Kabal of the Splintered Soul

Well, after lurking here some time I've come to think, that I should open up my own plog and first off I'll tell you how everything began with my army of the dark kin. Due to the release of the Dark Eldar in November 2010 there was a little painting competition in my local GW, where one had to paint Lelith Hesperax and as I thought, that participating would be quite fun and I wanted to test my painting skills, i took part. And then one thing came to another, because I absolutely enjoyed this paintjob and also was totally flashed by the new Dark Eldar range. So in the end I decided to start up a little Dark Eldar force, which by now isn't as little anymore as I imagined or wanted it to be . Because of the fact, that I really liked Lelith Hesperax I wanted to start up a Wych cult army and for sure it had to be the Cult of Strife. While expanding my Dark Eldar I noticed that I would definitely need some Kabal units for a competitive army, so I researched a bit and found out, that Lelith Hesperax was said to be working for a special Archon (though this is 3rd edition fluff, but I don't really care ), namely Archon Sussarkh. Furthermore I found out, that his Kabal was named Kabal of the splintered Soul, but I'm not so sure anymore, if this is correct. Well I mean it still sounds cool, so i keep it. Anyway enough talking now, I think I'll let the pics of my finished miniatures (till now I haven't photographed anything I painted, so be ready for more to come ) talk for themselves
So then........ huge wall of pics incoming

Archon


Bloodbrides and Lelith





I apologize for partly crappy pics

double post for better distribution of pics

Inccubi



Raider + Wyches

Does nobody want to comment , it would be really appreciated

I like your army, especially the clean and crisp raider and the skin on the wyches. Which colours did you use for that?

@tmonster
thanks for your comment, the skin was painted with a 3:1 mix of Space Wolves Grey and Tallarn Flesh as basecolor and then I used a 2:1 mix of the GW Washes Ogryn Flesh and Leviathan Purple to shade it down, but only in the recesses, because otherwise it would get too dark for eldar skin I think. Well that's all, although I sometimes highlight the skin after shading down with the basecolor, but that depends on my mood

It is very well painted, some things feels a bit dank though but that could be the camera. Also, if you can excuse me, I feel the pose of the Klaivex is... a bit odd. I think that the upper part of the body should be spinned a bit to the left.

thank you for the praise
about the pictures I don't really know what you mean with "dank", because english isn't my first language (still I'm quite good at it ) and the only translation I found was that it means "wet", so it would be really appreciated, if you could enlighten me . I myself think, that it's the blurryness of the pictures, that makes them look a bit odd, so right now I'm working on them, I hope to be able to post them the other day. Onto the Klaivex, while skimming through the Dark Eldar codex there was this artwork of Drahzar, which really popped out for my eyes, so that I thought I would have to convert my Klaivex like Drahzar in this Artwork, as my Klaivex would also have demiklaives. His pose should look like he's facing the front of his enemies with his legs, while his torso slightly being bend to the right, as if he would be about to rotate, I'm making some more pics of him, maybe then it's better to see.................. Oh well and definitely no offense taken, C&C are always welcome

Love to see clearer photos, they look pretty cool from what I can see. Love the facial tattoos on the Wychs, but I have to agree the pose on the Klaviex looks a little off...but I think that of all the Incubi poses, awesome sculpts, just posed a little off lol

Ok, maybe dank wasn't the best word, perhaps dull would be better (and not dull as in boring, rather that it doesn't really "pop"). But as I said, that could be the pics.

The pictures are hurting you. It hard for me to see very well what you have.

What i can tell is there is red and green. Good color combination.

The raider looks pretty good from what I can tell, but it would benefit greatly from more shading on the sail. That would make the red "pop" more.

Sorry I don't have more to offer, but the blurry / unfocused pictures make it difficult to give a good critique.

Yeah I can understand your issues with the pics, that's why I'm meeting with someone on Wednesday, who definitely is better at photographing, then myself and then we will try to make better pictures of all my painted miniatures.... I hope so. They should be uploaded Wednesday evening then.

Hmm....... I promised new pics on Wednesday, well I think I missed the moment . Anyways I have some bad and gladly more good news for you, sadly the someone, with whom I wanted to make pictures of my miniatures yesterday forgot his professional camera, he often does so , that's the bad news. Still I brought my own digital camera, because I knew that there would be the chance he'd forget it, so we made pics, which are better than the ones I did, but aren't the best we can achieve. Posts will be edited with new pics in some moments, that's the first part of the good news , the other is, that this someone promised me to make the pictures himself today, so expect better pictures in some days.

edit: I think pics have to wait until tomorrow, since I'm having problems with the forum supported image hoster and the forum doesn't want to upload the pictures from my original image hoster

edit 2: Sheesh, a whole lot to edit here , additionally to the new pics I also have two new pics, one is my recently painted Haemunculus and the other my first painted Reaver-Jetbike, take it as a teaser for the unit of 3 Reaver-Jetbikes that is about to be finished. Right now everything I'm painting is for a 750 points double-tournament on the 20th of august.

