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Greetings,

I've started Dark Eldar and before I get too far ahead of myself in building my models, I need help in nailing my paint scheme.

Because I'm masochistic I guess, I've become obsessed with black and yellow on my Spess Ehlves. Originally I wanted to paint the armour black with yellow edging on most of the plates, as well as with yellow faceplates, but the lack of defined edges for the helmets' faceplates makes it difficult for me to paint them yellow without making it look like its a layer of primitive face-paint.

of the test models, this is the best-looking one I've done so far. It is of course not done, this is just to try and show what I had in mind for what I want to do for the armour. I don't even know how I'm going to paint the weapons yet.

The paints I used for this was a Vallejo Matte Black and.... I think for that model in particular, it was Iyanden Darksun. I used a lot of different yellows for my test models, and I mixed them up. I've been told that IIyanden Darksun is discontinued, so I'm also looking for a replacement for it.

so, any suggestions on how I could do this scheme? How would you do it?

From a simplicity standpoint I'd be awfully tempted to actually base yellow and do black over it...yellow over black is a gigantic pain in the ass.

So...Army Painter yellow spray..black details followed by some washes.

That looks pretty good! (Although I would second the Yellow Spray idea). The replacement you're looking for is 'Averland Sunset' - it works wonders, especially over a brown base or even over grey primer. I've never tried it over black, but I suspect it'll suffer from the common problem all yellows do.

Okay, so, after much discussion with my close friend, I've concluded that I perhaps do not need any different way to paint these Yellow Jacket Eldar. Its just a matter of obtaining better brush control, and perhaps using just a little less.

However, I'm at a loss at how I should paint the helmet eye lenses and the guns. What colours would you folks paint them?

Bright gold would work...it'd blend in with the colour scheme yet stand out on its own (possibly).

Seems like you figured out your yellow issue but I figured i'd throw this out just in case.

I've had a lot of success with my yellow technique the past. Check out some of the stuff in my gallery to see if this works for what you are aiming for. Here's how i'd do it.

Base black - lightly drybrush grey to accentuate the edges

Paint yellow areas with an eggshell white (elf flesh I think) as this will be much easier to apply in fewer layers than a stark white - Highlight those areas with skull white. it's important to get a nice blend for shading. Shade your low lights with a mix of Skrag brown / elf shesh. An easy way to get your blend down would be to drybrush those areas with more pressure rather than wet blending if you aren't use to it.

For the yellow - I either use a yellow acrylic ink or vallejo yellow ochre. You can apply these very thinly, usually in one layer. The idea is to tint the colors you've already put in place so they show the shading below.

For the eyes I think a red orange would look pretty solid

Hope this helps! I'm really digging the color scheme you're doing for these guys