Eldar Pirate Captain

Here is the second model I acquired for my nautical/pirate themed army prior to the actual release of the Dark Eldar. It is a special character from the Dark Elves army (fantasy) that I intend to use as a squad leader. The squad will be a mix of parts from the new Dark Eldar warrior and the Dark Elf corsair models.
Of particular note; this model marks my first attempt at crystal swords. The instructions in WD 361 sounded very simple but were anything but during execution. The technique requires a lot of frequent, quick transition blends between extreme shades of color which were very hard to do on such a small surface area. Despite several redo-s, I'm happy with the results.
The base is supposed to look like the wooden planks from a ship and were actually made with wooden craft sticks that I "weathered" and stained with brown ink. The chain is from a necklace chain that I superglued together (to keep it from moving around) and then painted.
Although I like this model and feel it came out pretty good, I'm concerned by how dark it is. If all the models in my army come out this dark, it will not have the "pop" required to distinguish it from any other army; even if I did a good job at applying the paint. In essence, I need to stay away from black as much as possible and make sure my colored bits have extreme amounts of contrast.