Greetings fellow archons ( and victim, you said you wouldn't peek
!)
What follows is my humble attempt at a project log, start to finish. I welcome all c&c, just be gentle, this is my first log and I'm a family man; December holidays plus kids equals very little spare time! So remove the barbs from your agonisers at least, I can take a subtle whipping
.
My target is creating a very specific look; Egyptian Dark Eldar. Plus he has a disdain for the new raider/ravager kits. His venom conversions are quite visually interesting (if not downright inspired!) so I was left with a choice; a cool Dark Egyptdar unit or a vehicle that would fit the requirements of the raid and his theme. With much debate (self and with my FLGS haemonculi cohorts) I finally chose the latter.
Ever looked at a falcon grav tank from the top and thought it looked like an Egyptian headdress? I did. So my build revolved around a more thematically liberal interpretation of Dark Egyptdar falcon conversion that counts as a raider.
From that I needed to DE it up a bit, so some spikes and blades were in order.
sorry, this one is a bit fuzzy. silly camera phone.
Now that we have suitable pointy bits, it was time to make this look like a chariot. I had the thought that it already looked Egyptian in its lines and shape, but wanted to avoid the pitfall of stargate-ishness. I had the Image of Yul Brenner in his chariot in The Ten Commandments in my head, the javelins off to one side, he at the reigns with his whip. With that I set to work on the "open top" aspect of the build.
With primary construction complete, it was on to paint. Yellow gold and blue are traditional Egyptian colours, so at the risk of an Iyanden cross over I bit the chainflail and went with yellow. It seemed to tie the look of a headdress together nicely.
Then some old school black lining between the colours to give them separation. You'll notice the pilot; some green stuff on his head gave him a suitable headdress. The original plan was to have a kabalite hanging off each side of the basket as well but alas time was my enemy, and an implacable one at that.
his purple hued armour is a nod to my own army; a visual representation of a gift from my army to my victims
A view from the top, very headdress like. I thought about thinner lines but Im glad I didn't- the look I felt was quite striking and would have otherwise been muddied with too many stripes.
Here is a hint gents, if you take the hair off a wyche, doesn't matter how many or which wyche (lol), she looks very masculine. The only way to accentuate the driver of this raid was to feminize her somewhat. Admittedly we had been partaking of the oatmeal stout at my FLGS late into the night, and the jeers and encouragement of both the beer and the haemonculi in attendance led to a rather disparate anatomical inequity...
For those of you not still giggling at my excessive use of green stuff, the gems got a start as well, and the Dark lance was modded and magnetized in the front. I thought of mounting it at the top but the Yul Brenner image kept coming to mind.
I thought to magnetize the raid driver to show loaded or unloaded status, and here is that pic. I drilled the heel and glued in a magnet.Then with her in position I dabbed superglue underneath the platform and slid in another magnet covered in fast set, Click! Glued and in the right polarity. If you have never used fast set to set your super glue I highly suggest it. Works a charm that stuff.
With the home stretch in sight, I faltered. I must have painted her face 14 times and each one didn't capture what I was after. The new models are great, but I had cut so much away to fit the headdress and theme that most of the subtler details had gone. My FLGS owner and drinking buddy to the rescue. At 1:30AM Wednesday morning he painted in the face in a very stark and taskmaster-esque fashion, with some subtle washes and some fine detailing (yay wargaming Psycho brush) I had given her beauty makeup.
Now just final pencilling and I was done. I thought to carry the jade green from the gems on the vehicle and her hat throughout.
And with that we we're done!
All in all I enjoyed the heck out of this. I stretched as a sculptor/painter/modeller, broke a few times, bled ( yes Algae, that one repaired spike actually embedded in my finger lol) and came out with a finished project that I am proud of. I would have liked another 12 hours or so to work on it, and there are things I would have done differently now, but all in all it was a great experience. I honestly feel as if I got the gift, it was a worthwhile endeavour to be sure and I urge those who did not take part to do so next year!
Subject: Secret Space Raid 2013; a DGP Odyssey 
Sat Dec 21 2013, 09:25
) It does the organ I replaced my heart with wonders to hear your kind words. Thanks gents!
