Kabal of the Artic Blast (Just Starting an Dark Eldar Project) (Update November 4th 2014 Raider)

Getting myself back to Warhammer 40k after a long absence, I was thinking to start a new Eldar army, but my unboxed Dark Eldar were making weeping and discomfort glares at me, as if they were saying, “You promised lesser human!”.

I love Dark Eldar, and their fluff, I’m aware that nowadays it’s a hard army to use and not suit to beginners. But who cares I even get a hard beating using SM and IG in the past, so what’s the difference with Dark Eldar. Right!

I think using this entry for my Dark Eldar project, showing the beginnings and growth of my own Kabal. Probably showing a game or two with them, it all depends of course the time and dedication that I put towards it.

I would like to warn all that it’s a long term project. I’m very, but very, very slow painter, but I really hope that I can get the job done.

I haven’t figured out the name of the Kabal, but I already started up my own paint scheme.
Hope you guys can get inspired some way or another.

Cheers!
Duraham Ter

You do realize that if you wanted to start Eldar, you can take an Eldar/Dark Eldar allied force these days?

Yes sir, I’m pretty much aware, but still I’m not too fond with allies and neither our gaming group, which is kind of a relief to be honest.

I love this paint scheme and its execution. Green faced right here.

^ agreed. Great colour scheme, and very nicely done. Can't wait to see more, durahamter.

Cheers.

Hello everybody who had a small time to look over this thread. I’ve been quite busy lately, but I had time to continue building up my Dark Eldar forces.

During this week I’ve been able to assemble two raiders, a ravager and venom. But who wants to see grey plastic kits? Not me… I think you guys want to see some pics of things that I’m painting.

At this moment I have started painting my Venom. Is still work in progress and manage so far to paint up the pilot cabin. It still needs some finish up, but I think you have the idea of things are sorting out.

Hope you like these two pics,

Cheers,

Duraham Ter

A kickass start, these flashy highlights work very well on these models. Always a pleasure following the work of an experienced painter.

Models look nice, although I'm not to fond of the human like skin tone.

Finally a new update! And once again thank you very much the praise and recommendations that you have given me lately.

@Lord_Alino: I thought the same about the skin. Made some changes on my kabalite warriors, but got lazy on the venom pilot.

To be honest I feel a little dishearten. It took me all week to just paint and base five kabalite warriors, but I just love the way that they look. Somebody told me to lower the painting quality to paint my army faster, but I refuse to do so.

Do you guys take so much time to paint a miniature, or I’m just too slow. I think I’m going to lower the painting serial from five miniatures to just three. I hope to get an airbrush soon to save more time on the undercoats, for that reason I haven’t finish my venom.

Well here are the updates of the work that has gone by lately, cheers to you all.

5 kabalites that took me a week :-S


the whole squad together


wip venom crew


and the wip venom with some kabalite troops


Don't know what to do next, but I will let you all know..

Very nice. I like your paint scheme and your execution is top notch. Keep it up

durahamter wrote:

Do you guys take so much time to paint a miniature, or I’m just too slow. I think I’m going to lower the painting serial from five miniatures to just three. I hope to get an airbrush soon to save more time on the undercoats, for that reason I haven’t finish my venom.

I'd stick with 5, but yeah you do finish 3 models faster, however it's better to finish in 2 times than 3 and if you have a ton of models you'll actually might start doing 10 models.

I'd say you take about the same time to paint as me, I get a unit done in 1-2 weeks, if I don't have much time to paint, it can stretch longer to finish them, but it's still the same amount of hours, just spread over a bigger period of time.

One thing that clearly helps to paint faster is to regularly paint. When you paint regularly you do everything faster and you get stuff done much faster. Take a break during 6 months, you'll do highlights and other stuff much slower, you also make more mistakes.

One thing that makes painting longer is painting a new units, even if it's the same techniques, painting a unit for the first time always takes more time, you ask yourself what to do, how to paint this and that, the second unit usually goes a lot smoother and faster.


These are some kickass miniatures, keep it up, very few can paint at this level. Painting at this lvl isn't a problem when you have a small force. I paint at high lvl as well, but I'm painting as apoc force, it's still getting done over time; I finished 2 previous armies, eventually it all gets done.
At this pace you get about 1000-2500 pts done in a year, in 2-3 years you can paint a whole 4k-5k force usually. Just have patience, it will all get done eventually with time.

Sexy stuff here. Off to an awesome start.

I'm a 3 at a time painter as well when it comes to DE. I can comfortably paint Space Marines in groups of 5 because...they're less detailed and boring.

Your color scheme is amazing, and unique! Excellent work

Hi guys,

I’m not dead, just getting used to some changes back at home. I’ve managed to put out some time to paint my venom last week and I’m quite satisfied with the final results. Most of the job was done with a brush and I’m planning to start out a squad of reavers. Let’s see how all comes out and once again I deeply apologized with the delay on the update.

But here are the pics.











