In late 1996, I bought my first White Dwarf (#204). In hindsight, that might have been a mistake.

I've spent the past two decades veering wildly between being really excited and playing games (lots of HeroQuest early on) and considering getting back into the hobby but not wanting to deal with paying the Australian tax or Codex creep. But Mantic managed to persuade me, mostly by trolling years of Warseer rumours by actually releasing a Fishmen army. (It doesn't hurt that my girlfriend wanted to paint some.) So I dusted off my Bretonnian project and started painting so very many plastic horsies. It was fun. I started buying some spaceships direct from the UK, so that I didn't have to pay the Australia tax. I'm even finally going to put together a Bolt Action army (a year after I was invited into a BA group).

But! But the real kicker is that I've decided to dust off the ol' science fiction gaming chops and get back into Warhammer Many Thousands.

I last played in what was probably 4th edition. Dark Eldar were pretty solidly screwed at that point, and I moved away from my usual opponents, and all that goes with it. I put away my Empire army and my Dark Eldar and did.... other things. Boring things. Who cares? But during my tentative re-entry into the hobby (still haven't played many games, though I did finally go to CanCon this year), I've been reading quite a lot about the Horus Heresy ruleset, and I'm very tempted to do a Death Guard force. Not quite tempted enough to put in a big order with Forgeworld, but tempted. The rules seem relatively streamlined, the miniatures are extraordinary, and the online community (read: YouTube channels) is fantastic.

But in the meantime, one of the guys at my current workplace is a Warhammer 40,000 Tau player, and boy do I miss killing and enslaving the little grey-faced guys. So I dragged out my ancient Dark Eldar, dusted them off, and tallied up roughly how many points I have. I then took a good, hard look at the models, looked at the current range, and decided that I should probably make a new eBay account to get rid of these old Scourges and Grotesques (now better as Wracks).

Anyway, enough preamble. You want to see my terrible old models, right? I hope you like Goblin Green.



Six Mandrakes, six Grotesques (Wracks now), an Haemonculus from before they decided to be frankly ridiculous, and a pile of Scourges - including two dark lances and two splinter cannons. All of these are in the 'cull' pile.



I sadly sold or traded my Incubi a few years ago, I think, but have these two left. Also present: an Archon, a Dracon painted as a Succubus, and a Beastmaster (on foot!) and some Warp Beasts (Khymerae).



Reaver jetbikes! I swear, these are painted. Honest. My old Wych cult had blue hair. Apparently. (I sold or traded my old metal Wyches as well, and the single Raider I once owned).



Seventeen (17) Dark Eldar Warriors (Kabalite Warriors). The years haven't been kind to them, and that hair does nobody any favours. I'll clean these up and use them as Kabalites though.

Was that fun for you? God, these are awful. I used that lovely metallic purple that no longer exists on blades, except for Wych weapons and Incubi glaives, which were silver, gold on some details and Incubi glaives, blue for Wych hair, and everything else was black or a very dark purple. I guess it was okay, for the late 90s, but I'd definitely like to think that the miniatures I've painted over the last year or so are a lot nicer. You can see those in my gallery here, or on the tumblr in my signature.

Back in the day, this was the Kabal of the Dark Sun. I can't decide if I'm pleased or annoyed that so many of the 'new' Kabals are sun themed (Dying, Black, or Bladed), but clearly Teen!Me was onto something. The Archon's name was Mordred, which is just incredible, right? I wrote a piece of fanfiction starring him for an assignment in high school and got a great mark, which is nice. I don't remember the name of the Wych cult, though. Pity.

SO

Current 1850-point army plan is under the spoiler tags:



I've looked at some solid list-building advice that's around, but I don't really fancy running nothing but Venoms full of Blasterborn, as that seems a little boring. So some of this might be a mite weaker, but still fluffy - a crate of Wyches for no other reason than "but I want to paint some Wyches"; a Venom of Shredderborn because "lots of templates seems funny" - but if anything just seems like the worst idea ever, do let me know. And anyway, Dark Eldar might well get squatted in the coming edition, so I'll just modify them for sixth edition and play against some Heresy armies. That could be fun.

= = =

So, there we go. I haven't come up with a new colour scheme or fluff yet, and I am open to ideas. I'm currently thinking teal hair for the Wyches, like the Red Grief? I think I want to retain some elements as an homage to Teen!Me, but most Dark Eldar colour schemes feature a lot of black anyway. The only thing I don't want is another army dominated by white - both because it's hard and because there is no way I could get white smooth on the sails of a Raider without having to learn how to use an airbrush. SEND ME YOUR IDEAS.

= = =

PostScript: I've also been tempted to start a straight Space Marine army - because, frankly, who hasn't? iconic little buggers - and managed to persuade a friendly Local GW Guy to give me one, so expect some rambling on that as an update to this thread at some point. But this is intended primarily as the venue for the Dark Eldar project - a Dakka Dakka exclusive! It's not even going on the tumblr just yet.

= = =

PostPostScript:

Rather than keeping open the tabs and risk losing them, here are some blogs/tutorials that I'm keen to use in this project:

Inevitable_Faith's Meat Technique for exposed flesh.
YnneadwraithMade's good assembling/posing for Warriors, picking one post to start from but the whole thread is great.

Pfreck's Mantis Warrior scheme (although I'll need to find a replacement for Gretchin Green soon).

= = =

PostPostPost Script 18/4:

Under the cut is the paint system I'm using, so that I don't forget and also so you guys can play along!!!! or whatever.

Look, I know what I said about this being a Dark Eldar log - but hear me out. The old Dark Eldar models that I'm keeping are still being ~processed, I haven't yet gotten any of the 'new' DE, and my primary project is still the Bretonnians (finished some casualty markers today, by the way). In the meantime, I decided I wanted to paint a Space Marine, so I convinced a guy at a local GW to give me one. After much soul-searching and staring at extremely good paint schemes, I narrowed it down to Lamenters and Mantis Warriors, before deciding that I didn't really want to paint that much yellow:





I've never actually painted a Space Marine before. Can you believe that? (probably; criticism welcome)

I followed @pfreck's guide, which you can see here.

I've been working on colour schemes. My Kabal of the Dark Sun colour scheme was black and Deadly Nightshade purple with Amethyst Purple metallics - and it looked absolutely terrible, as you can see above. I did want to retain some elements of the colour scheme as an homage to my angsty teen self, so I played about on Paletton to figure out some complementary colours or whatever. I'm not very good at colour theory stuff, but it was fun. My initial palette result looked like this:



This gave me a nice shocking complementary green to complement the purples and pointed toward an adjacent orangey-red that I could use for the allied Wych cult. Already knowing that I wanted a teal as the compement for the Wyches, I played around a bit more and came up with this:



This keeps that nice rusted orange, gives me Angst Purple, has a cool blue and that violent green - for which I even still have a pot of archaic white-lidded Scorpion Green. Nice.

(The dumb logos are just me mucking about in Paint. Don't mind me.)

My other thing is that I want to try edge highlighting for the final highlights. With all that in mind, here are two old-school Kabalite Warriors and a contemporary Wych. Photos are just taken under the painting lamp, so the shading is a bit harsh.



Beaky. Pretty sure this is the one that came free with a White Dwarf about a million years ago. If not him, then he's somewhere in the now-Dettol'd pile.



Pointy.



Wych-y.

As you can see, the Wych orange is actually orange rather than even remotely like the planned rusty-orange. Uh. Oops. The edge highlighting on her is also very subtle. Possibly a red wash after the basecoat instead of an orange?

This is largely just the armour components. The bodysuits underneath will be black, possibly with blue highlights. I'm not quite sure about the bladed... bits, but I'm leaning towards silver worked up from very dark to a mithril edge.

The warrior I nicknamed 'pointy' is Dheneb > purple wash > Dheneb ; the Wych is Dheneb > blue wash > Dheneb. I think I'm going to go with the blue wash although alternating between the two could create a range of pale, sun-deprived evil space elf skin tones.

= = =

So I'd like some feedback and advice, if anyone's got any to spare. As well as general feedback on the colours (please!!), I have some specific questions.

1: Any ideas on the weapons? If I paint the splinter weapons consistently across the force, it will help tie everything together. I've considered bone splinter crystals, copper, cold greys, but am a bit in the dark.*

2: The Wyches (and probably modern Kabalite Warriors, when I get some) have pouches and assorted ephemera strapped to their waists. Normally (for e.g. on the Bretonnians) I'd paint these in neutral leather colours, but these are Evil Space Elves, which deserves something a bit more interesting. As the bodysuits will be black, I don't know that black would work. Then again, black with grey highlights might? Help me, Dakka.

I know the photos are a bit taken-at-midnight-under-a-painting lamp, but I really would appreciate any feedback any folks have.

Coming up next: New fluff and names, also taking notes on better ways to do things, probably.

*sorry

Good to see another Dark Eldar PLoG pop up! You're off to a great start with your planning and test models. Purple does suit the elder quite well so you won't have any issues making it look good. The wych you did is the standout for me, that orange really pops and is very well complimented by the cooler blue tone, I'm a big fan of that. For the edge highlighting you could go with a more contrasting colour to make it pop more, that'd probably be the easiest way to make it more noticeable, what wash are you currently applying to the armor plates?

My only critique on your test models would be to be careful with the blue wash on a skin tone, it can easily make your models look cyanotic (oxygen deprived). Maybe it's me, coming from a medical background, but when I see someone with a blue-ish palor to their skin my first though is that they're suffocating. For a pale look you can also use pallid wych flesh from GW paints range as it's a very pale complexion with just a bit of warmth left in it, it works quite well in my opinion for that sun-deprived look. The purple wash works well for skin in my opinion, it's what I use for my DE and while I'm certainly no professional I do like it.

Ok so for some of your questions:

1) The splinter weapons I finds tend to look good in metallics with a bit of detailing. I do mine in leadbelcher primarily with some hashnut copper details then wash the whole thing with agrax earthshade to add depth, shadows and make it look like it's well used. Then highlight it a bit with some runefang steel and more hashnut copper to clean it up a bit. Perhaps pick a complimentary colour for your weapons bodies then detail with silver, that could work too and add some colour variety to your model, it'll be more difficult however with doing both pruple and orange armored models to pick one colour of weapon that suits them all. Perhaps a blue would work though.

2) I actually like a brown leather pouch on the belt loops of DE units, it's a neutral colour so it blends with any colour scheme and gives a spot of toned down less electric colour to a model line that benefits from wild vibrant colours. Having said that if you don't want to do leather perhaps playing with some grey tones could be interesting? Like light grey pouches, almost white. It'd pop out and be unique and could be a unifying factor across all your infantry.

Hopefully I've helped in some small way, I'm looking forward to seeing where you take this force.

Hey, thanks! I read through your project log while I was at work today and sense that we share an orange-y bond. I love the work you did on your jetbikes in particular, and am going to consider doing something similar when I get to that stage with mine. Between you and Ynneadwraith, I've got some great work both to use as references and to distract me from my own plans (no getting Hellions just to make some techno-barbarians! bad goblin!). I appreciate you giving such a detailed response to me, so I'm going to reply in kind:

Oranges: I'm using Fuegan Orange to wash the orange at the moment; I got it to smooth out the layering, having learned from experience with yellows that that is sometimes necessary. I was told the other day about a trick where you wash with a complementary colour; I could try a careful lining with a blue wash? I'm not sure. The subtle highlighting is growing on me the more I stare at her.

Skin tones: I'm with you on the blue wash thing. I'm aiming for a washed-out, never-enough-sunlight look, combined with a sense of the alien - I don't want them to look like the generic Caucasian humans in my Bretonnian project, if that makes sense. I looked at this tutorial at From the Warp to get the two sample skin tones I have here. I did see someone in your thread use a 1 Sepia: 2 Purple wash mix, which sounds interesting. I don't enjoy mixing washes, though.

Looking at Wych Elf Flesh - how close is that to Dheneb Stone? My years-old pot is beginning to run a little toward empty... At any rate, skin tones can differ a bit between models - from three feet away and in a 60-alien army, a few differences in tone ought not be that significant.

Weapons: I love the reddish effect you're getting on your splinter weapons. It's incredible! I am still thinking of steering away from metallics aside from the blades, as I want to go for a vaguely future-tech feel, like they're made from some sort of polymer. I think you did something similar with your Craftworlders, using Wraithbone technology. (although having said that, I'm going to go take another look at how you did the engines on your jetbikes and possibly steal all your ideas)

I painted up the splinter crystals in the same blues as the Wych's hair, highlighting with a final very pale mix. I then immediately changed my mind and thought 'bone would be nice', and changed one to bone. I'll grab some photos so you can see comparisons; it'll be a way to procrastinate from highlighting the blacks (see below).

Leathers: My girlfriend persuaded me to paint the pouches (and the weapon grips/pads) in a reddish brown tone; I used Scab Red. It's very dark and difficult to highlight (I suspect it looks flat), but I think it works to be neutral, while still seemingly ~~~evil space elf. I was on the side of the greys, though, but the current weapon plan is to highlight those in grey (along with that grenade) while the black bodysuits are highlighted in a dark turquoise. In theory. In theory, I'm capable of a lot of things.

I'm hoping to really push my otherwise-limited painting talents with this project, so I'm very open to ambitious ideas like, for example, 'learning how to paint skin'.

It's worthwhile to experiment with different washes over your colours but I am a huge fan of Fuegan orange, it's served me quite well for my craftworlders.

I'm not a fan of mixing washes either (too much bookkeeping to remember your mixes) and so I just pick a wash to work with and go with it. Pallid wych flesh is a very light colour, it would be much lighter than dheneb stone. For my units I based their skin in rhakarth flesh then layered with pallid wych flesh, washed druchii violet then re-highlighted with pallid wych flesh, seems to work good enough for me without being too overly complicated.

I look forward to seeing the comparison pics of the blue and bone you did, it'd be nice to get to see what both look like. The red-brown tone for the pouches sounds like a good idea, that should blend nicely with the rest of the theme while still being visually more eye-catching than a darker brown.

Thanks for checking out my plog, hopefully there was some good inspiration for ya in there in my myriad ramblings and experiments. It's always good to try and push your skills just a little bit every time you paint, DE are a great force to get to try that out on. I very much look forward to seeing this progress.

