Eldar Dark Reapers

Recently I attended a local swap meet where I picked up a collection of 2nd generation Eldar Dark Reapers.

This is what the first-generation Dark Reapers look like (I painted a half dozen of them a few years back), released in 1991:

Then in 2000, the 3rd Edition releases were made that included new Dark Reaper sculpts. Here's one of the three models/poses.

The huge difference between the two is the removal of their targeting 'ears' - a good move in my opinion. My recent purchase also included a 4th Edition Dark Reaper Exarch released in 2006. That model came with two different weapons and was sporting a rather funky tactical rock.

Here are the Dark Reapers as I bought them: 1 Exarch with the twin guitar, and 8 standard Aspect Warriors, in three different poses. The colour choice isn't your standard Dark Reaper (more typically a very dark grey, or almost midnight blue) but it still looked good.

What did I do? Using mainly orange and a little yellow (which was a bit of a mistake) I line-edged each of the models. I also used a series of sepia and black washes to give the model a little more depth. The faces I decided to blue/green, looking at achieving some more contrast. The final thing of note was using light blue for the eyes. The Bases were very straightforward, superglue with sand on plasticard (an old credit card) for the Aspect Warriors, which I drybrushed green. The Exarch's base was a little bigger, and I decided to use a piece of plating from an old piece of terrain to match his tactical rock.

Because I like to play with my models, the last step was to varnish them. I started with a gloss, then went matte before applying a specialist, ultra matte hobby varnish. The paint job always suffers a little from such treatments, but I'm more than happy to sacrifice a little beauty to ensure the models are seen on the table with some regularity.