold on all the colour choices yet, the green frag grenades make sense but I don't know if they clash too much, the blue pants may be too dark for my liking too, I wanted a dark navy blue similar to our local EMS but I may need to start with a lighter base. Lastly the faceplate I'm on the fence on, his face seems to be hiding or drowning in the big sea of yellow that attracts your attention. Lastly I may go back and do more on him. I'd like to try my hand at weathering and I feel he'd be a good candidate for it, it'd pop nicely on his bright armor. Let me know what you guys think, comments/critiques are always welcome.

Looking great! The grenades are a dark enough green they don't clash with that wonderful yellow. My only suggestion is do the weathering. With all the muck on his base he looks too clean.

Thanks ChaoticMind. I'm really coming around to the idea of weathering him, you've really strengthened my resolve that that's what I'll do.

Nice. Yellow and blue is a winning combination. The only think I don't like is the hazard striped cable, it sort of gets lost in all the yellow armour. Not sure what would work better though.

EDC

I think you're right about his mask being a bit hidden. In a squad of them, you're going to see the yellows and blues very strongly, but the faces will be a bit overwhelmed. I think that weathering might help that a bit, but possibly some sharp edge highlights of a bright silver would help pick out some details.

I agree about the hazard stripes as well, but weathering up his legs will definitely help with that.

Nice! I like him

Add another vote for weathering. From the few times I've seen it done on gritty Imperial Fists and Bad Moons, nothing takes to weathering like bright yellow. Some chips where you can see the silver of the metal underneath, and a splash of mud or two and he'll look phenomenal

Thank you very much guys, I appreciate your input. I've started researching weathering techniques and I will be using it on him, I'm fully convinced now it's the way to go. I agree about the hazard striped tubing, it does get lost in the rest of the yellow and isn't as strong as it should be. I'm not sure what to do otherwise as I don't really want to make both tubes the same colour and I think going straight black on it would be the next best alternative but that just seems boring to me. Perhaps once I weather his armour the tubing may have more impact, for now at least I'm on the fence whether to do anything about it. For his face I'm going to go back in and re-highlight some of it to see if I can make it stand out more. Failing that I may consider an entirely new colour after I weathered his amrour. Perhaps, however, his face may stand out more with just a highlight and after the weathering is done so we'll see there.

It's been far too long since my last update, life has kept me too busy on non-Warhammer related projects as of late. Mostly a certain entertainment expo in Calgary that I decided to dip my toes into the crazy world of cosplay for. It was a ton of fun though and I could definitely see myself doing more cosplay stuff for future cons. Anyways I got the weathering done on the scion. Personally I think I went a bit heavy handed on it, learning to use that sponge was a new experience and it went on thicker than anticipated in places. Overall though I think I like it, I'll definitely do less scratches next time too. I forgot to add highlights to his faceplate so I'll add that tomorrow but for now I'll call him done. Watcha guys think? Does he just look like a bloody mess now and he's all ruined or did the weathering come out passable at least?

Weathering made it look better. Personally, I think the amount of scratches is also not too much. Maybe some of them could be smaller.

Nice! He definitely looks like he's been trudging through sludge for a couple of days to get to where he is I like it

Nope, weathering looks great. Benefit of a squad is that you can tone it down from here and they'll look fine next to each other.

Whatcha cosplay as?

The weathering is perfect, it adds to the overall look without dominating it.

Thank you very much everyone for your kind comments. I'll likely finish up the other 4 members of his unit once I get my second DE Raider painted up so I'll have more opportunity to practice weathering.

Thanks CragHack for the tip, on the next one I do I'll definitely vary the scratches more and make some smaller ones, I like that idea.

Ynneadwraith that's the look I was going for. My concept for these guys is that they are largely cut-off from most imperial forces and don't have much ability to re-supply often so most of their gear is falling into disrepair. They ensure the basics such as their weapons and armor are functional but aren't afforded the opportunity or supplies to paint/polish/repair any cosmetic aspects of their kit.

