Video: Painting Dark Eldar

Getting back into the swing of things, I thought it would be a good time to feature a great looking painting video from LBursley!  I think the results on this one are pretty great looking.  Very slick, very dangerous looking.  I'm also a big fan of the basing method, pigments are a great way to go for a quick and great looking base.

Give the video a watch, and don't forget to watch it in full HD!

Anyone have a Dark Eldar force coming up at the moment? Any insights into modeling or painting the army? It's one of the most intriguing looking forces of the last few years and I look forward to the first time I get to play a fully painted force!

Open Discussion: Planning Stages

After a full year of classes that revolve around the planning and execution of artwork, of countless thumbnail images and sketches, of small scale mock ups and redesigning even before the work has begun, I can't help but think our collective hobby doesn't do nearly enough pre-project concept work!  That's not to say I haven't seen some really long concept threads over on DakkaDakka from time to time, with well over ten pages of concept development and nary a miniature to be found!  But I feel that even half of that dedication to ideas isn't the norm.

In my own hobby adventures, I freely admit that most of my armies roll around in my head for a single 'OMG this would be cool...' session at the game shop or online with a friend or two.  The only force that really found a good amount of idea development was my Sons of Medusa army which lead to some good ideas and a few concept miniatures to help develop the ideas decided upon.

So I toss this question out to you:

How much time do you usually spend developing an idea or army before you get right to executing it?  Are you the type to get right to work with the slightest thought?  Or do you spend hours agonizing over the smallest of details?

Comment, reply, converse!  The floor is yours!

Friday Quick Tip: Black Battle Damage

 I don't know how many times I've been asked "What would you use for black armor?" whenever I've shared any info on chipping or weathering tanks and other armored models.  It's always been hard for me to give a straight answer for people since, well, I don't have an army of predominantly black armor!  To that end, I've decided that I would share a few swatch examples of black with different colors of battle damage I've comped together in Photoshop. 

These swatches all share the same basic elements.  They're all black with bone highlights.  The highlight color is really up to you and what you would normally use for your armor, in my case, I use bone for my Sons of Medusa and have used that on the Battle Damage I've done in the past! 

Orange-Brown

Orange

Camo Green

 Dark Grey

Metallic

You should take the ones that look most promising to you and do some test pieces for your models before getting too hot and heavy with weathering your models!  I hope this helps those of your who've been struggling to come up with a good battle damage color and possibly inspires others to give the technique a go yourself!  

Anyone have any great new weathering ideas or links?  I've been out of the hobby a while and am looking for a lot of inspiration to get my brush going again! 

Review: Dark Eldar Wyches

As a long-time Eldar player, I've always stayed away from the Dark Eldar range because the models were mostly metal and almost entirely terrible.  That has changed with their re-release and the new plastic models are simply fantastic.

On the Table: WIP Marines Exemplar

Not much moving on the RealGenius painting table these days, but I have managed to make some progress on a few projects.  A recent tournament spurred on a little work to get my Marines Exemplar all up to a 3-color standard.  This was an 1850 point tournament, so I had to rearrange a few things compared to the 2000 point version.  More dogs it is.  Oh, and Njal.  Hey, that's just the way the points worked out.  The Lord on Wolf remains, as does Bjorn.

Njal and my Chooser of the Slain.  The Chooser is a celtic warrior from Warlord Games.  I got a sprue of them at Adepticon last year and have been using then for objective markers as well.  He's got a wolftail talisman, but I've put a bolt pistol on another (objective), which looks as ridiculous as it sounds.

More progress on this guy.  The blue fur is gone, which never really worked.  The Thunderwolf is too red, so I think he's going to get a lot darker before he's done.

I've recently started working on some Dark Eldar, continuing my tradition of starting something completely different before finishing my current project.  And yes, still sitting on the shelf of the painting cabinet: Inquisitor Clouseau, TMM Grey Knights and Huron. 

What's on your table?  Do you find you get more or less painting done during the Holiday season?