New Dark Eldar Army...

[Ghoulio]

So, now that I have finished the last model for my Tyranid army (the Tervigon) I figured it was time to offically start something new. The Dark Eldar!

Dark Eldar have always been an army I liked. I have even painted a 2000pt Dark Eldar army about 5 or 6 years ago. The two main reasons I never made it one of my main armies was the same as many people...crazy boring rules and more importantly, the worst model range GW has ever made.

Now that both of those issues have been fixed (oh boy have they been fixed) it's time to jump back into doing an army of these evil pointy eared space pirates. A good friend of mine owns a local game store and asked me to paint some of the stuff out of the Black Box for him. So I have had the pleasure of working on the Warriors and the Raider. I finished my test paintjob of the warrior (also finished another 5 but havent had a chance to photograph them yet) and the Raider (minus the crew hanging on). So here are a couple quick pics.

Test Warrior

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_hVZcagPD1ZU/TLzOXcAo-OI/AAAAAAAAANI/9mE1VMH2-KA/s1600/WarriorTestFront.JPG

Raider

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_hVZcagPD1ZU/TMYK6jHiciI/AAAAAAAAANo/duocEu48EGI/s1600/RaiderFront.JPG

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_hVZcagPD1ZU/TMYK6V-IMKI/AAAAAAAAANg/0v_czoBwLeo/s1600/RaiderSide.JPG

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_hVZcagPD1ZU/TMYK6EUmSeI/AAAAAAAAANY/y9jEDyzRFms/s1600/RaiderRear.JPG

Up Next: Over the next week or so I am going go finish the second half of the warrior squad and I am thinking about doing a step by step tutorial on how I am going about painting the Dark Eldar.

[fuzzbuket]

very nice I LOVE the raider :D

[Farseer Uthiliesh]

Excellent work!

[Mal]

I do like the paint scheme, very traditional, and good work on the blending, the sails espically.

[emperorsaxe]

Not a big fan of the DE, you sir have managed to do them justice with some very very nice paint. Thumbs up sir!
Respects, Emperorsaxe

[daggitkiller]

Very nice. I'd love to play against this army. I hope there are soon to be more DE armies like this one...

[Ghoulio]

I finally picked up the first portion of my new Dark Eldar army and I just couldn't help but paint up some Incubi. I am pretty close to finishing the first five, and I gotta say that they are super fun models to paint. One thing is I didnt really notice all the detail on these guys so I keep finding myself going back and touching up areas that I missed (like the writing on this guys sword). Hopefully I will get these guys done by next week then it is on to finishing off my first 20 warriors :)

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_hVZcagPD1ZU/TNsVcBg7wjI/AAAAAAAAAOA/ZWNKwEBUlRo/s1600/IncubiFront.JPG

[Someuberdude]

Awesome stuff! May I ask what paints you used for the highlights/edge-work on the raider?

[Ghoulio]

@ Someuberdude; The colours I used for the "Greeny-Blue" for the edgework on the Raider (and all the models in this army) is a 50-50 Mix of Hawk Turquoise (HT) and Chaos Black, then straight HT, then 50-50 mix of HT and bleached bone, then a 20-80 mix of HT and Bleached Bone. Been really pushing the highlights on this army taking most things up to either bleached bone or skull white depending on what I am high-lighting with. My camera for some reason keeps bleeding out all the sharpness of the high-lights on the models, so everything looks really toned down which sucks. Ah well, not much i can do :)

[Someuberdude]

@ Someuberdude; The colours I used for the "Greeny-Blue" for the edgework on the Raider (and all the models in this army) is a 50-50 Mix of Hawk Turquoise (HT) and Chaos Black, then straight HT, then 50-50 mix of HT and bleached bone, then a 20-80 mix of HT and Bleached Bone. Been really pushing the highlights on this army taking most things up to either bleached bone or skull white depending on what I am high-lighting with. My camera for some reason keeps bleeding out all the sharpness of the high-lights on the models, so everything looks really toned down which sucks. Ah well, not much i can do :)

Very nice. Thanks for this. Going to try it out later tonight. I've been trying to do the same color scheme for my DE army so this will really help.