@ Inevitable_Faith: It's also hard to mix washes outside the pots. Although I could probably just buy an eye dropper instead of being a cheapskate. I might try some more complicated layering like what you've done; I'll also probably try thinning the blue wash more. The pot's a bit old and it might be getting a bit gluggy.

So here are some photos of the current stage. We just snapped them on a tablet with some very crude lightboxing, but my painting lamp is a hideous brightness, so... mixed effectiveness. Remember, guys, still not highlighted blacks. I'm procrastinating by blogging. (Later, I'll procrastinate by studying!)

Wych



I'm not sure if the bit on her jaw should be steel or if I should cover it in the same orange as the rest of her armour-y bits. I do enjoy the tanned human skin, which is just ye olde Dheneb + brief Elf Flesh highlights + Ogryn flesh wash, the exact same method I use on my Caucasian Bretonnians.



Here we can see the blues on the splinter pistol, bearing in mind that I've not highlighted any of the blacks, anywhere. And boy, aren't those shadows caused by my painting lamp harsh?



Which butt? This butt.*

You can see more skin tone here. The shading came out a little blue, and my partner commented that it looked a bit like she was wearing arm bands rather than having blue undertones to her skin, so I washed her with a very thin sepia wash and tried blending the skins a bit more. I'm not sure how effective it is, but I think this is one of those situations where I mostly just need more practice. Back in my teenage years, I had no technique (what's a wash?) and the Bretonnian project has almost no skin for obvious reasons. So I'm learning as I go.

Kabalite Warrior: Bluey (formerly Pointy)



Here you can see the blue splinter crystal on not-a-Wych.

Having second thoughts about the Scorpion Green for his hair tie. It was originally to tie in with the eyes of the helmeted warriors, but I think it might be best to use the muted red of the grips/pouches (best seen on the Wych, above).



Oh, you can see them here as well. Doing a photo this close in does absolutely no favours to my painting at all, does it?

Kabalite Warrior: Boney (formerly Beaky)



Me: Let us take some comparison photos to compare the blue splinter crystal to the bone splinter crystal so that we may make a decision.
Also Me, Apparently: Let us use a photo where the shadows specifically cover the one part of the model we wanted to compare.

Anyway, at least you can see the boney mandibles and the gleaming green eyes. I want to teach myself how to do object source lighting from the eyes but I'm scared. There are three colours and a wash on them, though, so they look pretty good. Er, probably.



Can't wait to highlight that lovingly sculpted butt.

Incidentally, the steel metals are a black + Ironbreaker > Ironbreaker > edge highlight with a very, very old pot of Mithril Silver from c. 1998. The only steel metallic I actually own is the Ironbreaker, so. shrug_emoji.gif

= = =

*Sorry.

Love the orange on the Wych definitely a great colour scheme (and always good to see more DEldar knocking around!)

I haven't caught up on all the discussion, but if you want an easy way to get a decent amount of definition on the overlapping orange armour plates then a selective wash (just dabbing/running it into the recesses) of Reikland Flesh Shade or similar would work really nicely dead easy to do as well

Looks interesting. Have subscribed!

Very nice update, I'm liking what I see here. For the weapons I'm definitely on team blue to make them pop out more, it's a nice cool tone that contrasts well with your wych armor but also ties in nicely with the cooler tones of the kabalite purple armor. The red-brown pouches work great with the scheme. I agree with the green on the hairband, it does seem a bit out of place, doing it in the red-brown of the pouches would look good. It's hard to tie in the green on the old Kabalite models but with the newer Kabalite models they have more details on them that can be painted green to tie in better (they have drug vials like the Wyches for some reason as well as feeder lines).

@Ynneadwraith: Cheers, mate. I'm surprised at how completely in love with the orange I'm falling - I expected it to be far less successful than it is. I think I'm going to stick to the current plan, as it's fiddly as it is and I think it looks okay. Hoping to get some decent 'finished' shots tomorrow to post.

@Inevitable_Faith: Tau-work-mate concurs, and my partner is pushing the blue pretty hard. Now that I've done some greys on the guns, I'm actually in agreement, and so I'll be repainting Boney's crystal to match the others. It's a hard life, but one I chose for myself. Thanks for the feedback, though, it's exactly what I needed.

@EmberlordofFire8: Cheers! I was looking at your thread the other day, actually, as I really love Thousand Sons. I love what you're doing with the place. Tell me, do you also watch Stargate while doing model work..?

Brief update to show some work on the Kabalite Warriors. As mentioned in my army list above, I'll have two units of ten KBs, each with a splinter cannon. I've done the best I can with my seventeen (17) old Warriors, although a couple had poses that were absolutely fused together and I've run out of splinter rifle-arm pairs, meaning that I have a total of sixteen (16) at the moment:



Back two are Pointy and Boney, who I hope you remember from, like, two days ago. The second row are assembled and you can see some limitations of the old models - there is one chap (three in from the right) who is shooting into the sky for... some reason. I think I wanted him to be shooting at people on a ledge or something? Ugh. Anyway, his pose was fused but good.

In the front you can see a row of blu-tacked Warriors, exemplified by the lady three in from the left who I suspect might be drunk. I've actually since added some classic Hair Metal helmet hair to her to help distinguish her from the far left, front row Warrior, who has essentially the same pose and wargear. On the right you can see two not-Sybarites (I'm being cheap on points); more on them below.

16 =/= 20, so I'm four short. I do have another pile of bits - missing a head and the two splinter rifles match the remaining left arms - to make another Warrior. I'll try and get her together with some bits and bobs from the forthcoming 'new' Kabalite Warrior box that's coming, or maybe use some Green Stuff to modify the pose of a spare rifle. The other three Warriors will come from a combination of Raider crew/hangers-on and the Kabalite Warriors. The other eight (8) Warriors from the box will be Trueborn. Stay tuned, star travellers!

Now, the not-Sybarites:



My photography skills are a bit wobbly, I'm afraid, and my partner is writing a law essay, so this will have to do. On the left, you can see how even Teenage Me knew that evil space elves should have at least one model with twin pistol action, and I've decided to keep the spirit of that intact.

Question: Should I also drop the razor on the hilt of her right-hand splinter pistol, or leave it for a fun asymmetry? Back in the day, I went with asymmetry but now I'm not so sure.

On the right, we have a new guy (gal). I wanted to use the evil legs, but they're unfortunately a bit static, so she's levelling a pistol at someone rather than running about. Still works okay.

Both not-sybarites will have the spare splinter rifles from the Warriors/Raider/Ravager kits attacked, probably slung over a shoulder, so that WYSIWYG isn't violated.

Heads: As you guys can see, these aren't old heads. They're new heads! Wych heads! I love the plastic Wych heads so much, especially the blank helmets (which are just so expensive on bits stores that even have them) and I'm down heads for these guys anyway, so let's use some. I love the idea of a bald, heavily scarred and tattooed female warrior, so that's her on the right sorted. The left-hand Warrior's head was chosen because the topknot goes well with the topknotted Warrior I already painted while the mask works well with the rest of the squads. Obviously, I'm going to have to trim down the 'plugs' on these heads to fit with Ye Olde bodies, but this snapshot is a Proof of Concept.

Any criticisms of this lot? I'll try and persuade my poor law student partner to help me take some photos of the finished test models when her eyes aren't bleeding out her skull.

Looks like a good start to me, working with what ya got and making it all fit. Shame you can't make two full units of ten yet but you're close.

On the asymmetry question I vote for keeping it asymmetrical as that works quite well for DE.

@Inevitable_Faith: Thanks! I'll mark you down as one for asymmetry and we can pretend I made the obvious joke about an odd number of votes.

I also posed up a few wyches. These are... hard and I think they need more work. The only one I'm really happy with is the one on the far left.



Comments as welcome as usual.

I actually don't mind the posing on any of them, they all show a lot of movement and variation to me. Personally to me I find the hardest one to pose well out of that box is the one using the Hekatrix legs.

Yeah i don't actually use the Hekatrix legs for much, buying another pair of running legs from bits shops to make up the difference.

I like the painted one and the middle especially as well

Sometimes with posing i find it useful to actually strike the pose yourself. The legs are the only immovable point so start there and see which direction your body and head is naturally facing, and where your arms fall in roughly the same position as the kit.

Thanks, guys. I finalised the poses and glued 'em down, but I'll probably hold off on photos until they're done. Nobody likes a blog that's nothing but promises, right?

As for posing - I spent a not-insignificant percentage of last night running on the spot and pointing imaginary pistols at the walls. I'm pretty sure the neighbours in the downstairs flat hate me now.

Haha i'm sure if they could see you that would be some quality evening entertainment

It is helpful though

Hey guys. Painting purple takes bloody ages, it turns out. I see all these project logs with folk saying, "Oh, I only have three hours a week to dedicate to painting, so I could only finish six tanks and a demi-legion today," while I'm slaving along trying to paint a vambrace a solid colour. But I did promise you the finished test models, so here they are. Several angles and everything:









I'm considering going back to the Wych's pipes (especially the one in her leg, which I thought was part of the skincloth, oops) and painting them the Scorpion Green of the helmet eyes. Not sure. Open to ideas. The Wych heads on the Warriors (see above) will be that colour, so... yeah. Anyway.

Highlights on the black bodysuits are a turquoise + black mix, and then thin* lines of pure turquoise, washes with black where it needed toning down. Highlights on the black rifles are edge-ish** highlights of Eshin Grey. Comments definitely welcome, especially before I finish the next five.

*Well, thin-ish.
** I wasn't as careful as I could be, mostly because it's okay if these look greyer than true black. It would make them look a little more worn.

Bases: I wasn't sure what to do for the bases, but was vaguely thinking of urban ruins, so I grabbed some of the Astrogranite texture paint to 'ave a go. It turns out okay and definitely brightens the purples, but it feels a little bland. Any ideas?

Side-note: I'm planning to do urban bases for my 1939 Polish defending Warsaw, where they'll have red bricks and other rubble. I'm still waiting on a delivery of various sizes of modelling rocks, but I knocked up two proof-of-concept bases for them:



I really like the Green Stuff cobblestones on the right (plus a bit of modelling sand for gravel), but I don't know if I would be able to cover up the integral bases that Warlord metals come on.

The soldier on the left is just Astrogranite + sprue-bricks but I suspect that 1) those bricks are a bit big for scale (how big is a 1930s Polish brick? I don't know!) and 2) he definitely needs some modelling rocks of various sizes to really look like some war-torn ruins. Importantly, I think the grey and red on the base helps make his greenish brown uniform pop and that's what I really wanted to see.

I've got a bunch of work to do and then I'm going on 'oliday for a week, so this may be the last update for a few days but any feedback in the meantime would be ace. Cheers.

The models are all looking stellar dude, I'm really digging them. The wych scheme is a real standout to me (I'm a sucker for super bright colours though). For the bases I agree they could use a little bit more life, my suggestion would be either use some small aquarium rocks to add rubble to the bases and paint it up to match or rip up small chunks of cork to make rubble and paint them to match. I find adding a splotchy wash of agrax earthshade really helps to diversify the colours on the base. Overall though they're all looking real good.

Cheers! Yeah, I think my incoming shipment of Rocks of Various Sizes will be just what I need. I'll probably dump various washes on the bases as well; that's a good point. When painting rocks (or the cobblestones) I use a bunch of washes, so that makes sense.

New pics are looking good! I'm actually a big fan of the old DE models, and I love the purple scheme.

I second the idea of a wash over the bases. Really makes the basing material pop, and so quick and easy.

Thanks, Woof. I took a look at your blog and I love what you're doing with those old-school models.

If you really like old-school Dark Eldar, you're welcome to make me an offer for the models I'm culling - the photo is in the first post; 6 Mandrakes, 6 Grotesques, an old Haemonculus, and a pile of Scourges.

(I mean, that goes for everyone, really.)

So I'm back from my brief holiday in Tasmania and I "finished" another five Warriors. Have some photo spam.









Couple more shots in my gallery.

I'm still unhappy with the basic basing, even after some quick drybrushing and some test washes on a couple of them. I have some more basing supplies coming which will allow me to do better urban ruins terrain (some coarse and medium grit sand, as well as some red leaves for the Bolt Action project), and that might help. I suspect that the Dark Eldar need something a bit more unusual on their bases to give them some more evil space elf flavour. Going to paint up some test bases with crystals and tiles, to see if they make me any happier. In the meantime, I'll be putting the project on hold for a bit until I can get a basing scheme I'm happy with - I don't want to paint too many models without a decent basing plan, as going back and adding bases is a pain.

In the meantime, I'll work on polishing off those Bretonnians I've been avoiding by starting this project, paint some spaceships, and work on some new fluff. The Kabal of the Sun Betrayed has a good ring to it...

Good to see the update! The Kabalites are looking great, the scheme works well. For the basing having some larger rubble chunks will help a lot as well as using a wash to add puddled areas on the base (I really like the agrax eartshade wash I use on my bases for this effect). I like the idea of making up some crystals to put on there too but in my opinion you may be past the point of being able to add tiles effectively. I'm sad to hear your DE are put on hold for now, I'm liking how this force is shaping up. Hope to see some updates here before too long.

Oh by the way I like your name for the Kabal, very evocative and can have a multiple meanings. After so long on my DE force I think I may have finally come up with a name for it as well.

I don't think the tiles is a viable option but it doesn't hurt to have options.

It won't be long. The shipment with the basing supplies may also contain one or two space elves, possibly.

Sneaky edit! Yes, you should name your Kabal! Naming things is fun! (I always overthink my names.)

I definitely like the name! The scheme is really shaping up nicely too

I quite like the process of naming things, but I must admit I find it hard with Dark Eldar for some reason. Something about the format of their Kabal names just doesn't work for my brain I think...

I told you it wouldn't be long between updates. Although a week is a very long time here on Dakka; this thread is now on the third page. Ouch.

I meant what I said about holding off on more work on the Dark Eldar, although I haven't been completely idle. I've scrubbed up some old jetbikes, the old beastmaster, and some warp beasts are sitting in a bath as I type this. I'll have plenty of work to do when my shipment of rocks, sand, and evil space elves arrives (hopefully this week). I've also done some test bases as promised, as well as mucked about with some more space marines because why not.

