Ghosts and a Shadowseer

 Today I have a quick go at zenithal and point source highlighting.  I picked these vintage ghosts because they were open and lying about... and because it occurred to me that the essential monochrome nature of the subject would make it easier to pay attention to the highlights and not get distracted by the details.  I just picked out a a basic zenithal theme on the figure in general, mostly limiting this to the final highlight on the robes and hair.

 I used the same figures to experiment with some point source lighting using the eye(s) as the source.  I'm starting to get the hang of it... there is still a way to go but these figures helped me cement the concept and refine some acutal hands on technique.

 
 In keeping with my current focus on filling out the Dark Eldar I finished up a Finecast Harlequin Shadowseer.  I also have an enormous Craftworld Eldar army and I like the link up that the harlequins represent.  After all only the eldar themselves really make the distinction between Dark and Craftworld... for most of the galaxy they are just seen collectively as those treacherous, weedy, pointy-eared, alien gits!

I also started work on three Dark Eldar Venoms.  The lower hull sections are complete with the exception that I haven't drilled in the magnets for the weapon mounts.  I played a few games last week using proxies for these and learned a lot about how they could fit into my army.  I'm thinking that three is about ideal for my style and that some lists, primarily my Carnival of Pain" will really only use 2.  All of this assuming a points total in the vicinity of 2k.

This week should see more work on the venoms and on Greasus Goldtooth.

Dark Eldar Webway Portals and Status Markers from Silver Compass Designs

For the Dark Eldar set I had a blast.  Working with Silver Compass Designs - Precision Lasered Gaming Gear I was able to design every piece and started with Web-Way Portals!  I've always wanted something decent to represent the portal especially since using regular blast markers ran the risk of them being accidentally picked up or moved during the game.

These have the Rune for my Blood Rain Kabal and a nice retro sci-fi swirl pattern.


 The three part pain tokens are a cool idea.  Here I've color coded them to make it easier to pick out the correct pieces to make the complete pain token.  These are a regular production item but they replaced the evil demon face with my Kabal Rune for no additional cost.  

After the long Ork status marker project I opted for a less fidgety approach for the Dark Eldar.  These look great and only took about a quarter of the work time the Ork set took.  For the Ork counters I did a two tone, comic book style paint scheme.  For the Dark Eldar I used a single color inside each cut.  Looks very clean and, since there are still several cuts per counter they are very colorful.

The finished set complete with a Bag from Marsbarn.  This is a Celtic Knot bag that I'd intended to use for Wood-Elf accessories so I'll likely have another bag made up featuring the Kabal Rune. It may not look like it but there are 201 counters in this set... all stacked very precisely!

 The vehicle status markers are all shaped to drop onto the sideboard of the old style dalk eldar raider... OOPS!  They'll still work just fine set beside the new vehicles.  I briefly thought about having them cut with some sort of loop to hang them from the vehicles but that pretty quickly got moved to the idea of FAIL pile.

This is how the set arrived.  Looks pretty cool even before its painted! 

Dark Eldar Reaper ready for action

 The Reaper sail is ready.  Like the Razorwing this is a very clean finish with little weathering.  These are being integrated into my legacy Dark Eldar which are also in a very clean, unweathered, style.  I may decide to revisit the army as a whole and weather them together in future but for now I'm concentrating on getting them playable with a good, unified, look.

 To the right you can see the Raider sitting in the display case next to the Gargantuan Squiggoth.  I can just imagine the Orks jeering at the weedy Eldar and their puny sailboat! 

"Oi!  What iz dat!?... a Weedy Git ...flyin... trukk?....HAHAHAHAHAHA!  Oi ladz... KEEL IT!"

Speaking of Orks I finally finished off the counter set with infantry status markers, a big WaaagH! token, and a special die with the Waaagh!'s logo in the 6 slot.  I had a last minute fail though.... I took a break from painting while my wife was home for some R&R and the first peice I did when she left was the big Waaagh! marker.  Unfortunately I incorrectly remembered the color scheme and neglected to check it before actually putting down paint.  As a result the colors of the Jolly Ork are darker than for the rest of the set.  I corrected this for the infantry status markers so the fail was limited... the the biggest marker of the set!  DOH!  A custom, square bottom, dice bag will easily contain the counters and completes the accessories for "Da Big Red WAAAGH!"

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!  The Dark Eldar Reaper is assembled except for accessories like chains and spiky poles etc... and the sail!   I'm also going to add some edging and patterning to the rudder.

