Excerpts from the Vile Bestiry: Kabal of the Medusae

Day 123:


No sooner had we arrived on site than we discovered this world was not subject to an Astrates purge, but was instead found derelict. The Knights Solar, enraged by the lack of an enemy, made hasty departure from the system, leaving the Rogue trader’s Men at Arms to clean up any hostiles left on Traus.

No life forms exist here now, only the automated intelligences left by the Tau and the Mechanicum. Sentry drones make clicking sounds as we pass them, impotent to do us harm, their ammunition cylinders long since spent. Eerily, Tau equipment has been found in heaps, as if those inside simply vanished. No damage was discovered to imperial machinery or the buildings, reinforcing my master’s assertion that this world was not attacked for its resources.

I accompanied my lord and his retinue of appropriated Men at Arms to the listening outpost that broadcast the last imperial signal registered on this planet. We found nothing of interest until my lord Inquisitor initiated an archive data trawl through the logicii engines and unearthed this.

PIC ARCHIVE (ENCRYPTED_DATA): UNKNOWN
CROSS REF/ UNKNOWN
DESIGNATION: UNKNOWN


There are more pict scans encrypted in the archiving system which has been downloaded into a servitor blank. We leave this desultory rock to rendezvous with [CLASSIFIED_AUTHORISATION-DELTA-DELTA-PI]. I shall do my best to draw a line underneath the mystery of Traus 77.14 and not let it trouble me further.



++END++

Thought of the Day: Know that the Emperor is thy truth; any mystery may be answered by that.

+++DOWNLOADING+++
+++UNIDENTIFIED+++
+++ENCHANCED_PICT_ENTIRES+++

MESSAGE 1 OF 2


MESSAGE 2 OF 2


+++END+++



Lilloser

I'm being called self indulged by a person who calls himself Adminbael Vect, the supreme overlord of commorragh? On a Dark Eldar Forum? Lol

I run the images through a filter for the narrative aspect. I also thought this would be a much more playful way of presenting W.I.P pictures without paint on them. However, this approach has not been received well over at warseer, nor here either as it seems. It's dissapointing because I do put a lot of work into hte models, and I want to present them as best I can. I'll drop the narrative and filters, and just add pictures instead.

LilLoser

Thank you both. The grainy pictures were meant to simulate how bad the pict feed recorders are, and the distortion that I imagine a Dark Eldar force would give out. The W.I.P pics would be the grainy version with simpler pics on my site, then I would post up completed, painted images with no distortion. I don't want to create two blogs, so for the sake of clarity I will strip out the theatre and use it as a showcase instead.

+++


As ever, more photo's and tid bits on the website (in sig.)


LilLoser

Really nice converting it's making me green with envy!

It's not very often you see heavily converted Dark Eldars, and I really like what you've got going here.
The incubi looks deadly, the reposing made them really made them come alive.
I have a hard time appreciating the usage of old splinter rifles instead of the standard trophy racks on the third incubus.
They look so bland and lack texture, seeing how old they are it's rather obvious.
Maybe some more work with green stuff to increase the quality of them?

I'll keep my eyes on this log, good source of inspiration.

I'm in love with your Incubi. They look super dynamic. I gotta see if I can achieve something similar with the metal models.

Great looking incubi. I especially like the "living tabard'. The quality/detail of your conversions was lost in the grainy pict captures but I really liked the mood evoked by the story and images. Yeah, I'd like it both ways.

I like the grainy pictures a lot. I think its a cool way of presenting your characters and the fluff bits are interesting. However, I wouldn't mind some pictures of those character without the effects on them so I can fully appreciate the crafting you have done to them. Awesome incubi conversions by the way. 2 thumbs up!

Despiciens wrote:

I like the grainy pictures a lot. I think its a cool way of presenting your characters and the fluff bits are interesting. However, I wouldn't mind some pictures of those character without the effects on them so I can fully appreciate the crafting you have done to them. Awesome incubi conversions by the way. 2 thumbs up!

After the model is painted, I wouldn't mind the vid-pict style pictures. Until then, I want to see what awesome conversions you did.

