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Thank you for your kind words

Yeah the rangers hit the mark I feel, super happy with them.

I use rangers quite often and I find them an excellent choice for something that is durable beyond it's cost (thanks to shrouded), can get forward objectives early game, can reasonably hurt MC or sometimes pick out a special weapon guy and they come in for such a low points cost that it's not a big deal to include them. They free up a lot of points for me to allocate elsewhere. I say all this of course knowing that scatbikes are amazing as they are but I'm a bit of a holdout on the old rules where they were only allowed 1 heavy weapon per 3 bikes. I felt that was reasonable. I also sometimes use my rangers to "counter-infiltrate". Essentially if I win the roll to place my infiltrators first then I place them where I think my opponent will want to place his, hence denying him the ability to place his infiltrators in a good spot.

As for Illic I find him not bad at all. He's one of the cheapest named chars we got at 140 points. Coupled with a unit of rangers he's pretty durable thanks to shrouded. No restriction on infiltrate gives him some wiggle room on where to be placed and my favourite part is every single shot himself and the unit of rangers he's attached to fires is a precision shot. He's tons of fun against many IoM armies where they have lots of special weapons guys or sergeants hidden inside the back of a squad. As I said above too I've been lucky that in 2 of my three games I was able to ID a MC with him. I wouldn't say he has a place in a very competitive army but he's tons of fun to use.

I'm very much getting into the aspect warriors now, really digging how they play. I don't have many yet but I plan to start getting some after my next project. That aspect shrine formation is absolutely amazing too. Thanks for the comment on my striking scorpions, it's my first honest attempt at converting a unit from kit-bashing and green stuff. I have lots of room for improvement but overall they look alright on the table.

That librarian was a pretty quick job, was fun to fit in something that wasn't green after that long stint of DA painting though. Glad you like him, it was my first time painting loyalist marines and I wasn't sure if I could remember how to paint anything but orange after doing my Eldar stuff. You ever want something painted from across the pond you let me know, I enjoy getting to paint something new every once in a while.

Next on the list is a unit of 5 Dark Reapers, got them based so far and will likely start painting them on Monday. After that I do have an autarch with wings and warlock on jetbike (my first new jetbike ) but I'll probably leave those for a bit to start on my Armies on Parade entry. AoP usually happens around October and this year I want to try and get a Dark Eldar Wych cult on the board. I have all the wyches, raiders and succubus purchased, just gotta assemble and paint them then come up with a scenic board to display them on. I also got some fantasy bits so I can convert a unit of the wyches to be Bloodbrides.

Can't wait to see the dark reapers. Will be great to see what you come up with. Mine are way down the list at the moment!

The plan is to try and stay as close as possible to the actually reaper aspect warrior scheme but put in a few things to still distinguish them as associated with my force. This will come in having wraithbone weapons as all my weapons are bone and I will have some orange spot colour throughout so they maintain my forces primary colour.

Ok so I totally got distracted from my initial plan and instead have decided to start my next major army project. It's about 6 months till this years armies on parade and I'd like to try and get a good head start on this years entryark Eldar! So I'm going for an equally obnoxious paint scheme as my traffic cone craft world Eldar and so hot pink is my new spot colour. Presented below is my first test model to test the colours on. The eyes I imagine as being simple black orbs for my DE so that's why I haven't put pupils in. What do you guys think of it? I'd really appreciate any comments and critiques you guys have before I move too far forward with the rest of the unit. The hair I'm still experimenting with btw. Thanks in advance for your critiques!

Line work is messy but as a test model I didn't want to work too hard, just getting the concept down.

Ok so I went ahead and changed a couple things, notably how I did the hair. I think I may have settled on this for my Wych units as their style. Please let me know what you think of it and where I could improve or make it more interesting. I just put together my unit of Mandrakes and will be basing them and putting paint on them this week. All C&C is very much appreciated.

I apologize for the super blurry photos, I'll try and post up some better shots soon.

