Stage 1 of the Great Dark Eldar Project, half the models have arrived and I have a week off work, I thought I'd document the process of creating this army from scratch, here is the challenge that's ahead of me.
Note: all the images are in their 1920 format but have been shrunk to make them easier to read, to see the full size image look to the image source.
If you have the time PLEASE! do a harlequin painting tutorial.
:)
nice, can you just resize your pictures before linking? 640x480 would be great - thanks!
Awesome, if you can get an army built for next friday I'd love to play classic eldar vs dark eldar game.
Well day 1 is over, all the models were washed in hot soapy water and then base coated in chaos black, tomorrow is when the real fun starts but first I have to decide on a colour scheme. Got to love spray paint, whole house stinks though ;)
The metal models were hand painted with chaos black, spray paint will never get into all the cracks.
So I put together one of the reavers, I left off all the guns and the rider as I just want to test out how things will look, it also has a decent area to play around with.
Dark Eldar seem to like dark base colours with an extreme highlight, I have an aversion to turquoise so I wont be painting them according to the GW scheme but instead making my own, will probably create a name for the faction at some point as well.
So to move things forward I painted different sections of the bike with different colours then I played about with some effects to see if anything I like came out.
As you can see above the green version just doesn't look right, the paint isn't thick enough
The purple however looks great, I did like the bright green so I tried a simple decal and the colours seem to work well.
The blue I was surprised with, it does look a little eldar like rather than dark eldar but I was very happy with the nova burst effect around the front wing, whatever colour I go for I'll be using that again :)
Here is one angle in which you can see all of the colours next to each other, the middle seat section is still black for comparison.
Decided on the colour scheme, seems to be the popular choice, I've also decided to create my own Kabal, so below I proudly present
"The Kabal of the Unrelenting Blizzard"
They even have their own decal, thanks Aleks
I guess now the real work begins
I think you made the right choice because the blue is really epic
Any time James! And the logo looks goood cant wait to see it on a sail!
Well the Reavers are now complete save a few little touches I'll do another time, the blue base for the speeders is Necron Abyss but I found when it dried it was a little to light for the effect I was looking for so I took a half used pot of black paint and added 1 part Necron Abyss and 1 part Enchanted Blue, this created a very dark base and a full pot of paint with a nice blue hue which I will be using going forward.
I should point out that I also magnatised a number of the weapons so I can alter the loadout to any combination available in the army :)
Wow that was fast, with awesome results too.
What's the next unit gonna be?
Not had an update in a few days because I've been rather busy, I've not painted anything else as I've been playing with magnets. All the units I have are now complete save the 5 transports, in all cases the arms have been magnitised so I can easily change weapons around as well as take bits off when it comes to painting those hard to reach places. That includes the metal Archon model, it can be equipped with a variety of weapons but only comes with two set items, this way I can equip him as desired without having to buy more models.
The whole army
Now I can paint them all in one go doing one colour on all of them at a time.
man i love the production line method
Didn't really have time to start on the main body of guys tonight so I just painted up one of the HQ's, may I present Lelith Hesperax of the Unrelenting Blizzard.
Been ill for a few days so didn't get much done, I have however finished off another of the HQ's Drazhar 'Master of Blades' I tried out an icy technique for his base, came out ok but might have to find a way to make it more icy looking as the blue is too strong.
As you may have noticed in the above I've also done a lot of work on the Incubi, I've attacked some comparison shots of the two stage armour highlighting.
Dark Blue base to Enchanted Blue highlight
Enchated Blue to Ice Blue Highlight
This is what they look like mostly finished, I still need to touch up some of the finer detail areas such as the faces but you get the idea.
As for the other parts of my army well they are in progress, here they are with a few of the base colours done.
Got some reinforcements today, and yes those are limited edition Webway Portals
Update? :D
Life kind of got turned upside down since the beginning of the year, I've not had time for much and as such this project got put on hold.