Dark Eldar Grotesques WIP Conversions

A slightly different project today. As I've been working on my Dark Eldar (which have a Haemonculus Covens theme), I knew I wanted some grotesques. Like many who came before me,it didn't take long for me to realise that the options are limited as GW only makes one model that's both expensive and finecast. 

I had a look through the options for conversions, and Crypt Horrors to me seem to be by far the best kit to use as a base. All the mutant spines and stuff work in your favour, and they're half way there from the beginning. I picked up a set of them on eBay, and then combined them with spares from the Talos kit.

In terms of the conversion, I mostly just had to trim their heads down to fit the masks and replace some of their hands with weapons from the Talos. I added tails too, as they looked good with the poses. Handily, as I'd built legs for my Talos I had a lot of tanks left over, so I had plenty of them to add to the spines I'd cut off to look like it had a lot of chemical feed lines stuck in them. 

The only other part of the conversion was trimming off and shaving down the hairy bits on them, as it just isn't right on grotesques. I still need to finish adding some more bits and then greenstuff the gaps etc, but they're getting there. I'd like to add a bit more armour to them too - just so they'll blend in well with the rest of the army once they're painted, as the gloss red scheme is quite distinctive.

Dreadtober Talos 2nd Week Progress

Painting has commenced on my Talos with legs conversion. There's still a long way to go, but it's starting to actually look like something!

In terms of the work so far, I began by painting the bulk of the gloss red areas, as getting the high shine effect is quite labour and time intensive. It worked well though. After that, I basecoated the flesh areas with Rakarth Flesh, and painted the base too.

Personally, I like the mantra "bases and bases" when it comes to painting. Often getting a basecoat on your mini and painting their base gives an impression of the final model, and also gives a decent tabletop level finish. That's prettyour much where we're at now.

Next steps will be finishing the smaller red gloss details, and then washing and detailing the skin. Somewhere in there I need to start on the metallics too, so there's plenty to be getting on with.

Dreadtober - Dark Eldar Talos with Legs Conversion

I'm quite proud of this conversion. My Talos with legs is complete and ready for paint!

I looked at different options for kitbashing, but in the end I decided to sculpt the legs myself. It was a bold move for me as I'm not that great at sculpting, and normally I'd intentionally avoid a project like this. That said, I really wanted the legs to match the style of the model as well as the rest of the force and I didn't want to spend a lot of money on the conversion. With that in mind, I set to sculpting the legs I wanted.

In the end, it wasn't that difficult. I built an armature out of some large paperclips. I bent them to the correct shape for the legs, and then set them into a spare block of wood to work on. After that, I built the basic structure of the legs with some white milliput. I actually just shaped it with my fingers and then smoothed it out to get a basic design. It didn't take that long to get a decent look (maybe half an hour?).

I let the basic leg shape dry and then I used an engraving tool to smooth out and reshape what I had. After that, I etched in the lines for the muscle fibres (designed to sort of match the look of the Wracks). Once that was done, I stuck it all together and then it was just a case of adding spare armour from the Talos kit and using greenstuff to make the straps and add details to the feet etc.

That pretty much sums up the work. I'm quite happy with how it looks, but I think it'll be a challenge to paint! So far I've added an undercoat and a little extra white to the mask and skin areas, but there's still a long way to go.

Dark Eldar Wracks (Drukhari) Painted

After my latest Steel Legion push, I knew it was time to shift gears to something less batch-tastic, and a bit more artistic. While searching through the cupboard of doom and having a bit of a clearout, I came across my half-finished Dark Eldar project and thought it was high time to get some of them done. Long-term readers may remember the "week of evil" a few years ago where I started them, but somewhere in the mists of time and the first ever Squaduary, progress halted; only to be resumed in the last week or so.

I said when I first started working on the Wracks that they were probably one of the best plastic kits ever made. A few years haven't changed my opinions there - the details are really crisp and they're a kit that basically has no bad parts and plenty of spares too. I enjoyed finishing the last 3 from the unit too, as I got to actually paint to a higher standard than I do for most armies, which feels both fulfilling and somewhat annoying all at once. It's nice to get something you're really proud of, but at the same time, I get frustrated by how long they take!

The funny thing is that I've almost painted them too well, as I can't actually capture the colours and effects on them very well with my camera. The red is actually highly reflective and there's a lot more depth to the skin tones, but the crappy phone camera can't really keep up.

I've been working on more Dark Eldar units too, but I haven't been able to take pictures of the other unit I've finished yet. Still, at some point the blog will be updated. I've pledged to work on a Talos for Dreadtober too.

Dark Eldar Warrior Colour Scheme Test

I still haven't given up on my latest project (despite the aforementioned painting competition I need to be working on). I painted up this warrior as a test of not only the high-gloss red armor, but also the converted masked look that I'd gone for on the Warriors. I'm really happy with how it came out, but getting it that gloss was a bit of a stretch for the secret technique that I've been using!

The Valhallan Blizzard snow effect has been well worth it too; helping to add a bit of interest any dynamism to the bases without taking too long to pull off. I've also been using that old green wash technique that I developed for adding interest to statues to add a bit of mildewed greenery to the floor that certainly gives a better impression than those plain Goblin Green bases we used to do in the 90s (don't lie, if you were hobbling back then you did it too...)

If you missed the article about real world references and adding a bit of green in, you can find it here.

The mini looks good anyway, so enjoy the pictures. As always, I love the Wracks!