Ok so started work on a unit of Mandrakes and I gotta say I'm loving the models. They are so finely detailed and have such an awesome concept. So here's the beginning of my work so far, the pants are almost done, just got a bit more detailing to do on them and pick out the extra spikes and hooks on them. Where I'm stalled out now is what to do with their balefire. I'm jumping between doing it in pink to match my wyches armor trim or doing it in the teal that my wyches have for their hair colour. What do you guys think? As for their hair I'm thinking I'll do it in white similar to the image shown in the DE codex. Your opinions would greatly help me decide how to proceed from here, let me know your ideas.

Ok so tried out my first test of the teal flame. Really haven't done flame before so I'm kind of making it up as I go along. Any tips would be much appreciated
I'm going to do the tattoos to match the flame but wanted to settle on a flame colour first. So watcha guys think, good or bad colour? Poor execution? Doesn't even look like flames. Personally I'm not in love with it but I don't hate it either. Gunna sleep on it and look at the model tomorrow and by then I might be able to make up my mind.

Edit: Really sorry here guys for whatever reason I can't get the photos to re-orient themselves right-side-up. They all appear upright on my comp but once I hit submit they bugger up.

Started work on my very first Raider. I must admit when I first looked at them I wasn't in love with their design but after putting one together and putting the brush to it the model has grown on me. I may even be able to say at this point I like it . So here you can see the true reason for the pink in my Wyches, it was all to tie into the cherry blossoms that would be scattered throughout the rest of the army.

My idea for this DE force is that they are a Wych cult that distinguishes itself from most other Cults in that they run a business much akin to the entertainment quarters of Japan in the 1800's. DE customers may come to the cults lavish parlor and partake of the music, drinks, gambling and of course many of the drugs that the Wych cults are famous for. Rather than having a large coliseum in which combatants would fight my Cult has a simple stage designed for 1 on 1 combat between two combatants. Often these combatants will wear long flowy and brightly coloured fabrics that will dance and wave during the combat and elevate the performance from a fight between two skilled combatants to a visual art. When coupled with the many hallucinogenic drugs offered at the establishment the fights on stage, with their many swirling colours, can be the most mesmerizing thing many DE will ever witness. The funds accrued from this business is used by the Succubus (no name for her yet) to fund Raids out of Commoragh and hire mercenaries to bolster her ranks such as Mandrakes, Hellions, Kabalite warriors, Scourges and Jetfighters.

So far that's about as far as I got for the lore but it's fairly straight-forward anyways. I'm trying to think of a name for the cult and so far all I've decided on is instead of doing the classic "Cult of (blank)" I'd like to go with a more oriental "House of (blank)" instead. If anyone has any ideas let me know.

As for the painting of the raider itself I'm fairly satisfied with it so far. The cherry blossoms look not bad on the table and other than some cleanup I just have the sail and crew to do. I'm really hung up on the sail now too since I'm having a hard time thinking of what to paint on it. If any of you have ideas there too please let me know.

So here's the progress pics of the raider thus-far.

Small update. Things have been going rather slow on the painting front but with Armies on Parade looming closer I have to get myself in gear. Here's the WIP of the Raider crew, almost done tbh, just a few little details to pick out and a bit of cleanup to do.

Can't believe there's no more love for this thread!

That raider looks wicked cool, love the free hand motive. Crew are looking very nice too, top work all around!

EDC

Thank you very much EDC! I was staring to think that maybe I screwed up my posts somehow and it wasn't updating on the site or something.

Greatly appreciate your comments and taking time to look at my stuff

No worries! Consider me subbed, so keep those update coming, really liking how this project is developing.

EDC

Thank you very much EDC

I've just got a little bit left to do on this crew then I have a unit of 5 hellions primed and ready to go (I know rules-wise they're not good but they are gorgeous models so I had to have some) and I have a succubus primed and ready for paint (the new succubus model is gorgeous imo, easily one of GW best HQ sculpts if you ask me).

