With a Dark Eldar army, there is 3 main sections, the Kabal, the Wyches, and the flesh army. The Kabal has a splinter faction the Scourges (was part of the Kabal in the first codex), the Wyches have 3 splinter factions, the Hellion Skyboarders, Reaver Jetbikers, and the Beastmen ( all counted just as Wyches in the first codex), while the flesh cult has no splinter factions ( had very limited options in the first codex). So coming up with a colour scheme that ties it all together could be quite tricky, especially if you want them to tie together as well. So I went with 3 main colours bone, red and dark green, and depending on which faction had a different dominating colour.
As you can see above they all look different to each other, but use similar palettes, to tie them together. I'm currently working through the Kabal squads that need finishing, and hoping to get as much as I can finished before I start work on challenge models in October, but I have got the start of a Court of the Archon done, it used to be that you stuck your Archon into a unit of Incubi, but by codex 2 you could take a very eclectic group to guard your leader instead. First up is a Medusae, this is a Finecast model produced by GW, and suffered with a lot of holes in the model, this is what 40K has to say about them :
Medusae are strange creatures of the Webway that often find themselves as servants within an Archon's court and are quite sought after by the denizens of the Dark City of Commorragh.[1]
Medusae are known to be highly empathic parasites that appear as a collection of brains and spinal cords that are stacked on top of one another. These creatures seemingly float across the ether like jellyfish where they feed on the dreams, as well as nightmares, of sentient beings. They can also latch upon a living host, allowing them to feed upon the emotions of their host directly and through this process, provide the power they require to manifest in realspace, thus becoming hybrid creatures of both the material world and the Immaterium.[1]
In combat, their empathic abilities are weaponised: a simple gaze from a Medusae can lead to instant emotional hemorrhaging by exposing their victims to raw anguish, potentially putting them into a coma from which there is no recovery. In addition, they are also able to absorb extreme sensations, which are highly prized in Dark Eldar society. The brain fruit of the Medusae are capable of being consumed and allow an individual to re-experience the vivid and anarchic emotions of a raid all over again.[1]
Next we have a Lhamaean, this is what 40K has to say :
Lhamaeans are courtesans that frequently are seen among an Archon's Kabal and are one of the most desired in a Dark Eldar Lord's Retinue.[1]
These women are members of the mysterious sisterhood of Lhilitu who are well known for being extremely imaginative lovers and are skilled poisoners who know no equal to their art. They are believed to be descended from the original Cult of Lhamea who in turn drew much of their knowledge from Shaimesh, the Father of Poisons. As a result, their skills in the art of poison craft mean that an Archon with a Lhamaean in their court benefits from a steady stream of virulent toxins that they willingly share with their lord before a raid into realspace. Such is their reputation that it is said that a kiss from a Lhamaean into the air is capable of killing beings within seconds.[1]
In battle, Lhamaean wield Shaimeshi Blades which can cause their enemies to die in nonporous agony with a single scratch.[3]
A quote I read in the codex inspired this conversion, as it said that even a kiss blown upon the wind by a Lhamaean can kill in seconds
Last today I have an Ur-Ghul, this is a model I sculpted before GW released a model, and then it's just sat until now, this is what 40K has to say about them :
Ur-Ghuls (Ghala Troglodytes)[3] are a Xenos species that are native to the labyrinth ziggurats of the Dark Eldar city of Shaa-dom.
Their nature means that they are one of the many atavistic beings that can be recruited by an Archon for his court. These creatures are noted for being the most hideous of all the creatures that a Dark Eldar Archon can summon. Being sightless, yet quite agile, their tracking abilities are quite renowned and once a prey has been caught by the beast's quivering scent-pits, it is known that nothing is able to escape these whip-thin horrors. Ur-Ghuls are also known to inhabit Blackstone Fortresses.[3]
Ur-Ghul migrations are periodically purged by the Deathwatch, most notably one led by the Dreadnought Xenomortis on Plenitia.[2
That's all for today, hopefully I can get some more finished this week, so until next time stay safe and have fun !
Cheers Dave
Great idea colour coding the force with just three colours, but emphasing one for each branch.
ReplyDelete(The grey boxes with white print hurst my eyes and was difficult for me to read too btw)
Thank you Joe, I've kept the same triad of colours on all the sub factions as well, to keep tying everything together, occasionally adding in another colour to mark them as different.
DeleteSorry about the block text. will try and find a different source for copying and pasting on future posts.
Dave, when you come to paste text, if you're using Chrome or Firefox right-click and select "Paste as plain text". This should strip out the formatting and get rid of the grey background and red words.
DeleteCheers Matt, will try and remember that handy tip for the future, or at least remember where this useful tip is.
DeleteDon't worry, if I see big blocks of grey text again I'll remind you LOL!