Haemunculus



Reaver-Jetbike

I like the jetbike. Those glossy helmets are great.

OK.

SO here are my thoughts based on the reaver and some of the other pictures.

it seems to me that you are using as many as 6 different colors on your models. The problem with this is it creates eye confusion. In other words, the eye -> brain does not know where to look. it makes the model look very busy and un-focused.

On the jet bike alone I see black, dark green, orange, purple, blue and a bright green highlight. All of this makes it hard to tell what is what because each color is competing, visually, for attention.

My suggestion is to limit the color palette to 3 colors, that the most obvious ones, to me would be the black, dark green and red or orange. this will simplify the paint scheme overall and make the army seem more focussed and the contrast colors work well together.

If you do want to use additional colors, go with nuetral colors like beige, greys or greyed colors so they don't compete for attention and just "blend" into the model without taking away from your primary color scheme.

Now, that being said, you are of course free to do whatever you want. its your army and you are ultimately the one who needs to be happy with with you have done, so if you don't like or disagree with my suggestions and observations, then by all means, ignore them.

On the technical side, the painting is smooth and clean and there are not any signs of sloppy paint, so to me, the whole army could be much cleaner with more limited color. I appreciate the better picture as it helps me to get a good look at the models and correctly comment.

I am looking forward to more. Good luck with the camera. One thing that has helped me is when taking pictures inside/indoors, it to increase the exposure setting to +1. it helps a ton when the pictures come out too dark.

Agree to all GAR says.
(it's damn hard work with very little gain to use to many colours...)

Thanks GAR for your really long post, which is very content rich.

I do appreciate this sort of feedback, as I myself being a miniature painter am always striving to get better and better in what I'm doing and I think, that's the way everyone should go, when you set your main focus on the painting aspect of our hobby.

Well these things you have mentioned are definitely not new to me. During the time I painted most of my Dark Eldar minis I noticed, that there were too many colours on them and also got feedback from people on this matter. Stupidly enough I always ignored it and told myself, that I would like to have a gaming army, that it won't have to follow certain rules, which through the atmosphere they create, or the benefits they grant would have a distinguishable effect on my painting style and furthermore also on my miniatures. I thought it wouldn't have to be that well executed, just paint all the miniatures to a certain standard and have this special feeling, the one I can only imagine, when playing with them.

But just recently I changed my view, therefore now I really intend to focus even more on the painting aspect of our hobby as I think it's the most deepest and the most adorable one, because how you can create these "feelings" and "atmospheres" with your painting, if your really in to it, is just wonderful. I was on GD Germany last weekend and the area for the Golden Demon participants was the one I spend the most time at and seeing and meeting all these people, who are doing such wonderful things with their miniatures made me notice, that I would like to be a part of it. So I intend to learn and perfect the more difficult aspects of miniature painting and not only painting miniatures on a gaming standard, therefore I intend to train very hard this and next year.

So your thoughts on colour theorie on my miniatures suit me just fine at the moment, because this surely is essential for miniature painting and a first step I would like to improve at. I think I understand now, while looking at my Dark Eldar, that too bright colors, which aren't in coherency with each other in the colour circle are competing for attention and make the miniature look to busy. so starting right now before I'll paint my next new miniature I will try to make a concept of which colours I would like to use and also make more thoughts on how I will paint it. The only problem with my Dark Eldar right now is, that due to my change of my mind I'll most definitely refrain from painting whole armies on a gaming standard for some time. Still I will try to finish my painting vow for august, but I think I'll continue with my old fashion for this, because I'm worrying too much about losing coherency within my force, while executing your, I have to say, totally correct thoughts.

I hope that my thoughts weren't too much philosophical for you to follow and you can see your feedback being much appreciated

Ah ha...

Welcome to chasing the Holy Grail. You will never be as good as you want to be. However, painting to that level is not about the destination, its about the journey. There are so many aspects to painting and conversion and achievement and mastering different effects you will easily spend the rest of your life working to improve.

i've been painting for over 20 years and I am still learning.

All that being said, its does have its rewards. Painting competitions yield awards/trophies/demons and comments from your peers and admiration from others is always nice perk.

