Inevitable_Faith's Dark Eldar

Spent some time this evening finishing up my Wych. I think I'll be doing the rest of the unit in this fashion moving forward. Would love to hear what you guys think of it.

Looks good definitely easier to see the difference in these later pics

Also, just noticed how cool your basing is some really nice little sadistic space elves you have there

Thank you very much Ynneadwraith. The basing is ridiculously quick and easy. It's just two different sizes of rocks mixed together, glued on the base with white school glue then painted eshin grey. One heavy drybrush of administratum grey then a light drybrush of white and lastly dab on some seraphim sepia selectively on the base. Not the most beautiful bases you can make but they're practical for basing an entire force in. Best part is they add good weight to the base so if you have any tippy models it really helps with that pesky wobbly model syndrome.

Love the Raiders Man Holy hell they look good!

Thank you very much Stanimal221. I look forward to painting up my second raider just as soon as I finish the unit of Wyches that will be embarking in it.

I hope you include more pictures! Is that all free hand or ?

The cherry blossom branches on the side of the Raider are all freehand. The sail is layered drybrushing until I get the desired effect followed up by some white paint that I splatter on using a brush and toothpick.

It's been a long time since my last update here but I've finished a small retinue of Bloodbrides to accompany my Succubus on the battlefield. I wanted them to stand out from my stock wyches while maintaining many similar qualities. The heads are from the sisters of slaughter on the fantasy side of Warhammer simply chopped down to fit on a Wych neck. I hope you guys like them, comments and critiques are always welcome.

The Heads are amazing! How much chopping did you have to do to get it to work? I thought about using that kit but I was not sure what kind of nightmare it would be to get it to work so well.

Stunning paint job also, clean crisp loving it man. Keep up the outstanding work.

I've already said how much I like these elsewhere, but I'll say it here too! Stunning little dudes

Does the metal of the Phantasm launcher have a little pinkish tinge to it as well? Didn't notice that the first time

Oh, and you forgot to mention how fitting the white colouration is, given that they're Bloodbrides

Thank you very much Stanimal I appreciate the comment. The heads were something that I worried about initially as well but after the first test model I found they weren't as scary to swap as I first envisioned. The Sisters of Slaughter heads attack to the necks that are already part of the dark elf wych body whereas the 40K Wych heads have their necks attached with a ball socket to fit them onto the 40K Wych body. I clipped the majority of the Wych head off the neck portion (doing this saves the true part of where you want to clip some stress from the final clipping and makes for a smoothing join) and then carefully clip off the lower part of the head around the jawline and chin. Clean up the neck surface with a little mold line remover tool or hobby knife then the Sisiter of Slaughter head simply gets glued on top of the neck, careful to position the chin in line with the zipper. A little bit of liquid green stuff fills in the gaps around the neck and head and the primer seals everything up and hides the joins fairly well. Just note that some of the heads on the 40K Wych necks tend to look very long once you assemble the model, like they have giraffe necks or something. To fix this test fit each head to body then simply clip off the bottom portion of the neck of any model that the neck looks too long on. With it clipped it'll fit down deeper on the Wych body and look much better. Hope this helps Stanimal221, if a novice hobbyist like myself can do this conversion then that means it's an easy one that anyone can do.

Thank you again Ynneadwraith, your comments on my work are greatly appreciated! Indeed the Phantasm grenade launcher is done up in the same way I do much of the metallic armour of my Wyches. It's leadbelcher base, a wash of carroburg crimson then I highlight the sharp edges and high points in runefang steel. It's pretty simple but I love the effect, I'm not a huge fan of naked metals so I always tend to wash them in one colour or another. Agrax earthshade, nuln oil, drakkenhoff nightshade and carroburg crimson are my favourites. For my DE I use agrax earthshade on much of their metals as well.

As for the colour pallet inspiration your right I did forget to mention it. All the colours are the same pallet as my original Wyches with the exception of the bodysuit. My train of thought on the topic was as such (after 3 or 4 days of being stuck on how I wanted to paint them): Bloodbrides-Brides-Wedding dress-White wedding dress...White! Truth be told though the "white" is ulthuan grey.

Outstanding response! Thank you for the help and once I am able to do this conversion or something close I will show you the work your work inspired!

If your paint and conversion work says anything at all, you are far from a novice.

These are so awesome and unsettling. I was thinking of using those heads on some Reavers from my new Gangs of Commorragh set. I imagine the face-swap process would be much the same.
Keep up the good work!

Definitely keep me appraised of your work man as I'd love to see it! I don't see myself as that great of a painter (and much less so a modeller) but thank you all the same, I strive to always improve and I'm glad you like my work.

