The Rusty Klaive

Greetings fellow denizens!

Over the last 12 months I've slowly been rediscovering how to paint (slowly is the key word!). It's been a fun journey so far and I'm loving these great DE figures.

Below are some pics of completed minis to date - although the George Lucas in me wonders if they are ever really finished?

I'll continue to post pics of my WIPs and completed figures as I get to them.

My colour scheme is evolving as well. These first couple of figures used a Xereus (Warlock) Purple but I'm now moving more towards a magenta hue. The contrasting colours are Sotek Green for the Kabalites with white/grey for the coven. All of the metalics are muted or rusted, nothing shiny for these guys.

Still working on iconography for my Kabal, Coven and Cult units. Will share that when I'm happy with it.

Archon

My first character mini in a looong time. Given he was a character, I tried to use NMM for the first time. Definitely something that I will practice more in future but probably not something I'll continue for my dark kin... I prefer a gritty realistic look that you don't really get with NMM (especially first attempts at NMM!). I also need to concentrate more on contrast and really bring out the black to white transitions across the different colours.




Haemonculus

I have some ideas for a Coven army and this guy was a test figure. I'm happy witht he gritty feel, although will work on my neatness. All in all I like the result, he looks nice on the table.




Next up, some shots of my first Venom. This was painted by hand, but I am moving to an airbrush over the coming weeks so will look forward to using that on my other DE skimmers. All in all, I'm OK with the look. I also will continue to use the freehand on my other Cult vehicles.





And lastly, a few snapshots of some of the figures in my display case. I'll post the worthy ones at a later date.




Kabalites


Wyches


Wrack

Thanks all - I'll have some new shots up as soon as I get some of my current projects off the painting table!

Cheers,
Klaive (the Rusty)

I have to say the effect achieved with the fangs on the Venom is pretty sharp. All around you've done a good job. I've just started assembling and painting my first unit of Wracks and it was something of a jolt to paint something so small with so much detail again. It's been well over a year since I painted last. Keep up the good work.

It's pretty funny to see the metal with purple wash over it, I used the same technique on my older dark eldar models, mostly on my Wych Cult stuff, I might also start doing it on my Current range Wych stuff.

Your stuff looks really great, you look at the wyches and see you truly got some skills, those models aren't easy to pull off this greatly.

Now the wrack, I'd still do freehand kind of skin painting, they have some good shading, but I like seeing their skin painted up like GW handled it, (base coat, wash, then freehand type of painting the skin, 1-2 layers of skin layers) Basically you paint over those lines of muscles, kind of freehand since the shading isn't always visible on the model.

Here is a rough colour test for my new Wych cult colour scheme. It's an incomplete messy paint job but I wanted to test out a new idea I had to add some variety to my army.






Big change from the original colour scheme (see wyches from my previous post) but I wanted to play to the Dark Eldar back story and have clear differences between the Kabalite, Cult and Coven elements of my army. That said, by using variations of the same three colours, the different factions should blend in together on the table to provide a common look and feel.

The three distinct schemes for the various elements of my Dark Eldar are:

Kabalites: Magenta (clean) primary, Turquoise secondary, off-white tertiary
Wyches: Turquoise primary, Magenta secondary, off-white tertiary
Coven: Magenta (dirty/rusted) primary, off-white secondary, Turquoise tertiary


Here's a shot of the palette for the wyches showing the colour steps.



Something else I'm happy with is the new colour for my bases. I've changed from a generic "dirt" to a "red center" outback kind of look. I wanted something to differentiate my models and what better way than incorporating a classic part of Australia into the look and feel. It's a great colour that really pops and is easy to theme.



With my decision made on the Wych cult colour scheme I can now move on to planning the execution of my Reavers and Razorwing which (wych?) are pretty close to painting stage.




Other items on my desk (below) from left to right: Raider crew, Talos parts, Razorwing parts, Razorwing base (and just behind it are some bits I'm going to build into the base), Wych colour test model to tidy up and finish and lastly a Haemonculus. Lot's of projects on the go!



To finish off, here's a WIP shot of my Talos. The carapace and mask show the "dirty/rusted" feel I'm going for. I made a mistake and airbrushed the armour on the arm the same as my kabalites... I'll need to rescue this somehow to make the model look uniform. More on that another time!




Cheers all and be excellent to each other!

Looking great, the teal and magenta should really compliment each other. I like the purples you've added to the flesh tones as well.

I really like that Wrack. It looks so gruesome

Like the fangs on the venom. Are you going to do all your vehicles that way?

Good stuff, I love the gritty feel your models have, and changing the colour scheme around always helps to keep things interesting! Keep em up

Thanks for the words of encouragement folks, greatly appreciated.

@Samuel44 - Not 100% sure right now! Thinking of trying to carry that theme forward for my Kabalites or keep it for my character transports. We'll see how creative I get I guess.


And to prove I haven't been totally idle here's a little sneak peak at one of my Reavers... about 50% done. Going to get some more "grit" in there!

