Dark Eldar Clawed Fiend

Here we have my first Dark Eldar model, the Clawed Fiend. Now let me first say that I was eagerly awaiting the Dark Eldar re-release and am extremely excited about the updated rules and of course the new sculps! They were the brand new army to the 40k universe just as I first got into the hobby many many years ago, and I knew then that I wanted to have an evil fighting force of my own someday. Fast forward to now and I'm finally embarking on my journey through the dark city. As soon as I got the new codex last fall, I was immediately drawn to the entry for Beastmasters. Coming from mostly a Space Marines background, I had never seen anything quite like this. My eyes lit up and the list building portion of my brain started churning with all the possibilities this unit has to offer. I cannot wait to have a massive squad of beasts rushing out of a webway portal from midfield!

Anyway, I originally tried to paint this fiend up to look like a Wampa from Star Wars, mainly because I was watching The Empire Strikes Back at the time of priming this guy and a unit of Mandrakes.

Things were going well at first (I really should have snapped some pics after the first few coats of paint, but alas). Then I thought this scheme wasn't making the best use of all the fine details on the model and I didn't really want to do a snow themed Dark Eldar army. And lets be honest, I'm nowhere near the level of painting required to pull something like this off just yet. But I would certainly like to get a second fiend down the road, so maybe next time.

Then I went back to my painting table and surveyed the paints at my disposal to see what other direction I could take this guy. Oddly enough I tried a little bit of Citadel's Snakebite Leather even as I was telling myself I didn't want him to look TOO natural. So then I highlight over that with some Blazing Orange followed by some healthy doses of washes; Devlan Mud over the fur and Ogryn Flesh over the skin.

I'm a newb when it comes to washes and only recently started to incorporate them into my painting, but they can be a real game changer. I didn't really know what I was doing or how the colors would turn out, but after a little trial and error I started to learn what's what. Gryphonne Sepia works really well over Bleached Bone and I'll certainly be doing more of that for other models with exposed bone.

Well that's it for now. I'm not entirely finished with this guy yet as I still have a couple more details to go over, like the tongue and I'd really like to add the head of a Space Wolf or something being clutched in the right hand with all sorts of nasty dripping down. I'll see what I can come up with this weekend.