Goblinpaladin, once the unit is done I'm thinking you're right, the sum of the weathering will take over from the individual models weathering and give the force a sense of disrepair. Some variance from model to model for how much damage their armor has taken is to be expected. I kept this cosplay simple as it was my first time trying it so I did Kaneki from and anime called Tokyo Ghoul. It was tons of fun but wearing that mask for 4 days really buggers you up, blind on one side from an eyepatch, world tinged red in the other from a contact lense, hard to maneuver in the convention centre around so many people with your vision impeded like that. Totally worth it though.

Thanks ChaoticMind, I'm glad you agree it's an improvement over the base model. Weathering was a scary concept for me to try. It's like "Hey look I finished painting this model and he looks nice and shiny and proper. Ok now let's slop paint on him and wreck it!" Such a nerve-wracking experience

Nice job on the Scion, the weathering looks great!

Thank you very much aku-chan. I'm actually getting really excited to paint the rest of his unit.

Great work I_F. Superb tones on the yellow

Looks baller, going from a glass cannon army to another glass cannon army is always fun

Thank you very much Januine and gummyofallbears. And yeah gummy it seems I'm a glutton for punishment with my army selection. I feel Scions lack the cannon part of the glass cannon equation but they're still hella fun to play.

Nice work on the Scion. The weathering works really well, I think there'are something about yellow armour that lend itself well to weathering.

EDC

Thank you very much EDC, I totally agree about yellow lending itself well to weathering. Most of the armies I see that I like the weathering on tend to be yellow or off-white like 30K death guard.

Alright so to prove that I haven't completely forgotten about my DE force I'm stopping in again to post a completely unsolicited guide on how I do the sails on my Raiders because, why not right? It's stupidly easy and nets some pretty alright results so I figured it may be of some interest to some of you. I'll list the paints I use but honestly you could substitute almost any colours you want for this.

1) Start with a full base layer of Stegadon Scale green painted on with a brush (as opposed to your fingers, from experience I can tell you they don't get the paints into all the small areas a well as a brush with).
2) Next drybrush on some Kabalite Green over most of the sail area. Leave the base layer showing mostly around the edges.
3) Drybrush on some Sybarite Green in the areas you did on step 2. For this make sure you try to stay inside the Kabalite Green area and leave the base layer untouched. Feel free to make the drybrushing take on some strange shapes at this stage.
4) Start drybrushing on some Pink Horror, this needs to be on a smaller area than the green drybrushing and can go anywhere on the sail you feel like. It doesn't have to stay within any boundaries and so feel free to even have it overlap onto the base layer.
5) Just as you did in step 3 you'll now drybrush on some Emperors Children into the Pink Horror areas. Stay within the areas mapped out by step 4 but feel free to make this take on strange shapes within the Pink Horror.
6) Get some white scar on a large layer brush and hold it upside down. I then use a toothpick to pull the bristles back and "flick" the paint on the sail to get a random pattern of white dots of varying sizes. Make sure to pull away any other projects from the painting area at this stage as it's super messy and you'll get white paint everywhere. It should go without saying that you do this part of the sail in a sub-assembly and don't paint any other part till you get this stage done since you'll just have to redo it after this.
7) Share your work on DakkaDakka and receive the praise and adulation* of your fellow hobbyists for producing such a stunningly beautiful raider sail.

*Praise and adulation not guaranteed, at the very least you managed to paint a Raider sail and get some progress done on your DE army right?

I'm pretty sure I forget a step in there somewhere, I took notes and somewhere along the line "profit" was written down, I think it's near step three. And because I'm sure my nonsensical rambling above probably means little to anyone I'm including some pictures to helps explain what I mean. Anyways I hope you guys enjoyed this tiny tutorial and hopefully I'll be back before too long with some more progress as I feel I've been getting stuff painted even slower than usual as of late, gotta pick up the pace if I'm going to be ready for 8th edition.