#harlequins

[adeptus-illustratum]

The Amazing Grimdark Circus Art by Gray-Skull --- My DeviantArt My Boosty

[wh40kartwork]

by Bartlomiej Vetinari

[cursed-40k-thoughts]

A harlequin grabbing a live grenade, running over to someone else entirely, handing it to them, and then tearing off again is extremely on point, holy shit. A Death Jester would 500% do this for the hilarity. Love it.

[autumn-archfey-artwork]

Harlequin escape

[magnifigal]

Nothin to see here folks, just your average Lamenter and his emotional Support Death Metal Troupemistress

[lord-soth-dk]

[tagedeszorns]

It's a work in progress, since the RP is still going on.

And it needs some knowledge about how Saqqara got into Fabius' hands, who those people of the Consortium and in Erebus' inner circle and those pesky Harlequins and beautiful Noise Marines are. But if you've read "Shards of Erebus" and the first Fabius-novel you are fine.

[selezione-innaturale]

Warhammer 40k headcanon

If you visit Trazyn the Infinite's collection, a troupe of Harlequins will show you around the place singing and dancing Oompa Loompa style.

They're not even part of the collection, they're doing it because of some mysterious plan by Cegorach

[painting-warhammer]

Solitaire in the style of Vriska Serket (Homestuck)

Just in time for 4/13! Commentary under cut.

The Lessons Learned

#1: Learn As Much As You Can Before Letting Your Mini Anywhere Near A Brush

As first figures go, this was honestly not as bad as it could have been, but I am an outlier. (and the second figure would be much worse.) Since the proverbial canvas was so expensive, it was a lot of "measure twice, cut once."

This was the main thing I used, and save for the face looking like chewed-up bubblegum, it came out relatively okay for a first try. Overall, this guy's a legend and this would be far from the only video of his I would reference.

#2: It's Okay To Be Inspired

What really hooked me on Warhammer in general is that you can paint things in your style. This is appealing at first, but if you're not an artist, you're going to be exposed quickly in the worst way possible, and that's by the color wheel theory. If you don't understand contrast and coomplements, all the technique in the world won't save your figure from looking like an eyesore.

This is where "established" characters that you are mimicking end up being your saving grace. If canon material is your bag, that works: You certainly won't lack as far as exact guides then! But in my opinion, you learn a bit more by improvising and trying to make something similar to an established character. Chances are they're popular because they have an appealing color scheme. As it happens, Vriska's various blue motifs really complement her orange, which is something I never realized way back when.

Also, reinterpretation was inevitable. I had initially considered freehanding the sun symbol on her lapel, but when everything was smaller than my pinkie, I just settled for making her jewels yellow. The real masterstroke was taking the Harlequin's Kiss weapon and recoloring it as the Warhammer (oh hey) of Vrillyhoo.

I just took the general colors and used Spiritstone Red on the rounded bits, and made something analogous to it. It's still the neatest part, imo.

#3: The Best Way To Start

For every color, I had a swatch. I had one base color, which I then doused in a shade, and then added one layer paint as the main color and one shade lighter for highlights.

#4: How To Make A Shiny Figure

There's a special paint called Ardcoat that puts a glossy texture on, but something that's a little more muted that gives a shine is... shade paint! I didn't shake the paint pot enough and created a fun glossy texture that you can see on her knee. (I learned how I accidentally did this by asking at my local Warhammer shop, lol)

#5: Don't Be Afraid To Make Mistakes

I'm sure there's more than just this wrong with this figure, but the Solitaire is supposed to be leaping off that little rock there. There were glyphs where I was able to put in a glowing line of Baharroth Blue that was watery enough that it filled in the little gaps on its own. It looked fantastic once...

Unfortunately, I overfilled my brush and it sloughed over into the other creases and ruined the whole effect. I also slopped Mordant Earth onto the stones and made it too ugly.

But that's just it. As much prep work as I was going in with, there was always going to be a mistake, and on a personal psychic level it feels bad when you make it. It ruins a whole day of painting lol. And you can't really stop those emotions, but you should at least try.

#6: You're Not Married To Your Army

It's inevitable that getting your first figure leads you to think about a whole army of them, but I had this distaste in my mouth when I thought about making more than one Vriska. For one, I didn't like any of the other Harlequins or Aeldari, or more importantly, I couldn't think of fun color schemes for them. The thought came to mind to make the ships similar to the Batterwitch/Condesce, but they were too similar color-wise (and even in the symbology!) where it just felt redundant. I get a special kick out of making something different from the boxart, because that's the point in my opinion.

I coped for a while: Green stuff or 3D print horns for the other figures to make them trolls? Suck it up and just use Vriska's color scheme for the others? In the end, I just gave up and called this a practice run. This is still my favorite figure. I'm just happy the first one turned out so nicely, relatively speaking, so I don't really have a lump of paint surrounding what was once a figure like a lot of first-time painters.

But no worries. Because I'd definitely fuck up the next one. 😅 That's for a new post.

[chemos-factories]

i am happy to call this done finally! i might go back and fiddle with it a little, but for now, it is Complete Enough! shadowseer oc name of Nuadan, member of the Masque of the Twisted Path. very fancy gentleman. come closer. lower your guard. its fine.

[jonahmagnus]

'Cause Im in love with you!

[the-consortium]

*Grittys into Fabius's office* What do you call an angry doctor?....A therapissed.

[wh40kartwork]

Shoulder To Shoulder

by Sam Manley

[cursed-40k-thoughts]

A lone death jester stands centre stage, lit by a solitary spotlight. Next to him stands his obviously kidnapped imperial guardsman assistant, Jimothy. An audience of drukhari, harlequins and flayed ones watch with rapt attention. The death jester waves his hands about in a mystical fashion, then grabs Jimothy by the scalp and forearm. With a single, instantaneously smooth motion, like a waiter pulling the cloth off a table, he rips off all of Jimothy’s skin in one largely intact sheet. The action is so flawless that Jimothy’s clothes are still on. He is silent for a moment, then screams in several kinds of horror and immediately expires. The crowd go wild. The jester does an exaggerated bow, twirling Jimothy’s entire dermis and epidermis on one finger like pizza dough. He spins away from the audience and tosses the lot into their frenzied mass, bridal bouquet style. The jester sprints backstage as violence erupts. A mad scramble to claim Jimothy’s skin ensues.

[wh40kgallery]

Harlequin Player

by Wonchun Choi

[magnifigal]

surprisingly, the negotiations went really well!!

also she survived WAAAAAGHKEN

(yes, there should be a Wacken in 40k universe called WAAAAGHKEN)