BASES

I mentioned above that the gravel bases were missing a certain something. While I will make them more rubble-y once I get more supplies, I'm also considering adding something to make them more... Dark Eldar-y. I'm not sure yet what I want, especially as fluff is still to be finalised, but I have been watching some brief tutorials on YouTube to get inspired. (Usually I strongly dislike YouTube tutorials but these are about three minutes long, making them a lot less tedious.)

My Eldar do consider the ancient Eldar worlds to be important, and it isn't only Biel-Tan ascetics who get angry at semi-sapient space monkeys building their ugly grey cities on them, so raiding some Imperial cities to encourage the mon-keigh to leave is very appropriate. To that end, let's try out some weird space elf crystals that might be still alive despite hu-man interference:



Not sure which colour (white, red, green, purple, blue) is best but leaning strongly toward the green as it provides a nice contrast against the purple/orange. I should also note that I used a purple wash on the grey debris before drybrushes of two different greys. I think I like it?



The other style of base I tried was the tile base. This was an exercise in frustration, as I cannot get even squares for the life of me, but the test base works as a proof of concept. I don't think I'll use it for the DE but it would definitely work on a Harlequin allied force - and you better believe I want to paint some harlequins one day, hopefully when I'm better at painting and/or own an airbrush.

What do you guys think? Vote now on your phones!

SPACE MARNS

White Eagles:

First off, I had an idea stuck in my head for a Polish-themed Space Marine Chapter that would not leave , so obviously I had to paint one.

Named the White Eagles, they're based somewhere in Ultima Segmentum, where they hold a border against Orkish Waaagh!s and occasionally skirmish with a Black Templar crusading force to the galactic 'north' who refuse to return certain regions to the authority of the White Eagles. While they largely respect the Codex Astartes, the significant differences lie in preferred style of engagement and some matters of heraldry. Each Company has a unique heraldic pattern that is worn on the right shoulder, while the knees show squad number and configuration. The White Eagles have a preference for rapid attack, focusing heavily on bikes and mounted infantry (c.f. Ravenwing; White Scars), possibly as a reaction to their Orkish adversaries, as a larger than standard percentage are members of the 'Speed Freak' sub-cult.

Enough blather. Here is brother Andrzej of the third company, although I foolishly painted one without kneepads and so can't demonstrate their Codex Astartes markings properly. A Bolter & Chainsword-style mock-up is in my gallery, though.



Company heraldry:



The Chapter Icon is a white eagle on red, obviously. Each company's heraldry is deliberately stolen from Polish historical heraldry. I'll do a proper write up at some point. Would need to learn how to make custom decals to do an entire army of these guys, obviously!

Zvezdnyye Rusalki:

I wanted to paint a space marine for my partner and so we have some Russian space mermaids (Stellar Rusalki)! I figured that I could just get some mermaid decals, although they don't seem to exist (but people love Marienburg!), so he doesn't have any chapter markings yet.

Also based in the Ultima Segmentum, the Zvezdnyye Rusalki were founded c. 38M as a standing force, probably to help reinforce the White Eagles and Black Templars against Orks, but more recently they've been deployed against Tyranid forces alongside their Ultramarine progenitors. Their homeworld (Новый Атлантис) is an ocean world that includes several underwater habitats and provides a combination of food, weird rare medicines, and raw materials to the Imperium. Despite being a γ-class world, each of the planet's city-states is relatively independent, with the wars and skirmishes that is the inevitable result. This does provide the Stellar Rusalki with military-minded recruits without the risk of culture shock that comes from uplifting feral or feudal world recruits. They specialise in boarding actions and other action that requires expertise in sealed environments; such as on certain death worlds, underwater conflicts, airless moons.

Blah blah blah. Here's brother Ivan, third squad, fifth company:



Chapter Icon:



The Zvezdnyye Rusalki use slightly different colours for the companies than the Codex Astartes prescribes. This is possibly due to a transcription error in their original copy. They also use their native numerals rather than Imperial Standard:



Mantis Warriors:



I also painted two more Mantis Warriors. One is a regular marine, one is a veteran of the Tranquillity campaign. I don't want all veterans to automatically be in Tranquillity colours or all Tranquillity veterans to be members of the First Company. I see the sniper units of that campaign being formed from various marines (including members of the First, of course) who then return to their usual duties at the close of the campaign. However, due to the particular intensity and honour earned in that conflict, marines of those units stand apart from their brethren. Plenty will have earned iron halos and additional marksman honours (as well as promotion to the First or other ranking positions), but the honour of serving as a Tranquillity sniper is a distinction in and of itself. So, just as marines may continue to bear a Campaign Badge after the conflict ends, so may marines continue to wear their armour in the Tranquillity colours. Others of the campaign keep part of their armour painted in the yellow-and-black, but otherwise return to the Mantis Warrior green.



This particular fellow is the Veteran Sergeant of his squad (third company, third squad, although I've only painted the squad markings). He retains his full Tranquillity colours, meaning he only bears his chapter marking on his left shoulder pad (or he will) and no other signs of rank or company. This is in keeping with the Rogue Trader portrayal of the colours, although I've obviously had to modify them to match modern Space Marines. Shout-out to Gitsplitta, whose paint jobs were stared at ad nauseam as I tried to replicate the effect. Some of my lines are still a bit wobbly or too close together, but I think he's okay.



His yellows have turned out a bit dull and dirty, but I do intend to experiment with chipping on the Mantis marines at some point, so that works out well enough. (They also all need chapter symbols and Maelstrom Wardens army badges, obviously, but that's a later project.)

I mostly painted up this guy so that I could try a technique I'd heard about for painting yellow quickly and easily, so I'll put the WIP photos below the cut, for those of you into that.



This post is longer than the amount of miniatures that I've painted really deserves, but I had a lot of fun. I tried several new techniques (carving crystals out of sprue, micron pens, yellow, painting white on a white undercoat, painting red, the second, third, and fourth space marines I've ever painted) and that's always really valuable. I also wrote a lot of fluff in my head, which I really should put down somewhere before it all flies away.

I'll close with a group shot of all the space marines I've ever painted:

Wow what a massive update. Where to start? Ok so for the bases I love the purple wash on the base, gives it just enough xenos territory feeling without being overbearing. Definitely go with the crystals bases, they look great for your DE. My vote for colour is either the green or blue (I'm leaning more towards the blue myself). The tiled base looks great but seems like a ton of work for DE, Harlequins, as a smaller elite force, would be well suited to this base. All the marines you painted up look great. The White eagles are a cool concept and the colour scheme works well. Lovin those green mantis warriors, kind of a more tactical feel to them that differs from normal marine colours. Good job.

I do like the sound of my own voice.

Yeah, I think the purple is definitely part of the solution to the problem I'm having with the grey being a bit dull.

The blue crystals look great, but that mayyy be just because the Thousand Sons/Ahriman blue combination is just so very nice. These might be some of my favourite regular paints GW has made in a while.

I can't take credit for the greens on the Mantis Warrior, I'm afraid. I followed pfreck's guide from a few years ago. It's based on the Imperial Armour books which toned down the Mantis Warrior green from emerald to this Gretchin Green muddier tone.

[I have mixed feelings on the IA books. On the one hand, I love the updated Mantis Warriors and several of the other chapters as well as the detailed background material. On the other hand, I think that the silliness of the Space Sharks had its own kind of charm, and the tendency toward metallic colours on Marines is.... boring. Tiger Claws should have stripes!]

I have to say that I absolutely love the tile base looks fantastic with the patches of rubble over the top. The patches actually neatly disguise any lack of uniformity in the tiles very neatly so I wouldn't worry about that at all.

Love the fluff for the Russian-style Space Marines. The idea of a chapter recruiting people from an underwater hab-world shaping their specialisation in boarding actions is really neat

It turns out a lot better than I expected, actually. You should steal it to use on some of your spaceport guys, actually; it'd look great there.

I went overboard on the sand for exactly that reason.

That was actually a happy coincidence. We rolled up some random facts about the chapter after we'd established basic facts (a mermaid logo, chapter name/s) and got 'Ocean World' and 'Civilised World' for the homeworld. Add to the mix that medieval* Russia was a collection of city-states ruled by related princely families and the fact that few Space Marine chapters focus on more weird sci-fi tropes like hab-domed cities and there you go. Fun! Plus, it keeps in with the mermaid thing.


*I majored in medieval history as an undergrad, so it is always a deep well from which I can steal ideas for worldbuilding, especially in Warhammer.

Great idea! I'd be trying to think of a suitable base for all those guys thanks!

Most of my medieval history knowledge comes from Age of Empires i'm afraid, but even then there's still bucketloads of stuff to draw inspiration from. Personally i want to have a go at making some moorish/north african style inperials at some point

Hey, don't diss on Age of Empires. (I mean, Longbowmen shouldn't be that effective, but it's fine.)

NORTH AFRICAN IMPERIALS, HECK YES



I've been wanting to do a Mali historical force for ages, but nobody makes miniatures for them. Apparently Khurasan will be doing some in 15mm soon, which would be ace.

ANYWAY SO ABOUT MY DARK ELDAR:



uh oh

Haha glad you like the idea imagine that guy, but with the bionic face of a Skitarus

As a Brit I have no problem with Longbowmen being overpowered

Sweet! Looking forward to your Deldar more S&M space elves is always good

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
As a Brit I have no problem with Longbowmen being overpowered

Ha, exactly.

Sweet! Looking forward to your Deldar more S&M space elves is always good

I am so dang scared of these Raider kits. I've never painted vehicles before! aaaa

Pro-tip for the Raiders. Paint the lower levels first, then stick the upper levels in place. Learn from my mistake. You need a bendy brush to get into some of the recesses! :S

Other than that (and a big brush for the flat panels) they're not too bad

Still sloggin' away. Glued a lot of sand to a lot of bases as a break between bits of this weekend's assignment.



I've also completely coated the carpet in little bits of shaved sprue. Don't tell my landlord.

= = =

I definitely plan to paint the Raiders in sub-assemblies, yes!

Looking forward to seeing you chip away at that DE purchase. Definitely some goodies in there.

Snap update with a dodgy tablet photo to show you guys I'm not dead.

Good to see an update, I'm really stoked to see Wyches on the table (one of my all-time favourite models) and it looks like you'll have a good bit o' models to keep ya busy for a while.

Thanks, 'Faith. I love the Wych models as well! I'm really excited to start looking at different wip models than the same handful of guys I've been staring at for weeks as I mess about with bases.

Speaking of, here is a real update, to show off the final form of those miniatures I've been working on in dribs and drabs. Now that the basing system is down, the rest of the project should flow a little more rapidly than it has so far. I say 'should' because it takes me literally hours to do the highlighting on these guys. I'm jealous of all you kids that can do things so fast. Anyway.

Half of the one squad of falseborn Warriors:







Half of the second squad:







The final four for each squad include the squads' splinter cannons, a few models that use the 'new' heads, and three 'new' Warriors to mix in. While the old chaps don't have shoulder spikes, I'm hoping the unified colour schemes will blend them together a bit. The Raiders for these two squads will feature a few old heads to make them all a bit more matchy.

While I'm here, I should also show you the finished bases for those Polish Bolt Action guys:





Painted a lot of rocks in the last little while, huh?

Nice. The mixing of the Old DE minis with the new looks great.

Great job on the Bolt Action stuff too.

EDC

Those Kabalites look ace dude, the bases really came out nice. This is going to be a really nice army for sure. As for being a slow painter that will speed up over time. I know for myself though I am pretty glacial at getting my painting done too so don't feel bad man.

 evildrcheese wrote:
Nice. The mixing of the Old DE minis with the new looks great.

Great job on the Bolt Action stuff too.

Thanks! I'm looking forward to seeing how it all fits together.

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
Those Kabalites look ace dude, the bases really came out nice. This is going to be a really nice army for sure. As for being a slow painter that will speed up over time. I know for myself though I am pretty glacial at getting my painting done too so don't feel bad man.

I'm really pleased with the bases. Also excited to see how the green crystals work with the orange Wyches. Hoping to have a half squad of those done by the weekend.

I did eventually get faster on the Bretonnian project but boy did that take ages. It's fine. They do look much nicer than when I painted them as a teenager, so that's what counts.

Nice work dude! Agreed that the bases look fantastic, and that Wyches are just gorgeous models

Thanks, mate! I think I'd like the Wyches even more if I didn't have fat ogre fingers.

Another snap update!



Boy, does assembling those old Reavers suck. Very tempted to just get rid of them and buy some new ones. Well see how painting this one goes. Anyone got ideas on engine gubbins? Wraithbone? Copper? Boring old steel?

Nice stuff! I have to confess I've never assembled any of the older DEldar stuff but I can imagine it being a PITA.

As for engines, I've had a lot of success with Runelord Brass with a heavy Flesh Wash coating could probably achieve a similar effect with 50:50 Reikland Fleshade and straight gloss.

Would it work with your purples? It's the colour on my Wych's helmets for reference...

Well the jetbikes will be in the Cult's orange, and brass is a warm reddish metal, so it would be.... near... it on the colour wheel?

That said, the Kabal's Raiders will probably be purple, so it's a good point. I'd like to keep the engines consistent. I might have to paint some swatches to see what's what.

Ooh! If you've got orange as a primary colour on the jetbikes, how about the ruddy brass look with some of that neat Nihilak Oxide searing bright blue painted into the cracks like verdigris?

No worries if not as you'd want to tie them into the purple Raiders (which would look sweet with orange too), but it's a neat idea

If you do decide to use nialakh oxide, do. a wash of agrax (watered down) over it to make it more realistic.

I find that metallic for the most part come off as neutral when it comes to colour matching. They're quite forgiving in that regard but of course you can manipulate that with different washes or bases. For all my DE engines I've gone with an undercoat of black then I drybrush hashnut copper over the engine parts. I feel this gives them a well-used and dirty look without compromising the metallic shine of the paint Washes tend to tone down the metallic shine of your paints, which is a good thing for some parts, but if you want that shiny metal back you'll have to re-highlight it after washing it.