DeleteCheers mate LOL
DeleteThese look really cool Dave! I have a soft spot for the first Dark Eldar that came out with their raiders and unique looking units. The Colour scheme suits them well and what you've done to differentiate the units should work well.
ReplyDeleteThank you Simon, I actually prefer a lot of the original models over the newer ones as they had such a unique style to them, where the later ones looked more like spikey Eldar. The colour scheme evolved over the years, the Kabal and Wyches were both done during codex one, but the Flesh culot got developed during codex two.
DeleteSplendid looking dark Eldar, I like your colour coding!
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
Thank you Iain, I've even tied in the unit of Harlequins, so they will all look right on the table ! LOL
DeleteNicely done, Dave! :-) They all work well together!
ReplyDeleteThank you John, with all the different factions now, it can be very easy to end up with a rainbow effect, or single monotone colour scheme, but wanted to make sure I didn't fall into either trap ! LOL
DeleteNice work on these! The Medusa is pretty interesting, never seen one with brains instead of hair! Turning them into a psionic opponent instead of a magical one.
ReplyDeleteThank you Brian, indeed GW did something most unusual with that one, from what I've read on them imagine a brain like jellyfish floating about, which you can then bind to a victim, and have a devastating blast weapon rather than turning to stone, just a different take on a gorgon at the end of the day.
DeleteNice line-up with the Ur-Ghul being my fave - but there again I always like how you sculpt monsters/creatures. LOL!!! I couldn't read the odd paragraph though as Blogger was being funny with the posting, despite some refreshes my end.
ReplyDeleteThank you Simon, I do enjoy making monsters, which is just as well, as I need two Clawed fiends yet ! LOL I think most of the problem was where I got the text from, and the letter colour is too close to the grey, luckily Matt has pointed out my mistake.
DeleteLove all these, Dave, and as many have said the idea of having three colours for each force distinguishes them as well as showing they're part of the same faction. The Ur-Ghul is a superb sculpt, nicely done!
ReplyDeleteThank you Matt, seemed to make the most sense to me, plus nice and easy to spot the relevant factions on the table, without having to look too hard ! LOL Can't believe I actually sculpted it back in 2010 and it's just sat in green form until now, scandalous ! LOL
DeleteWow, not only your colour choices are great, as seen in previous installments, but your conversions and sculpts are totally fantastic, I do love them all, they add a lot of flavour, they are your very personal touch, and that's awesome!
ReplyDeleteThank you Suber, it took a while on the Kabal and Wyches but once those two were sorted, moving the colours round on the flesh court was easier, the splinter factions can add to the complications, but will get there in the end. Conversions was where my sclpting started to get models I wanted ! LOL
DeleteGreat colour choices the green being particularly vivid, the Ur-Ghul is a cracking sculpt, and reminds me of the creatures in the movie "The Descent", or the urban myth "The slender man".
ReplyDeleteGood stuff, cheers Roger.
Thank you Roger, the green colour scheme came from my pet Emperor Scorpion, as I managed to upset her one day, and she went from pure black to hints of green in the armour, and thought it would be a cool colour scheme on the army. Had only a small description in the codex to work from, and what it's skull looked like, luckily it's very similar to what GW released, remember those creatures, and they do have a similarity to the sculpt.
DeleteNice job on all these and I especially like the Ur that you made. 😀
ReplyDeleteStarting to think that all 40k chaos lore can be summarized as “these are terrifying and deadly. “. 😝
Thank you Stewart, the Ur-Ghul sat for so long as I didn't think much of my sculpt at the time, but it's grown on me over time ! LOL
DeleteYour not wrong there, and that's just the good guys, then we get to the truly evil ! LOL
Those Dark Eldar look fantastic, Dave - and the use of distinct, yet shared colour schemes to tie them together really works well. A great idea to steal for when I eventually paint some DE myself!
ReplyDeleteThank you Azazel, when I started painting them they weren't a popular army choice, as what was available was limited, but seem to have increased since the newer models. Steal away my friend if you like the idea, it's what this hobby is about after all sharing ideas with each other.
DeleteOne of the cool things about an army is that you can make some bolder color choices and variations and it looks better than what you can pull off with a squad. Having different elements of the army having slightly different color schemes works really well and I think the colors you picked for your Dark Eldar work well with each other. I also would have to say that your Ur-Ghul looks awfully familiar to what GW came up with. I'm not sure if that is a coincidence or not! :)
ReplyDeleteThank you Jeff, indeed the colours stand out well against each other, but cohesively enough, so as not to be jarring. Any other colour I've used tends to be muted or neutral tones, to not distract from the primary colours used. I was happy that my interpretation was close to GW's, so I could use there if I wanted to, it was based off of their description, and the skull that appeared on the Raider.
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