Dark Eldar Carnival Warriors

Good evening ladies and gents. I have been working hard on completing painting the last 5 warrior conversions so I can finally field a full squad of 10. I am pleased to say I finished them on Friday, varnishing and basing them when the weather was clement (a rare occurence here in the UK).

These 5 models have been sitting in my cabinet for over 1 1/2 years waiting to be painted, but I could never bring myself to get them finished. I did start 8 months ago, applying the red basecoat for the armour sections, and then I abandoned them again. I was just not in the right frame of mind to get them finished. My mojo was telling me to leave them, and I did :).

This year I vowed to myself I would paint enough of my DE to bring to a tournament. I am immensely proud of what I have achieved with this army so far, and would like to finally bring them into the limelight, playing games and hopefully get more inspired to continue working and painting on the project. Well, I have now bought my ticket for a 750pt tournament run by Alex over at 'From Fhe Fang' called Double Trouble. I only needed a few more units doing to run a viable list, and these 5 warriors were one. (I need 1 more venom and then I am ready). Also on the agenda is Hero for a Day in August, which I hope to get even more done for (stay tuned for my plans for that). Having a goal really is helping me push along to a finishing point, and completing these milestones, no matter how small, is really satisfying. The monthly hobby vows is really helping me focus too, and keeps my painting motivation fresh.

Enough jibber jabber. Lets talk about the models. As usual I started with the batch painted elements on all 5. Doing all stages of the red armour (base, medium highlight, wash, highlight), then moving onto the metals, pouchesm vials etc. Basically anything that is the same across all 5 I batch painted. This really speeds things up but is a tad tedious, as I do take an age to paint anything (I am very meticulous, but also just generally slow at painting). Once all those were done I moved onto the colours. I had no fixed plan for each, just picking colours from my paint rack, seeing if they worked with the model, then following the first colour choice with more and more, until all areas had a colour choice. I then started on the highlighting stages (I apply the base colour for each before I do the wash and highlights, to see if they work together). When all 5 models were completely coloured I then went onto the patterns, deciding if the model needed it or not (there is a danger of overcomplicating or ruining a paint job by adding patterns sometimes) . I enjoy both this stage all the colour work as I can have a little fun. This is where the models really come alive to me.

Below are the pics of the 5, followed by a group shot with all 10 together at last :)

 

NafNaf :)