Power from Paint: A guide to painting Dark Eldar Vehicles

Welcome back to the Webway! One of the first articles I wrote for the Vault was a painting guide for Imperial Guard (mainly so I would have a handy reference for the next time I decide to paint some reinforcements), and I thought it would be useful to have a similar set of notes for my Dark Eldar vehicles.

I remembered to take a few work in progress shots of one my Venoms so I can illustrate the notes.

Time to bust out the paints!

So first of all prime the assembled model with Army Painter Wood Brown spray:

Primed

The flags have been magnetised for ease of transport (to avoid breakages, the curse of Dark Eldar models), and the top splinter cannon is also removable for painting. Note there's no clear plastic canopy piece in place, and no pilot model (as I've got something special planned for this model).

As usual, its a mix of paint ranges depending on what is in my paint box.

Stage 1: Paint the chassis:

i) Overbrush Skrag Brown

ii) Overbrush Kislev Flesh

iii) Edge highlight with Bleached Bone

iv) Hit the extreme pointy bits with Scar White

Chassis done

Stage 2: The metal work

i) Basecoat Warplock Bronze

ii) Add a layer or two of Hashut Copper

iii) Edge highlight Chainmail

iv) Wash with Biel-tan Green shade.

Very metal!

The next stages have been started in the picture above (i.e. the details)

Skulls

i) Basecoat Rakarth Flest

ii) Layer Bleached Bone, avoiding recesses

iii) Wash with Argrath Earthshade

iv) Reapply Bleached Bone where necessary

v) Highlight with Scar White

Gems/Spirit Stones

i) Basecoat Knarloc Green

ii) Wash Biel-tan Green

Flags

i) Basecoat Mechrite Red

ii) Apply a couple of layers of Scab Red

iii) Edge highlight Fire Dragon Bright

Canopy

i) Paint the underside of the canopy with Abaddon Black

ii) *Carefully* paint the canopy struts with Warplock Bronze

iii) Paint the canopy struts with Hashut Copper (still being careful....)

iv) Glue the canopy to the chassis (small dabs of superglue are sufficient)

And done! It's a nice and simple paint scheme so each vehicle can be cranked out in an hour or two (which is great as a typical Dark Eldar list uses a lot of such vehicles). Enjoy the pictures of the finished model.

Right side

Front view

Left view

On a more general note, the painting for Mayhem is now complete. Next time will be some shots of the completed army (and if you are lucky some pictures from a recent practice game). Until next time faithful readers.