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Holy flailing flails Batman! Fin, they look abso-freaking-lutely amazing all together! I just have to echo others comments by saying you nailed all the poses to your sketches perfectly and the troupe shot is just fantastic! I hope when they;re all painted you might be tempted to take another similar shot and do some digital manipulation to make it appear forge world Esq and have them bounding around terrain and perhaps even make it available as a downloadable poster we can print out

Holy Product Placement Robin!

lol I'll see what I can do - I have to paint the buggers yet, but thank you as always.

If you could somehow model a spray of blood coming off of the foot of that handstanding one, that would really emphasise that its toe-blades are deadly weapons.

Very cool squad though.

Inspired me to go back and finish of my eldar/dark eldar. Thanks

Also looking forward to seeing more, especially the corsairs

Young Logan

I'd love to get your thoughts on converting Banshees to Harlies. I don't think that the models are as flexible (as in options for conversion), but you've got a good eye for the potential of the figure.

Fantastic job on these models. Now get painting!

@mars = Banshees, dunno really. That they're in Finecast now will help with the chopping up and carving, but I don't think there's as much potential in them because of the nature of the sculpts in that everything is attached to something else - legs to loincloths, shoulders to helms and hair - it's be tricky to separate them all out to get clean parts to work with. What's nice about the DEldar stuff is that it's all pretty much interchangeable, and all the limbs are separate. It might be more achievable by kitbashing Guardians, Dire Avengers, Scourges, and Wyches together...?

Yeah, I'm coming to that realization. Can you do a little tutorial or at least a list of ingredients for what you've got here? I looked into doing it this way, but jumped (the wrong way) to HBs.

the bitz I used for these guys you mean?

- torsos, arms, legs and heads from the Reavers
- crew from the Raider
- legs, weapons and a torso or two from the Scourges
- legs, torsos, weapons from the Wyches

If you click on the more detailed images for each one, you can see I put in a list of what parts I'd need for each one (hopefully my handwriting is readable!)

(just checked - my writing is teeny-tiny as ever, but when you zoom in on the pic, you can just about read the list)

Thanks for sharing. Are you planning on painting in a harlie scheme or more of a DE scheme? What are you going to play them as?

You should paint them like harlies, but in dark tones. Just sayin'.

The squad is looking fantastic Fin you've captured loads of movement with them.

I was planning on a DEldar scheme - lots of blacks and greys, dark metallics, pale skin, iridescent helmets, and stripes of very bright colours... but haven't thought about it too hard yet. There's still a possibility of them being a Corsair band that will support my Craftworld, and have a reference to that in their paint scheme.
They're allegedly (still not sure) one of my entries for Golden Demon for next year, so not too worried about playing with them, but if I were, I'd consider them Wyches.

Man, I can't wait to see some paint on these guys.

D

just looking at the handstand guy and it looks to me like the hands are on the wrong way round. When you do a handstand, your hands are usually fingers pointed out towards the sides or fingers pointed behind you. I don't think the wrist works the way you have it posed.

Otherwise, great models.

holy crap, you're right! What a bonehead... some emergency surgery needed - I'll have to chop the hands off at the wrists and turn 'em around, or swap them so the thumbs are in the right place... or maybe at the forearm... Good catch!


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Fixed : )
Took them off at the shoulder as I hadn't done as much greenstuffing as I feared, and swapped them - hopefully they're in the right position now! >paranoia kicks in<

Ummmm pics or it didn't happen fin! :-)

haven't taken shots yet lol

Just a small update really as I haven't actually done anything concrete in the last few days.
But what I have been doing is thinking about my Cult/Clan markings and what to do with the bases. I need the bases to really stand out and be strong (but not take too much attention away from the mini), and I also want them to be DEldar-themed as I haven't seen too many around like how I imagine.
So, lots of sketching - some more productive than others! I think I'm convinced on the Cult/Clan symbol, and I'm getting there with ideas for the bases, with the idea at the moment being that I'm going to have DEldar makings on the floor of the base, and I''m going to cut the markings out of plasticard, so they'll be recessed. The second half of the plan for the bases is that I'm going to have bladey-things coming out of the base, again, made out of plasticard and a few bitz I have knocking around.
I'm happy with the ideas for the bases so far, but they're not SPECTACULAR, and if I want these for Golden Demon, I feel as if there has to be something special to the bases if I'm kicking it up a notch. So, if anyone has any ideas, please suggest them, they'll be gratefully received

(I'm also toying with an idea - I know a couple of you are liking the sketchbook, so maybe I should give it away when I'm done with all my designing of the DEldar?)