OK, so it's been a while! I had one of those "life got in the way" periods for about a year and a half but I'm back and the brushes are well and truly dusted off. I've finally managed to complete my first batch of Wracks (first model from this unit was painted some time ago and appears in an earlier post with slightly different colour scheme).

These guys are Finecast and I have to say pretty terrible casts at that. Some of the really fine details were missing, humps were miscast on some models etc. I'm also not too proud to say what detail was there was a little too fine for these old eyes to deal with! Either way, I'm pleased with how they turned out and I'm glad they are off the to do list.



Still experimenting with photos on the new phone + lightbox so will post some close ups if I can get some good results.

Next I have a new batch of plastic Wracks that I'm really looking forward to painting and I'll also be building a couple of Venoms so I'll have a complete Scalpel Squadron ready to go.

Welcome back . Real life has a habit of barging in without our leave and dragging us away from this hobby of ours!

Your stuff is great. I really like your paintning style. It is very dark and gritty, and has alot of movement to it which I enjoy . Love you basing too. I am a sucker for a good base, as they round off and enhance an army/miniature and I just love making them as well.

Keep it up, looking forward to more

SC

Alos what app are you using to take your photos? I use camera + with my lightbox and it is excellent, as it allows you to adjust things to your liking manually, or use the auto function, pus has alot of cool frames and filters etc.

Thanks for the kind words SC!

Re the app, I was just using the default camera app on my phone. It has a "pro" mode which lets you change a lot of the settings and I eventually landed on this:



I used manual focus for some macro shots which are OK but I will still practice some more =)

Ok cool

I can recommend this article about taking photos with your phone. It is full of very good info and well worth a read

http://taleofpainters.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/tutorial-how-to-photograph-miniatures.html

SC

I think that Venom effect is brilliant!

Nice job!

Thanks Rewind!

Well I've been inspired by finishing my Wracks (yay!) so before my son asks me again when I'm going to complete it I have been working on repainting my Talos to bring it into line with my coven colours (this is the same Talos as soon in a previous WIP shot).

Here's a quick WIP shot showing new armour colour and my start at weathering... crusty and rusty is what I'm going for here!



Ignore the pink/magenta bits, they are but transient.

Oooohhh boy, I'm loving that talos. It's viciously beautiful

Looks great. Love your weathering on him/her/it

SC

OK WIP shot of the Talos. I've made a vow to complete this guy in August which is helping with the motivation (although this a bloody fun model to paint).

I've finished the flesh now and the armour plating is ready for the final wash of rust. Most of the detail has been completed as well (love those little spikes) sans the vials and tubes.


I've started a blog post on my progress with a bit more detail on steps, colours used etc. The link is in my sig below. Cheers all.

Sweet!. Since we seem to have almost the same color scheme on the wracks I was wondering how you would eventually dress up the Talos. By the looks of it the finished result has a fair chance of ending up in my inspirational folder.

@ Scrz - many thanks, that's a great compliment - I hope the rest of the model can live up to expectations!

I've created a quick tutorial on how I got that look on the armour. There are a couple of steps to be finalised as I get to then (hopefully later today!).

Tutorial: http://therustyklaive.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/tutorial-weathered-armour.html

So, by way of update, the Talos is coming along. Most of the work has been on the tail guns and bone rack thingies. Magnetising the weapons was probably a good move in the long run but I have to say painting them all is a major pain! Very fitting for the subject matter.  


I've also started prepping for my next round of builds... the hobby is strong in my house this weekend.


In case you are wondering, 2 Raiders, 2 Ravagers, 30 Kabalites, 2 Venoms and 5 Wracks (not pictured - 20 Wyches and 15 Hellions).

Suggest you all invest in shares in plastic glue manufacturers as they are about to experience a sales spike.

Just to round out my hobby weekend, I finished up this evening by assembling my Trueborn unit.



At this stage I have 3 blasters and 2 splinter cannons in the unit. One of the blasters is a crude conversion of a dark lance (slightly hidden in this shot). I trimmed the barren down and drilled out the end. I want to touch it up a bit more before showing it off.. I know I can do better.

Talos = done!









There's a lot I would like to spend more time on with this model but I've made the executive decision to move on to other projects in the interests of sanity!

I've learned a lot from this bad boy: Chipping effects, Enamel Rust wash (or as it almost turned out, how to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory) and last but not least SC's awesome bubble tube effect (although I need much more practice/patience).

Main thing I'm stoked about is that the theme of my Coven is now concreted in. Looking forward to doing a couple of Venoms like this for my scalpel squadron.

But first, I must send in some clowns...

That is a really nice paint job.

I like the tubing effect and the various poison vials look great. Might have to give spellcheck's tutorial a go on that myself. Weathering looks good too.

For Dark Eldar the colour scheme is quite bright and vibrant, yet it still works nicely. The only bit that looks odd to me is the guns in blue don't seem to tie in with the rest of the model.

I look forward to seeing more of the Coven as it gets painted up.

Lookin damn hot
Keep up the good work, also those vials, holy moly @spellcheck2001 gotta reread that tutorial too.