Thank you for the comment Ripper, I'm glad you like them. For reavers the only problem I can imagine arising is the pose of the rider. They tend to be leaning forward and I'd imagine the necks on the models are stretched so that they are looking forward while their body leans forward, this means that you have to be very careful when clipping so that when you glue the new heads on they don't all end up looking down at the ground. Wych neck work well with these heads as they mostly all follow the jawline of the model, looking at reaver heads they don't do that (many of them go up into a facemask) so that's a consideration as well. Having said that Reavers with this Headswap would look amazing as well and if you do it I'd love to see it.

I'll keep everyone posted!

Far too modest as ever I_F

I'm a fan of washed metals too. All of my golds get a splash of an ancient pot of Flesh Wash I've had since ~2005. Seems to have a bit better coverage than modern washes, and a bit of a glaze/gloss effect too. No idea if that's some funky age-related breakdown of the paint, or something to do with the various topping up it gets to keep the ancient colour alive!

I must admit though, I've never really ventured outside of shading/highlighting things in different shades of the same colour. Both your use of a pink wash and a brass highlight on silver metal, and Spellcheck's excellent orange cloth highlighted with yellow has inspired me to give it a go!

Oh, and @Ripper.McGuirl you might have some luck clipping the necks off Scourge models for your cool Reaver idea there's usually a few left over from each Scourge kit, and they're cheap enough to pick up off bits sellers. The main benefit of Scourge necks is they're slighty elongated compared to normal DEldar necks, which might give you just that little bit more ability to angle the Sisters of Slaughter heads back slightly

Thanks for the advice Ynneadwraith!

No probs can't wait to see what you come up with

I don't update very often here as it takes me forever to get things done with my glacial painting speed but I managed to finish my first Cronos. I'll be adding him to my Talos and painting up a Haemonculus soon so I can run the Dark Artisan formation. I hope you guys like him and all comments/critiques are greatly appreciated.

I've said it over on Dakka, but that is a thing of beauty

If I had any money at all I'd commission you to paint my stuff rather than my slapdash efforts

Thank you very much Ynneadwraith, I'm glad you like him. Though I doubt I'm at any level of a commission painter, I'm far too inconsistent for that I think, I do appreciate the sentiment all the same.

Oh, the flesh on that is lovely!

Thank you very much Calyptra, it was quite the learning experience but well worth it in my opinion.

Lovely paintings and conversions!

I adore the freehand on the raiders and talos, the japanese inspiration there works wonders on the hull, it also just feels right Dark Eldar (and I would say doubly so for Wych Cults) prize beauty and making their death and killing a work of beauty and art, as well as terror and slaughter is the essence of the Drukhari. Beautiful and Terrible.

The Pink certainly pops and I like it a lot more then I thought I would first glance. It also looks amazing on the raider sail

You mentioned you are doing Wych Cults, do you have any thoughts of converting some other Dark Eldar models to fit a more Wych Cult theme? (I have to ask because I have seen Dark Eldar armies converted for Kabals or Covens but I have never seen a Cult themed army, I think it'd be pretty interesting, and I'm a huge fan of themed armies xD)

For instance converting some Talos or Cronos as giant beasts with a Wych or two riding it with some cannons? Or possibly giving your Kabalite Warriors Wych Torsos and heads to give them a more Wych Culty feeling while still maintaining the look of being a shooty unit?

Really like your project log and I look forward to seeing more I'm looking forward to seeing your Dakkadakka Plog as it seems you have some really cool stuff on there too

Thank you very much Rhivan for your kind words. I've always felt that the pride of the Dark Eldar would transcend into everything they do and that it would encompass their aesthetic as well, it isn't enough to best your foe in combat, you have to look better than them while doing it too. No Commorans epitomize this better than the Wych Cults in my opinion. Truth be told Infeel I'm honestly mediocre at best when it comes to conversions, I try them out when inspiration hits but for the most part build my models as they appear on the box. I do love the idea of making my force fit more of a Wych cult theme however and you've given me an idea in your post, using the wych models that come with the raider, the ones that hang off the side and doing some modifications so they can be "riding" a Talos. I'll have to experiment with that when I get a chance. I'm intrigued on the prospect of converting some Kabalite units to fit the Wych aesthetic a bit more and will be looking into that when I'm ready to add Kabal forces to mine. I have ten Kabalite but they're already built since I got them second hand. I may have to look at tearing them apart if I can.

I only post my finished work here but I update my Dakka thread with all my projects and WiP so feel free to check that out too if you want to see more of my stuff. I've got some craft world stuff in there and will be starting up Harlequins some time this year (I'm glacially slow at making any progress). Here's the link: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/608362.page

Thank you very much again Rhivan for admiring my work, it means a lot to me and helps keep me motivated to continue to improve and come up with new ideas.