So which one to start next, Hellions or succubus? Decisions, decisions...

Okay little bit of progress tonight. The Raider crew is all done except for some tidying up (my armor highlight lines are atrocious), figured I'd do the last pic of them here before they get mounted on the raider. Speaking of the raider I've been experimenting with some techniques for how I'm going to do the sail. Currently doing a "water-colour" thing using washes, not sure if I like it yet. If anyone knows of any fun ways to paint the sails that'll go well with what I have I'd love to hear it. The first layer of edge-highlighting is done on the hellion skyboards, going to do the next layer tomorrow. Picked out some of the brass bits on the skyboards too since those are dry-brushed and hence would wreck the edge highlighting if I had done that first. The hellions are primed and ready to rock, so is the succubus. Trying to think of what colours to do her fur cloak in, so far I'm stuck on leopard print.

If anyone has any ideas for the Succubus fur cloak or cool techniques for me to try I'm all ears, I feel confident on the whole model except that one part of her.

Crew and boards look great.

As fir the fur cloak, you really can't go wrong with dry brushing and washes something as textured as fur.

You said about finishing 'in time', have you got an event deadline?

EDC

Ah I seem to have forgotten to mention the goal for this army (apart from having a DE force to play with of course) is for this years armies on parade. I managed to take home silver (locally of course) last year with my Craftworld Eldar and so I thought I'd keep the Eldar theme going this year with their Dark Cousins. October 15th is the deadline so I'll have to build up this force as well as make my display table. I have plans for the display already, currently sourcing the materials and will likely order what I need by months end.

I used a mixture of drybrushing and a wash for the fur on my SoB Cannoness and I was fairly happy with the results. I do believe you're right EDC that I can't go wrong with that. Thank you for your comments and advice EDC, they're greatly appreciated.

Super small update today as I didn't get much brush time in. Just the second edge highlight layer for this evening. It's super messy atm but I'll be cleaning it up at a later stage. Hopefully I can convince the girlfriend to sit down with me tomorrow night for an art jam and I can get some real progress in.

Another small update. Got some copper on the splinter pods and started the sakura leaves effect. Tomorrow I'll finish off these skyboards and be moving onto the riders.

Long overdue because [Insert excuses here] but I finally got the skyboards finished and am moving forward with the riders. Looking forward to seeing how this all comes together once both parts are painted and I can put them together.

Skyboards are looking great.

October seems a reasonable deadline, should be an awesome looking board by all accounts.

What's next, the riders of the boards I presume?

EDC

Thanks EDC

Yup riders will be next followed by the succubus. After that will be the board itself.

After the board is complete I have 10 kabalite warriors and a Haemonculus that I will work on. Making no commitments to have them done in time but if they are then all the better. Also trying to convince myself that perhaps a razorwing jetfighter may need to sneak itself onto the board too...

Had some friends over tonight for a painting session and was able to block out some base colours for the Hellions. Looking forward to getting to the details on these guys, there's so much that I'm excited to pick out.

Nice looking stuff here. Not often you see flowers/leaves on DE. Seems to be more a craftworld style. But you pull it off well.

Thank you very much Nevelon! Glad that the theme doesn't feel too "forced".

Inspiration came from the Asian opium dens/brothels. Often they would outwardly exude sophistication and class but deep down inside they're still the same den of vice as every other opium den and brothel. Very much a fan of "Beautiful creature on the outside, sinister monster deep inside" theme. I feel DE can fit this bill pretty well.

Looking forward to seeing where I can push the envelope on this theme, thank you for commenting, it's great motivation

Got some more work done on the Hellions tonight. Doesn't feel like I'm progressing very fast but I know once the skin gets finished they'll look a lot more complete.

Absolutely love the work on this thread especially the Dark Eldar, the thread is inspiring me but I have a fatal flaw, I can paint but I suck at picking colour schemes and spot colours, spent weeks studying colour theory but to no avail, fancied doing something with a black/yellow feel then saw it had been done to death and fancied something unique. Any reference points for inspiration for schemes??