[JonnyRoxtar]

Very nicely done, love the red on the sails.

[Ghoulio]

I recently finished my Haemonculus Ancient for a painting competition. I did a small amount of converting to give him a Husky Blade from the Archon set (as I want to give my Archon an Agonizer). Overall I am fairly happy with how he turned out. It is nice to see that some of the older models actually hold up fairly well with a little bit of work, I was just lucky my local game store still had 3 of these guys :)

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_hVZcagPD1ZU/TOp5ENyXQsI/AAAAAAAAAPA/_MHmKKfBIbg/s1600/HaemonculusFront.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_hVZcagPD1ZU/TOp5Ejn8xEI/AAAAAAAAAPI/tc-61VLeLZ4/s1600/HaemonculusRear.jpg

* Quick update - Corrected the colour/brightness as it was hella dark and for some odd reason I never noticed it lol

[evilamericorp]

Damn! With an awesome paintjob, even an old, crappy model can look great!

[Tynskel]

That guy looks a little mean... like he's gunna kill me, suck my soul, kill me again, mean.

[Duke]

I agre on both Counts, that model is great and disturbing at the same time.

Duke

[Kieranator K82]

That guy looks a little mean... like he's gunna kill me, suck my soul, kill me again, mean.

I think that's the point. What a sadistic, creepy goth-elf. Love it!

[Firebird]

Awsome paint job!

[Ghoulio]

Yeah, I have always been partial to this model. As I mentioned before once I switched out the retardedly thick sword he had before for the elegant husk blade, that alone seemed to do a really good job of updating this model. I think my fav part of the "creepy-ness" of the old Urien model is that he is wearing the skin from someone else's face as a mask. Makes you think to yourself "this is probably someone I don't want to mess with as I dont want him wearing my face as a hat".

[isotope99]

GW really should have kept this model available as a collector's unit as its better than their other haemonculi.

looks great, the huskblade goes really well although my guess is you're not using it in game terms for the haemonculus as its a bit overcosted for them.

[Ghoulio]

GW really should have kept this model available as a collector's unit as its better than their other haemonculi.

looks great, the huskblade goes really well although my guess is you're not using it in game terms for the haemonculus as its a bit overcosted for them.

Well, one of the ways I wanted to use this guy is as an Ancient with a Husk blade, Soul Cube (or whatever the str doubling item is) and a Shatter Shard. You might be able to snipe characters with the Shatter Shard before you enter combat. I also want to keep him with Grotesques once them come out as he will have FNP and Furious Charge to start (so str 4, 5 attacks at init 6 on the charge). All that gear makes him 140pts which is expensive. Once all said and done I probably won't use him like that, but I do want to try it out :)

[Ghoulio]

Just a quick group shot with an updated colour scheme. I re-worked the scheme a bit adding black to the undersuit and changing the tabbard to a kind of skin tone which allows the red to "pop" a bit more as an accent colour. I will also be posting a shot of the first 10 warriors and I will also being doing a painting tutorial on how I am painting this army either this week or next

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_hVZcagPD1ZU/TPX3AZoM2SI/AAAAAAAAARA/rbeVBH0ZVI8/s1600/Group02.jpg

[Porty1119]

Is it just me or is there not very much variety when it comes to Dark Eldar? I've only seen black with different-colored highlights.

[Ghoulio]

Is it just me or is there not very much variety when it comes to Dark Eldar? I've only seen black with different-colored highlights.

Being an "evil" army people typically dont seem to paint them in bright colours. The only reason I painted mine the way I did was I had a DE army in 3rd ed and I really liked how my colour scheme turned out (the red w/ with hawk turquoise and gold). For what it's worth this army is actually turquoise blue highlighted to bleach bone (so not just painted black with highlights). It is also much brighter in person :)

[Sparfunk]

i find that the segmented armour lends itself well to that style of highlighting too. my army is (being) painted the same way, just with various stages of purple.

i like your army Ghoulio, how long is it taking you to paint the models?

edit: the bases by the way, are fantastic.

