Step-by-Step Dark Eldar Wyches

Step 1: Charadon Granite
Wyches are half leather-half armour, charadon granite is for all the leather bits.

Step 2: Fortress Grey
This was drybrushed very lightly over the charadon granite parts.

Step 3: Badab Black
Doused over the same area. Our leather is done, now we can move on to the flesh...

Step 4: Dheneb Stone
Note that I'm intending on making her loincloth thingy "flesh" as well. We'll differentiate between it and hers with the washes.

Step 5: Skull White
Drybrushed over all things Dheneb, to bring out those details and highlights before we wash them down.

Step 6: Ogryn Flesh
Usually I would wash rather heavily to get a good amount of this in there, but I'm actually going for a somewhat pale skin, so I used it lightly.

Step 7: Gryphonne Sepia
Heavily used on the loincloth.

Step 8: Vermin Brown
This is the secondary leather color. There are a couple belt pouches and the cords to wrap her hair up that are being hit with this color.

Step 9: Elf Flesh
Elf Flesh is my new drybrush highlight for any leather based in Vermin Brown. I used to use Bronzed Flesh, but GW discontinued it. This has been a good replacement.

Normally my next step would be to finish off this secondary leather with a Devlan Mud wash ... but there are a few other areas that will be finished with Devlan Mud, so I'll set those areas up first.

Step 10: Shining Gold
Areas on the gun, jewelry, weapon hilts, and the zipper.

Step 11: Mithril Silver
The main part of the pistol and the blade are covered with silver, as well as a light drybrush over the gold areas. The gold is now ready for Devlan...

Step 12: Blood Red
My DE hair is red, to offset their teal/cyan armor color.

Step 13: Macharius Solar Orange
Drybrushed over the red hair, as well as applied to the various tubes running from backpack to various areas of the body ... I assume it's their drug supply. The red is now ready for Devlan...

Step 14: Devlan Mud
I think Devlan Mud is my favorite wash. This was applied to the secondary (brown) leather pieces, the gold, the silver weapons and the hair. I found the mud on silver to be an interesting and novel effect that I'm going to use for all of my DE.

Step 15:
OK, we're on to the actual armour proper now. This is the part that will cover most of the DE warrior models. I wanted the color to be near-black at the flat ends, highlighted to teal/cyan at the edges... to accomplish this, I based the area in Necron Abyss, a very dark blue.

Step 16: Enchanted Blue
This was used to make a rather thick edging along the plates. I say thick because it needs to show underneath a thinner edging line...

Step 17: Ice Blue
Thinly edged along the armour plates.

Step 18: Thraka Green
This was applied heavily to the blue armour plates. This is the step that adjusts everything from a blue to a teal/cyan color. If you liked the blue look better, consider using Asurmen as your wash instead.

Step 19: Shining Gold
Now that the armour is done, we can hit that little embossed detail on the glove with gold.

Step 20: Mithril Silver
This was used to touch the various spikes and studs protruding from the armour/leather.

Step 21: Bleached Bone
For the pick in her hair.

Step 22: Astronomican Grey
OK, I'm not sure if you had realized earlier, but there was a tiny bit of conversion work at play here, I attached a vial that I got from a Blood Angels sprue to the base of the sword's blade ... this is to be a Venom Blade. The grey is the vial's basecoat.

Step 23: Snot Green
Apply to the sword's blade as well as in the vial. Keep a level line with the ground to create the illusion of an actual fluid in the vial.

Step 24: Scorpion Green
A further highlight along the blade and in the vial.

Step 25: Skull White
A tiny vertical line along the vial for a shine to complete the effect.

Step 26: Calthan Brown
A basecoat for the base.

Step 27: Static Grass
I also found a bit of shrub to slap on there.

Well? Let me know what you think. I took a while deciding what kind of basing to use with them. I have 5 armies on a bleak brown rock-type base, 2 on snow, 2 on urban, and only 1 on grass (the Eldar). Part of me found it fitting that the DE should share the same basing as the Eldar, and the other part found it rather blasphemous. In the end, I think they look like they kind of don't belong there ... and I think I like that look.