As far as the sail itself goes I'm thinking to put the Kabal logo in one of the three patterns and add the fractal white to that sail segment while the remaining segments could be solid black or red with bone colored spars.



The Steersman/Weapons officer ended up in Bone White Armor.  I have traditionally painted the Kabalite Warriors in a yellow scheme but the vehicle doesn't really need another color. I think that I'll run all the Trueborn in bone colored armor using a darker base color while crew will be in the whiter style and regular warriors retain the yellow.  Also in the scheme Incubi ar black with bone trim and regular wyches are red.  I'm undecided if the Blood Brides should just be red like the rest of the wyches or if they should be alternately colored in the same way as the warriors are.

This gives a more colorful Dark Eldar force than is usually the case and is similar to the appraoch I took with my Craft World Eldar.  In that case each of the aspects is colored in variations of their traditional scheme while the Guardians wear the Craft World's colors.  I think its a good way to remember that the Dark Eldar and the Craft World Eldar have common roots.

Confession Machine from Max Mini

 Today I painted up a Confession Machine from Max Mini.  The casting was very clean and the whole look of the machine is awesome. 

I elected to add this to the mythology of my Order of the Ebon Chalice.  The essential theme being that personal sins, up to a particular level, are authorized to be submitted for summary judgement at the machine.  Of course Heresy is a totally different story so the machine monitors confessions for heretical content and reports to the local Inquisition facility.  More development is in order but its a good start!

There has been some progress on the Dark Eldar Reaper as well and its looking to be finished this week although there has been a difficulty with the main gun body separating from the deck plate during, or after, I installed the upper gratings.  I had initially thought that the out of sequence installation of the upper gratings had gone without a hitch but not so! I'll have to carefully re-glue that and do some repairs along where the control pylon joins the main gun but these seem to be relatively minor hiccups.

Most of the detail bits and the primary crewman are complete at this point so I should be able to begin final assembly and touch-ups.  Except... I forgot that the enhanced aethersail is still primer!  fortunately that is the last bit to add on so it doesn't really impede construction.  I'm still deciding on an actual color, or pattern, for the sails themselves.   I will likely wait to make the final call on the sail until I get the rest of it assembled so I can see what needs balancing.

Since I've opted for a fairly clean look on these weathering is minimal so far.  It may be that I'll return and weather the lot of them together at some point.

Dark Eldar Reaper details WiP

 Work proceeds on the Dark Eldar Reaper.  The prow plates for the gun are blocked in with basic fractile shapes and the Kabal Glyph.  These were all blocked in with Bleached Bone and will be re-coated and highlighted as will the mirror imaged glyphs.  The black armor plates will likely be edged in  Mechrite Red and then highlighted in Blood Red.  This vehicle looks like it will be a lot more red, or perhaps a lot less black, than the first generation vehicles but the colors should tie together well.

 The main gun is almost complete.  There remains a repair to one of the large gems that managed to dry with a portion of its dust cover touching the gem.  I should be able to assemble the main hull at this point and we'll see how difficult it will be to work the decking plates into position.  Fortunately the paint in the tight areas is unadjusted Mechrite Red so repairs should be relatively invisible.

More of Da Big Red WAAGH!  status markers.  This time its vehicle speed condition.  I'm closing in on finishing this set with only a large Waagh! marker and the infantry status markers remaining.  Then its on to the Dark Eldar Counter set.

Dark Eldar Reaper WiP and Computer woes...

The Reaper is coming along with a lot of the base coats falling into place.  I've already encountered some planning fail in that I put the hull together without placing the decking inserts.  DoH!  This is the first of the new Raider hulls I've worked on so I was bound to get something wrong.  I'll have to do some 'convincing' to get these plates into place but it doesn't look like it'll be THAT bad....

Otherwise I'm happy with the way the color patterns are laying out.  I'll still add the fractile white similar to the one on the Razorwing with the idea that all of the new models will be of this scheme and that they will make a complimentary addition to the older pattern vehicles.   I like the more baroque look of the new models and want to emphasis those elements with the color scheme.

The white build up on the main gun elements is done with P3 paint that I'm experimenting with and I like the subtle, complimentary,  highlights.  With a little more practice I think these will work out.  I'm now very keen to try out some of the Reaper Master series triads.

In mundania...

I'm experiencing some computer fail where my card reader has ceased to be recognized my the computer which makes it a bit more difficult to add photos.  Thus the WiP photo here is not the photo I'd like to display... but, rather, the one that got added to the computer before the card reader failed.... yeeee haw!

Updates may slow down for a bit while I get this sorted.