Post: #1

After a long time struggling with exams and the Royal mail (lazy guys) I've finally received my Dark Eldar who happen to be my first 40k army.

So far I own:
10 Kabalite Warriors (already assembled - pics to follow)
10 Wyches (already assembled including a few conversions - pics to follow)
1 Raider (already assembled, awaiting magnets)
1 Raider (in box)
1 Ravager (in box)
Dark Elf metal characters to count as succubus / haemonculus / archon until I get my hands on better models

The target is clear: highest possible painting standard for the entire army. This will include NMM, OSL and crisp highlighting on most if not all models. Yes this sounds like a lot of work and in fact it is, so expect the progress to be quite slow. With the amount of money I pour into the hobby and all the time I spend painting I want the final result to be outstanding and unique. Also you don't improve if you work below your standards, do you?!

In terms of colour scheme I'm still undecided:
I generally plan to keep it dark so that the OSL really works. Glowing eyes are a mandatory and I plan to let the weapons glow as well (maybe in a different colour). I'm open for suggestions here. Additionally I plan to do freehands on my vehicles as the plain surfaces of the vehicles generally scream "do a freehand, pleeeease!". My fist idea was a dark silouette (spelling?) of a DE city skyline on the armor plates. Is this too much together with the OSL?! I'm afraid yes but hell, I do want to do freehands. I'm open for suggestions here as well. I already know that I want to make the bases look like a destroyed imperial city - what would be the point raiding the realspace just to burn corn fields?! So plasticard, polystyrene and pipes - should also take some time.

Ok this is already getting long again. Pics of the first assembled and converted models are to come soonish.


Cheers,

Dogmar

Post: #2

This sounds exciting! I will keep my eye on this thread.

I agree with some of what you say. It is important to work at a particular level, however I've recently started trying to limit myself whether it be time, pallette etc and the results have been pretty good. It's nice to try and paint to the highest possible standard with an additional challenge or constraint.

Also I have recently been catching up with some commission work I am behind on (a Dark Vlad, 5 Scouts and Commander Dante). For the Dante, the client wanted it in standard metals which has proved to be a nice challenge. I've painted it using metallic colours in a NMM style if that makes sense. I really suggest you give it a go. It really brings a whole new life to the standard metal colours. It might be ideal for painting a lot of troop choices.

I'll try and take some pics and show you what I mean!

Cheers,

u_m

Post: #3

Now this will be a plog to watch I always love seeing your beautiful model's. Looking forward to seeing what you can do with the dark eldar.

Post: #4

@u_m: are you talking about "highlighting" metallics and then actually shading them (making them matte finish in a way) through various coloured glazings? Sounds interesting. Up until now I've never really bothered with metallics. The core guys just got a quick wash /highlight (which is already more than 80% of the ppl at the LGS do) on my metallics or I went really high standard and did NMM. I'd glad to see some pics of that - before I try your method I'll do some experiments myself though. Grave Guard could need a touch up maybe!
On the topic of high standard: I'm not going to go all OTT with that project. I normally always limit my palette to certain colours since too many different contrasts will only distract and make the whole thing ridiculous in the end. So the idea is a limited palette, OSL, some kind of high end metal, highlighting to character model standard. I hope this will make myself better in terms of realistic application of highlights but also faster doing so. That way I could one day start commission work - currently I'm way too slow for that, although I'm sure the customer would be happy with the product. I want the style to be consistant, so same style of metallics for the whole army for example.

@Santa: Thanks for the interest. It's always a great thing to hear that someone likes your work especially when phrased like that! Cheers

Post: #5

Ok guys, it's been a while, but I've not been lazy. In the Damned Forge section there is a thread about "Destroyed City Bases" that shows the building progress of my dark eldar force so far. With some spare raider crew models I couldn't really build an apropriate base for I've been experimenting on colour schemes.




These are my favourites so far as I decided I wanted to keep it dark and with a very harsh contrast to get some nice OSL in there. I'd like you to give advice on how to improve these schemes or which one you like better respectively. I already have a favourite, but I won't tell you . Please don't judge the technique, both models were done very very sloppy and painted over a few times, especially the purple one. I'd like you to consider that I stumbled across this thread while browsing the web:

Purple High Elves

I really like that scheme, this is why I went for purple in the first place but I think I need neutral earthen browns and/or white to make it work which is not so much Dark Eldar.

Cheers!

Dogmar

Post: #6

Very nice work. Always been a fan of Turquoise and purple being used with each other. As you note they contrast black and dark blues so nicely. The glow effect also looks neat and even better on the DE warrior models. Inverted colour schemes suit DE as well, given even a single warrior isn't just a nameless rank and file solider. He or she has goals and some measure of power in Commorragh.

I applaud your approach on exclusively high quality, indeed, it shows already.

Looking forward of seeing more.

Cheers, D.

Post: #7

Thank you, Dancey. I've decided to go for the Turquoise with purple glow scheme as it somehow just looked more appealing to me.

My first warrior is now done, although I'm still not completely satisfied. I think I have to rework the glow effects at the very least. The eyes are cool, but on the rifle I started to lose concentration.

Here are some pics:






Tell me what you think and how I could improve that result. Especially if you know how to get a good True Metallic Metal Steel going (basically shading silver metallic colours).