(and because you know I like this sort of thing, they're called Fir yi Ish'yirrik Oriosa - Clan of the Dark Stars [literally Clan of the stars that do not shine])

what 'oh what must i do my liege to obtain this book of divine inspiration? shall i flay my skin and craft for you a chalice for supping wine? or perhaps use my bones to build a container to house sweet meats and memories of past battles? or even unleash my moistened brushes to create for you a Nerdish masterpiece in paint? I am yours to command!

That second to last page, the one with the iconographic filigri square, that design is just genius (or a happy sketching accident which you were brilliant enough to put down on paper).

and about giving away the book, don't, except maybe to a book designer so he can make a compilation/project book for you to sell online in order to fund further hobby projects.

sadly I can't claim credit for that on Dark_Gar - it's a slight adaptation of Drake's glyph from Blade 3. I made the inside of it a bit more DEldary. I quite like it and I still might use it for the banner, but it needs work so that the positive and negative space is more balanced and you see both.

lol I've never given a sketchbook away before -finished pieces, yes, but not a book. Usually I'd say that my sketchbooks are far too personal for me to even think about giving away, but this one is a bit different, and if it brings happiness and pleasure to someone else, that's reason enough

OMG that looks awesome! My favourite symbol was actually on the first page, the sun surrounded by the branching off blades. You could consider an adaption of the Dishonored dude's symbol?


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Oh yeah, and that sketch book would be awesome to have too. But, as you say, they're probably precious to you!

I totally don't remember that glyph from Blade 3 and I'll have to watch it again to refresh my memory. Very good find indeed.

What you say about trying to achieve a better balance of positive and negative as the shapes do seem to get a bit crowded at the internal borders of the squares. The bottom left square on the right side glyph, for example, could probably do without the top most claw protrusion as it doesn't seem to slot in gracely with the square above it. Overall, however, the designs flow very well together and look a very contemporary re-imagining of mayan glyphs. They look both alien and familiar, which is one of the keys to great sci-fi.

As for the book idea, if you've ever seen any "book-on-demand" or "photo book" services online, those that allow you to layout and design your book online, you could easily make a short 20 page book of design notes and sketches chronicling your project over the year and publish that for very little expense. You get to keep the sketchbook, which is key, but your interested subscribers would get to obtain a copy of your material. Personnally, I think that would be awesome.

Can't wait to see where you take this.

apparently it was on his sarcophagus? I haven't rewatched it either. I thought about looking at the vampire glyphs and that appeared too.

the balance isn't quite there - you should be able to see the black shapes, but also see the white cross in the middle and the white circle.

I've done a Blurb book of my own work before, basically to update my portfolio as it was over 10 years old! Never even crossed my mind to do one of my sketched work... good thinking Batman!

You're Welcome<bow>

cutting plasticard is a bitch! Thought I'd give the bases idea a go just now, and it was a lot of effort for pretty poor results! I'm going to investigate whether plasticard can be lasercut without it melting into a slag heap - if it doesn't, I'll use the laser cutter at work to get them cut out ; )

Don't think it will melt... what ideas are you specifically going for base-wise?

at the moment being that I'm going to have DEldar makings on the floor of the base, and I''m going to cut the markings out of plasticard, so they'll be recessed. The second half of the plan for the bases is that I'm going to have bladey-things coming out of the base, again, made out of plasticard and a few bitz I have knocking around.

Sounds ambitious.

For the markings on the grounds, it might be easier to go with plaster instead of plasticard as it's a lot easier to engrave. Barring that, getting engraving chisels might also help.

As for the bladey things coming out of the base, you might want to check an old post in my Nid P&M. Back when I was sculpting boneswords I stumbled upon a handy technique for sculpting shapes that look a lot like the parts you had sketched out.

If you go about 20% down the page here, you'll see how I sketched the designs directly on the platicard and then used drill bits to create the holes for the cut outs in the blade. The next step is then to cut along the sketched outline using a sharp blade. The thing to keep in mind about plasticard is that you don't cut it one heavy cut, but in multiple light cuts, each one going gradually deeper. It's slow, yes, but it's the best way that I've found to get clean cuts.

Once every thing is cut you then round out the contours with needle files.

Hope that helps