Best of BoLS – Dark Eldar, Orks, and Squats – OH MY!
Doc; With the nights drawing out, and the new year building up (along with the snow) on us its the perfect opportunity to get painting and posting. You wouldn’t want to be going outside in the cold, so stick inside, look at some pretty models and work out what your next big hobby project is going to be
Shades;For those of us lucky enough to have received a few boxes of models from Santa (or parents, significant others etc for that matter) these few months can be a great time when we can kick back and build units without worrying about the cost for once. For the rest of us; well, limited funds do not have to limit creativity!
It has been a while since we have written one of these, so we have had plenty of threads to choose from. We could go on for ages, but we have tried to keep it brief (not to mention give ourselves more things to talk bout in future.)
Doc; Col_Festus’s Dark Eldar are one of those projects that you look at and just get immediately drawn into. Without sounding like an idiot the reds are….really red. I mean really red. Maybe its the contrast against the black but those reds are incredibly vivid, but not so much they get fluorescent and trippy.
Shades; These guys could almost have walked out of a comic book. The dark shading almost gives them a cell-shaded look. The faces are really expressive which, combined with the very pale skin, really makes them pop against the dark armour and strong reds.
As the Pythons’ said, “And now for something completely different.” Well, still 40k, but a cool, blue and very light DeffDred by petethomas
Shades; Despite the barrels of the ranged weapons not being drilled, this scheme looks stunning on the Deffdread. I’m not usually a fan of the softer looking, almost pastel colour schemes that seem to be quite popular at Golden Deamon of recent years, but petethomas has done an undeniably good job executing it on this model.
Doc, See I disagree with that as a comment. Thats one of the things I like about hobby modelling, there is so many different “schemes”. You can have the pastel colours, but also the grim dark, the airbrushes, the carefully blended, the defined edges and a lot of very different styles of painting, but all look incredible. I agree I prefer some to others, but just run with it!
Anyway. The model itself humms of Orkyness and the colour scheme has really helped show it. The blue and white really pops from the metals, and the Ork banging on its head looks great as well
Some People are just not able to let the demise of their short friends go. And now with them officially being re-conned (if that the opposite of ret-conned?) into existence in the appendix of the 6th ed rule book Squats are back on the rise in Frost 451’s thread.
Capturing the essence of what makes a squat a squat (other than their height), the models are looking to be well painted based on the middle guy there, but also represent a interesting challenge, getting the scale of things right, even when using other components.
Shades; Frost451 has done so much more than just give WFB Dwarves Las-weapons here. The conversions include loads of subtle additions that really mark these out as being Squats instead of being Dwarves on bikes etc. I think the use of the axes as front wheel forks are particularly clever.
Finally we go on to another of the first founding chapters; the Raven Guard, as interpreted by olberon
Doc; Once again someone steps up to the mark with a black Astartes army. Black. easy to paint, but so hard to make it look good. Same goes with white (except it ain’t easy to paint in the first place!). And Olberon has managed to achieve both on the same model!
Shades; I love ambitious projects like this. A whole company is no small feat, especially up to this standard. This is going to be a long term project we will have to keep our eyes on as it continues to expand.
Doc; He has also managed to to capture pasty flesh that makes the Raven Guard famous, but in such a way that it doesn’t look too washed out next to the white and black of the armour. The tiny spots of rust on the bases also introduce a bit of colour so the whole model isn’t monotone which helps!
Shades; The deep, dark black is really a great example of how to do it, with very subtle highlights that suit the shadowy nature of the Raven Guard.
So that is once again it from us for today. Leave comments below if you disagree with what we’ve said, if you think we’ve missed something out or have simply been inspired by these offerings; let us know what you are working on
Doc; Yep, get posting those models on the Modelling and Painting forum and maybe we’ll see them on here. I’ve already got my eye on a few posts that I want to show off, so make sure you put your best work forward and you too could be seeing your work on the BoLS front page soon!