Don't worry, no more pict feeds, no more weird scratchy images. I don't think the way I was trying to tell the story was very well received. Just plain old pictures from now on with a little commentary on my thoughts when putting together these models.

I have a problem taking photo's of squads because of the way I have my light box set up. I have 20 Kabalite warriors painted up, so here's an image dump of some of my favourites:

Sybarite Thraxis




I assembled one of the squads with a lot of hellion parts. I love how feral the heads are, and I imagined my Archon offering the most vicious members of lower Commoragh a chance to serve in his weakened Kabal. Injecting new and vicious blood can never be a bad thing, can it?












Sigil of the Cult of the Flayed Prophet



Within Commoragh society I imagine there exists a whole plethora of cults, secret organisations, and abodes of sin. The warriors are already marked with all sorts of strange sigils, indicating their allegiances or past vices, so I thought I'd carry along this theme and sculpt flayed faces onto some of my warriors. Members of the pleasure cult of the flayed prophet must bear the mouth and eyes of a being considered holy to one of the prey species. This particular model has kept the face, adorning it on his right shoulder guard.







Human skin is in vogue with the Kabal of the Medusae now; especially when the human settlement is close to a Craftworld.






The Dark Eldar do this because they know that the seers will try and form a logic to their attacks and divine a pattern when, in truth, none exists save for the pleasure of torture.

LilLoser

I just noticed how you painted your braid... I'm so jealous.

Thanks man. It's always nice when someone notices those little flourishes to a model.

I got your message too, sounds like a helluva interesting project. check your inbox man.

LilLoser

YES! these are awesome. Nice conversions

Very nice metallics and I really like the use of Purple as the highlight color to Green.

Wow, these are looking really nice, the Incubi are coming along nicely. The paint job on those Kabalites is crazy.

Cheer's Lucky No.5. I took a lot of inspiration from your own Haemonculi (no doubt you can spot where)

And speaking of inspiration: Rabid bunny! Have you decided what colour you will be painting your own incubi? Because of the fluff, I'd like to riff my own colour scheme off yours.

Now, the bane of my existence, TMM Raiders!

Stage one; no problem!




Stage two, my troubles begin.

I always knew these guys were going to give me a headache. Anyone who has painted large, flat surfaces with metallics know that it is hard to achieve a smooth, consistent outcome. The metallic pigment in the paint dries very quickly, and can leave area's patchy (see below)





Not good, especially on a £20 piece of kit. I have recently had a big clean of my desk, and this ugly thing was the only thing on there as I tried to go to sleep last night. What does that have to do with anything? Well, I came across a great tutorial/rambling debating the best techniques of getting a consistent metallic colour when airbrushing a Dredknight kit. The speaker suggested adding Velljo Glaze medium to slow down the drying process of the metallic pigment, allowing for a smoother blend.

And it's a fantastic tip! I wish I knew about this at the outset of this project. The glaze medium allows for much smoother transitions (even though I think this kind of paintwork is better handled by an airbrush):




I hope that you will be able to see that the second set of photographs are smoother than the first. With subsequent washes and candy coats, I hope eradicate any unseemly scratches from the base coat.

Any questions don't hesitate to ask. I don't swing by here as often as I like so it may take me a few days to reply.

LilLoser

My Incubi are going to be a very dark blue with grey filgree. Nothing too overkill.

Ahhh, nice choice. I was thinking of painting mine an off white colour but i'm still waiting for inspiration to hit.

Are you planning on posting your own project log up here? It's got some great stuff in it, and may kick start off the project again (any reason to get you to post more photo's up).

LilLoser

Here's what i've been working on in between commissions:



I've decided that I want my Talos to look quite subservient, with lots of hanging chains and trohpies. I imagine that my Haemonculous would use this Talos as a mix of personal assistant (for heavy lifting and gashing) and trophy cabinet.

More pictures on the blog.

I just realised that I haven't taken a photo of a little detail I have put on the raider. Here is a little snack for the crew:




All the best,

LilLoser

Ha! Hilarious.