Dark Eldar Painting Plan

Each time I paint an army, I try and learn some new tricks that I can (hopefully) use later. The last army I painted was marines and I did a lot of weathering on the army. However, I don't believe that Dark Eldar should be weathered, they probably spend more time cleaning their armor, then they ever do fighting, and when they do appear, they come right out of the city to fight. It's like going to a party for them, and I'm sure they are going to want to be at their best.

So, this time I want to try and learn how to paint an army that usually takes me a year, in six months, because I would like to kick my tournament attendance to twice a year, as opposed to once a year. I'm looking at going to the GT in Dallas in April, or perhaps to the Kalm Before the Waaagh once it has a fixed date this year... and bringing the DE to one or both.

Now, to assist me, I will be picking a non complicted color scheme, and trying to work that color scheme up to a great level. My marines ended up being a split scheme, which is great, and unusual, but hard as hell to pull off.

So, first off, instead of doing a unit by unit as I did with my marines, I am doing the entire army as follows: Infantry, then Vehicles. About 50+ infantry at the moment, then focus on the 8 vehicles I want for my base army (5 raiders and 3 ravagers).

The infantry at this time are put together, based and base coated.

Step One: Over the next week I will pick a base color and use my airbrush to spray them that color.

Step Two: Go in with a darker wash and get in the recess of the armor of all the models.

Step Three: Highlight with straight Liche Purple (my base color is Liche purple and chaos black I think)

Step Three: Highlight with Liche Purple+ Something else... not sure what

Step Four: Highlight the very edges where armor meets with the second color

At this point I would figure that 60% of the model is finished. I'm not sure how I am going to handle the metal and other non purple parts, as I have not made a decision on any symbols etc.. on the army. I can tell you that I like the GW markings and intend on using those.

A few questions for anyone that reads this:

1. Do you think the Wytch Raiders would bear the symbol of their Wytch Cult? If so, would I then have an army of different marks, and would that take away from the army effect?

2. Are Incubi rather like Aspect Warriors, and the black with white helmets are their trademark look? If not, what if I painted them in inverse colors from the rest of the army. I haven't made a decision about my accent color yet, but they would be that color with purple as the accent color.

Angels Terminators

Ok, so I got the terminators and the terminator Librarian finished last weekend. They took quite a bit more time then I had anticipated to be honest with you, but I'm pretty pleased with the way they came out. As usual, I think they are better then the photographs. The highlighting is always better, and it always sort of gets muted in the photos. I tried using the flash, but that didn't come out that well either. One day, when I'm stable again, I'll work on that.

Anyway, as I wrote about on the 40K Radio Forums, I did the battledamage and weathering on these terminators. I struggled with that decision, because I thought they looked good the first time, without the need to any, but then they would not have worked well with the army. Also, it took me awhile to decide how to paint them. I'm a Dark Angel successor chapter (sort of) so we use their number system for squads and companies, so it makes since they would also have single colors for the the 1st company (or 1st Order in my case). However the Deathwing didn't paint their armor bone until after an event from Post-Heresy. I decided to stick with the army color scheme. However I did make the decision that the Terminators from my First Order all wear their individual heraldry on their right should pad, so you may notice that. The reason for this is that by the time they are part of the 1st Order, you are quite the hero. Also my guys are sort of a Dark Angel/Black Templars blend. I'm working on their background that I will throw up here at some point



Here is my cyclone terminator. The cyclone is magnitized and can be pulled off. Wow did the highlights not come out on him at all. The red in this photo generally pops a lot more in RL. Sad really.

A picture I took with the flash of the Sarg.

Terminator Arixa, who has some battle damage on him.

And finally my terminator librarian

Ok

I psoted on the Freeboota forums at 40K radio about weathering today, but it occured to me that I haven't posted probably my best vehicles, which are below. Two Rhinos and a predator that I painted. I'm not 100% pleased with them, and honestly, I see some flaws from this angle. I didn't bother doing under them too much (mistake, now, but I can fix this later) and I wish I had blackened the drilled out barrel a bit more. But all in all I think they do a good job of showing the finished techniques I was talking about.

Next!

Ok, I have less then two weeks before I get on the road for my weeklong drive from San Francisco to Jackson MS. The WW (Wonderful Wife) is leaving this weekend to travel with the cat to Jackson to drop her off, take a look around where we are staying and also visit with her parents. So you know what that means? One last push for my models? Yep, you are right.