[Ghoulio]

i find that the segmented armour lends itself well to that style of highlighting too. my army is (being) painted the same way, just with various stages of purple.

i like your army Ghoulio, how long is it taking you to paint the models?

edit: the bases by the way, are fantastic.

Thanks! As for how long it takes to paint I am still in the very early stages of painting this army, so still figuring out the colour scheme (although, now it is mostly nailed down). As I paint the faster I get, but right now I would say that a group of 3 warriors takes me about 5-6 hours. That should get down about 4 hours. This army is going to take me a retarded amount of time as I havent even gotten into the Incubi, Jetbikes or Hellions lol.

[speedfreek]

Is it just me or is there not very much variety when it comes to Dark Eldar? I've only seen black with different-colored highlights.

My Dark Eldar are going to pretend to be Harlequins, så they will be colourful and bright.
Will do a tread about them, but up untill now I only have a couple of Venoms.

[fuzzbuket]

Is it just me or is there not very much variety when it comes to Dark Eldar? I've only seen black with different-colored highlights.

http://blog.spikeybits.com/2010/11/40k-hobby-dark-eldar-painting-contest_26.html

less than 1/2 of the entries are black!

[Ghoulio]

http://blog.spikeybits.com/2010/11/40k-hobby-dark-eldar-painting-contest_26.html

less than 1/2 of the entries are black!

I gotta say that I am a bit surprised by the overall results of the contest. In my mind there were 4 that were pretty much even. I didn't think any one entry was good enough to receive literally half of the votes out of 14 people. The one entry that I am really surprised that didnt do WAY better then it did was Ron Gambles. It is a shame that his pic was a bit out of focus otherwise I think he would of definitely contended for first. Just goes to show for online painting comps just how insanely important being good with photoshop/taking clear pics is lol. In hind sight I should of painted a "new" model for the competition instead of a 12 year old Urien, but what can you :)

[Ghoulio]

Just a quick update on the army. I finally got a chance to actually do some painting so I finished off my 20 man warrior squad and the 10 man Incubi unit.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_hVZcagPD1ZU/TSOjTF7TuVI/AAAAAAAAAR0/3N6_o77MEMU/s1600/WarriorGroup.JPG

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_hVZcagPD1ZU/TTzcTenHpbI/AAAAAAAAASg/inBCvCkskko/s1600/IncubiFront.JPG

Things are finally getting rolling with this army, so hopefully updates will be much more frequent over the next couple weeks. I have already started work on the Reaver Jet bikes and the Archon to go with the Incubi, so hopefully they will be up in the next couple of weeks :)

[Rupert]

Very nice models. I am currently working on painting a Dark Eldar army for a friend also of which I am running low on inspiratiobn but your models have certainly boosted me!

[Ghoulio]

Another quick update. I had a good chunk of time this week so I hunkered down and decided to finish off my Reaver Jet bikes. Well, they are 95% finished. What I mean is I want to do some design work on the front of the bikes, all my tanks and the hellions. I am just trying to figure out how I want to go about it.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_hVZcagPD1ZU/TUngWu5inVI/AAAAAAAAASw/ZH5S2BjqhkA/s1600/ReaversFront.JPG

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_hVZcagPD1ZU/TUngWbLETxI/AAAAAAAAASo/OEIsR8_huKo/s1600/ReaversRear.JPG

[Ghoulio]

I got a bit more time to work on the old army in this week so I decided it was time to finish off my Archon who goes with the incubi. He is my "support" Archon having Haywire Grenades, Combat Drugs and a Phantasm Grenade Launcher. Hopefully going to start work on the Raiders or Wyches soon...can't decide, both look fun :)

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_hVZcagPD1ZU/TVBWiHiaRLI/AAAAAAAAATs/DznzQKyV8qo/s1600/ArchonFront.JPG

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_hVZcagPD1ZU/TVBWh6U2HgI/AAAAAAAAATk/H4vbTh3iGbs/s1600/ArchonRear.JPG

[DrLove42]

Looks great! Very similar paint scheme on the archon to mine

[Ghoulio]

After a long hiatus from painting I finally managed to get in some painting time over the last week so I finished my first wyche squad and I also finished off my Raiders. I am getting really close to finishing my 3 Ravagers (which I will hopefully post by the end of the weekend). After that it is one more squad of Wyches, some bases for all my skimmers (doing scenic bases for everything) and that will be my 1500pts list finished!