I'd avoid using wraithbone in any large amount in your force, DE aren't well known for employing it as they can't shape it. You shape wraithbone with psychic power and since DE aren't allowed to use theirs then the shaping of wraithbone in Commorragh is strictly forbidden. DE will tend to have their tools made of plastics and metals, things they can easily get their slaves to make for them.

 EmberlordofFire8 wrote:
If you do decide to use nialakh oxide, do. a wash of agrax (watered down) over it to make it more realistic.

My partner saw the Oxide over my shoulder and went "ooooh!' but I'm a bit more unsure. I definitely think it needs a wash.

@Inevitable_Faith: You're right about the fluff of wraithbone. I just really like the bone look to your Craftworlders and want to steal it. The plastics thing is more what I meant - weird future tech rather than metals. But the steel weapons look pretty good, so metallics will probably also work. Thanks for telling me the formula for your DE engines - I really like the look.

I'll probably do some swatches to compare some different metallics.

Also, here's a real update:



The first five Wyches of the Cult of Splintered Sight.







And from the rear:



As you can see, I forgot that I was painting the backpacks mostly black. Oops. I think they look fine all-orange, so I'll keep them as they are and just have the squad with a mix when finished. I'm sure it'll be all good. There are a couple of rear-facing close-ups in the gallery, too.

Those Wyches are looking top notch, loving that orange. Personally I like the Wyches with the all-orange back piece a bit more than the black one, gives them some extra colour that I find endearing. I hear ya on the bone, I find it a ton of fun to paint and after painting so much DE I'm missing getting the chance to paint it.

Thanks, `Faith. I'm really pleased with how the orange has come out and I think I'm even getting better at faces.

Faces are hard, there's mo two ways around it you just gotta practice. Your Wyches faces look fine, shading is in the right places and they're not clogged up with thick paint, just a good clean job. Next step will be to pick out those eyes

Eh, I don't do eyes. Lenses on a space marine or something, fine, sure, lets go, but eyes is too hard.

I found it easier than I initially thought it'd be (I cheat for my DE since I have them with black eyes but I've done proper eyes for other forces), it's just about finding a technique that you like and practicing. There's lots of good simple three step eye tutorials online. But at the end of the day it's your hobby and you do it with your own style, your Wyches look great as they are anyways so it's definitely not a deal-breaker to leave the eyes out.

Those wyches are looking stunning!

I used to hate doing eyes until someone told me the dead simplest way of doing it. Most people start off painting the eye white and then trying to put a black dot of pupil in. Looks much better if you paint the eye black (overshooting the actual eyeball a bit) and then dabbing on little white dots for either side of the pupil with a super-thin brush.

Bit fiddly but it's only two steps. Looks great that's all I did for my Corsair Prince

Oh, and if you want bone look without it being wraithbone have a look at ceramic coatings (google 'ceramic coated exhaust' for where I got the idea). I've nearly finished painting my Death Guard guy with bone-coloured armour with bronze drybrushed on the edges and it looks like ceramic coating that's chipped off at the edges

Fellas, you're both great.

@I'Faith: I appreciate the support either way. At some point I'll feel ready to take on eyes, but I don't think it's going to happen with this project. Not too many faces with eyes anyway - the Wyches and a few Warriors here and there.

@Y'Wraith: Oh, that's a great Google search. Thank you! BUT now let's talk about your Death Guard because - what - are you doing a Heresy project?

I'm really busy at the moment with end-of-semester assignments - or I should be busy but am too stressed to paint as procrastination, anyway, which means it might be a while before a 'finished some more guys' update. In the meantime, here are some things I've worked on in between downloading journal articles. All tablet photos, I'm afraid.



This is the rest of the squad of Wyches. Really looking forward to these gals (and guy).



Mocked up my squad of Shredderborn with blu-tack. That splinter cannon is going to be a pain to glue, I can tell.



Also mocked up my Blasterborn.

Going to add some knives and such to the Trueborn without fancy backpacks to give them more individuality. I think I found a craftworlder chainsword in my bits box for one of them.

Bit worried about how looming those old-school Incubi are next to 'em, but I'm sure it'll all work out.



Bunch more Space Marns, mostly because they're so much easier to pose and mess about with. These are mostly glued but a few bits are just resting. At some point with this project-that's-not-a-project, I'm going to have to find a replacement for Gretchin Green. That's going to be a pain.

Always good to see more Wyches, Razorflails are just such an exquisite weapon, I love them. Shredderborn is an interesting concept, I've never seen them before, people always build blasterborn. What made you decide to build a shredder unit?

Nice! I'm loving the Trueborn with Reaver helmets. It's such a good look

I wonder whether Shredders will have a bit of a resurgence with 8th doing away with blast templates large and small...

I think I have enough projects going on without a Heresy one too! It's not really captured me for some reason, although I am drawn slightly to Death Guard. There's something neat to be done with sort of Anglo-Saxony Terran Dusk Raiders and native Barbarans.

The Death Guard chap is very much post-Heresy, and part of the Blightdar flock

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
Always good to see more Wyches, Razorflails are just such an exquisite weapon, I love them. Shredderborn is an interesting concept, I've never seen them before, people always build blasterborn. What made you decide to build a shredder unit?

I know you have a bunch of Razorflails and I can't say I blame you. They're so neat. I tried to imagine what a pain they would have been in metal. ugh

A couple of reasons. First was that everyone was all BLASTERBORN SPAM IS THE ONLY WAY TO DO DARK ELDAR and I am an extremely contrary person. Second is that I'm cheap and wanted a way to use the spare shredders I'd get by building some blasterborn, as well as the other of the two old Incubi I had. Third was that I thought plopping down four blast templates would be hilarious. 4 x d3 hits or whatever they do with shredders in 8th will also be pretty fun, I'm sure.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Nice! I'm loving the Trueborn with Reaver helmets. It's such a good look

I spent a fair bit of time looking at other people's projects before I started this, and this was a consistent look I saw that was always impressive, while requiring few bits and little expense. I like the Dark Elf Corsair dragon cloak look as well, but I'm so fond of the 2010-era Dark Eldar that I basically didn't want to move away from it too much.

Of course, after I made that decision, I came across your techno-barbarian space elves and was seriously tempted to buy a billion Hellion torsos, but I'll hold off on that until I decide to go insane and do an Exodite project.

I wonder whether Shredders will have a bit of a resurgence with 8th doing away with blast templates large and small...

I was thinking that as well, actually. I'd hate for my dumb little unit I made for fun (see above) to wind up being part of the ~meta or whatever. #hipster

I think I have enough projects going on without a Heresy one too! It's not really captured me for some reason, although I am drawn slightly to Death Guard. There's something neat to be done with sort of Anglo-Saxony Terran Dusk Raiders and native Barbarans.

*innocent whistle*

The Death Guard chap is very much post-Heresy, and part of the Blightdar flock

Still keen. I like what you've done of the Blightdar so far.


Hey what do we think of Drukhari?

I fully endorse going insane on an exodite project

Personally, I think the 'Drukhari' are more copywritable

From what I've heard though it's giving DEldar their speed back which I'm absolutely for, and I've also heard of Dark Lances being pretty mean again. Better than Lascannons in more situations than not

Oh, and someone else mentioned that the new to-wound mechanisms benefit T3 dudes and dudettes more than higher toughness models, which although I don't understand myself yet does sound very promising

You had me at " I am an extremely contrary person", I totally get this mentality, the constant fight against the meta. That's one of the reasons why I stopped working on my Craftworld army and swapped to DE in the first place. Shredderborn sound like a great idea, especially with the advent of 8th (I'm loving the new blast weapon rules) and even now they'll be something you may be able to catch your opponents off guard with. The shredder is rather cheap after all so that squad isn't too expensive.

I initially liked the name "Drukhari" but then someone said that it sounds like Drew Carey and NOW I CAN'T UN-HEAR IT!

As for the rules I feel like our faction focus article didn't pick on the right topics to show us, particularly with our Wyches and Incubi. Objectively both those units are "worse" in that article than they are now but we can't say for sure since we don't know the whole picture. I won't go into major details but the article didn't put DE in the best light. Having said that I'm still hopeful that we have a solid army in 8th, I have my faith in the play testers and New GW™ to have actually done the Drukhari justice so I'm very excited for 8th.

Exactly. I always like minor armies that nobody else likes, too. Which has been the case for Dark Eldar since they were part of the third edition boxed set.

I was also thinking that they'd be really effective against Orks or other infantry-heavy armies with large unit sizes. Especially now that they're randomised hits instead of templates.

Yeah, I liked where that article was going but "you can now tie down units!" doesn't work quite as well when everyone can withdraw from melee. I do like the idea of tying down flying units, though. That'll be interesting. I mostly built the Wyches because they looked fun, though, not because I thought they would be especially effective.

Ynneadwraith, you would endorse an exodite project.

I initially thought Drukhari sounded ridiculous but it really is no worse that Druchii, come to think of it.

As for Dark Lances, I think my Raiders will have Disintegrators - more flexible, especially if they cause two wounds a pop. They can take out Terminators and still smash up some vehicles. Plus, I don't like relying on single dice rolls. It's been a while, but I've never had anything better than terrible luck...

I definitely find that Drukhari is much more palatable if it's pronounced 'Drook-ha-ri'. Less like a well-known actor

And yes. Yes I would endorse an exodite project. Now get cracking

Sadly, I'm too busy reading about open government initiatives to do any dragon elves. :(

I love those true born, the helmets definitely make them stand out

im back baby. It's good again. Awoouu (wolf Howl) (x)



I finally got those reports behind me and have finished off the last eight Kabalite Warriors. It's a good bloody feeling, my lads.









Like I said earlier, these include a couple of the 'new' helmets, as well as three Warriors made entirely of the 2010 release. I think they mix together pretty well. (more images in my gallery, as usual)

Let's have some full squad shots:

Squad Gyntaf:





Squad Ail:





= = =

Hey, thanks, Emberlord! I've seen quite a few other people do the blank helmet thing with the Trueborn and I love it every single time so I knew I had to do it here as well. Currently thinking I paint them perfectly, smoothly white, because I apparently enjoy suffering.

= = =

COMING SOON:

The undercoat is drying on the second half of the Wyches squad as well as the first two jetbikes (one '90s spikes, one '10s sleek), so I can figure out paint schemes for those. I also have a Raider partly assembled, so that once I've figured out how I'm doing engine gubbinz, I can get cracking on the first of those. I also have a few bits from a half dozen other projects and I did get a whole mess of very cheap, very badly treated Space Marines recently. And those corrupt Death Guard models look really cool...

Those look really good dude! The basing really works for them, and you're right the new and older kab models do blend together nicely when you mix up the parts on some of them. No hair-metal dudes yet though?

Love that last pic with the filter. Something about darkening the picture just makes it seem very 40k also looks slightly like they've been spotted through a viewfinder.

As for pure white Reaver helmets I think that'd look excellent to reduce your pain/make it look a little more realistic I'd probably go for Pallid Wych Flesh rather than pure white. I've tried pure white a lot and it just looks a little wrong as a solid colour. Slightly off-white just seems more realistic.

Oh, and a gloss coat gloss coats on visors are excellent

Thanks, Ynnead! I love how you run about and comment on all the ~eldar projects here. Us pointy ears got our own team.

Do you mean the '90s bare face with the hair loose and enormous? I used to love that face but I think it's a bit..... much. I've got some oversized hair on some of these helmets, though. Look at the chap firing upwards, for instance. I've also tried to create a mixture of different hair colours for the non-Wych models, although my favourite is probably the white-with-blue-undertones.

I'm okay with things looking slightly off/unrealistic. Eldar should feel unnatural and alien, just a little bit. My standard formula (from my white-and-blue Bretonnian project) is an off-white base coat, black wash, light grey, then pure white; straight out of the GW textbook. By adjusting how you layer the white, you can create different shading effects. Here's an example on the caparison of a Questing Knight:



I'll probably work from that for the face masks, but altered a little bit. The Incubi will have white masks in pretty much the same way, probably. Trying to tie into that old-school scheme from back in the day, after all.

I keep going back and forth on gloss. I'm tempted to try it on the helmet lenses but I also think they look good right now? My initial plan was to have a source glow effect as well, but I'm scared to try it and they look okay at the moment. I do want to push my painting a bit, but all this edge highlighting and use of different washes is already doing that, to be frank.

EDIT: Oh, yeah, I love the ~fancy shot. My partner says she got bored while editing, but I think it's the best.

Haha! Pointy ears represent

Yeah that's the one. It's delightfully bonkers, although I agree it's a bit much to get it to blend into any army post 1990 works for Necromundan Gangers, but that's about it!

I was thinking 'if he's managed to make that head look at home then he's definitely a wizard'.

Man that Brettonian looks nice such a shame they don't make the kits anymore. I'll defer to your expertise with white as that looks great to me! Will look phenomenal on Incubi masks coupled with the dark purple armour

I know how you feel with not wanting to fix what isn't broken pushing yourself painting is one thing, but it is easy to end up with something you don't like quite as much. If you're pushing yourself already then I wouldn't worry about it it's always something you could do at a later date if you fancied it

Yeah that's the one. It's delightfully bonkers, although I agree it's a bit much to get it to blend into any army post 1990 works for Necromundan Gangers, but that's about it!

I mean technically the old DE are from about 1998, but yeah. I definitely have a few of those heads in my bitz pile now, but I just don't think I'm that magical, I'm afraid. I do have one of the old ponytails but the rest are all from new kits.

(keep saying new, but they're seven years old at this point)

Man that Brettonian looks nice

Oh, thanks so much! Most of my tumblr blog (link in signature) is that project. I started it about six years ago, then dropped back out of the hobby completely. Restarting it last year is what got me back into painting plastic soldiers, although I haven't actually had any games with them yet. I halfway organised one with a chap at the Mantic Forums and then got crazy busy and never followed up. Oops.

I really like the Bret kits, but honestly I think that the Perry Twins have done a much better job with plastic medieval soldiers. I've also heard really good things about the Firestorm guys, but I already had nearly everything for my project when they started releasing stuff. One day I'll do the twin undead-Russians and crusading fantasy Teutonic Knights project I have in my head with them, after I get the other 900 projects I want to do out of the way.