At the moment I am working on a single unit of Terminators and a terminator librarian. I mentioned earlier that I don't like to work on to many models at one time. This little group is perfect. I've been told that this weapons configuration is not optimal at the moment, and I believe it. However, I own fifteen terminators and want to pick up five more, so I'm allowed to paint some un-optimal things from time to time. Also, in the long run, things that suck generally become things that rock. This unit is army all with chainfists because (1) they look great and (2) I obliterated a Stompa a few weeks ago with these five guys. You do NOT mess with a chainfist in HTH. I have magnatized certain pieces is why the cyclone and other guns are in front of them. They get painted seperately. I intend on making my assault terminators completely modular, but will not get a chance to get to them till after I am in Jackson




Now, as to this weekend, the game is to deal with these boys. First, I want to say they are all Pewter/Lead and metal. Two Rogue Trader dreadnoughts that I am working on and (2) Dark Angel metal dreadnoughts. The first problem is that I'm not happy with my weapon configuarations. I need some Power Fists. I intend on scratch building some power fists and perhaps some autocannons this weekend. Check back and I'll show you how it's done.
Lastly is the guy below with no arms.


Now, I don't own a Ironclad dreadnought. However, I intend on converting this guy here to one. I had him all done up, but hated it so I ripped off all the parts I didn't like. I do NOT like the GW Iron Clad. I hope to have this felow with an interesting look when I get finished, although my sketches are a little vague. Expect a ton of pictures this weekend as it develops. Saturday I intend on doing nothing much but getting some things in the house ready to move and also making all of the conversions necessary. We will see!

Bikes Finished!

Ok so the (6) bikes, Attack bike and (2) Landspeeders and Captain Morveng on a bike are finished. Honestly this was a larger project then I like to bite off. Like they say about that elephant, take one bite at a time till it's finished. This was a lot of models. In addition the Landspeeders were a late addition. The bikes have been sitting in my box for quite a long time, but the landspeeders are actually LEAD. Yea, they are the original Dark Angel RavenWing landspeeders that came out... years and years ago. This was before the new plastic speeder, but were quite a jump from the previous version. In general they follow the new landspeeder shape, but are more compact. Considering they already came with all of the designs that I like so much (angels w/sword and the ravenwing symbol) they were perfect for my Angels of Wraith. However, breaking them up, cutting off all their weapons nad adding magnets was a little difficult, but fun. Ok, here is the Bike sargeant. All of the bikes are painted in a similar fashion, but I thought I would just post him.


Front view here where he is riding someone down with his power fist.


Here is the side view of him. I'm still working on battle damage and weathering. You should be able to clearly see the mud, and the dirt lines as the bike races. That's the goal anyway.



Here is the attack bike from a few points. Honestly, I think some better photography would seriously help these. I think they are much better in person then they are in pictures. After I get settled in jackson hopefully I can make that happen eventually.

Lastly is Captain Morveng. I've posted him several times. I've hand drawn an angel on his banner that isn't my best, but it's pretty good. Sadly, again the photo's don't really do him proper justice. He's a great model.

The bikes are a mixture of the original Ravenwing models from years ago, and also the new models. I have a regular biker waving his sword around. Here are the Attack Bi

I started playing 40K years and years ago, but I was never very competitive about it. I played with some friends, I went to collage, I stoppoed playing. As I neared graduating from law school I picked it back up, and started playing again. I sucked at painting then, but was enthusiastic. I had the remains of a badly put together dark angel army, and that was about it. I piddled with them, and around that time the Tau came out. My (current) tau army that I use is at dakka, but I have the (poor) pictures of my first tau army on my hard drive. I'll post them some other time. I played Tau, and managed to win a Rogue Trader or two with them and took them to my first Grand Tournament in 2004... I didn't do that great. Actually... that's not true, I did pretty good, but not perfect. The codex started getting dated, so I switched over to Demonhunters. I still have the Imperial Guard remnants of that army, and my painting technique had improved by then. Anyway, Grey Knights were such a dismal dissppointment as an army that I wanted a "hammer" army. Something that people quaked in fear at when they saw me coming. Well, I decided that Lysander was the way to go. I painted up a VERY specific Lysander Wing army for Adpepticon. I came in 5th overall, and got quite a decent painting away. I later sold the army, and honestly... I really wish that I had not. I probably would be playing Fists now if I hadn't sold them. Ohhh well Cest le vie. I did however win a GT in 08 with my Tau, which made it all worthwhile. Anyway, here are some the photo's of my first (in my opinion) decently painted army. This was the first time I also built a battle board that was any good, and used inset models for my army (which is awesome, but can be a pain in the Ass).