Raider

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cBrgQ7-Lusg/TcFlMXA8OHI/AAAAAAAAAXc/qmZtabwnRxY/s1600/RaidersFront.JPG

Wyches

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NtMD58CkqeY/TcPBnwDYtNI/AAAAAAAAAXs/EblU7m9cblI/s1600/WychesFront.JPG

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Z_TtIKFKi9Y/TcPBnq0etjI/AAAAAAAAAXk/bAaE0s8bL14/s1600/WychesRear.JPG

[Ghoulio]

On a whim last night I decided it was time to actually tackle Lilith, so here she is. It's a shame my camera kind of sucks because the detail on her is soooo much more crisp in real life. Ah well, maybe its time to get a camera with a macro lense lol.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-79x856iTUIc/TchJfIp-zBI/AAAAAAAAAYE/3hLQ2kzm9s8/s1600/LilithFront.JPG

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4ycg4PEQC6U/TchJe6a1HJI/AAAAAAAAAX8/RyEYz86hI-g/s1600/LilithSide.JPG

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yFF12pIccpk/TchJehBwv4I/AAAAAAAAAX0/BzkhgUxjRlc/s1600/LilithRear.JPG

[Ghoulio]

Finally had a bunch of time to get some of the bigger parts of the army finished. I FINALLY tackled the 3 Ravagers I had. These things took forever lol (at least 8 hours each). They are done now though, so I am pleased :)

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8mt16NxdQW4/TgJTHljeMMI/AAAAAAAAAZo/K-NvWKABYL8/s1600/RavagersFront.JPG

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ViN0Oh2uf6A/TgJTHUEXyYI/AAAAAAAAAZg/PbOJLmYV8Fk/s1600/RavagerSide.JPG

[Ghoulio]

I finally got my hands on the new Finecast Haemonculi model which I had been jonesing to paint. I also decided to finish off my metal Urien model at the same time. So here are a couple of quick pics of the two of them.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AAIIrtuGO58/Tg8l44TKg5I/AAAAAAAAAa4/XJwJY8N6ig4/s1600/HaemonculusGroup.JPG

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-K7DYpf3KiBQ/Tg8l4ANWlDI/AAAAAAAAAao/KB1FwsEsSPM/s1600/HaemonRear.JPG

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-snLloJIznyg/Tg8l39CqlkI/AAAAAAAAAag/2Cf7Fo46jWw/s1600/UrienFront.JPG

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-51REVKSxhCA/Tg8l33_tfhI/AAAAAAAAAaY/H4YuehChtSo/s1600/UrienRear.JPG

I am almost done my Scourges so hopefully they will be up next week.

[DrLove42]

Love the face in the flayed skin...lovely work!

[Ghoulio]

Just a quick update. I finally managed to get a bit more time painting so I figured it was time to paint probably the nicest models in the entire range...the scourges :)

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-of8sJh_AF74/TjNc9rxlrGI/AAAAAAAAAbI/NygpJzWx-lI/s1600/ScourgesFront.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5ugZV6l-Avw/TjNc9fzv10I/AAAAAAAAAbA/5SnC29YgdGw/s1600/ScourgesRear.jpg

[Ghoulio]

Did a little bit more work this week and managed to finish my make shift unit of Beastmasters.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-D9bFnpztqYQ/Tj3vdcmJa7I/AAAAAAAAAbY/ZMQNQ6V0K94/s1600/Group01.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bUSjVlu8nDk/Tj3vdo7pWII/AAAAAAAAAbg/it493E-oFr0/s1600/BeastmastersFront.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LcLGCjMq3ik/Tj3veMhF1gI/AAAAAAAAAb4/liQeKB9HMkY/s1600/KhymeraFront.jpg

[Toxik]

Loving the beastmaster unit. I'm actually in the processes of re-painting my old hounds for the same purpose.

