How to Paint Dark Eldar

Dread Pirate Posts : 910 Join date : 2011-05-19

Howdy,

I see a lot of paint request on how to do this or that. So rather than answer a million posts on general how to paint, I am going to add a series of painting tutorials on this thread so that hopefully it becomes a "one stop Shop"

First up is a Dark Eldar Trueborn to start. These guys wil lbe in my own desert scheme, however, the techniques can be applied to any color scheme.

I will on occasion deviate away for other schemes I find interesting.

Dread Pirate Posts : 910 Join date : 2011-05-19

Howdy. One of my favorite things to see on the table top is alternative paint schemes.

I don't mean pink Space Wolves, Tony the Tiger Ultramarines or Ronald McDonald's Chaos legions. What I am talking about are the schemes that tap into that different way of looking at a particular army. For example, the Tranquility pattern Mantis Warriors with their yellow and black splinter armor pattern are a start as are some of the Giger inspired eldar that are coming out of Europe. Check out "Yellow One" on Cool Mini or Not if you have not seen them.

For my part, I had always liked the idea behind the dark eldar when they first came out, but the models were soo bad I couldn't really get myself to buy the models, let alone play them. But with the new release I found an army that a painter could love and still be competitive with.

One of the things that attracted me to the Dark Eldar was the mysterious aspect of them. Striking from out of nowhere, leaving only a few shattered souls left to tell the tale of what happened. What came to my mind was the Fremen from the Herbert series "Dune". Unlike the original movie from the 80s or the Sci-fi channel remake, none of those really fit the current DE warrior model.

My plan moving forward was to paint up my Warriors with desert colors with some black accent color to represent "The Black Halo" kabal theme I was working with.

I began by priming the models in a light grey primer. I wanted the colors to be natural looking, not to bright or too dark.

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Next I applied Tau Sept Ochre to all the armored parts of the model, GW Chaos Black to the right shoulder pad and loincloth, and a mix of GW Dark Flesh and Scorched Brown to the body suit. GW Snakebite Leather is applied to the blaster and Chaos black to the muzzle. I used the blaster arms from the Scourge set, so the exposed flesh on the arms was painted with Vallejo Game color Opaque heavy Flesh.

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A wash of GW Orgynn Flesh was applied to all the armored sections and skin. The ogrynn flesh isn't really used as a full wash, more of a glaze to slightly tint the armor. Badab Black was applied to the blaster and the Bodysuit.

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I-Kore Earth was applied as a full shade color. Because of the style of the model, I went in and hand painted each shade area. The paint was a thinned quite a bit, almost 50-50, so I could blend a little bit of the earth color into the armor.

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To build the highights up from the base color, I used Vallejo Model Color Goldenbrown. It's almost the same as the GW tau sept Ochre, but I prefer the final look of the vallejo compared to the GW Foundation color. I just seems to go on much better. Snakebite leather was applied to the blaster.

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The second highlight color is a Vallejo Model Color Sand. The VMC Sand was mixed in with the Snakebite Leather and the blaster was highlighted with this. The sharpest tips of the blaster were touched with pure VMC sand.

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In the next article I will go over the body suit, the black areas and the skin.

Subject: Re: How to Paint Dark Eldar Sat Mar 09 2013, 12:27

GAR wrote:: I-Kore Earth was applied as a full shade color. Because of the style of the model, I went in and hand painted each shade area. The paint was a thinned quite a bit, almost 50-50, so I could blend a little bit of the earth color into the armor.

Could you give me a little more detail on how this was done? Did you just thin the shade (also is I-Kore Earth like the GW shade colours) and the place it in the recesses whilst dragging the brush out? I'm not entirely sure how blending works but the effect you achieved looks incredible!

Dread Pirate Posts : 910 Join date : 2011-05-19

The I-Kore Earth color was thinned quite a bit, almost to a wash consistency.

Once I had the gradation the way I like it, I went in and hand painted a line with less thinned I-Kor Earth so the crevice between plates would be more pronounced.

Subject: Re: How to Paint Dark Eldar Mon Mar 11 2013, 12:29

I don't see how I hadn't spotted this thread before. Nice work, GAR! I do love how the DE can be painted in a million different ways and themes, and I might be using your tips to improve my own painting.

Thanks, Cavash. Smile

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