Will look phenomenal on Incubi masks coupled with the dark purple armour

Actually, I'm thinking of doing a different colour scheme for the Incubi. They used to be straight-up black, but since they revamped the fluff to emphasise different shrines,* I'm considering having mine be from the Shrine of the Shadowed Waters (or something) with dark turquoise armour. The Incubi leaders for the Trueborn will be a good place to experiment...

*Which is fun and neat, emphasising the 'dark aspect warrior' thing nicely.

Them Kabalites look ace dude, the paint scheme came together nicely and mixing the new and old parts made for a beautifully unified look.

For white lense helmets I suggest using Ulthuan grey as the base then highlighting using white scar to give it a shine. Using ardcoat to make it glossy would look good too but just be careful cause gloss over lighter pigment paints tends to show the imperfections in the layer more so than gloss over black. Just make sure the ulthuan grey and white scar layers get put on heavily thinned.

Thanks, 'Faith. I'm pleased that the scheme blends them all together so nicely.

That's basically my technique for white, yup. It's also how I did the white hair, except with a blue wash in the middle stages.

Last night and today I spent a frustrating little while trying to figure out a new green for the Mantis Warriors, with no success. I don't know why GW bothered to release that old/new matching chart - few of the shades even come close.

+ + + AGAINST DEATH + + +







More angles here.

For my own notes as much as anyone else, here is how I did him:



= = = = = = = = = = = = =

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Looked at the new Index Xenos: 1 and realised that the new system does a little bit screw my plan over. Unit leaders are now automatic, and they can't be given special weapons - so the Shredderborn have to lose either a shredder or the splinter cannon, and I'm going to drop the splinter cannon. The big problem is that Incubi come in units of 5+ now, so the Archon can't ride with them in a Venom. Everything is also Well Expensive now, so instead of an 1850 list, let's aim for a 2500 point Battalion Detachment:



Additions:

Raider, Medusae, Sslyth, Lhamaean, Succubus, 5 x Bloodbrides, another Razorflock swarm. Everything else is shifting things around.

Vague Thoughts:

Getting together a Court of the Archon which, if riding with Incubi, is a very expensive "unit". I could give them their own Venom instead of all riding together in a Raider, or they could ride with the Bloodbrides while the Incubi are off on their own. This would let the Succubus offer some synergy to her minions, something that's otherwise a bit hard to do with minimum model counts but also wanting all three Wych weapons in a squad.

I could also demote the new Bloodbrides back to Wyches, or get rid of them entirely (saves me having to buy the squad).

I need the Succubus or a similar HQ for the Battalion Detachment, and I'm not keen on a Haemonculus (feels like the army is too 'busy' with three sub-factions), and if I'm going to have a Succubus then I'd like to have a second unit of 'ordinary' members of the Wych cult, if that makes sense (not more bikes or what have you). Another squad of 10 Wyches + Raider is just too expensive, unfortunately.

Likewise I'd love to add a Voidraven but I can't see the points sacrifice without losing something I really like, such as a Ravager. Having only one Ravager seems risky.

ANYWAY HELLO FRIENDS ANY THOUGHTS WOULD BE SUPER

I aten't dead. Here follows a quick update on the latest models.



Terrible tablet photo of three Wyches and two Reaver pilots that are nearly finished. Just need to do the blacks and touch ups. The, uh, photo isn't great.



Experimenting with colours for the jetbikes. This is an old '90s-era Reaver, all covered in spiky bits. On the left is a finished Wych to compare the armour.

As you can see, using the same technique as for the Wych armour (Jokaero + XV-88 basecoat, Fuegan Orange wash, Wild Rider Red layer, Troll Slayer edging) leaves me with a significant redder finish than I get on the armour. Wild Rider actually looks....... kinda red. It surprised me too. The photo is a dodgy tablet shot, so you can't really see the Troll Slayer, but it does help tone down the reddish effect. Towards the back, you can see where I've just left the basecoat + wash on, and it's much orangey-er, if a bit blotchy. I could try going for a Jokaero layer instead of the Wild Rider, but that might also wind up too orange when put next to the Reaver armour.

Open to suggestions, remembering that my colour eyesight isn't the world's finest, so mixing isn't the best plan of attack.

More to come. Stay tuned, star raiders!

Wyches are coming out great. Loving the scheme. As for the Reaver I know paints work differently on smaller more detailed bits than they do on flat surfaces, it's a bit of frustration that caught me with my craftworld Eldar.

As I hate mixing paints as well my suggestions would be as follows:

1) Instead of edge highlighting the reaver in troll slayer you could water it down and blend it more over the plates to bring the orange over more surface. Since it's more watered down it'll still let the wild rider show through and then you finish with an edge highlight of troll slayer. Brings out the orange and will have a nice blended effect over the body but it'll be more work. Won't be the exact colour of your wyches either but it'll be more orange than red at least.

2) Do a freehand design on the body of the reaver to distract from the colour mismatch. Some sharp designs that the DE are famous for (lots of people paint them on their raiders) in a blue colour (to tie in with your Wych hair and guns) would look stellar. This is also more work but could be a lot of fun if you enjoy some freehand.

#2 is actually my current plan, sis the best way to bring out the secondary colour of the Cult, and it'll look great on the modern jetbikes. I'm not great at freehand but I'm sure I can do something.

I haven't been feeling the Dark Eldar lately. Sorry, lads. On a slightly related note, though, I spent tonight experimenting with some freehand shield designs, inspired by some Oldhammer blogs I've been reading lately. If you really want, you can read all about it here on my wargaming tumblr, but I figure you just want to see what I did. Here you go:



Mixed results, but this sort of thing is very much outside my comfort zone, so... yeah. Anyway, thanks for lookin'.

Hey dude those look great! I especially love the bottom two, the bug and yellow checkers. All in all very neat line work on some tiny shields, good job, I like them.

Thanks! I'm actually less pleased with the red bug - the red isn't as striking as I wanted, and it was supposed to be a spider. Dang it.

I do love that skull though.

Ooh I like the eye and the checkers the skull's great too

Thanks, dude! That eye was fun.

Did some more:



Want to figure out a bit of weathering on the shields that've been beat up over the years.

The green shield has all these lovely bubbles blistering it, so I'm not sure what to do with it! Any ideas?

Ooh nice

Nurgly Plague Shield for the green one? Those bits at the bottom are crying out to be open sores to me

Definitely!! but how

Hmmm, here's what I'm imagining.

At the top of the shield (and for most of it) it's a regular shield with a freehand of the Nurgle 3-circle sign. Then, as it approaches the tip sort of blend it into pinks and fleshtones as if the shield itself is turning biological. Splash of Blood for the Blood God (or any dark red and a gloss coat) inside the 'sores' and you're away

Bonus points for doing little red spots in the smaller dimples and a tiny bit of flesh colour around them, as if it's the sores themselves that are turning it biological

This is sounding so remarkably similar to the Plog I've been meaning to kick off, it's scary!

Same history, same models, same poses.... If I were back home I'd be buying those grotesques (and mandrakes...) off you for sure! This stuff is looking great and has got me motivated to post my own now! So far I've also re-invented one warrior squad and like you, the index has sent me back to the drawing board... but in a good way. Very interested to see how your army turns out in comparison with my little project!

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Hmmm, here's what I'm imagining.

At the top of the shield (and for most of it) it's a regular shield with a freehand of the Nurgle 3-circle sign.

This sounds a bit beyond my skills, but let's give it a red hot go. What's the base colour?

Then, as it approaches the tip sort of blend it into pinks and fleshtones as if the shield itself is turning biological. Splash of Blood for the Blood God (or any dark red and a gloss coat) inside the 'sores' and you're away

Bonus points for doing little red spots in the smaller dimples and a tiny bit of flesh colour around them, as if it's the sores themselves that are turning it biological

That's a pretty neat idea. There are lots of little pockmarks across the rest of the shield, too. Washes should bring them out a bit more. I assume that at some point some plastic cement was spilled on the shield? W H O K N O W S

= = =

The Scadman wrote:
This is sounding so remarkably similar to the Plog I've been meaning to kick off, it's scary!

Great minds/idiots, right?

Given that I'm in Australia, it'd probably be cheaper to get those old models sent to China. hint hint.

Are you going to start a plog? I like reading Dark Eldar projects! I've noticed that there are a BUNCH starting lately.

Oh - I'm less worried about the new Index, as a more careful reading of the main rules brought the rule about understrength squads to my attention. That means I can have a 4-strong Incubi squad on a Venom, as long as its the only squad of Incubi. (I think.) So I'm just going to go with the original plan until, well, until I ever play a game again, which would possibly require actually meeting new people and... doing that. Gross.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
This is probably a double post, but I think the forum will fold it into the previous one.

Painted some test goblins for a swamp/forest goblin army idea I had about a decade ago. Trying to go for a grey skin like Lone Wolf Giaks in the chap on the left because we're all a bit tired of generic green goblins, right?





Which do we like better?

Hmmm, easier way of doing it might be as a wholly biological shield. Basically just paint it skintones

My recipe for nurgly flesh is Ungor Flesh, Reikland Fleshshade wash, re-highlight with Ungor Flesh and then selective wash in odd places with a dark green. That should make the little Blood for the Blood God sores pop really nicely ooh, and if you've got any Bloodletter or similar light red wash then just playing that around the sores makes the skin look really inflamed around the wound.

I'm not super confident on skin tones, although I do like where you're going with that. I might give it a go.

I don't have Blood for the Blood God, but I do have the Bloodletter glaze.

This is going to look sweet I have the utmost confidence

Bloodletter will do admirably a darker red in the sores with a gloss coat is basically all that Blood for the Blood God is. If Bloodletter has a bit of a gloss finish that over a darker red would work too

Love them Gobbos, those cloaks look really cool.

Thanks, I_F!

I'm hesitating on those shields, but been doing some other stuff. Should possibly change the name of this blog, given how much I'm procrastinating from the Dark Eldar.









+ + + Thought for the Day: If you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword + + +

Nice Death Guard. I painted one as a gift once, and that pre-heresy colour scheme is really easy to do, but also really tricky to get absolutely right. You seem to have done it, though. Good job.

Are you going to start a plog? I like reading Dark Eldar projects! I've noticed that there are a BUNCH starting lately.

Yep, You've twisted my arm!

Those Death Guard are looking awesome, fear not, procrastination goes hand in hand with what we do. I wouldn't be surprised if my Genestealers and spore mines arrive on the paint table soon...

Thank you very much, Ember. That's a really good thing to hear; I appreciate it.

Scadman: I'm heck keen on your project. Thanks for the kind words.

Those DG look really good, that bit of grime on their light armour really helps it pop.

Thanks again. I've just gotta figure out how to do the bases the way I imagine them in my haid.

Hell yeah Death Guard really nice painting of my favourite Heresy Legion

It's been a while, but I haven't really felt like painting much. These Wyches aren't much fun, basically.

Anyway, I'm wanting feedback on the engine gubbins for these jetbikes. Which of the three colours do we like best?



D - Dwarf Bronze
C - Fulgurite Copper
B - Brazen Brass

D/B are pretty similar, and I'm leaning away from C because it's reddish like the orange carapace.

Also, if anyone has some great ideas for painting a whip, now's the time to share 'em.

Great to see you back! Sorry to hear about your low motivation, mine is low too but that has more to do with how busy I've been lately. My vote is dwarf bronze, perhaps drybrush it over the black engine parts to keep a work look with depth or wash it with agrax earthshade or nuln oil after applying it.

Basically what I_F said on both counts

Thanks a bunch, you guys. The consensus across all social media was pretty much unanimous, so that's what I did. Photos forthcoming.

Any ideas on a Wych's whip? I'm thinking pinks, but the spiked handle is giving me some trouble. Bone? The usual black-highlighted-grey I use for things like pistol casings? A metallic?

Depends on what you want the whip to be, in my case I made all my whips agonizers and so painted them up with power weapon stylings using arcing energy fields and such. With agonizers beings so cheap in 8th edition they're a great addition to almost any squad. My lazy response for the handle of the whip would be a layer of bronze washed in agrax earthshade but having said that I believe matching it to your pistol casings is a great idea.

Well, it's still an agonizer for sure, but I didn't really want arcing energy fields.

Hum, how about starting off with the same electric blue as the hair at the base of it, and then fading to bright white at the tip? Could be done by painting it white and then doing a couple of progressive blue washes down the length of it too.

Perhaps it's just my lack of imagination and general desire to only ever use three colours on any single model, but I think that'd look neat

They're looking great by the way!

Agreed, that Hekatrix is looking awesome. I'm going to echo what Ynnead is saying here by doing progressive washes to get a fade going, that'd be a nice alternative to energy fields.

I wouldn't call a severely limited palette a limited imagination, Y'wraith. It keeps your art looking very Blanchesque, which is only ever a good thing.

I really like the pink whip, so I think I'll keep her like that, but I appreciate the feedback anyhow.

'Sup.



Class photo.



The three latest ladies.





Two of these have been done for a bit (whip-swords and heavy chain) but I wanted to finish the squad before Photo Time.





♫ Ain't no bix like a Hek-a-trix. ♪ ♫

= = = = = = =



Reavers, old and new.







Take it from the top.



Zoom-zoom.



Just the old.



Swoop.

= = = = = = =

As always, a bunch more photos in the ol' gallery. Like, favourite, subscribe, &c.

I'm still considering doing some freehand turquoise designs on the carapaces of the jetbikes to break up the orange, but it's turned out better than I thought during the early stages. I also think the nearly-two-decade old sculpt cleaned up pretty well, all things considered. Anyway, I'm glad these are finally off the painting table, after something like three or four months. Painter's block is rough.

Wych squad looks great dude, loving it. I'm surprised at how well the old and new reavers blend in together to still look like a unified unit. I'm thinking mixed squads of old/new reavers will actually look really good on the tabletop. Top-notch work, I'm loving it all.

Yeah these guys look great! Whips look good in the colour you've got them too

Thank you, guys! I'm pleasantly surprised at how the old reavers turn out as well, 'Faith. A unified colour scheme conceals a thousand ills.

I'm trying to decide if I want to paint more orange bikes, try out that meat-technique on some warp beasts, or make a start on the trueborn squads next.