[Ghoulio]

Another quick update: The Razorwing! It looks somewhat bland and that is because I haven't put on the design work on the hull (doing that for all the Vehicles and jet bikes once the army is painted enough to do a tournament).

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5UZoH26QR0g/Tkv2q7gximI/AAAAAAAAAcQ/tykdR-j3J-M/s1600/RazorwingFront.JPG

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kx9MmtlPLm0/Tkv2qYPNlmI/AAAAAAAAAcI/n7ShvPAALKA/s1600/RazorwingSide.JPG

Hopefully by the end of this weekend I will have a shot of my "Venom Squadron" which has 3 venoms with their warrior squads done. After that it is one squad of 9 wyches and the army is finished and ready for tournament play at 1850pts. Can't wait! (no more Tyranids! woooooot!!!!)

[Ghoulio]

I got in a bit more work on the old DE army this weekend and managed to finish everything for my Venom Squadron :D

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BCvHd0dFWHw/TlJYL7cghzI/AAAAAAAAAcY/6TeMBUQRw0Q/s1600/Venom%2BSquadron.jpg

Now, all I have to finish is 10 Wyches then my 1850pts list is golden. Once it is finished I am going to get a bunch of pics of the army as a whole.

[Ghoulio]

I got a bit more work in and managed to paint up a Talos!

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VXiYPKbr5iQ/TpOIIjyv5wI/AAAAAAAAAgA/TOB0bfP7-aY/s1600/TalosFront.JPG

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ik_7y3Z62TA/TpOIIQPnlfI/AAAAAAAAAf4/1PBlp9IexMk/s1600/TalosSide.JPG

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-o84Q8e9gsXg/TpOIIMWcFBI/AAAAAAAAAfo/gypLydbaaDo/s1600/TalosClose_02.JPG

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-H_JrpsLrCZA/TpOIITYrIqI/AAAAAAAAAfw/E2JVltaBCr0/s1600/TalosClose_01.JPG

[Ghoulio]

I finally finished off my Beastmaster squad, which I am super stoked about. I included a Clawed Fiend simply because I love the model as the posing is fantastic and it was a joy to paint. I have finally come up on the 3000pts mark (maybe even surpassed it) which is a huge amount of work since the book came out. I still have a handful of units here and there (like a second razorwing, the baron, hellions and some trueborn) but I think I am going to take a break and start something new...either orks or necrons me thinks.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-s9bpAMI3mjw/TqOJm22O-5I/AAAAAAAAAgo/h0GkaGMZUMc/s1600/FiendFront.JPG

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2Ua5u0xKzb0/TqOJm6OutKI/AAAAAAAAAgU/BUSYFEIDLBU/s1600/FiendandFlock.JPG

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HLDaGQ9YiKc/TqOJnrbtHXI/AAAAAAAAAg4/FWPTX2aiHbw/s1600/BeastmastersFront_01.JPG

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-025erFrOyfg/TqOJnQQVzkI/AAAAAAAAAgw/8QWLD1McNMw/s1600/FullBeastGroup.JPG

[Dastrike]

That is some clean work, really nice and can't wait to see more.

[mickyt1984]

Great job on the army, I used a similar scheme on my DE and it came out well with your's the basing is characterful and effort has been made bring the models to life.

[dulesjoe]

Great DE, specially the beasties :)

[CajunMan]

Awesome paint jobs man do you blend the black with anything or is it just black with the blues on top?

[Glossopovich]

Your dark eldar look great, keep up the great work :D

[vharing]

That is some amazing painting man. I love your Dark Eldar.