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Hello all. Being off work until school starts has given me some time to really get into painting. I've done a lot of my orks before, but always fairly simple paint schemes. The most complex I would get is drybrushing and maybe a wash or ink. I've been primarily playing my Dark Eldar for a while, so decided to give them all a proper paint job other than just a few colors to keep them ready for the table-top. I know these aren't great, as this is the first time I've experimented with a lot of highlighting, inking, washing and everything else as well as using multiple layers of different paints on some areas. I'm mostly looking for ways to improve. I already feel I've learned a lot from just doing these models, but I know I have a long way to go to being good.

They are looking good from what i can see, as far as how to improve from this its hard to start without more direct photos.

However with these pics I would say to work on the gems a bit next they are easy to do and you can simply go back to old models and spiff them up a bit in the process. You really only need 1 colors to do it in a basic way, base the gem, highlight the gem 60%ish with the mid color then highlight that with the lightest color and they will look decent in the end, better than 1 color anyhow. Alternatively you could learn about wet blending and essentially plop two colors on the object and blend them back and forth across the object until the gradient from color 1 to color 2 is smooth and seemless with both colors strong on opposite end. The second method gives much better results but also will take a bit of time to get good at and it becomes harder to do on smaller areas so its a practice thing but a good skill to learn!

If you have an specific questions about painting feel free to pm me and ill help you out best i can.

great models keep painting!

Looks interesting, the start of something that needs just a bit more. It's very hard to make any determination on what's going on with the photos provided (the harsh lighting is creating too much reflection on the surface of the models).

I agree about the gems, but a solid background/starting surface will make the gems pop nicely. Contrast with simple colors can make great effects without too much investment in blends and all that crazy airbrush stuff people do on some of the Eldar vehicles.

Looks like the purple and green interplay could be really awesome, just hard to see in the pics!

Thanks for the tips so far. I'll try those ideas out - please keep the advice coming.

I took a few more pictures to show them off better. Sorry about the light from the originals, I took them during the day and its impossible to avoid a barrage of sunlight with the windows I have. This should give a better idea of my work. I know a lot of the lines look sloppy this close up, but they don't look too bad from far away. I didn't master the trick of using tape until the last one, so its the only one with really neat lines. Over all, they look a lot worse in these pictures, I think, but it just shows what sort of improvements I still need to make.

The one big thing that I would say is in your purple in the first photo. It looks streaky/brush strokes. Perhaps paint with a larger brush and add another coat next time. Otherwise they aren't bad

As victor was saying as well, try adding some layers to them. Dry brushing/highlights and the sort. Perhaps some gradient in the purple to make it a little more interesting to look at

I really like the color scheme, it's nice to see colorful Dark Eldar. I wish I had been as brave when I did mine. Let me share something helpful I found out - when you're doing your edge highlights, it's ok if they come out too thick. Just go back over with the base color to thin them down a little bit. I kept trying to get them the right thickness the first try and it was frustrating until I figured, "Eh, forget it - I'll just clean them up after".

Oh, good idea on cleaning up the lines. I don't know why I didn't think of that, much like you I just tried to get them right the first time.

I wanted them to be a bit more colorful than standard, but not too bright. I felt the Nagarroth Purple and Kabalite Green and then the dulled out metallics made them bright enough to stand out, but dark enough they still feel sinister.

Thanks for the additional suggestions guys! I really appreaciate it.