What I should be doing is working on my assignments due in a couple weeks but it's so nice to want to paint things again.

My vote is meat-technique on the warp beats, when the motivation hits ya it's important to grab it by the horns and try something new that you might have otherwise shied away from. You powered through getting the Wyches done, give yourself a present by not having to paint more orange at the moment. That's how I like to organize my painting queue, your preference may differ. I may be a bit biased too in wanting to see someone else do the meat-technique

Yeah meat-technique I must admit I'm awful at painting more than one or two dudes in the same scheme at any one time! Probably my main motivation for switching to INQ28-style warbands was laziness

Variety is the spice of life

You guys make good points. The main issue is my lack of curved cavalry bases, but I can always make the bases later and glue the little critters down.

In the meantime, I've been working again on those Mantis Warriors. I think I have a solution to my Gretchin Green woes (which doesn't involve a match, but rather me moving on). Just before I show you the half-squad I've nearly finished, check it out:



First time painting dark skin. The highlights are a mite subtle, but I think it looks pretty okay.

Yeah that's really nice I have found that the camera tends to wash out the more delicate highlighting, but even still it looks great just means it looks even better in person

Well, I'll get a proper photo when my photographer isn't working on her intellectual property essay.

In the meantime, finished(?) off those oldhammer shields you mighta seen a few months back:



Can you guys tell that I'm clearing away stuff that's been sitting on the painting couch for a bit? heh

I was inspired by your comments about flesh tones, Y'wraith, so I worked from the 'inflamed flesh' and 'putrid flesh' patterns on the New Citadel App(tm). Feedback appreciated.

*available from Google Play and iTunes. all rights reserved. caveat emptor, etc

Mantis Warriors, Third Squad, Third Company:









I initially painted the second-edition era bolter red as a joke to myself but I think it turned out really neat.

I'm also pleased with the new system for Mantis Warrior greens. The two chaps I'd painted using Gretchin Green blend in well with the rest, so this all works out. The new system is the similar to that for Death Guard - Death Guard Green, brown wash, Elysian Green, Ogryn Camo edge highlights. I put a few rough Ogryn Camo edge highlights over the two older chaps, and it's all peachy. All that wasted angst!

A second demi-squad!



Party of Five



Closer-ups.



Closer-ups.



The Sergeant is also a veteran of the Tranquillity Campaign but has only kept his right shoulder pad in the Tranquillity colours.

Knee, chapter, and designation markings for this squad to come at some point in the future (when there is only war).

After this, I'm going back to Dark Eldar projects, I think, though I have some uni work to do in the immediate future.

Very nice dude, liking the green.

Neat I like the little touch with the Tranquility shoulder pad. Nice way to work in little alternative colour schemes

Thanks, you guys. I always intended to have a few Tranquillity veterans dotted around the army without necessarily having the full effect on the camo, but I'll admit to also really enjoying the way General_Helstrom's Imperial Fists have some spot colours.

Hello again, space friends. I've finished the semester, and so got back into the swing of things. Here's a wip of the warp beasts I've been talking about. Hoped to have finished them by now but I screwed up during the basing & work slower when annoyed with myself.

Oh wow I've never seen those models before, they look trippy. Where are they from? Looking forward to seeing the whole unit all prowling together though.

Thanks, 'Faith! These guys are the late-90s Warp Beasts, the precursors to the modern-day Khymerae. Here's a photo from the Internet of the 'Eavy Metal scheme:



And here is my take, on modern 40mm round bases:



A Tau-eye view.





He's not quite as reddish in person, at least to me.



Vein boy.

We didn't think to get a close-up on the completely skinless kitty this photoshoot, but we'll try and get one when I do a proper group shot with whatever other beasties we add to the full unit. Or the, like, six separate units that beast swarms are now? 8th edition did a weird thing there but we'll figure it out. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the Skinless Demon Cat Episode here on goblinpaladin's Unrestrained Ravagings Hour. Tune in next time for, actually, probably some more space marines. They're just so easy to paint.

Awesome! I'd always dismissed these before but I think it was just dislike of the old 'Eavy Metal scheme. With a bit of a modern twist they look fantastic

Would make some brilliant little xenos beasties

The 'Eavy Metal schemes didn't really do any of the old sculpts justice. I didn't like the Warp Beasts even at the time, but I was a completionist sort of person - one of every unit type. 3.0 Dark Eldar didn't have very many unit types, so. I think you can see my old paint scheme on page 1 of the thread. It was, uh, not great.

I'm sure you could do something cool with them and I bet they aren't expensive on ebay. They are metal, and you don't seem to like working with metal, and the sculpts aren't... great. All the veins are neat, though.

Yeah I have found that. To be honest, they haven't done a great job on newer stuff either like the Yncarne (although I do think I get their MO, which is paint something really well but using techniques that someone starting the hobby can at least see how they work).

It's just converting metal that I've got no real patience with. If the model itself is neat then I'll happily use it unconverted (like these are!).

The studio paint job is designed to show off the miniature details for advertising purposes, not really to be a good paint scheme that does interesting things. That's why I really enjoyed Tale of 4 Gamers and the million clone series when they first started up, as it gave us more 'regular schmoe' painting things. Of course, we all have the internet to look at and airbrushing is a whole thing now.

Anyway, if you like these sculpts I'll keep an eye out for anyone selling 'em for you. Most older DE stuff is cheap on ebay, so I reckon you could pick some up easy enough. It'd be cool to see what you did with 'em, either in your Rogue Trader line or any of the Eldar projects.

In today's painting news, I knocked out a couple of creamy boys. This brings the Death Guard squad up to seven, which feels Important. It's still not a real project or anything, but maybe soon it will be.



All out of Mark III to paint, though. Coming up next: Whatever I feel like, I guess???

Nice DG. I'm currently painting a few of the new 40k ones in the old colour scheme. It's really one of the best GW colour schemes out there.

I'm tempted to get some of the new ones and I'd definitely paint them in this scheme. The miniatures seem really busy with lots of detail. How are you finding them?

Been a bit under the weather today, but managed to do a tiny bit of basing and stuff, so here's a preview of what's next for the ol' Cult of Splintered Sight.



If you don't like the poses, don't worry. The connections are so bloody fragile that it's real easy to change 'em. The skyboard is not glued in its position yet, but will be after painting. This will keep the flying base clear.

A lovely bunch of models here. The warp beasts look better under your brush than ever before. Honest. I can't recall ever looking at one and saying "cool" before.

Well, that is a really nice thing to hear, youwashock! Thank you!

Love the use of the Vulture models for Razorwings. They fit perfectly

Death Guard look excellent too. It really is a great colour scheme

Thanks, 'Wraith. The Death Guard legionnaires are creamier than the guy whose method I stole - I think I'm treating as a layer what he treats as a highlight. That's ok, though. I just need to figure out a way to keep the cream layer as thin as I like the whole time I'm painting. Considering investing in a wet palette.

I'm keen on trying out this technique on the Vulcharcs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2BuYE6bp8M I don't have Wazdakka, Ungor, or Baharroth but I reckon I'm close, and the rest are all pretty much part of my colour palette for the Dark Eldar.

Doesn't look creamy to me, but it could be the lighting. Even if it is I think I prefer it that way. Nice little touch with the Death Guard being mostly of Albian origin and a connection to the 'Old English White' as a popular off-white colour.

Ooh nice tutorial on the Vulcharc. Can't watch it with sound here but the end result looks great. If you don't mind the taste of paint I've found that wet-blending done by brushing a colour on then licking the brush and using that to blend it in is quite a fluid way of doing it. Did that on the wings of my Croneworlder.

Of course, you could just buy a wet palette, but all my money goes on bitz

The warp beats/khymaera look great, loving the scheme and that veiny one is a standout hit for me. The beast rider on board you did looks fantastic, he's much more characterful than the current beastmaster.

Thanks, 'Faith. The skinless flesh is all you, although I don't have Squig Orange so I had to improvise. I also tended toward edgy drybrushing rather than fine lines, as there was so much to cover.

The beastmaster is literally just the old metal one glued to a modern skyboard like he's doing some sweet moves. It would be a stretch to even call it kitbashing, but I'm glad you like him. Painting him is going to be a challenge.

What's the 'Old English White' thing, 'Wraith? I'm not that familiar with English colours, aside from things like Tudor Roses or Blood of the Empire on my hands.

Improvisation or not your implementation of the "meat technique"™ came out beautifully. I'm glad it worked out for you

I think the 'Old English White' is a classic car thing (my other big hobby). Old British cars traditionally had a sort of off-white colour on their options. Not sure where it comes from actually, shall have to find that out!

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
Improvisation or not your implementation of the "meat technique"™ came out beautifully. I'm glad it worked out for you

So when do you receive your royalties I_F?

Classic cars, huh? Which hobby costs more money?

can anyone guess why I've painted an Astral Claws sergeant



I mean, aside from 'procrastination'.

Nope I'm going with procrastination that or perpetual (and on my part mutual) hobby butterfly-ism.

On the expenses front I have to give it to the classic cars, having just spent £425 on an exhaust manifold and gearing up to spend £830 to have the bodyshell sandblasted :S

Weight for weight though I'd say 40k is ruinously expensive

 goblinpaladin wrote:
Classic cars, huh? Which hobby costs more money?

can anyone guess why I've painted an Astral Claws sergeant.

I'm gonna go with "because you are an erudite thinker who makes judicious choices about which project to pursue next"?

I recently finished my 10,000 word Tyrant's Legion fandex, with stratagems, warlord traits, relics, etc. Need to get some painting done!!!

Not sure why you painted him unless your plan is to start a Badab army. Also have to say your DG look great as do the Dark Eldar.

I don't deserve any royalties at all YnneadWraith, after all meat technique™ is just a bastardization of techniques I've seen other great painters on the net perform.

As for why you painted an Astral claws guy my guess is because someone told you leadbelcher paint was going out of style and you had to prove them wrong.

Hmm, so far Ynneadwraith is closest, but not quite there yet. Procrastination is a very large factor, but that's not the only reason! I'll give you a hint. I'm inspired by another project on this very forum that unfortunately went on hiatus a few months back.

While you're puzzling over the motivations of an Australian, here are some angry birds:



And proper replies to y'all:

@Ynneadwraith: That sounds......... marginally more expensive. Marginally.

@Fifty: I suspect some bias toward the heroes traitors of Badab. Have you got a link to what you have painted so far? I found the sergeant here surprisingly irritating to paint, but I do love the unified look that Astral Claws get en mass.

@Yorkright: That is a really nice thing to say. Your work continues to be an inspiration, which I think I told you already? But it doesn't hurt to tell you again.

@Faith: I've never highlighted Leadbelcher/Chainmail after painting it before; on the Bretonnians, it's not the focus of the miniatures. Anyway, he turned out alright.

Ho hum, something to do with the ol' Badab War Blog?

Terror-hawks are looking great by the way lovely painting.

Also, I have a real thing for clever deleting of flying stands using basing components/modelling. Definitely a fan of that

I find the elaborate ways GW uses to conceal the fact that a miniature is flying to be really annoying about 80% of the time. Clear plastic rod can look a bit weird but not nearly as weird as how every bird happens to be near a bit of wire or every jetpack dude is landing on a twisted spire of rock. Eh.

These guys are on the crystals mostly because a) they aren't intended to be attached to plastic stands at all and converting them to do so was going to be just as irritating as anything else and b) I cover my bases in tall, thin crystals anyway, so I might as well use it.

Everyone seems to like these, but I really like it when people say nice things so feel free to keep doing that.

Different strokes I guess although saying that some of the ways used to hide flight stands are a little clumsy...

Perhaps I'm just thinking of the awful Primaris jump-pack guys. Ungainly looking things...

The birds look great, the colours are awesome and the way you hid any flight stand is well executed, good job.

Thank you, Inevitable_Faith! I can't claim credit for the colours; that was all Duncan. I'm enjoying your work on that webway gate, by the way.

= = =

It's been a busy couple weeks for me, as I'm on a placement which means I don't have daytime to paint and evenings are spent going 'ow why am i walking to and from the university when I am overweight and under-exercised, ow'. I've done a couple things, though and took some semi-random photos as I went.



I procrastinated from the Beastmaster and did these guys. This is before the final layer on the greens, but they don't look much different.



Officer WIP. She'll also have a chainsword slung on her backside. I mostly just wanted to do a gunslinger; no idea if this is good or not in the meta. I think I'll run her either as a veteran/sergeant or a lieutenant in larger games?



Put together some melee-oriented veterans. Here's Fisty.





And here's hammery. Notice the reinforced armour to assist him to swing the thunder hammer in power armour.

= = =

Here are a couple WIP shots over the last few days as I finally stopped avoiding the Beastmaster.



Post washes; two days ago. You can see that I've dropped him at some point, as we all knew would happen.



I'm really pleased with how the face highlighted, but my shoddy working light doesn't show off the colours that well.



Tonight, I thought it was funny to get my partner to get a photo of me lovingly highlighting the codpiece. I'm very tired.



This is the stage he's at now. This isn't the best lighting, but it shows him well enough.

I'm pleased for the most part. He's a bit top-heavy so I am probably going to have to glue a washer or something to that clear base. : ( Oh well.

The connection between Old Beastmaster and the skyboard has some unfortunate superglue action happening, but I am 100% not confident in my pinning skills to do anything else, and you can't really tell from the 3-feet test, so it's fine for now.

So! What do we reckon about that agonizer/axe? It is not painted silver; that's just where I was holding the bugger while painting him. The poisonous greens I use for crystals and drug wires? The blues I use for splinter weapons/Wych hair? The same steel colour I use for non-powered weapons? The pinks I used on that whip? Vote now on your phones!

Beast master is looking great dude, I'm going to vote for green here. He's already got a lot of blue in the hair so it might be too much and I feel pink wouldn't contrast as nicely with the orange. Just my two cents.

Just went back through this thread. Really great stuff. Love all the DE stuff, especially all the orange Wyches! The Nurgle shield turned out really nice too, and those Space Marines are pretty nice too. I haven't seen much of that colour scheme before, liking the veteran guys with the unique paints.

Lovely orange on that model, and the face is well done too. My Eldar army is mostly composed of the old pewter/lead figures and they do like to topple over. In a pinch my Avatar makes for a bludgeon.