A Week of Pure Evil - Dark Eldar Day 1

Join me for some incredibly naughty evil this week as I surge full speed into the unforgiving void of a new army project. Regular readers might remember the Wrack that I painted recently, well he's back and he brought some friends (ok I've only finished one more so far thanks to some Squaduary related delays). I have base coated  the others though, and they make a fine looking squad so far. The camera really doesn't pick up the scheme well though, which is a bit disappointing as the flesh tones are a lot richer in person and the reds are really shiny and reflective.

Anyway for a bit of fun, I thought I'd do a special set of posts on this new project - every day this week, I'll be gluing and painting fresh miniatures for your dark amusement. It's gonna be a hell of a thing.

The squad - some people don't take Ossefactors, I say any gun that kills through uncontrollable bone growth will always have a place by my side!

At this point you might be wondering about the other subjects of this weeks malificent experiments, well, I picked up this rather indelible Start Collecting set recently and it is high time to get building it.  Interestingly, I had a look at both the regular Dark Eldar codex and the Covens Suppliment, but ultimately settled on a Haemonculus themed force rather than actually using the Covens rules; there were just too many nice units in the regular book and Covens kind of annoyed me with its over reliance on formations.

I think it's probably one of the better value sets - the Raider is a must have for any force (not to mention that I just love 'em). Warriors and Jet Bikes are both equally cool units. I have no idea what I'll do with the Archon, probably just hold on to him for the minute till inspiration hits. 

Speaking of inspiration, I've got some spare masks from the Wracks, so I'm going to integrate them into the Warriors and try to really evil them up. I want to hopefully get some fairly striking conversions going without spending too much time detailing every miniature; pose is key too for any unit!

In addition to the box, I grabbed this Haemonculus model to work on (naturally). I'm a bit undecided on the sculpt; it has a lot of good elements, but I'm going to give him a few tweaks to really try and get the best out of him.

Just before posting, I built this guy as my first warrior. Anyone want to Internet high 5 me on a job well done?

Don't forget to check back tomorrow for another tantalizing installment of forbidden, naughty evil.... Bwaaahahahaharrrrr....

Dark Eldar Wracks - Part 2 - Test Mini

After wracking my brain for secret alien knowledge, I've completed the first test mini for my new Dark Eldar project; and what a mini it is!

If I do say so myself, I've really excelled myself here, and I couldn't be happier with how things turned out. It took ages though and I wouldn't be surprised if this single figure had taken 7-10 hours of work, especially if you include the building time. Well worth the effort though as far a I'm concerned as these are some seriously nice figures, with some incredibly fine detail.

I also tried out some of GW's Valhallan Blizzard texture paint on his base, which allowed me to create the snow. I plan to write a review of it soon, but for the moment suffice to say I think it works pretty well.

I'm so happy with the scheme, I'm thinking of entering the unit in a painting competition (although I've been thinking of entering a lot of things lately with Salute coming up and all). It just makes sense, as realistically there are much better single figure painters than me out there, but with units, I figure I'll stand a better chance.

I'd also like to try my hand at a few more Dark Eldar figures, but I need to take this one step at a time and not start buying bags of Raiders I'll never finish (especially at a predicted 40+ hours a vehicle in this scheme!). I guess we can say one thing for sure - painting and hobbying this intensely sure does give you value for money from a time spent vs. cost point of view.

Anyway, that about does it for now, let me know what you think below (and also don't forget to follow the blog if you don't already).

Until next time, Adios Amigos!

Dark Eldar Wracks

I'm literally wracked with guilt over this latest purchase .... (pauses of laughter.... no, ok). With that chronic joke out of the way, welcome to another bizarre side project.

I'd always loved the look of some of the Dark Eldar units, but particularly the Haemonculus related miniatures (these days we have the supplement Haemonculus Covens too for real fanatics!). Wracks have a really nice evil air about them and I'd be remiss in not mentioning that this is one of the best crafted and most detailed plastic kits I've ever seen. They're not cheap though at £22 for 5, but I really feel that the expense is worth it for miniatures of this quality.

The kit comes with a range of different options; plenty of fearsomely jagged cutting blades for the blood crazed masses to enjoy. You also get a full range of kit for the leader with Scissor Hands and Whips; plus a rather nice Venom Blade that I went with because it looked so cool. The only downside is that they all have their heads locked in a frontal position that didn't make them look too dynamic when I was posing them. To counter that, I cut two of them right at the top of the neck so I could turn their heads a bit. A little greenstuff in the gaps and hey presto; new poses.

I've started these as a bit of a fun modelling and painting challenge. I wracked my brain for inspiration (did you see what I did there?) and came up with a few ideas for the colour scheme and as I'm always looking to expand my horizons, I'll also be trying out a new technique or two,  so fingers crossed they work out (although if you look a bit lower down, you'll see an early first look at the scheme).

After getting the rest of the box built and suitably greenstuffed, I had a go at painting the first model up. He's still a work in progress and I'm trying to get a feel for the colours. At the moment, the only finished part is the high gloss red armour; although now that it's done I just hope the rest of the miniature can live up to it (well worth the 8 coats of paint it took to get that finish! ... unless we're counting undercoat in which case it's probably 11 or 12, what with the unintentional airbrush overspray)

Whether or not there'll be a whole army in a minute? I guess only time will tell. For the moment I'm just going to paint these up, and if that goes well maybe I'll add a Haemonculus or a few more bits to build a little kill team with.

Oh, and if you were expecting an update on Squaduary; I can only say that I've been distracted (luckily I was ahead of the game! but if this continues I'll be wracked with guilt for a second time!)