There is nothing wrong with a gaming standard army if you just want something to play with. if you want an army to stand out, then it takes a little more time. My Dark Eldar are done to a high standard, but near competition standard. Mostly because I play games with them, and they get bumped and scratched and parts break, and I would prefer to have a easy repair than hours of repair work.

My advise for the course you have laid out is, continue to work on your army, not to the highest standard, but work to get the shading, highlighting and details crisp and sharp. DO NOT DO EDGE HIGHLIGHTING
One of the great things about these models is the give you an excellent opportunity to work on painting techniques. I would focus on practicing blending and making sure your shading really helps define the shadows. Limit your color pallette and pay attention to the little details, those are what will really make the difference.

On the models helmets, you can practice a little off source lighting if that works for you. Less is more and often I see many painters, myself included, doing to much lighting effects.

Next, get a few individual figures, it doesn't really matter what they are as long as they are interesting to you. Then pan out how you want to paint the figure and paint it to the very best you can and when yo are done ask yourself " Is the very best I can do?"

Continue to work on your figures in this matter until you starting getting comfortable with what you are doing.

When I started to learn blending, I read every article I could and visited a lot of websites of top painters to try and figure out how they did it. Unfortunately for me, I was already the top painter where I was at so I didn't have anyone I could ask for help or advise, so it took me a while to figure things out.

One of the other things I would do is spend months working on a particular color, because I wanted to really master its use in as many ways as possible.

For my efforts, I have won 2 demons, multiple online painting contests and literally dozens of local competitions. More importantly, I have had a influence on other painters locally and they have improved significantly. The benefit of this is now there are several other painters I can ask they opinions and advise and so we help one another to improve.

below are a couple of project logs you should look over for ideas or to ask questions. These are very good project logs that can help to inspire.

Another thing that helps is to visit "Cool mini or not" for additional painting advise, especially on any non DE models you have since this site is DE dedicated. Don't worry too much about rankings, just submit to the forum and several folks will tell you politely what you need to do or what is wrong.

Visit these logs, mine included naturally as a place to begin.

One of the best things to keep in perspective. There a lot of people how may not be as good a painter as you, but they can surely tell you what is not quite right or needs to improve. These guys can really help.

And lastly, there is always someone who is going to be better than you, so don't take yourself too seriously when it comes to painting and competition. Do the very best you can, and try to improve with every single figure you do, and then know that it is enough.

best of luck and please don't be afraid to ask questions.


Speed Freaks project Log

Sorrow Shard Project Log

Lil Loser Project Log

Garfy's Project Log

The Black Halo

Thank you for these really nice words you send me on my way to the holy grail, GAR.

l think, that my point of view was always not having to win as many trophies as possible, due to my improved painting, but more, that the "journey" would be the destination. I would certainly be proud by myself, because of what I would be able to do and I think it would be worth the effort.

On another matter, I'm not sure, if it can be seen, due to the gloss varnish, but I tried painting a blending on the helmet of the reaver-jetbike-guy , I asked some people, who are quite good at blending and they meant, that it would look quite neat. So I'm always testing things out.

Well, those project logs you mentioned are definitely not new to me and I'm stopping by there every day and gain very much inspiration from their great painting and modelling skills.

Archon Sussarkh wrote:

Thank you for these really nice words you send me on my way to the holy grail, GAR.


No problem, I always happy, thrilled in fact, to help new budding painters. Painting is my favorite part of the hobby.

l think, that my point of view was always not having to win as many trophies as possible, due to my improved painting, but more, that the "journey" would be the destination. I would certainly be proud by myself, because of what I would be able to do and I think it would be worth the effort.

Don't misunderstand. Winning trophies is not the goal. To me, its a measuring stick of where you are, as an overall artist. The more trophies you have, the better you are doing. The competition is what I love most because I am always having to push the limits of my abilities to win. If I don't win, I go back and evaluate what I could have done better and ask my peers what they think. Competition is merely the motivator to improve and try new things out.

On another matter, I'm not sure, if it can be seen, due to the gloss varnish, but I tried painting a blending on the helmet of the reaver-jetbike-guy , I asked some people, who are quite good at blending and they meant, that it would look quite neat. So I'm always testing things out.

I couldn't see it. There are some good photo tutorials out there, but one thing that made a huge different is adjusting the exposure of the camera. Since I usually take my pictures inside, I adjust the exposure to a +1 and then auto correct the image with photo editor software. the +1 is for low light resulting in dark images. It may look fine in real life, but its probably not enough for the camera. If they are too bright, do the opposite.

Well, those project logs you mentioned are definitely not new to me and I'm stopping by there every day and gain very much inspiration from their great painting and modelling skills.

Don't be afraid to ask questions about how they did it.

Please do keep up the thread, I'm very curious to see your progress.