Still can’t find a name for my Kabal, I haven’t thought it was going to be so complicated.

@spellcheck2001: Thank you very much! Love your blog.  

@Khain mor: I’ve been following your project log and I find it amazing. Thank you very much for your recommendations and to be honest you kind of cheer me up, knowing that all requires time and patient. I hope one day, I have nearly a collection such as yours.

@Evil Space Elves: I think I’m going to keep to three when it comes to Kabalite Warriors.

@ Trystis: Thank you so much.

Cheers,

Duraham Ter

Wow, the orange/red looks incredible and really makes those venoms *POP* All the hues really work well with the blues and oranges blending enough to not look blocky but still being distinctly kind of stark and glowy.

Awesome sauce.

Also, glad to see you're not dead.

Amazing. This is a beautiful army. Art takes time, and if this is the standard you are happy with, never compromise that for speed. You will regret it and have to go back and redo stuff. Better to take your time and do it once, do it right.

Fantastic army, great techniques. Very well done to you sir.

Oh, and as for names for your kabal, there are so many options. Depends on the feeling you have for it. Are they a dark and mysterious bunch, working in the shadows? Are they more up front, kill everything and worry about the details later? Will it be headed by an Archon, a vengeful Succubus, a Haemy and his flesh constructs, or one of the named characters, Vect himself perhaps? Then you may have your answer.

Amazing painting wish mine turnt out like that. I only paint 1 model at a time then glue it together and it took me about a week to get a unit done but my HQ's took me 3 days each and I have 3 done (archon, succubus and barron)with 2 haemy's still to do

The venom is looking really good. Got to paint one up for myself so it is really good to see how well they look once painted. Great stuff keep it up

If it's taking a week to get five models to that standard then I don't think you have anything to worry about.

I would probably take a week to finish one model and it wouldn't be anywhere close, though one is slowly improving.

In any case your paint scheme is wonderful, incredibly vibrant without looking garish and still very very definitively Dark Eldar.

The venom is amazing. I get jealous every time I look at your work.

very cool venom indeed. Very slow growing army, but worth the wait.

Back from the dead, nah! Just working too much and painting in a very slow pace. Manage to finish my reavers jetbikes last night. I wish I could spend more time painting, but too much things to do and so little time, but I somehow achieved so far to paint at least 15 minutes every day, maybe more when I get hook up listening to battle reports or audio books of the Horus heresy.

Being tempted to start a space marine army, but the Dark City shall not tolerate such blasphemous thoughts.

Either way, I’m too into this army that I can’t just leave it. It’s so awesome when I see it all blended together. I think I already came up with at least a word that I want to include into the name of my Kabal, and that word is “Artic”. I was thinking something like “Kabal of the Artic Flares”, but I’m not too sure. If anybody can come up with a better mashup, I will truly be grateful.

Here are some pics of the reavers. Starting at the moment with a raider,










(In case you are wondering, these guys have their flying stands magnetize)

And now some answers to you guys, (sorry for the late response) (LOL four months)

@Dragontree: Thank you! I’m also fond with the blue orange. It’s my favorite combination of colors. I’m adding a little purple here and there, to add more details to my paint scheme, hope you like it.

@the_dukes_scion: I’m glad you like the army. About the background, I love idea to think that the Kabal is ruled by a council of archons that spends most of their time bittering and fighting with each other (the Kabal just loves intrigue and politics). To such a point that the Kabal isn’t very successful in space raids and it needs to acquire slaves from other Kabals to maintain its production of dark light matter (its real source of power).

@Alpharius: Yeah! It happens to me the same way. It took just five days to paint the reavers riders, but a whole month to paint six jetbikes.
 
@spellcheck2001: Thank you!, any compliments makes me very grateful.

@PartridgeKing: Thanks! I’m also amazed by the scheme.

@Trystis: At least one month of painting. LOL.

@Khain mor: All hail the Dark Moon Kabal! Man I watch your collection and always get inspired. I just imagine my little Kabal growing to the shadow of that size.

(Just in case, sorry for my lame English)

The runes on those models are phenomenal! I wish to one day paint my army at this standard

Your painting technique is so magnificent. One day I hope to blend as well as you do!

As for a name alternative to Artic Flares: Artic Blaze, Artic Glow, Artic Flash.

What colors do you use to basecoat/highlight the blue on your vehicles?

@Lord_Alino: Patience, patience and patience, I think anyone can manage a high quality painting if they dedicate a little more of their time doing additional highlights and shadows. To be honest, I don’t consider myself a superb painter, just someone who has the patience to do more painting work and not getting rush up. I’m sacrificing gaming time for painting.

@Tittliewinks22: Thank you very much, I just checked your blog and you also have a great technique. As I mentioned, just invest a little more time in the highlights, and the blends just pops out.

Regarding the blue, you can use a combination of artic blue, magic blue, ice blue and dead white. Believe or not I use the blue ink from the old GW line for the shadows, only poured it on the recesses. Actually any light tone blue color will do in my opinion.