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Whoa that's some really beautiful stuff! Keep it up, i'll be watching!

That wasn't meant to sound creepy. You know what i meant.

Thanks mechanicum Jon, might have to try this out on my dark eldar. what are ypu going to paint next?

Photos, as promised. Comments and criticisms very much appreciated as usual! Took me a couple hours to take decent pictures and get everything uploaded but I think it was worth it!

Just gorgeous! The time it took you to finish was totally worth it.

Amazing unit!! Very very nice.

A bit of bleached bone or tan shade drybrushed on the grass might work? Have you tried MIG pigments for basing? They give such great texture and naturalism. I usually do some brownish washes on grey to add depth and a more natural feel.

Looking forward to more!

Looks absolutely amazing. Seriously beautiful unit and you've done some great models justice.
Sadly I can't offer any suggestions for improvement - unlike migsula - as - unlike migsula - I'm a rubbish painter!
As I've said before on this threat and will say again, beautiful models man.

Next?

Been simultaneously watching finnan's blog in which he was also working on Scourges. It's been really interesting to see the two different takes on them. Two fantastic sets of miniatures. Well done, great work!

Really clean and crisp blue and body suit brown. I agree with migsula about the base though.

Oh and i think some weathering/damage on the wings would really bring the model together and finish it off! Just my two cents though, i'm no painter, i just think it makes sense. Seriously great work though!

The wings are fantastic, the squad as a whole looks gorgeous!

@Moltar, migsula, Just Dave, LostSoulCasey'sLaw, Tech Guard and Vanq: Thanks for the kind words and suggestions!

Coming up next is some bread and butter. I'm going to buckle down and paint 20 Warriors.

I'm going to see how quickly I can get through them so expect something closer to "tabletop quality" than the rest of my stuff. That being said, I think the scheme is strong enough that they should still look fine.

Also, I''ll just be me skipping some of the more subtle steps so it's nothing I can't touch up later. Although I don't know how likely that is given all the other fun stuff I've got to paint!

@BraveRifles: I'm assuming you're asking about the copper color. It's really simple:
1. Basecoat Foundation Calthan Brown.
2. Two thin coats of Dwarf Bronze.
3. Wash with a thinned Vallejo Turquoise.

@migsula: Any suggestions on which MIG color would work well with the bases? I actually tried some rust early on when I was experimenting but it didn't look quite right. I'll probably finish painting the army before I start improving the bases though.

Thank you Mechanicum that is exactly what I was looking for.

Man those Scourges look sweet! I think they are your best yet.

_Tim?

The Warrior marathon begins. I've just glued them together, still need to clean off the flash and mold lines. These will be joined by four Blaster Warriors to make four squads of five in Raiders. Is it just me or does this look like a class photo?

Kabal of the Downed Gardens, Class of 2011

Great blog, I've been enjoying it. I may borrow some ideas for my own dark eldar force.

Question though..do you think gluing the arms in place will make painting the torsos quite challenging?

Fantastic work! Wow. The turquoise really work with these figures.

I reacon that you should take splinter cannons instead, and pute duke slisces (think thats how you spell his name) in the unit. but other than that they look awsome!

Finished cleaning mold lines and sprue connection points. All set for undercoat and basecoat tomorrow. I'll put some pictures up tomorrow night to show how the paint job is built up from a very turquoise starting point.

@AesSedai: Although a lot of the Warriors look like they're holding their guns quite close to their chests, there's actually very little obstruction of their torsos. It's fairly easy to get a brush in there. Also, since my color scheme doesn't rely on being crisp and clean I can fudge things a little in places I can't reach with a few more paint chips and a bit more rust.

I may have missed this, but did you use like liquid mask or something to get the weathered look on the armor?

Also, those wings are fantastic! so realistic.

@ Jon

Well, you do have a point there

I'd like to get your advice on my own dark eldar project (see sig). I like your weathering technique, but your scheme is light whereas mine is a very dark green blue. Any thoughts?

Keep up the good work!

The Warrior project is coming along nicely. Finished the undercoating and paint chipping stages. I'm now working on the reddish brown basecoat for all the bodysuits. I thought it would be fun to line them all up in roughly the same poses for each photo. It'll make it look like I painted them all in one go with them lying down. Too bad it's not actually that easy!

@Alfndrate: I posted a tutorial on Page 3 of this blog but I'll be posting pictures as I complete each stage of these Warriors to illustrate the process, starting with the first couple stages below:

Undercoated with GW Skull White Spray and then Tamiya Coral Blue (the Skull White probably isn't necessary but I had a spare can lying around that I'll never use otherwise and it seems to make the blue go on slightly better).


Paint chipping applied with some Sabol pluck foam discards. It may look a bit heavy here but a lot of it will get covered up when I paint the other colors on.

So here's a potentially golden noob question, do you bluetac the models to the sprue there and if so, do they stick on well enough for you to paint without falling off all the time? Never thought of doing that before but it could make things so much easier!

It's really nice to see a squad in these stages, gives me motivation to finish some unshinished squads!

@kitch102: I superglue the models to the sprues to paint them. Funnily enough, the brittleness of the superglue makes it a really good temporary bond. It's easy to break the finished models off the sprue one you're finished painting!

No photos today but I managed to finish basecoating the reddish brown bodysuits and start on the copper parts.

I went through the blog again from page one...

Amazing work mate. The superglue on a spue is the trick of the day. I pin all my models to my resin bases with .5mm brass rod, so during painting I have a different "hands free" method (pinned to a wine cork). I wish I had seen your trick years ago!

AesSedai wrote:I went through the blog again from page one...

Amazing work mate. The superglue on a spue is the trick of the day. I pin all my models to my resin bases with .5mm brass rod, so during painting I have a different "hands free" method (pinned to a wine cork). I wish I had seen your trick years ago!

I too will be shamelessly stealing this technique.

That sprue trick is awesome!

The Warriors are looking promising! Can't wait to see 'em finished.

_Tim?

what an amazing blog those are some of the most inspirational Dark Eldar around on the net, keep it up!

Today's update is the beginnings of the basecoat. The Calthan Brown isn't quite done on all of them.



Wow, that was an unexpectedly enthusiastic response to the superglue tip! Now that I think about it, I've been using some of these sprue bits for years. I'm pretty sure some are from a 2nd Edition Rhino!

Another neat idea I recently saw someone use in my local shop for pre-based miniatures was to duct tape small alligator clips to cocktail sticks. Then you use the clips to grip the bases and hold the cocktail sticks while painting the miniatures.

Thanks for stopping by for this installment of the Sixteen Warriors!

16 Warriors is an odd number, any particular reason why?

You mentioned a tournament in HK in your first post...what is your list like?