New Dark Eldar paint help

Hey all,
Just bought myself the Dark Eldar codex after building up a sizable necron army. I am wanting to create a paint scheme looking like the one displayed on Tale of Painters, the first result when searching "how to paint dark eldar warriors" (Sorry I'm a new member so can't post the direct link )
Although, and here is the big but...the steps and sheer amount of paint types here is incredible. I consider myself a reasonable painter and am really willing to spend a lot of time getting them to look great when I start off with my battleforce, its just I need solid ideas for a simpler way to achieve something to this effect. I've trawled the internet for hours looking for the right tutorial but just cant find one for the paint scheme desired.
The main priority is the really dark armour with purple hilights although finding the right paints and technique to make the hilights appear blended is stumping me! It is mainly the armour plates that I am concerned about now so any help here would be much appreciated!
Regards,
Kristian

I believe you are referring to this article:
http://taleofpainters.blogspot.com/2013/03/showcase-dark-eldar-kabalite-warriors.html
and the tutorial for them: http://taleofpainters.blogspot.com/2013/03/tutorial-how-to-paint-dark-eldar.html

Stahly is an excellent painter and his Dark Eldar are top notch. There are ways I think to simplify his style but ultimately it wouldn't look as showcase as his does…but it would be table top ready.

What I would do is focus on each section of color and figure out the 2 colors that make it. For Instance, the purple armor. Figure out the base purple and the highlight purple, cut the middle colors out. It won't be as smooth of a gradient as Stahly's but it'll have a good highlight and shadow.

As for skintones From The Warp has a pretty good and simple article here: http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/2011/01/painting-dark-eldar-skin-tones.html

This is a great article on armor highlighting: http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/2011/08/basics-line-highlighting-made-simple.html

Thankyou, the skin tone and fine hilight articles are brilliant. The main thing I was after however is a suggestion for the colours to use if possible? Getting the hilights with a good enough opacity and a dark enough basecolour, plus a complimenting ink is hard when never painting with these colours. Any tips for this? I was thinking maybe three shades of purple...a really dark one for the basecoat, a bit lighter one for the entire fine hilights and then a noticably lighter one for the prominent edges. Plus a complimenting dark wash, maybe purple or even black? I would hope that this would add some form of gradient to the hilighting and depth to the recesses its just I need advice on the colours.
Regards, Kristian

If you want to do 3 shades, all the better. the armor will look smoother.

I would base the armor in "Citadel Base: Naggaroth Night", then a layer "Citadel Layer: Xereus Purple", then highlight with "Citadel Layer: Genestealer Purple"

That should be a good purple gradient.

Citadel Shade: Druchii Violet is a good purple wash you could also use lightly after the 3 step to blend it all together. A black wash would kill the smoothness of the purple gradient, so I don't recommend it.

OK, thats great advice thankyou cant wait to try it and upload some pics. I notice you said layer the Xereus purple as opposed to hilight with it, could you explain what you mean by this as I was originally thinking of using the mid-colour as a "thick hilight" inside which I could use the Genestealer Purple as a fine hilight. Is this what you mean or are you recommending a complete layer with the Xereus? (sorry for being a pain I just really want to nail this!)

I meant using the Xereus as a layer over the dark Naggaroth Night base, but still leaving the darker base color showing in the recesses as a shadow. Then the gene stealer purple as the sharp highlight on the edge of the armor. That way from deep shadow to edge you a 3 color purple gradient. If you then give that a thin wash of purple you will blend the 3 colors together for a smoother transition.