Thank you all very much! It's nice to feel appreciated.

I concur with 'Faith about the orange/green and put together an attempt at a crystalline power-ish thing on the axe. Mixed results, and this photo is terrible:



My photographer is studying for an evidence exam! How selfish of her.

@craggy: Thanks, mate! I'm learning that orange is literally the worst colour to paint and I should have gone with white or yellow, but this is how one improves. I guess. sigh

I'm glad you also like the Mantis Warriors. The Tranquillity camo pattern comes from the chapter's Rogue Trader days. I also stared at Gitsplitta's marines - he has some good photos of how he did it in his gallery. They're super inspiring, if you've got a minute.

@Yorkright: I'm really fond of that old Avatar model, but I'll freely admit that's because I never had to try to assemble it.

Did you take advantage of Citadel's ridiculous false scarcity week-of-old-moulds-sale to get the bug-helmeted Farseer or any other old models? I'm not too proud to admit that I did, because I've always loved that model.

I did not take advantage of GWs remake as I have the original from when it first came out.

Of course you do.

The blade looks great and meshes well with the overall model. To crank it up to 11 though might I suggest a final very hard highlight of pallid wych flesh with points of white scar? You could also just skip the pallid wych flesh and go straight to a hard highlight of white scar. Having said that it still looks great as is.

Do you mean on the skin tones or on the crystal blade? If you mean the skin, he does have some fine PWF highlights here and there, especially on the face, but the lighting in the photos really emphasises blues.

Once my photographer is more available, I'll see if she can't take some actually decent photos of 'im and then I'll get you to offer a second opinion.

Sorry for the confusion I was referring to the blade.

Ah! Cheers. I'm going to hold off until I can get some clearer photos - although my photographer's just gone to America for a month, so that might take a bit. I definitely see what you mean, though.

My placement's nearly over, but all I've done for gaming is paint these yellow friends:



Sotha lives.



Lament.



Joy begets death.

(I do hope moonpie won't mind!)

Ah yellow, such an exciting colour. You did a great job getting a good coat of yellow in, the last quadranted marine is my favourite.

Well done with the yellows.

Really nice work dude! Love the Beastmaster, and the yellow on the Marines is really nice I've always been a bit wary of doing yellow because of the older low-pigment-count Citadel yellows, but I understand they've got a hell of a lot better

Also you have to do something with the bug-eyed Farseer excellent model. Didn't buy that one myself, but I did splurge on 2x Autarchs and 2x Bonesingers

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
Ah yellow, such an exciting colour. You did a great job getting a good coat of yellow in, the last quadranted marine is my favourite.

Mine too! He's moonpie's Emperor's Fools chapter, although I went with a lilac instead of a pink simply because I don't have any pure pink paints. I'm really pleased with how he came out.

Yorkright wrote:
Well done with the yellows.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Really nice work dude! Love the Beastmaster, and the yellow on the Marines is really nice

Thanks, guys! I have an Averland army from years ago and I'm avoiding re-doing it because yellow is just the worst.

I've always been a bit wary of doing yellow because of the older low-pigment-count Citadel yellows, but I understand they've got a hell of a lot better

Actually, the only modern yellows I have are a pot of Iyanden Yellow that's running very low, Casandora (the wash) and Lamenters (the glaze), and these guys didn't use any Lamenters. I used Golden and Sunburst to build the layers. It's tricky because the pots are old and gluggy, so I've got to be careful with thinning them, but then the paints often turn out watery. Ugh, it was a pain. So I'm glad to hear the newer Citadel range has a higher pigment count; that would make it a lot easier.

Casandora definitely improves the process, though.

I'm not sure what I'll do with ol' Insect Head but I love Eldar of all kinds. Maybe I'll build a Craftworld project around him one day. That's not an insane thing to do.

Great job! I have yet to paint anything yellow myself, but those banana marines are really cool.

 EmberlordofFire8 wrote:
Great job! I have yet to paint anything yellow myself, but those banana marines are really cool.

Thanks, mate. Yellow is so tricky that I'm really glad when people like it. At least one more marine is planned that has yellow as a major colour, so we'll see if he turns out as well.

Now, I keep wanting to work on some more Dark Eldar, but the weather just isn't cooperating. It's humid or straight-up raining every day for the last week or so, so I can't do any priming. Very frustrating.

In the meantime, I've painted this fellow. Sorry that the photo isn't going to win any prizes:



I've wanted to paint an Angels Sanguine marine since about 1997/8 so I'm pleased.

Looks great man, love the details in the missile launcher and loader pack.

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
Looks great man, love the details in the missile launcher and loader pack.

Thanks! I thought it would be a shame not to do something interesting with all those cables and blinky lights. The sculpt isn't great (see the front of the launcher for e.g.) but if they include stuff like that, it's a shame to miss it.

= = = =

If you're not aware, the Australian government has been running a survey to determine if some members of our population should have the same rights as other members. It's been condemned by the UN as well as every decent person ever, and has resulted in widespread abuse of said minority groups. I won't go into details because this is a wargaming forum. The reason I bring it up is that the results are released today (in about an hour), and today's Space Marine is a member of the Rainbow Warriors chapter, as a tiny and entirely dumb way to honour the people on the front lines of this fight:





That rainbow stripe is Extremely Suck to paint, let me tell you. I would not want to try and do an entire army of these lads.

As a painting aside, my original intention was to paint him like an Ultramarine, but Calgar Blue is a lot paler than I expected and wasn't going over the Nuln-washed Macgragge well, so I switched to Ultramarines Blue and I reckon the result is spot on.

The Rainbow Warriors marine looks great, and it's a really cool story on why you made him. The rainbow looks nice, I love the soft edges to it. Is it intentional or just a happy accident that the weapon he's wielding happens to be a flamer too? Here's to hoping the results of the survey lie in favour of human decency, we can leave the dark ages to our tabletop games and video games.

I'm really glad you like the rainbow as it was so hard to do. My hands aren't too steady and that stripe is very small.

Yes, he has a flamer deliberately.

Also, yes, the good guys won, 61.6-38.4. rainbow_flag.gif

Glad to hear of the good results! Victory for the Imperi... Mankind!

Yes indeed! rainbow_flag.gif rainbow_flag.gif rainbow_flag.gif

Anyway, another day, another space marine:

Love the Rainbow Warrior dude and excellent result in the real-world referendum. Nice to see one of those actually come out in a result that isn't deeply distasteful

Thanks, mate. I'm pleased on both counts - although it wasn't actually a formal referendum so much as a... weird... survey... thing. It was extremely dumb.

Anyway, another day, another space marine. This time in purple:



He's based on the homebrew in this thread at Bolter and Chainsword.

And here is the whole squad together:



Back L-R: Angels Sanguine, White Eagles, Astral Claws, Zvezdnyye Rusalki.
Front L-R: Scythes of the Emperor, Angels Sorrowful, Rainbow Warriors, Lamenters, Emperor’s Fools.

The bases are temporary 25mm ones and they all need various markings but I’m happy to call them done for now. The weather is still frustratingly unreliable to do any work on the projects I’m actually interested in, so it’s more of these procrastination marines for a little bit, I’m afraid.

I just started a small primaris force of rainbow warriors.

 EmberlordofFire8 wrote:
I just started a small primaris force of rainbow warriors.

Oh, what? That's awesome!

= = = =

I'm back! Here is a Sons of Malice marine I painted just before university work ate my entire december and a Tiger Claw that I just finished.





I'd painted everything but the stripes before I had to walk away from the desk. BTW I definitely stole Ice Angel's formula, as my initial run at the orange completely sucked.

I've also finally been able to undercoat a whole pile of plastic, so hopefully soon we might even have some Dark Eldar in this Dark Eldar project log. WILD

Look look, I did another space marine!



Base is a mess, because sometimes even dettol can't strip things from second-hand miniatures. It's not intended to be final anyway.

Nicely done. I really like that Tiger Claws one. Might have to steal it... I mean the paint scheme, mot the actual model...

The colours on the tiger claw are very nice, great work. Always loved the sons of malice scheme, you did it justice.

Yeah, it came out pretty cleanly in the end. The tiger stripes are anxiety inducing but they work. You should totally steal it.

Looking good Goblin, I presume you are not going to paint up an army for each of these marines? ;-)

Thanks, man. And no, thank you. An entire army of tiger stripes or blue and grey camo sounds hard! These are pretty much a combination of painting chapters I think are interesting or unusual and letting me get some practice in on cheaply acquired monopose marines.

If I ever use them in a game, they'll just 'count as' tactical squads of the Mantis Warriors, at a guess. I'm sure opponents won't mind.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
The colours on the tiger claw are very nice, great work. Always loved the sons of malice scheme, you did it justice.

Oh, I totally missed your post, 'Faith, when replying to Emberlord. Thank you as well! I totally stole the Tiger Claw scheme from Ice Angel (link above) because orange is really hard to get right. I initially tried the standard base + wash + layer system but it just looked awful. The browner tones work much better.

As for Sons of Malice, their colour scheme is rad but I never see it anywhere, especially not from their loyalist phase, so I just had to add one in.

Nice! The tiger stripes are great, but yeah a whole army of them sounds like a lot of work!

As an aside, I'm glad I'm not the only one who's been lagging behind on hobbying over the Christmas period!

Hey, thanks, 'Wraith. Yup, definitely passing on a whole company of stripey guys, but it would look great, if anyone out there has more energy than me (and doesn't take 100 years per miniature).

It's not so much the Christmas period as I got a full-time gig and had four papers to write in three weeks. Fun! Fun! Fun!

Anyway here is a blue space marine:

The last marine for 2017.

Oooh, triple post. I guess you guys aren't into Space Marines, huh? Luckily these are the last of the one-off marines for now - I've painted 17 in total and run out of the monopose plastic marines I wanted to practice on.





On the left, we have a brother from Shadespyre’s Unicorns, from a thread of really cool Rogue Trader-era marines on Bolter and Chainsword.

On the right, a sister from tumblr user pantmonger‘s Daughters of Persephone.*

As you can see, the armour of these marines has taken heavy damage, so at some point weathering effects will be required, but that will come when I rebase the two squads and apply markings and suchlike.

This was a fun little procrastination project but now I really do have to sit down and figure out how I'm painting these old-school Incubi that are on my table. I know they're mostly going to be a dark green with bone masks, but there are these cute little scorpion claws - should I do them in bronze or bone? or steel? and the exposed cabling, should I do that in steel or bronze? decisions are hard, you guys.



*This isn't a place for a discussion about female space marines or legions belonging to missing Primarchs. нет.

Liking the two-tone yellow and blue marine, that yellow came out great.

For the incubi I'd do the claws in bone to tie into the masks and I'd do the exposed cabling in steel. Just my two cents.

Thanks, man! Turns out the best yellow recipe I've tried so far is just Iyanden > brown wash > Iyanden. Or whatever it's called now. Thing.

I've gone with the same bronze I used for engines and things, so we'll see what all y'all think when I finish their Trueborn buddies. Hopefully soon!

Sounds good, looking forward to it!

Alright then, here you go:





Just a snapshot with my phone but I'm reasonably pleased with him.

I've also progressed on his Trueborn pals. Here are two with their masks not glued down yet but otherwise largely done.



I'm not sure if I want to paint the helms bone to match the Incubi or white - and if white, a pure white or an off shade like Wych Flesh.

Bonus round! More WIP shots just because:

Those Incubi are great, love the contrast of the bone colored face and the black/green amour.

Beautiful work man, I love the use of the wych legs here. The colours have all come together nicely. I wouldn't do bone on the glass masks, off-white sound's good, I'd do a very light grey as base then build up to a final ceramite white highlight then you can do a selective wash around the recesses to give a tone to the white and this could be any colour you want. Apart from that doing the masks in black then going over them with a gloss clearcoat like 'ardcoat always looks great.

 goblinpaladin wrote:
Thanks, man! Turns out the best yellow recipe I've tried so far is just Iyanden > brown wash > Iyanden. Or whatever it's called now. Thing.

I've gone with the same bronze I used for engines and things, so we'll see what all y'all think when I finish their Trueborn buddies. Hopefully soon!

Now that's useful to know on the yellow front! Especially as it's basically all I ever do paint-wise (sometimes I mix it up by doing base>drybrush highlight>wash).

Liking the Trueborn and Incubi

Thank you everyone, very much. I'm on my phone which is a bit dying so I'll be brief and just post the photos. They came out a bit dark but we aren't called Bright Eldar amirite



Dracon







My partner's overseas again, but I'll try and get done good clear photos when she gets back. Thanks again, guys.

Trueborn look aces man! The white masks came out great.

Hell yeah I like the darker scheme, and the murky look to the photos definitely adds an ambience to them that fits very nicely

Particularly like the eggshell-like faceplates

Wonderful looking truborn Goblin!

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
Trueborn look aces man! The white masks came out great.

Thank you! Now for the shredderborn!

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Hell yeah I like the darker scheme, and the murky look to the photos definitely adds an ambience to them that fits very nicely

Particularly like the eggshell-like faceplates

Darker scheme? They have the same purple-black as my other Kabalites, although it has been a while since you saw them. I think I accidentally left the cameraphone settings too murky.

Yorkright wrote:
Wonderful looking truborn Goblin!

Thank you!

I'm glad you guys like the white facemasks. You're all very kind. Now we'll see if I can repeat this on the shredderborn.

Ah, must be the lighting/camera settings. I believe the technical term for 'murky photos' is 'atmospheric'

Whatever it is I like it!

Those white masks are a good kind of creepy. I love the classic Incubi, too.

Ynneadwraith wrote:Ah, must be the lighting/camera settings. I believe the technical term for 'murky photos' is 'atmospheric'

Whatever it is I like it!

I'm pretty pleased as well, even if doesn't quite demonstrate the actual paint scheme of the models. I'll get together some better photos of the gang in a couple weeks, I hope.

youwashock wrote:Those white masks are a good kind of creepy. I love the classic Incubi, too.

Thanks! The classic Incubi-with-guns are not popular sculpts. Everyone back then wanted more power weapons, although to be honest I found it to be overkill. Archon, 8 Incubi with glaives - having two providing some ranged support was helpful and the squad still annihilated everything they touched in melee.

