Painting Dark Eldar in 'Roman Colours'?

[Desalbert]

I have a Dark Eldar army that needs to be painted (and in some cases repainted) and the races' fall into pleasure always makes me think of the Romans. Furthermore, I like the concept of the Roman Empire, or any Empire, and would like to apply the hubris, egoism and will to win that it implies to my force.

To that end, I want to try to evade the sombre always-black DE and pay some homage to the Romans

Without conversion (just paint). I was thinking about this:


A general roman legionnaire looks as such:



So I was thinking that at the very least, Kabilite warriors could be silver armour, and red in any clothy parts ; but which GW paints should I shoot for? Is Boltgun Metal shiny enough? Is Blood red bright enough?

secondly, as wyches have low armour I was thinking of doing them either in red suits, or in brown suits (evoke brown leather) with red under-cloth.

Heavier armoured or more important models (Incubi, HQ choices) , I thought might be allowed Gold armour with red undertones for cloth, kind of as such:



as well, all plumes of hair would match the red of the roman-brush helmet, which is pretty iconic; while nonhelmets will probably keep to black hair, and white, in some cases.



So, in theory, the army would generally be unified under metallics like Gold and Silver, as well as bright red-tones.

However, Vehicles are not so simple, and I'm not so sure of weapons should essentially be black, or, perhaps some other colour.



BUT, to my questions:

1) Do you feel these mettalics+red scheme would look okay? Is it too bright for Dark Eldar?
2) How would you approach Vehicles in this army, personally?
3) For Hellions (and perhaps others) I want to add a little wear and rust to their skyboards; is this best achieved with bronze+orange mix?
4) What GW paints should I look for to complete this scheme ?


and 5) For the Talos, (as it is my favourite unit) I wanted to treat it a bit special, possibly. First, Talos in Greek Myth is the giant man of bronze that attacks and defends Crete. Though this is not Roman, I want to pay a bit of homage to it. Do you think there's anyway to pull that off in the new Talos model without looking goofy? Any thoughts there would help.


The Talos myth looks like this:

I don't just want to slap bronze on him all over and call it done, but perhaps the skin, or maybe just the armour... anyway, maybe. (This is something I'm thinking about but might break the army unity.)

Thanks for any and all reccommendations! (Or non-recommendations and advice warning me not to do this scheme)

[Darwin_green]

I think something along the lines of a death mask on the talos's face could be really creepy. kind of like this.

[Blinder]

Boltgun metal, assuming the "new" stuff is similar to the "old" stuff, is IMO very VERY shiny, it might be good to do a couple test minis and try something like Chainmail to see which you prefer. Blood Red should be plenty bright, again you might actually end up deciding it's too bright depending on what kind of look you're going for (there's the super-bright super-polished parade look, or the business-as-usual look). For vehicles, look at some of the traditional treatments of chariots (bikes/venoms) and ships (I think the new modles have departed a bit, but the raider/ravager still screams "I should have OARS!" to me).

1) Do you feel these mettalics+red scheme would look okay? Is it too bright for Dark Eldar?

"Too bright for Dark Eldar" is somewhat down to your personal tastes, and as noted you don't have to go for the brightest shades.

3) For Hellions (and perhaps others) I want to add a little wear and rust to their skyboards; is this best achieved with bronze+orange mix?

Whatever "dark flesh" is nowadays would probably work better than the bronze for the darker bits of rust, or even something on the sepia side of things (scorched brown or whatever, I think?) to go even darker.

4) What GW paints should I look for to complete this scheme ?

I'd go more with chainmail and deeper reds (scab red or w/e instead of blood red) for the iron and red cloth. Blood red I'd reserve for painted "wood" (parts of the vehicles and such). I'd also steer more towards bronze for fancy armor (probably some mix of the bronze and gold paints though). That's just me, however. If you're going for a bright look blood red and boltgun metal should serve your purposes. You'll probably want a slightly darker red as well for a base color and maybe lighter for highlights, but mixing in black/white can get you there as well (just harder to keep it all the same over a long project).

Weapons could be a mix of "iron-ish" and bronze, with red "not-metal" areas, or you could try painting those parts up to look wooden?

For Talos... Well, the Romans *did* have a habit of stealing deities, so I don't think you need to worry on that front. You could always make any "body" parts bronze, and the "armor" paint up to match the vehicles? All-bronze *could* work though, with different shading (or quantities of wash/ink) to make various types of parts distinct and avoid the "dunked in paint" look. Some bits could be done to match however you handle the vehicles/emblems, as well.

[baphomael]

Well, all I can say is your transports couldn't be better for the theme. Flying space tiremes!

[Whitwort Stormbringer]

To answer your questions:

1) Do you feel these mettalics+red scheme would look okay? Is it too bright for Dark Eldar?

Yes, I think it would look OK. Personally I would go with pretty dark reds and metallics, and for me the brighter red and silver is too bright for Dark Eldar, but that's just my take on it. Whether or not it's too bright really comes down to personal taste and some people like a much brighter or more vibrant palette than others.

2) How would you approach Vehicles in this army, personally?

Well you do basically have triremes in space. I think you probably don't want them to look like wooden ships, of course, but maybe a metallic body with red accents and a menacing face/eyes painted onto the prow armor plating. That would definitely have a very Roman feel.

4) What GW paints should I look for to complete this scheme ?

I haven't purchased GW paints in a while, but I could have sworn Boltgun Metal was darker than Chainmail (and Chainmail darker than Mithril Silver). If you're worried about it being too bright, I guess I'd basecoat in Warplock Bronze and then drybrush or highlight in Ironbreaker. I don't have any experience with those paints, just what I think I'd go with based on the current GW paint range.

and 5) For the Talos, (as it is my favourite unit) I wanted to treat it a bit special, possibly. First, Talos in Greek Myth is the giant man of bronze that attacks and defends Crete. Though this is not Roman, I want to pay a bit of homage to it. Do you think there's anyway to pull that off in the new Talos model without looking goofy? Any thoughts there would help.

If you want your talos to actually be Talos (or some equivalent incarnation), rather than just an ordinary Dark Eldar talos in a Roman-themed army, then go for the bronze skin. If you want yours to still be the traditional version of the Dark Eldar talos (i.e. the biomechanical monstrosity rather than a mythological giant) then I'd go for your standard skin tone but with bronze armor plating. Of course, if you like the bronze skin but want to stick with the 40K background for the talos, you could always say that the bronze coloring is a result of the experimentation or even that the haemonculus that created him was messing around at recreating necrodermis or something whacky like that. I guess to me it depends on whether the Roman theme is purely aesthetic, or you want your Dark Eldar to have a bit of a Roman culture/belief system as well.