The Kabal of the Crimson Woe, Part 8 - Court of the Archon actually complete

I was rooting around in the hobby loft and finally found the Lhamaean model I'd misplaced and finished painting her. She was my test model for the skin tone I'm planning on using for the Dark Eldar, based on the excellent tips from Dave Taylor. The Dheneb Stone/Leviathan Purple combo really gives the skin a nice pallid look.

 

I was trying to do violet eyes on her, but they ended up looking a bit too similar to the purple undertone of the skin. I may go back in and give her pupils a darker color at some point before I seal the models. With the weather around here being what it is, that may be some time away yet...

While I was at it, I tried to get some better pictures of the rest of the Court of the Archon and the Crimson King. I really like the look of the unit all assembled, with the built in 'tiering' in size it makes me want to make a little diorama base for them. All in all finishing this unit has really got me excited to paint the rest of the army - I'm sure that'll wear off somewhere in the process of painting 30-some Wyches and Warriors!

 

These pictures show the various reds a little better than previous shots of the Crimson King. The intent was to make his cloak, hair and armor all slightly different shades of crimson. I do still need to add static grass to the bases on the Archon and several members of the Court. but the weather has been so chilly I'm afraid of frosting...

For those times I want to run the Court on foot, I built the maximum 5 Ur-Ghuls. Two of the models ended up being a bit too similar, so I usually pull one of the 'twins' out when the Crimson King joins the unit and I need to keep the unit size to 10 to fit in a Raider.

The last couple pictures of the Sslyth have been a bit out of focus, which was the main reason I ended up re-shooting all of the models in the Court. I plan on making one more Sslyth in the future (to bring unit up to its max of 3), as I've been rather pleased with their battlefield performance. The fact that they aren't classified as Bulky is nice when it comes to transporting the unit.

Lastly, the Medusae. I added a little blue wash around the edges of their mirror helms which give it a nice look, and tried to model them such as to suggest they are limp husks being dragged along by their Medusae parasites. These models exemplify my issues with the red-to-black transition I'd originally intended. Instead I'm going with red and black armor plates on the rest of the army, the red plates being similar to the armor on the Crimson King, and occasional black plates edged in grey. I decided to keep the Medusae's armor as-is however, to help distinguish them from the Wych models of which they are primarily made - though I suppose the floating brains and zombie poses probably suffice for that!