First, Captain Lysander. I thought he came out wonderfully.

Standard terminator sergeant. I didn't take this photo, the photgrapher at the GT did. I used the forgeworld shoulder pads (Buy them, they rock!) and the black templars bits to make them special.)

This was the battle board and lysander's command squad. The assault cannons were conversions.

This was a top down view of the battle board. It was four squads of six terminators, two squads of scouts and three landspeeders tornadoes. Assault cannons of death! That gun was broken. I'm glad they changed it, but now it's a P.O.S. (Piece of shit)

We also played in a team tournament and I made this librarian for that purpose. This was before the current librarian that they have now. The shield is freehand, and was the start of that as well.

I've got some more I'll post another time.

Drop Pod Finished

Ok, here is my Master on a bike with the base coats finished and the bleached bone on him. When the bleach bone is on all the bikes I will start on the highlights. I'll post when his highlights are finished.




Ok, here is my finished drop pod, all put together. Nod bad if I do say so myself for my first scratch built. I've started work on a Macharius pattern tank, but haven't gotten that far yet. I'm going to finish painting all of my bikes and landspeeders before I focus in on it again.

Drop Pod

Ok, the Drop Pod is done. I'll take some finished photo's of it later. I had a entire set of photo's of it's completeion, but they got deleted. Here it is right before I started the last 25% or so. I'm trying to hunt down a CD to make a base out of it and model it so it looks like a hard crater landing, but unfortunately, we are about 1/4 packed to move, and the CD's all are in a box.

And my wife HATES it when I start unpacking packed things. No surprise really.

Some remarks on the design process. I started off using some thick card, but in the end, I enjoyed working with the plasticard a lot more, and found it a lot easier. Also I sued some balsa wood to give the fints some depth, but wood glue does NOT work well with plastic. Stick with standard white glue. Sadly, I probably used about a hundred bucks in supplies at this point. Let's hope this pays off in the future. I've already started on my next scratch build project, pictures of it next time.






This is what I'm working on at the moment. My bikes for my Angels of wrath. They just have their base coats on at the moment. Six bikes, vet with Power Fist, attack bike, and commander (popping the willy). The Landspeeders are the original metal dark angel models, all lead I believe. They were held to go with glue and a prayer when I put them together around fifteen years ago... Fuck has it been that long? I've been playing 40K since around 1992-1993, right at the end of Rogue Trader before 2nd edition came out. Anyway, all of the weapons are magnatized. I'll take some photo's of these guys through the process.



This is probably going to end up being Mollach, Master of the Arsenal. It's hard to tell that he is painted any different then DA's as his armor is so concealed by his cloth. To bad he isn't a good pick using the Space Marine 5th ed codex. But Still, not bad, he is my second master painted so far.

This is also going to be a master. I build his Thunder hammer from scratch, and am really looking forward to having him painted. I'll post his ongoing pain job here for you. I still have NO idea what army list I plan on settling onto when it's all said and done, so I'm just sort of painting everything.

Here are some of my completed marines of my Dark Angels Sucessor Chapter. I'm still working on the name of the chapter. Angels of Wrath won't seem to go away, but it's a little to... angry for these marines. I'll post their background here eventually. These photo's are a little rough. Hopefully after the move I can set up a better photography area for my minitures.

Anyway, first is Venerable Gabriel of the 5th Order (5th Company). When I painted him he was the first model I wanted to try some freehand angels on. I think they turned out alright actually.



Next is Captain Azazel. I may not use him as my current Master of the 5th Order, he may be a deceased individual. However, he was the first independant character I painted for the army.

Sergeant Raziel of the 7th Squad of the 5th Order. Raziel is a headstrong Sergeant that seems doomed to death. He has refused several promotions to the 1st Order, and has chosen to lead his men by example. His sucessess is only overshadowed by his attrition rate.

Veteran Sergeant Azerix of the 2nd Squad of the 5th Order. The oldest sergeant of the 5th order he is taciturn and mean as hell, but get's the job done. he is a conversion of the old dark angel sergeant with a Rogue Trader era Power Fist.

Here he is with his entire squad.

That's it for now. I'll post my chaplain, librarian scouts etc... later.