Harlequin Carnival - La Danse Macabre

You can also use 'gum/paste' (don't know the english word, the thing you can put on and out as you please) before undercoating (& basing with aero) on those specific parts.

Remove after the paint is dry and voila !


If already painted, another hint I use not so often is to add a thin (water diluted, 1/3 water) on the to be glued parts. Helps keeping the paint together and add more effect on the glue. I'm always using this before painting metallic models.

Thanks both! I will make sure I use an appropriate glue (prob will be superglue). It is not something I had considered, so I am grateful for your advice

Forgive me, for I have sinned. It has been too long since me last confession.

On a good note though, I am finally painting some Dark Eldar again! My last post I showed a few venoms in a various state of disrepair. I had my local club tournament recently and I wanted to take my Dark kin. I managed to somehow win the touney against some tough opponents, and this inspired me to get cracking La Danse Macabre again, filling in some holes that had appeared since the launch of 8th ed. I have alwyas planned to do more venoms, and now was the opportunity to do so. With Dark eldar, it is the vehicles that stay on the table for most of the game, with the troops just die,barking to grab objectives or when they explode, so I decided to prioritise the vehicles over the infantry (although I do need to do some of them pretty pronto, especially some blasterborn).

I dont have a finished pic to show you, but below are a couple of wip shots of the venom I am working on at present. The first is a pic of the yellow blemdimg. I am really chuffed with how it has come out. The blemdimg just worked really well, amd the depth of the colour has me rather pleased. I chose black for the other main colour on the chassis, and this has had a few choice splodges added for some visual interest (and cos I think they look kinda neat). Finally 2 purple hearts complement the yellow nicely, and add a little interest to the front end. Tonight I have also completed blending and hghlighting the red, and although in the pic it looks a little blotchy, this all clears up when the first coat of gloss varnish is applied.

I hope tomget this one completed pretty soon, and then get working on the crew (not sure yet whether to go for just the pilot & gunner, or have the 2 side ones as well, which is what I have done on my other 2 venoms)

Love your work! I showed my friend this project log when I was trying to convince her to get into the hobby

@RedRegicide hey thanks very much, that is a massive compliment!

I hope to get more stuff on here again, as I am feeling pretty inspired to do more to the Danse Macabre. I have a Ravager, another venom, 5 bladterborn and 5 Incubi on the to do list in the near future, so plenty to keep me busy

Did your friend get into the hobby in the end?

Still working her over. She said she’ll probably never play. But she loves painting them and last night she asked to watch a batrep. I’m gonna get her tzeentch start collecting and see where it goes from there

Boom!

First reaction is they have been playing paintball.

The painting looks so neatly done even that close up.

@Kantalla. Thanks, that is the look I was aiming for

It has been a lot of pain to get to this stage. I have actually done a lot more on the other sub assemblies, and Inhave not enjoyed much of it. The paint splat has been a joy to paint thankfully

That "splat" for the lack of a better word looks fantastic! It looks very natural and pops marvelously.

@Rhivan. Thanks very much . The blending etc took a little longer than it could have done, but worth it I think

More Splat progress

Great work on the "splats", I continue to enjoy your unique approach to your army.

@CurstAlchemist. Cheers, I am pleased you are still enjoying my stuff

Watch this space, I actually have something finished to post (not the Ravager), I just need to set up the light box and take some pics

Been a little while since I posted a finished model on here, but Real life is busy (constant state of affairs nowadays) so I have had to adapt my hobby schedule to suit.

I am managing half hour to an hour sessions some evenings in which I can do a little painting and modelling. As you saw in my previous post I have been working on a venom for La Danse Macabre, which I finally finished this week. It has been a journey fraught with frustrations and mistakes (which I will touch on below) but also joy in painting colours again and letting my imagination go on the palette.












The start of my frustrations with this model started with the priming stage. I chose GW's Mephiston red rattle can to spray my mini (after a white primer coat) and for some reason it went quite bubbly in places when it dried. I had to get some fine emery paper and give it a good sand, but unfortunately some of the bubbling can still be seen even now.

The colour stages went well, although the red was a little tedious, and my blending was not up to the mark so I had to revisit it and work out the areas where the colour graduations were too stark. Black is still a colour I struggle to paint, and this model was  no exception. The varnish stage does alot to improve my deficiencies in this luckily, as it imparts a satin sheen to the model which makes the black have far more depth and reflection than my shoddy skills are able to produce. Definitely something I need to work on in the future (which I discussed last post with a couple of guys in the comment section). The yellow went surprisingly well (a bazillion coats were needed to get a smooth finish, but it was worth it). For the rider I wanted some colours to contrast the ones I had chosen for the venom chassis, so I went with a nice pink for the flowing cape (I wish I had painted this a more vibrant pink, but I don't seem to have the knack of the colour quite yet. It looks good but is a little dark I think). The blue helm however, is really vibrant, and creates a nice point to draw your eye to the top of the model. I chose yellow for the feathers, as it ties in the rider with the front of the vehicle for a little colour consistency.






So all well and good. The colours work nicely, My painting is generally ok, and the base has come out marvelously. Now onto the varnishing. I do this in two stages. The first is a gloss lacquer (from Halfords) which gives a hard shiny surface to prevent and damage or paint rubbing off during the models life, and the second coat is of a matt lacquer, the combination of the two leaving a slight satin finish to the model which I love. It adds a depth and smoothness to all the colours.

Unfortunately I had another problem at this stage. Once both lacquers had dried I noticed that on one side of the venom the varnish had dried with a slight texture, almost like it had pooled and then dried to quickly. I cursed myself at this stage for possibly overspraying the varnish, but I gave the side another pass with the matt varnish and this seemed to fix the issue a little. The texture is still visible if you look hard enough, but i'll be damned if I have to start all over again. I am pissed off it has happened, as it has taken me so bloody long to finish this model, and I will always know there are imperfections whenever I see that venom. On the bright side, it still looks good overall, and I have another party wagon ready for La Danse Macabre



Anyhoo let me know your thoughts on it, would love to hear them

Great to see La Danse Macabre getting some love again! Love the colours, harks back to Rogue Trader era with a nive mix of brightness. Very individual!

@Rathian. Thanks very much

It was painful in places to paint, but I am so chuffed I have another vehicle to add to La Danse. Working on a Ravager at the mo, but things have stalled a little while I work on some Aos stuff

Sometimes it's positive to have a break though. I paused building up my Dark City denizens and *accidentally* now have a rather powerful Il Kaithe craftworld force, 6 Falcons, 2 Fire Prisms, a Wraithknight... oops
I best get a Tantalus as balance..

Lol that’s as good an excuse as any to get a tantalus

I have one but it is still unassembled and in a box somewhere. A project for another day.

Here are a few pics of the unit I have just finished for my aos distraction

Wow! They're stunning! In a "they are deeply unpleasant and look real enough to give me nightmares" kind of way