A venom worthy of a leader

As i have mentioned in previous posts i have always chosen to glue shut the cockpit of my venoms, paint them black and then use 'ardcoat to make them pop a bit.

The choice was utilitarian (could not be arsed to paint cockpit) by style (GLAS? on a SPACE worthy vessel) and by look (I just wanted to).

But on this, my third Venom i felt that it was time to stretch my wings a bit, emboldened by what i deemed to be a success on the wracks, i decided to try some new things. So on the new venom i wanted to

• have a vessel that immediately identified as for a HQ
• have a green HUD 
• paint the operator and inside of cockpit. 
• use 'ardcoat and technical highlighting to make it look a bit more swish. 
• actually base a flying base for a skimmer. 

The HUD was the easiest one, i used the Waywatcher green glaze and basically soaked the glase ( i have spares so i figured i'd test it) i saw a highly instructive youtuber reccommend Tamiya clear green, but as i didn't have any, and could not seem myself using it more than once or twice, i figured i'd give waywatcher a swang.

It worked out, but i do reccommend touching up with some nuln, and highlighting with some green, to define the features.

The operator and cockpit was easy enough, as long as i had the desired Daftpunk head available. 

The basing was done to my satisfaction (praise be to mordheim turf!) 

The 'ardcoat was the real killer, for some, naive, unspoken reason i thought two layers would do. Nope. I'm at five now, and i'm decently happy now. I also decided to do the "middle" and wings with some 'ardcoat. To give it some P-zass!

and this was the result. 

The red on the nose and body corresponds to the colour i did my new succubus in, while the greener on the back part matches the overall scheme of my kabal. I tried to come up with how to do a base that denoted some movement, but i resigned myself to the wateland one you can see. 

Still, i am pretty happy overall. 

What i've been up to lately.

I really need to get my shit together here.

And that, just now? that was the placeholder i wrote, just to upload some relevant pictures, like four weeks ago.

So what have i been up to? Well, so far i've gotten in one low-points game of Dark Eldar 7'th. I was not impressed. I'll be getting back to my impressions with a few more games under my belts, in short though, i don't think the codex is dooming casual players to any greater extent. But i can't really see it as being competitive without some Craftworld lovin'.

Then again, the hell do i know about competitive?


On the Painting front things have faring better. I keep getting in about one session of painting each week, not as much as i'd want, but i usually walk away with a squad or a vehicle painted each time. Which is quite satisfactory to my meager skills. So without further ado. Let's post what i've gotten done.

 

My first venom. 

Now, as with everything else to do with Dark eldar the Venom is a real treat. The model is sleek, predatory and the very design gives the impression of speed and movement.

The kit itself is also incredibly easy to assemble. If you've ever built a games workshop "bike" model, then you're going to be familiar with the whole "two-sides-glued-together-done" assembly. The which is am incredibly gratefull for, as the raiders are pretty finnicky to assemble.

You have two design choices to do regarding your Venom.
A) Do you want an open cockpit with visible pilot/open canopy with clear plastic.
B) underslung splinter cannon or TL Splinter rifle? And some spikes underneath. Because it is a Dark eldar modell.

I went for C. And painted the canopy black, and even chose not to have a gunner in the back. I'm assuming that my evil-space-dark-elves have figured out a way to fire two weapons from the inside.

The painting itself is as complicated or easy as you want to make it.

I went with a detailed "sybarite green" higlight, like this.

Now with shaky cam!

Now with oversaturation in flashes!

To be completely hones i think this makes it pretty damn hot straight up. This is 70% of the work (but as the blog says, i Can't paint) and it really makes the venom look like the predatory hunter that it is.

But i chose to try out some new things.

The horrible leg not included in purchase.

Now, the first thing i wanted to try was getting a good highlighting on the "gems" on the wings, it isn't immediately noticeable, but up close it's pretty clear that i botched it. So i just did the old "half bright red, half dark red, shade and yellow dots" to fix it up. And as a table top paintjob it worked out.

Per my wifes suggestion i did the cut sides in metal, as well as the wing spikes, with a simple silver highlight to make them "pop"

it wound up looking like this.

Which works as table top painting in my opinion.


I've also had the time to paint a couple of kabalites. I've continued with the previous way of painting (highlights and copper weapons) But i have started adding more details, it's a pretty organic process for me. IE trying something out on ,say a sybarite, thinking it looks Neat-o and going back to complete my older ones.

For some reason i kind of dig the ol' "pope" hat size of the 5E kabalites.

These guys have also gotten a matching raider by now, and i need to start up the second one this week. All in all it looks like this.

I'm pretty happy with the red sail offsetting the blue torquoise of the mast.



What is missing right now is the following

* Getting on basing. i've got some SM and Tau bits to add as trophies too.
*doing an Archon. So far i've made do with Sybarite conversions as HQ's
*Getting a final list for what i want to play with for 7'th.

that's what i'm doing right now, and of course, ragging on the codex.