So before anything else, I am uncertain if this should go here, or in the Project Logs section. I am not starting a new army from scratch in this instance, but updating/repainting my current Drukhari army.
When I first painted up my Kabal of the Revenant Shroud (fluff found here), I wanted something other than the green/turquoise schemes I kept seeing on every other Dark Eldar army out there. I wanted a theme that reflected the Kabal name-- something suitably dark and menacing-- but not overly so. In the end, I went with a mid-grey colour scheme with ice-blue highlights, going for a look that, to me at least, trod the line between malevolence and barebones functionality-- a delinieation that, to me, seemed appropriate for a Kabal that had effectively been living in exile.
Some (admittedly) blurry pics of my old colour scheme can be found here:
And some of my allied Wych Cult:
As you can see, my old colour scheme really was nothing to write home about. I quickly discovered how difficult it was to get grey shaded and hightlighted just right, and ended up with an army that, regrettably, looked like it had just come off of the sprue. To make things worse, back then my carrying case wasn't the greatest, and so gradual wear and tear resulted in a lot of damage to my poor models.
It was because of this that, when the new Codex: Drukhari dropped, I vowed that I would make my army playable again. Up until then, I had been using the old, horribly outdated Dark Eldar Warriors, and so made a point of buying two large squads of Kabalite Warriors (half of which came pre-primed and assembled from a friend). I was dissatisfied with how my old colour scheme had turned out, and wanted to use these Kabalites as a testbed for a new possible scheme (and/or to see if I could improve the old one)
At first, I tried experimenting with (from left to right), a base of Dark Reaper followed by a lighter grey colour; an attempt at painting ivory (which turned out horribly) and an attempt at doing Incubi Darkness followed by Kabalite Green. The grey one, I edged with Sotek Green just to see how well the two would work together. I had it in my mind that I wanted to go for a scheme that seemed ancient, or even "spectral," and I was inspired in no small part by the way the upcoming Nighthaunt minis have been painted for Age of Sigmar.
Still in the experimenting phase, I then tried two models simply with Dark Reaper and Incubi Darkness, respectively. I'm sorry, but they aren't showing that well in this photo.
At some point in this whole process, I decided to base an entire squad in Dark Reaper, and see where I went from there. I think I was trying to do something similar to, or improve upon, my old colour scheme.
More recently, at a paint night at a friend's house, layered one of these Dark Reaper'd models with Vallejo Sombre Grey (which I think is an equivalent to Russ Grey) and then went over it with a blue wash. The end result looks like this:
I have to say, I actually really like this colour-- it evokes shadow and has an almost spectral look to it, while at the same time still is "colourful." Any thoughts on this iteration of the scheme, and in particular any ways it can be improved upon? I'm also debating what secondary colours I want to use for the armour trim, and/or plumes, and/or glowy bits; I'm thinking either an aquamarine green or a purple. Any thoughts?