Help required with paint scheme

Hi, so I've just recently purchased my first Dark Eldar, a squad of warriors along with a raider to carry them around in and I'm now trying to work out a paint scheme that will look decent as well as being reasonably easy and fun to paint. I'm not an awesome painter but it is probably my favourite part of the hobby so I do plan to spend a little time getting them up to an alright standard.

I like using purple and after reading the viva metallica article I was thinking a metallic purple could look pretty cool on the armour, though I'd probably do another coat of purple to make it a bit darker. I was then thinking a deep red for the cloth and bronze used on the decorative details and stuff.

The problem with this plan is that from what I have heard, this method turns out kind of patchy on vehicles with their large flat areas, so I'm not sure how it would translate onto the transports and ravagers and such.

At this stage, my ideas are

1-Mix purple ink and metallic and just paint the vehicles with that. Not a huge fan of this option as I don't really like mixing and it'd be hard to keep the colour consistent.

2-Use a slightly different scheme by using the extreme highlight method with either the deep red or maybe with metallic purple and the bulk of the raider black.

3-Scrap idea and think of something different.

I apologise for the wall of text and lack of test models or pictures (can't post links yet), I just don't have these paints at present and so wanted to figure out if it would work before spending a fair bit of money on them.

GW used to sell a metallic purple paint called Amethyst Purple. They don't sell it anymore but I happen to know that the company that manufactured it does still make it and you can get it from this place (it's at the bottom of the page).

I love this colour and it should really help keeping your paint looking consistent.

That sounds pretty good. I googled around but wasn't able to find any pictures of it actually in use on any models, would you be able to help me out with that one?

YOu might try experimenting with metallics, a mix of boltgun or the darker equivalent and then silver, then wash with purple wash or ink over the top.

I'm not a big fan of red with purple, tends to look off, and the darker the red the more off it looks. If you really want purple to look good, use a linen type of cloth fabirc, with shades of warm orange yellow or tan to help with the contrast.

What would be interesting, if oyu want red and purple, is to try and use Vallejo Red Violet, its a great color and have a nice mix of red and purple, it almost a plum color.

Anoyther thing you could try if you feel like experimenting a bit is to use "interference" colors. Liquitex makes a tubes of artists acrylics, and I remeber they had a color called interference violet. Its a clear paint, but when thinned and applied on top of your existing color, it has a pearl or metallic purple sheen in the light. its not the easiest thing to use, but it does yield some neat results once you get the hang of it.

my 2 pain tokens

I'd agree with GAR on this one, I'd tend to avoid red and purple on the same model if possible. Think i've still got a pot of amethyst purple lying around somewhere, nice colour but I wouldn't want to cover large areas with it, works better with gems/crystals etc. If I can find it I'll paint something with it and post a photo.

Well I have to disagree about the red and purple :p
I am currently working on painting an army with a scheme that is similar to option #2.
It is purple and red, with some extream highlights. Very simple to paint.

Just to give you some ideas on how the colors may work together.



Still a WIP and working a few details out such as wings and exact red colors. But should like I said give you some ideas.

Very nice, I LOVE how the red and purple look on the wings.