I'm glad the masks came out suitably creepy as well. It's what I'm aiming for.


= = =


So the prep work for the second trueborn squad took a tumble when the blu-tac I'd used to dry fit them went... gooey and proved difficult to remove. After some googling I found out the putting them in the fridge might help, and it did, but I wasn't able to work on the trueborn for the last few days. have to take another pause on hobby stuff for a few weeks to actually do the uni work I've been badly neglecting; this means it might be a little while before we see the Shredderborn squad.

However, I did spend some time on my procrastinatory Mantis Warriors project... which really should get it's own plog at this rate, but whatever.

I quickly painted up four basic bolter lads and a partly-metal multi-melta marine to round out the two tactical squads to full strength. The original army plan was sketchy, but I had intended to keep them deliberately under-strength and possibly run Razorbacks with them, but getting that job lot of monopose lads... well, anyway, here we are. I guess I'll just have to give them Rhinos, oh no.

Bolters:



These weren't in great condition, and were mostly pre-assembled, so they aren't up to even my usual mediocre standards, but they'll do for now.

Multi-Melta:



I really need to get a better lighting set-up.





The weapon and pack components are metal and I wish wish wish I hadn't been so blase about that. Mixed metal-and-plastic miniatures are often a pain to get to work and this guy was no exception. But whatever.

The actual details were fun to paint, which goes against my usual rule of 'the more fiddly nonsense, the less I enjoy the painting process'. This also means I dislike a lot of modern Citadel sculpts, the subject of a different conversation.

= = =

Finally, despite the aforementioned blu-tac problems, I spent a fun-filled ten minutes dry-fitting a senior officer for the Mantis Warriors. I intended to make him a Lieutenant Commander but run him as a Captain and then the new rules came out and my idea got totally snatched when GW brought back actual lieutenants. But that's okay because, you know, actual lieutenants. Neat.



The lighting is a bit garish; I'm working at my computer with a single lamp, rather than my usual workspace with two.



My main concern is the base. I'll scatter some sand around the wood-chip "slate" but is the fact that his feet aren't actually flat a problem? Should I try to find a bit of wood with a sharper incline? I don't usually do the wood-chip base thing, so it's hard to judge.

At any rate, space adventurers, there may be a slight pause in updates as I actually finish this stupid bloody masters.

Nice! I must say I'm a big fan of the pose of your lieutenant. Sucker for a 'non-combat pointing' pose', but personal preferences aside it's still great

The tri-colour piping on the dev looks great, really good idea.

Ynneadwraith wrote:Nice! I must say I'm a big fan of the pose of your lieutenant. Sucker for a 'non-combat pointing' pose', but personal preferences aside it's still great

Thanks, mate. I'm really looking forward to working on him - thinking of having the claw be a beaten-up white, a relic from the founding legion.

Inevitable_Faith wrote:The tri-colour piping on the dev looks great, really good idea.

Four- up top is a fourth hose in yellow. I should have made the colour adjacent to the armour blue so it would be easier to spot. My bad.

I'm enjoying doing that sort of thing, although it probably makes the ~colour theory of the miniatures a bit of a nightmare. Looking forward to doing a librarian in blue next to the Mantis green and yellow.

Totally missed that last one! Damn it's camouflaged. Something like that oddly enough doesn't throw out the colour theory by the way. The colours chosen don't wreck the model and they're used so sparingly that the overall colour scheme is left in tact.

I've not been around because I've been working on the final coursework for the masters. But, naturally, I've been laid low during the past few weeks by health issues, so I did some painting to try and break it up. Nothing on the Dark Eldar, I'm afraid, but I've painted an officer and two command squad veterans for the Mantis Warriors, as well as several terminators. Haven't photographed everything properly, but here's what I have so far.

Officer:







WIP shots before I painted her head.



Not entirely pleased with the way her face came out. I'm not great at faces at the best of times, and I suspect this had either a casting flaw or there was an undercoat issue. Or I suck. At any rate, she passes the three-foot test, so it's fine.



Here she is in black and white. Looks much better, right? #blanchitsu

Veterans:



Veteran One. Photos are a bit blurry; sorry.





Veteran Two.

Terminators:



The second terminator I've ever painted. He hasn't had any edge highlighting here and I don't think I'd finished the blacks yet, but I think the freehand Tyrant's Star turned out okay.



WIP photo of the fourth terminator in the squad, still on my desk. As you can see, doing something a bit different with the leg of this one...

I don't have photos of the other terminators in the squad, but you can see a 12-second video of the first terminator I ever done painted right here.

Anyway, one last piece of assessment to go. Motivation: sluggish. Music: chillwave. Let's go.

Bummer to hear about health problems, but your Mantis Warriors look great!

Good luck on the Masters assessment. I ducked out of full time education after my bachelors, but I can imagine the pain

Thanks, mate. It's all done now and I got a bunch of bits in the mail and have that second squad of Trueborn just waiting for some undercoat. My fingers are all itchin'.

Green and yellows are looking super clean and nice. Great job, I'm digging it.

Thank you! I keep thinking the colours are quite chunky, so that's really good to hear.

I finished that last chap:

Looks great, love the distribution of the colours on him.

AC Terminator looks sweet. Between the markings on the leg and the decoration on the cannon he has a sort of tribal feel.

Inevitable_Faith wrote:Looks great, love the distribution of the colours on him.

Thanks! He doesn't have a li'l shield, so I wanted to give him some other indication of how he earned his Crux.

youwashock wrote:AC Terminator looks sweet. Between the markings on the leg and the decoration on the cannon he has a sort of tribal feel.

That wasn't intended, but it's a pleasant surprise. Thank you!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Wip phone shots of the Sergeant:

Finished the squad:





better photos to come, you know, eventually

To celebrate post 100 on Instagram, I decided to harass my partner into taking some Warhammer 40K army project shots. My gallery has more of the photos but here are some fun ones:

Kabal of the Sun Betrayed and Cult of Splintered Sight:







Mantis Warriors:












Automatically Appended Next Post:
And as an extra bonus, here's a shot of the WIP Trueborn squad. I've still to finish the blacks and edge the purples on three of them, as well as the shredders at all - but they're getting there.



I'm pleased with this one. Sadly, her midriff is going to get covered up by her weapon:

Playing catch up on your blog Goblin, your marines are looking great. Yellows and greens are have a nice smooth finish too them.

Thanks, Yorkright. People keep saying that, which is very nice.

..and here's a quick phone photo of the second squad of Trueborn:




Automatically Appended Next Post:
and another Razorwing base:

You have IG goblinpaladin? Do you use the same screen name there as well? I simply must follow you there as well. The army shots look fantastic, you've made great progress. The trueborn squads look amazing, very nice sinister look.

Thank you so much! I appreciate your continual support.

I got an Instagram a little while ago, mostly but not entirely to post miniatures. https://www.instagram.com/imago_apis/ You'll also get to see pictures of my dumb face & some of my archival work.

I think I actually found you there a while ago - your Raiders are distinctive.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
redeem / purify







One marine left of my 'two squads of marines from chapters that are uncommon or I think are neat or provide a weird painting challenge or a combination of these reasons'. Currently the squads are:

Squad One:

Sergeant: Astral Claws
Flamer: Tiger Claws
Rocket launcher: Angels Sanguine
Bolters: White Eagles, Sons of Malice, Celestial Lions, Angels of Redemption, Lamenters, Executioners, Daughters of Persephone.

Squad Two:

Sergeant: Marines Errant
Flamer: Rainbow Warriors
Rocket launcher: [unpainted]
Bolters: Spears of the Emperor, Unicorns, Emperor's Fools, Angels Doloros, Scythes of the Emperor, Zvezdnyye Rusalki, Little Sisters of Purification

Any guesses what chapter I have planned for the rocket launcher for the second squad? Or how I've (very roughly, to be fair) grouped the two?

It's a bit of an unfair question, because five of the represented chapters are homebrew, but this chap isn't, so give it a go, eh lads?

grrr. argh.

Nasty lookin Gribbly indeed.

That's a cool looking mutant enemy. All the progress looms good and I love those army shots.

Fantastic looking fiend dude, he's looking suitably menacing.

Thank you, everyone! The Fiend was surprisingly fun to paint. The Finecast actually worked for the model - most of the flash came away very cleanly and the flexibility in the tail was realy useful.

On the other hand, I've temporarily shelved the Incubi after finding that their blades were bent and the flash on them was... significant. Sigh.

At the moment, I'm finally working on some more jetbikes. I'm really not enjoying painting these guys very much, so I'm procrastinating by doing some freehand:



Testing on some paper.



Designs on the left are runes from Warhammer Fantasy; on the right are some eye icons for the Cult of Splintered Sight. At least, hopefully.

In comparison with the first jetbike, you can see that I'm also breaking up the orange a bit. We'll see how it goes.

You have a good start on these bikes, I'm liking what I see so far.

Thanks! This is where they are today. You can see that I'm procrastinating from highlighting the orange, which is why the jetbikes are a bit muddy looking.



On the left bike you can see the Eltharin runes Sethai (flight,wind, cry in the far mountains) and Varour (aggression, lightning, downfall).



Its rider bears the rune Sendai on his jacket (dedication, sacrifice, resentment).



The eye symbols are the sign of the Cult of Splintered Sight, or at least the best freehand I can do to that effect. See how we go!

the colours are contrasting nicely and the runes look great on the bikes and riders, I'm digging your placement. I can understand the procrastination on edge highlighting, it's often very tedious.

I just do not like painting orange, Sam-I-Am, not at all. But thank you! Your kind words and the couple likes on Instagram are what keep me going:



zoom



zoooom



runez



Cult of Splintered Sight, now with additional splinter action!



Here are the three friends from 1998 (except for the head and knife additions), including the one painted a few months back. I think they turned out okay as long as you don't look too closely.

While I didn't intend to make any of the jetbikers Arena Champions, it is a happy coincidence that Mister Knifey can step into that role if they remain a compulsory part of the unit.

they look great man, the blue and orange complement each other nicely and while orange is tough to paint (I may have some experience in that department) it's a very nice colour that showcases your models beautifully on the tabletop. That bit of freehand really gives these guys the extra flair that DE deserve. I dig them.

Really liking how the white masks are looking on the Dark Eldar. Might I suggest a coat of varnish of just the masks? Make them nice and reflective like they were glass perhaps.

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
they look great man, the blue and orange complement each other nicely and while orange is tough to paint (I may have some experience in that department) it's a very nice colour that showcases your models beautifully on the tabletop. That bit of freehand really gives these guys the extra flair that DE deserve. I dig them.

Your orange looks so good, 'Faith. I am going for a different thing here, but yours is seriously amazing. Those War Walkers alone (although there are SO MANY; how tedious was that?).

Thanks for the kind words, anyway. I'm not super comfortable with freehand stuff, but I do want to keep pushing back at what I'm comfortable with, so we'll see how we get on.

 Thousandeyes wrote:
Really liking how the white masks are looking on the Dark Eldar. Might I suggest a coat of varnish of just the masks? Make them nice and reflective like they were glass perhaps.

Thanks, Thousandeyes! I'm not going for a glass look, I don't think, just a blank-faced one. I do see a lot of great glass Trueborn though, so it is really tempting.

Well, for someone who doesn't like painting orange you've certainly done a great job!

Thank you so much! I'm glad to hear it's paying off.

I felt a bit restless tonight, but I painted a couple Death Guard as a break from all that orange. Not sure what is next for the Dark Eldar, but I did undercoat two 'new' jetbikes...

.





Forgot to crop those second two photos but it's definitely past my bedtime, so eh. Thanks again for the support, guys!

Tedious war walkers and vypers? Naww they weren't tedious at all... is what I would say if I was willing to lie through my teeth about the truth of how mind-numbingly tedious it truly was to paint the war walkers and vypers.

Lovin the death guard look you got going on, the cream is looking particularly tasty.

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
Lovin the death guard look you got going on, the cream is looking particularly tasty.

Cheers! I think I'm beginning to get the hang of cream, should only take me another thousand or so to really nail it.

= = =

It's been a bit since my last update. I was procrastinating from working on the next couple jetbikes (and still am, by posting this update), and did some various other bits and things. You can see them over here on my hobby tumblr or if you go to my instagram but I've been clogging up this thread rather too much with not-Dark Eldar material, so I might cut back on that for a bit.

Anyway, here are some WIP photos of the jetbike pilots. I'm hoping to finish these today but it's slow going, mostly because I keep reading INQ28 and Oldhammer blogs instead.

Riders look great, the skin tones came out nicely.

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
Riders look great, the skin tones came out nicely.

Thank you! I'm still not great at skin tones, but I'd cautiously like to think that I'm improving.

And, hey, I did manage to finish the ladies off. NO MORE ORANNNNGE*



Light's a bit dodge but here are the new two. Note the ceramic heat lances.



Here they are with the first one I painted, whenever the heck that was.



~ dramatic ~


*until i do the Succubus. and their Raider. and maybe I could do some elites at some point and

Squad looks aces man, a fitting addition to your force.

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
Squad looks aces man, a fitting addition to your force.

Thank you! I still haven't gotten photos of the full squad/s together BUT I did paint the Archon of the Kabal of the Sun Betrayed:



Much better than I did at 15, yeah?

Here's a WIP shot from earlier today:



My lighting situation does nobody any favours, I know. Bah.


When I was 15, the Archon was Mordred the Black of the Kabal of the Dark Sun.

He needs a new name. The project is trying to keep in touch with my angstier* teen self in a lot of ways, so (as with the colour scheme), the fluff is going to look back to the earlier stuff. The Kabal is now the Kabal of the Sun Betrayed, so ol’ Mordy needs a new name in keeping with the new, cooler** Kabal name.

It’s one in the morning, let’s brainstorm with these tabs I have open on Welsh*** colours.

Names:

Mewn’du
Me’draus

Epithets:

Sunkiller
the Eclipse
lliw golau leuad (lit. the colour of moonlight, apparently)

* who am I kidding
** seriously, who am I kidding
*** I do not speak Welsh.
**** also apparently the usual bbcode for lists doesn't work on Dakka, which is weirding me out.