Cheers,

Dogmar

Post: #8

Brilliant work. It is familiar in style yet you've made it your own. You've inspired me to pick up my DE and give them a make-over. They're still the good old all-purple/metal look that pretty much defined them back in the day contrasted rather horribly with a flame-like gradient raider models but then again, they're about 12 years old. Still, kinda fun to look back at old minis and see how much you've improved(and how your ideas of your army theme changes).

I tend to use a dark grey(watered down but I think inks would be better), mithril silver and boltgun metal. The grey or even chaos black is used as an ink, more or less, in recesses and as a shader. The boltgun is then dry brushed onto it(but not too try as it looks too dirty. Mithril or any other comproble shiny metal is then dry brushed onto the sharpest of areas. You can also darken the base metal and only conserve the edge of the blades with mithril silver to create a cool effect. I also employ a sort of teeth like method with the boltgun metal and grey/black along the edges. Effectively you paint it with boltgun, paint a thin layer of black and dry brush with mithril. It's really easy and looks cool on bayonettes, knifes and similiar. Hope this makes sense :P

Cheers, D.

Post: #9

Thanks for the input Dancey. I revised my colour scheme a bit as I was not happy with the weapon, and the glow on the test-mini was also far better.

Here you go:




I messed up the floor in the process, but here a few comments on what I changed:
Some friends told me the thing on the weapon was too much, so I made it more plain. I'm open for suggestions though on how to improve it. especially the part I left black.
Changed the hair thingy on his head to black with grey highlight and a turquoise stran. Depending on the model I might also use different colours for the strans, just to get an idea of the concept
I made the loin-cloth look more like flayed skin. Still not perfect as I didn't want to completely repaint the whole thing but I like the look of it.
Reworked the glow to look more realistic.

Post: #10

He looks great! Definitely an improvement from the last one, especially the gun, it was a bit to purple. The black complements the figure very nicely as it differs from the model without overpowering it. And I really like the use of purple as a spot colour, it really ties it all together.

Very fitting with flayed skin too, you could try to vary the skin tone on different warriors to individualise them, like adding a wash or something. I think there was a good guide to painting flayed skin in a WD a while back, I can look it up.

Post: #11

Thanks for the suggestions Mad 'At... what exactly do you mean by the block? are you referring to the black or is it something I missed? Anyway, I'm planning to keep the whole army quite dark so I can finally make use of some OSL (which is admittedly very hard to do in purple!). For example I want to do a purple energy / lightning thing on my raider's aethersails. We'll see how that works out.

On the topic of flayed skin: I'd be grateful if you found an article on it. Looking through my WDs I haven't found one yet. Experimenting would be fine to me, but if there is a better /faster way, why not try it.

Soooo, especially with me being very curious about OSL I tried out yet another colour scheme which was inspired by the article in GWs daily block called "Flickr-Fields of blabla". And finally some pictures of the fully magnetized fleet are up!!! What great news today. Enjoy the pictures and tell me what you think.











Cheers,

Dogmar

Post: #12

Whoops, I meant black, sorry I confused you (went back and corrected as well).

I'll search my archive as so as I get a chance, much at school at the moment though and my WD are at my mothers places so I'm unsure of exactly when.

The OSL effect on that last dude is amazing Though I must say that I like the colour scheme of the earlier ones better. The bronze parts creates such a nice contrast. Perhaps you could combine them or something?

And the fleet looks impressive

Post: #13

Love your dark eldar paintstyle...... I demand that you do more!

Post: #14

WD 369 September 2010. There was a guide to paint the dead flesh on Fabius Bile's coat. To create different skin tones tallarn flesh was mixed with either camo green, rotting flesh or fortresses grey for a basecoat. Pure tallarn flesh was also used. A Ball Red wash was applied before highlighting with the correct initial basecoat and then further highlighted by adding rotting flesh and lastly skull white.

Hope this helps.

Post: #15

Wow, long time since the last post. Was quite busy doing other stuff, as I'm shortly before my final exams to finish school. On top of that the gf really needed me (crisis situation - don't want to share more). Anyway, I got something more done. Here is a pic of my Haemonculus HQ with a converted flesh gauntlet as I broke the original due to finecast being fragile as hell. You can also have a look at it over at The Dark City in the "Archon's Challenge" painting contest.

Here goes:







Hope you like it. There is currently a half painted wych squad on my desk waiting for some love as well as some converted Wraiths and the new Black Knights for my VC.

Cheers

Post: #16

Looking good man. Love the base and the black robes. I'm looking forward to seeing the wyches appear here as well.

Cheers, Wolfie

Post: #17

I'm not a big fan of the haemonculus, but with the conversion and your paint job he is top notch.

Post: #18

As always Dogmar it's a pleasure to see your work and painting skills progress. Keep it up pal!

u_m

Post: #19

As promised a nice little update on the Wyches, they will be completed for the next step of the Archon's Challenge. It is not known which entry it will be, but seeing that it started with an HQ, Troops will probably be the next category as they are mandatory in the FOC.

There you go with some WIPs:



And the WIP hekatrix for squad #2, converted from a Venom passenger and a spare Agoniser... still have to figure out how to base her, but I like the dynamic pose:


Stay tuned for more!

Post: #20

Those wyches are seriously cool, i really love the poses