Also subbed keep it up

Thank you Mace, means a lot to me that you like them. I hardly consider myself good at this but I can give a few simple pointers as to my general workflow.

First and foremost is that I tend to do way too much web-surfing and for every hour of painting I get done I'll tend to have 3 or 4 hours of browsing images of other painted armies. I've amassed quite the repertoire now of "techniques I promise I'll one day try". Some times these just sit and collect dust but other times I'll look at a model and think "I've got just the style this'll look good in!".

I was in the Art Institute of Vancouver for a year (taking 3d modelling but colour theory was also one of my classes) and I must say that I use only the simplest of lessons I learned in that class. I frequently refer to colour wheels for inspirations on colour schemes as well as the world around me. The colour wheel is an invaluable tool as it allows me to quickly identify complimentary colours, in short two colours that are opposites on the colour wheel yet make for a pleasing combination to the eye. An example of this is in my craftworld Eldar I used a yellow-orange and then complimented is with purple. While they are not direct opposites on the wheel they are far enough apart that they created contrast. For my DE it's the pink with against teal, also not exactly opposites but still far enough apart to create a pleasing contrast. Black doesn't count as it's a neutral colour. When choosing your colour scheme I would start with picking a colour you're enthusiastic about painting and then looking at the colour wheel to find a pleasing counter to it. Secondly I like to keep in mind that these are really small models typically viewed from 2 to 3 feet away at least so having high-contrast and vibrant colours helps the eye be drawn to them on the table or in the display case. I've glossed over too many nurgle armies with muted browns and greens because they don't subconsciously demand your eyes attention and I miss out on getting to see the amazing work that got put into them, I strive not to emulate that.

I've tormented myself trying to find a unique paint scheme that has never been done before but alas the sad truth is that almost nothing is unique anymore, someone somewhere has done it. Truth is though that everyone has a style and no two people will do the same project in the same by accident, use this to your advantage. In everything you do you'll always unconsciously be doing your own spin on it whether with colour choice, line work or placement, shading and highlighting. The important thing is to pick a scheme you're excited about and then do it, even if someone else has done it before. By the end of it your scheme will have your own flair and it'll still be yours.

For example my craftworld Eldar were totally not unique, I got the idea from this guy: http://mospaeda.blogspot.ca/2014/07/painting-tutorial-pool-water.html

After seeing that I knew I had to challenge myself to try it and thus I set to work. I chose orange though as I've always wanted to try painting orange and I wanted something that was very vibrant on the table.

For my Dark Eldar I had a backstory in mind prior to starting the project. Knowing where my themes and inspirations were drawing from (Asian opium houses and nature) I decided upon the general scheme. A quick foray onto google images netted me a ton of results of people that had already done the Sakura flower patterns on their models, mostly Craftworld Eldar though. Then about a week after I started this project I stumbled on this:
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2011/02/showcase-darkwynns-kabal-of-the-orange-blossom.html

He did a great job with that force and I was happy to see that the pattern does look great on DE models.

I love the idea of a Black and yellow army, in fact I want to doe a tyranid swarm army some day and I was going to do black yellow and red. In this case taking inspiration from wasps (many species of wasp indeed have some red on their body, often fading into the yellow from the black) and also pulling from the Starship troopers warrior bugs theme (one of the greatest movies of all time ). What army were you thinking of painting in black and yellow? Depending on that we can find other colours to add in the mix and build it up.

And look at me ramble on and on and on... anyways thanks for the sub and comment Mace, it means a lot to me.

Slow and steady progress here on the hellions. I feel I can get them done by the end of this weekend so I'll strive for that and then get to work on my succubus right away.

Man I really gotta find better lighting for these pics, their skin is absolutely glowing in these progress shots, really bleeds away any other colours I've done lol.

