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Hello Everybody,
I need help! I love Dark Eldar and how they seem to strike out of no where, take hostages, and then disappear. This idea or battle tactic was the inspiration for my paint scheme. I nee some help on where to go from here though.
To start off I had a couple bottles of the old game workshop blue ink and a bottle of shiny blk primer. I used the primer as my base, then applied chainmail to the weapons and certain areas i thought it would look cool. then I used the blue ink on top of the chainmail. I like the shiny black and blue together but i don't know what more to add to make it really look good. any suggestions.

wyches



old mandrakes



raiders



old scourges (new ones in mail)



old warriors



whole army

you definitely need some skin tones in there, possibly a grey/blue skin tone, otherwise it would contrast too much. also a few extra colours wouldn't go amiss, maybe some symbols on the sides of the skimmers in white?

Right now it looks like you have, at most, a half painted army. From what I can tell, there are no details like eyes, faces, exposed skin, or trophies picked out in any other colors. I would try painting the skin in pale colors - Dheneb Stone with an Ogryn Flesh wash apparently looks decent - and I would paint the eyes in Goblin Green. Hair would look good in a yellow like Iyanden Darksun, or in green also.

Thanks for the help. I'll look into starting the skin details. Its just I have little to know experience with painting and don't wanna ruin the models. I guess just taking my time will be the only way to do um justice.

true, but you also need to experiment and test your boundaries, it's the only way you improve. i suggest for the skin a basecoat of codex grey, a wash of asurmen blue, then a highlight of codex grey. then do another wash, this time badab black, and highlight it much more finely with fortress grey

Thanks. I think that would look the best. It wouldn't contrast as much as the dheneb stone and ogryn flesh. I'll try to pick those up today or tomorrow and post the results in a couple weeks.

What hair colors do you think? I have a red ink. but idk if both the blue and red would look odd together.

WAAAAGGHH-god wrote:true, but you also need to experiment and test your boundaries, it's the only way you improve. i suggest for the skin a basecoat of codex grey, a wash of asurmen blue, then a highlight of codex grey. then do another wash, this time badab black, and highlight it much more finely with fortress grey

That is a fine idea for skin tones. Consider that idea taken. Thank you sir

For hair if you want a natural color i would go with a dirty blond color or a light brown. But if you like unnatural colors I would go with a light blue, would contrast your dark colors nicely (in my oppinion )

for hair i do a very dark base colour, regal blue for example, then add streaks of a lighter colour, maybe enchanted or ultramarine, then a few thin lines of a lighter still version, in this case, ice blue. a wash of the corresponding colour would then tie them all together

I really like the lighter blue or the hair schemes. thanks a lot. ill post some pics of the skin colors. got a couple models done. Then I post some hair color pics in a couple weeks.

Here are the updated pictures on the skin tone for my dark eldar. Codex grey, Asurman blue wash, badabad black wash
I like how they turned out. What do you think?

New Wyche



old wyche





Raider driver

Looking good there. just need to color the hoses in a contrasting color, and maybe make powered weapons (if you use them) in a lighter color, or painted with lightning arcs.

Thanks a lot. what color do you have in mind for the hoses? and in the process of doing the hair as well.

I make hoses Dark Angel green, and then dry brush the "ribs" with a lighter green, like goblin, or such.

You can go wild with Elvish hair, techno-color hair is okay as no one has a sure say on alien hair color!

Haha I think i'll make the hair ultramarine blue with a badabad blk wash so the blue is the high lights or some form of purple.

Ok dark angels green. Hmm air brush. I don't have one. Sadly I am not to that level yet. Thanks alot tho.

i wouldn't go with a 'base colour then wash' tactic on the hair, it makes more sense to highlight up from a very dark colour, not only will it teach you a valuable technique, but it looks much better.

also i am not sold on the whole iridescent blue thing you have going on, it is just to glossy. in my opinion you will need to hit them with some satin varnish when you are done with the other parts (annoyingly GW purity seal is amazing, even for the price)

Doesn't varnish add more shiny. and might be 'REALLY' shiny because of my crappy driod camera, and the lighting.
I like the shiny though. makes my army different from every body elses dark eldar army. Esp Since many people jumped on the band wagon with the new codex.

the GW varnish is a sealant and dulls down any shine. the problem with glossed armies (trust me i've made a few) is that the gloss usually absorbs all of the detail making it look really odd. thankfully your matte skin tone breaks up that effect, but the armour still has no highlights so the gloss is just in the wrong scale for the mini. i think the thread about true metal had a good explanation about how real gloss doesn't highlight things properly.

So where should I go from here? Would the varnish dull it down to much? And I don't have the skill to high light much. Just started painting a lot.

it's alright, highlighting is a really simple technique, you just run the side of your brush down the hard edge of the armour, leaving paint only on the sharp edge. and if you invest in the GW brand varnish, it will dull it down perfectly, and you should be able to paint over it

do i only apply the varnish to the shiny spots or all of it?

You play in Virginia Beach right?

all of the model, it will protect the paint from chipping as well

Ok thanks a lot!

and yeah.

i play in va beach at tower sometimes.

Nice job with the skin tone, it's a real step up compared to the models in the first post.

Am I right in thinking that the purple colour is silver chainmail + blue ink wash?

General tips
- The army as a whole is very dark in the first picture and seems half painted. If the photo is representative of real life then painting bases and adding a skin tone to bring out model's faces etc... is exactly what you need to be doing so thumbs up there.

- Using the ink + chainmail combo is going to be... "thirsty". My guess is that you have used a single thick wash layer to get the effect? I'd experiment with using several layers of thin wash and see if it improves the effect. It will make your wash last longer and I know that when I first used washes in an aggressive manner over large surfaces it pooled excessively in the wrong places. Thin layers helped me massively.

- For further colours, gold could do detailing against purple/black (but might clash with the skin tones), and the right tone of red could do detailing against all three major colours on your pallete (purple, black & grey skin). Red eyes perhaps?

- There's a technique called "extreme highlighting" that your army is screaming out for. 'Tis a GREAT trick and would be excellent for your models

I love the look. could really pull together my army. What color do you recomend? And dang!!!! that must need a really small brush. how do you do that with such a small space to hit?


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Here is the update for the eyes. what do you think about the red? I think it takes them into the zombie, vampire realm. loving it!

Colours for that highlighting technique?
Navy blue or purple to tie in with the coloured armour plates.

You will find life very much easier with small brushes for this kind of work (and for the eyes too!).

Two worthwhile approaches are
1) only putting a tiny dot of paint on the absolute tip of the brush and then running that along the armour edges.

2) Using watered paints, pull some into the brush (up to 1/3 or 1/2 way along bristles) and partially dry by dabbing on paper. Then make contact with the SIDE of the brush rather than the tip - this means that the bristles don't splay around the armour edges and you can get a thin, consistent highlight. Just make sure the end of the bristles don't accidentally brush another part of the model .

Worth practising both techniques on bits of sprue (lovely 90 degree edges ) before models

I am gonna try to address the issue on hair color first. I was originally going to go with a blue or purple. but i think i already have enough or too much of that. what hair would go with the skin tone and eye color. White? I put a white Dark Eldar glyph on the side of my raider and' ll paint errors aside' the white goes with the blue and black. Do you think white would go well s a hair color?


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Here is the raider as a reference