I've been rereading the Fabius Bile series a lot recently, and more and more the Harlequins have been sticking out as antagonists. The main draw is Veilwalker and how she goads Fabius and Oleander, but also all the moments that characters catch glimpses of the harlequins out of the corner of their eye and hear them laughing. The more I payed attention the the colour scheme of green, black and gold, the more I thought "hmm, I bet these would look really good with one of those overly bright and obviously airbrushed colour schemes". Despite having owned a good airbrush for a few years now, I've never been comfortable with the concept of hyper-transitions on my models and usually just keep it to a basic zenithal lighting with colours that create a more subtle transition. But I was tempted.
And this is the result of caving to that thought;
I painted the shadowseer first, as it was Veilwalker that inspired me, not realizing that she and the Veiled Path were already established with a particular scheme (oops). As such, this is my interpretation of her albeit tweaked to not look like a circus. The important thing to note...is that I hate the motley. Yes, I get the point of them being flamboyant and eye-catching. No, I don't think it works well to present a cohesive looking force on the table. There will be diamonds when my micro stencil comes in, but applied as a tasteful fade on the ends of the streamers and cloak areas to create more internal contrast.
Oh boy, the Death Jester. I screwed up a solid 3 times building him, the end result being that he has a bionic left arm attaching him directly to the gun. Honestly a little annoying to paint as its so scrunched together and doesn't sub-assemble well, but pretty simple and the end result is pleasant.
I stayed away from a white mask and used black as the main colour as I tried to make it more deathly and grim in aspect which imo worked out in the end, but I need more painted models to really emphasize the more divergent scheme; right now the biggest difference is the gun barrel being black instead of purely metallic.
Having just completed the Jester, my next model is going to be the Troupe Master. I have to admit, I like the old 4th edition sculpt far more, but i also remember it being far larger than the current plastic range. I ended up just giving him the classic power sword, as it could be the relic weapon down the line and it gives more painting opportunity than the other weapons. On that note, I'm a bit dissapointed that you only get 2 carress and 2 embrace, but I figured that if I nip the ends of the kiss to just have the oval pod I can give the entire unit caresses (even though I think they're the most boring of the melee weapons to paint, maybe some wonky glow that I can ruin the rest of the paintjob trying to OSL?). Lots of things to think about for the imminent unit.
Some general thoughts on the painting and scheme progression. I really like how the green turned out, and I learned that even though I can go back and redefine the shadows with a dark angel green glaze it'll alter the transition to be slightly less hyper-y and more natural looking. Also, that my brown wash came out glossy on the Shadowseer's gold areas, but I actually like the end finish more, so I might need to invest in brown gloss wash for the rest of the units.
Thanks for looking and hopefully any feedback on unit loadouts/painting!