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
Thank you Mace, means a lot to me that you like them. I hardly consider myself good at this but I can give a few simple pointers as to my general workflow.

First and foremost is that I tend to do way too much web-surfing and for every hour of painting I get done I'll tend to have 3 or 4 hours of browsing images of other painted armies. I've amassed quite the repertoire now of "techniques I promise I'll one day try". Some times these just sit and collect dust but other times I'll look at a model and think "I've got just the style this'll look good in!".

I was in the Art Institute of Vancouver for a year (taking 3d modelling but colour theory was also one of my classes) and I must say that I use only the simplest of lessons I learned in that class. I frequently refer to colour wheels for inspirations on colour schemes as well as the world around me. The colour wheel is an invaluable tool as it allows me to quickly identify complimentary colours, in short two colours that are opposites on the colour wheel yet make for a pleasing combination to the eye. An example of this is in my craftworld Eldar I used a yellow-orange and then complimented is with purple. While they are not direct opposites on the wheel they are far enough apart that they created contrast. For my DE it's the pink with against teal, also not exactly opposites but still far enough apart to create a pleasing contrast. Black doesn't count as it's a neutral colour. When choosing your colour scheme I would start with picking a colour you're enthusiastic about painting and then looking at the colour wheel to find a pleasing counter to it. Secondly I like to keep in mind that these are really small models typically viewed from 2 to 3 feet away at least so having high-contrast and vibrant colours helps the eye be drawn to them on the table or in the display case. I've glossed over too many nurgle armies with muted browns and greens because they don't subconsciously demand your eyes attention and I miss out on getting to see the amazing work that got put into them, I strive not to emulate that.

I've tormented myself trying to find a unique paint scheme that has never been done before but alas the sad truth is that almost nothing is unique anymore, someone somewhere has done it. Truth is though that everyone has a style and no two people will do the same project in the same by accident, use this to your advantage. In everything you do you'll always unconsciously be doing your own spin on it whether with colour choice, line work or placement, shading and highlighting. The important thing is to pick a scheme you're excited about and then do it, even if someone else has done it before. By the end of it your scheme will have your own flair and it'll still be yours.

For example my craftworld Eldar were totally not unique, I got the idea from this guy: http://mospaeda.blogspot.ca/2014/07/painting-tutorial-pool-water.html

After seeing that I knew I had to challenge myself to try it and thus I set to work. I chose orange though as I've always wanted to try painting orange and I wanted something that was very vibrant on the table.

For my Dark Eldar I had a backstory in mind prior to starting the project. Knowing where my themes and inspirations were drawing from (Asian opium houses and nature) I decided upon the general scheme. A quick foray onto google images netted me a ton of results of people that had already done the Sakura flower patterns on their models, mostly Craftworld Eldar though. Then about a week after I started this project I stumbled on this:
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2011/02/showcase-darkwynns-kabal-of-the-orange-blossom.html

He did a great job with that force and I was happy to see that the pattern does look great on DE models.

I love the idea of a Black and yellow army, in fact I want to doe a tyranid swarm army some day and I was going to do black yellow and red. In this case taking inspiration from wasps (many species of wasp indeed have some red on their body, often fading into the yellow from the black) and also pulling from the Starship troopers warrior bugs theme (one of the greatest movies of all time ). What army were you thinking of painting in black and yellow? Depending on that we can find other colours to add in the mix and build it up.

And look at me ramble on and on and on... anyways thanks for the sub and comment Mace, it means a lot to me.

The rambling is fine, it means you have taken time to respond to my post and it contains detail, the scheme I wanted since I got my dark eldar was black and yellow, my ideas all stem from things like old school space hulk, the black/yellow on the chainfists, wasps/bees/hornets and just general society "careful floor wet" signs are yellow with black lettering etc

However I also really wanted to pull the dark eldar wych element (using slaves to feed beasts or fight in arenas) the street gang culture of the hellions

My mind is awash with ideas I just can't get it focused into a scheme