Dark Eldar: Duke Sliscus conversion complete

"We learnt long ago that the inscrutable universe turns upon an axis of suffering, because pain is inevitable."

The past month and a half has been a busy one for me, as I prepare for my PhD thesis defense. Despite that, I have found some time to spend on the hobby and used it to finish my conversion of the Dark Eldar Duke Traevelliath Sliscus. Started sometime last year, the conversion was very close to completion when I was distracted by all manner of other projects.

Although he was a long time in coming, using a lot of parts from different models, and a sizable amount of greenstuff work, I think it was ultimately worth it.

The conversion was based heavily on the latest two plastic Dark elf characters, the Black Ark Fleetmaster and the assassin Shadowblade. The Duke’s body comes from Shadowblade, while his head and cape come from the Fleetmaster. Both of the Duke’s weapons (a Blast pistol and the Serpent’s Bite) were converted from a collection if Dark elf and Dark Eldar weaponry. If you are interested in reading more about the how the weapons were made, you can find a lot more details in my previous post. With this post, I wanted to showcase the finished model, with a bunch of pictures and some details of the final stages of the conversion.

The cloak from the Dark elf Fleetmaster worked surprisingly well for the Duke after reworking the shoulder attachment points.

The Duke carries a heavily customized Blast pistol and a pair of blades known as the Seprent's Bite.

To finish the conversion, I simply needed to attach his cape and sword. His cape was a little tricky, requiring two pins to stably mount it on his back. Once mounted, I needed to do some greenstuff work to make it look like the cape was convincingly attached to his shoulders with some clasps. For his right shoulder, I added a simple shoulder guard taken from a plastic Dark Eldar hellion. I also needed to tidy up some of the scales on his cape where I had trimmed it to fit the Duke. As for his sword, it was largely complete from the last time, a simple conversion combining components of the various swords from the plastic Dark elf Dreadlord on dragon. To finish it, I simply pinned it in place and did a small amount of greenstuff work around its hilt.

I have been really impressed with how well the Dark Eldar and Dark Elf ranges mix together, looking very natural and to scale.

With a squad of Trueborn finished, and now the Duke, all I need to do is find some time to actually play a game of the 7th edition of Warhammer 40k.  I cannot say I am too sure how well they transitioned into the new edition, but I guess they can still Ally with Eldar, ha ha.

- Adam Wier