Necrons!

[Will Vale]

11 hours ago, rockpopandchips said:

Will you be highlight the edge of the lower metal legs as well?

Yes I think so, but maybe with drybrushed edges rather than edge highlights? I don't usually find metallics are soft enough for that to look good. It might be that I don't have the technique yet but I'm not usually sure about it when the GW painters to it on e.g. swords.

 

I've started on those claws though, with a basecoat of (two thin coats of) Screaming Bell. This is a pretty horrible metallic on its own, but it does have a good colour as a base for copper and once washed with Agrax Earthshade I think it's OK.

 

 

You can see how poor the coverage is after two coats though!

 

I'm intending to use Vallejo Liquid Metal Copper to highlight these, but I need to see how well that drybrushes since I normally paint it on. Hopefully the effect will be like the Tesla carbine muzzles on the Immortals above.

 

 

11 hours ago, rockpopandchips said:

I suppose that might come with the glow effect of the gun, will be interesting to see how you tackle the glow with all those legs and bits sticking out all over.

Yeah it's going to be slightly fiddly just getting in to paint it at all. I *think* that because it's all in shadow it won't need to be too perfect, and I can keep the glows quite short-ranged like I did on the Immortals. That should save some effort and mean I don't have to worry too much about legs, but maybe some glow on the chins might be right?

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Will Vale]

In related news my fancy-pants wet palette from Redgrass Games' Kickstarter turned up today:

 

 

So far so good, although the magnets which hold the well palette in place are a bit feeble.

 

 

If I don't instantly become a genius level painter now I shall be sorely disappointed!

 

W

[Will Vale]

Did some test painting last night and this morning, seems good so far:

 

 

The paint all stayed workable overnight and doesn't seem to have got unworkably thin. So far so good.

 

 

Haven't actually done much on the wraiths but I made a start on the glowy bits as you can hopefully see above. And the reason I haven't had much painting time is that WE WERE WATCHING DUNE IN THE CINEMA!!!

 

Result, etc.

 

Will

[Brundledonk]

Wow just stunning work Will ! Honestly I'm blown away and the glow effect is lovely. it's not just your brush work that is impressive your pictures are lush mate and it looks like I could reach into the screen and pick a figure up, man I wish I could get pictures half as good as that. It's work like this that inspires to have a go at these kind of miniatures and in fact I have some stashed away and this has made me decide to dig them out and have a go.

 

the wet pallete looks very good too

 

Pete

[Will Vale]

Thanks Pete, that's very kind of you! I've really been enjoying your Gundam thread and the excellent photography in it, we're all our own worst critics I suspect. Excited that you're going to be painting some wee people, what's going to be first out of the stash?

 

I've been a bit short on time the last few days but have made a little progress on the wraiths. I spent a session working on the leg/claw copper bits, which I'm not super-pleased with:

 

 

I drybrushed/stippled Vallejo Liquid Copper over the edges and ends, but it was a bit hard to see so I added a drybrush of Ironbreaker (silvery) and I think it might be this I'm not wild on? I also added a wash of Nuln Oil mixed with Nihilahk Oxide to create a patina, blotting it off with a paper towel, and that left things a bit flat. I ended up adding more Liquid Copper and a bit of copper pigment, still not sure it works though.

 

Maybe it needs a rub with some graphite, but while that'll create sheen it'll also dull down the copper tone, so I'm undecided, Overall the metal looks OK, but not quite vibrant enough next to the very neat and tidy and sharp-looking green bits.

 

And I've also been doing the gun and glows on this one, which are better but still rather messy:

 

 

That's just a matter of going in and cleaning up though, it's not so tricky since it's all flat colours.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[LotusArenco]

Will, sorry to go off at a tangent, but the bases on the Dark Eldar at the start of the thread. Is that the GW crackle texture paints at work? (Enquiring minds need to steal borrow ideas!)

 

Mart

[Will Vale]

Yes it is. The brown lumps are Tamiya Earth texture paint, and the dry flat bits are Martian Ironearth. It's cool stuff.

 

If you put it on thick you get bigger flakes, thin layers give very fine flakes.

 

I ought to prime some so you can see the effect better!

 

Will

[Will Vale]

In case it helps, here's a pic of some bases I made last year using the same crackle paint:

 

I was really pleased with how they came out, it's definitely fun stuff to play with

 

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[LotusArenco]

Cheers Will.

I’ve bitten the bolter shell and dug out some of my old marines to play with.

I’m blaming you for reviving my GW habit, and any loss of income that has so far been incurred and will no doubt follow….

 

FOR THE EMPEROR!

 

Mart

[Will Vale]

Right, back on these wraiths to see if I can get them done in June. I've painted the bases with the same recipe as the Immortals:

 

 

The larger area makes it easier to show/see the tesselated blocks of stone, but they still look a bit bare and some kind of vegetation is probably going to be necessary. I've got a box of GW's "barbed bracken" and have been wondering about painting some of those in alien plant colours - pale green/pale blue with red or thorns?

I've also sorted out the claws, I think:

 

 

Funnily enough I went back to the Citadel metallics, using a thick edge highlight of Screaming Bell (the original copper colour) and a finer, almost dry highlight of Hashut Copper. I'm not super convinced about the metallic-ness of these paints and they tend to split, but the colours are very good and for copper you really don't want any hint of silver or it looks like something else.

 

Last but not least, I've painted up their little faces. I wanted to capture some of that blank-faced Princess Mononoke Forest Spirits vibe, so they have minimal shading (almost none) apart from the edges. And I've done the eyes in a HAL-9000 style to pick up the difference between the wraiths (robot drones) and the Necrons themselves (living beings uploaded into metal bodies). Hopefully the HAL eyes tie in to the glowing Necron eyes but reflect the lack of biological animus

 

 

It's conceivable I might be over-thinking this though...

 

Once I've done the hoses and some highlights on the last gun, I can get these flat varnished and assembled ready for a little bit of final weathering.

 

[edit: fixed the duplicated photo]

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Will Vale]

Welp, they're finally stuck together. I trimmed a few of the locating lugs to make clipping them into the shells a bit easier, and scraped away some paint before fitting everything in place with medium viscosity CA.

 

 

Before doing that, I'd airbrushed a couple of coats of Alclad Klear Kote Flat on all the green bits plus the bases. A certain amount of gymnastic ability was required to hit the leg armour and not the metal parts, but I got there in the end. It doesn't make a huge difference in pictures as the lighting is so diffuse, but it's well worth doing when seen in person.

 

 

I thought the larger bases might be a bit bare so I painted up some "barbed bracken" to see what it might look like. The stalks are mostly Khorne Red and Screamer Pink, and the leaves are Sybarite Green (I think) with a mix of that and Celestra Grey underneath to get some fuzziness into the leaves.

 

 

I'm not totally convinced yet but it was worth a go. I'll try them on the bases when everything's properly dry, otherwise I might need to dig out some brown grass tufts which I'm sure I have *somewhere*.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Andy Moore]

Looking great Will. The blank face and HAL style eye definitely give it an ominous gaze. I wonder if the faces could have been a touch darker though, to make them look a little more menacing. I imagine the lighting on the photo has made them appear brighter to some degree though.

 

Andy

[Will Vale]

Thanks Andy You might be right about the face, it's a bit too close in tone and value to the claws. The red is the same as the Immortal faces, but doesn't have the dark glazes and contrast around the eyes. Maybe some glazes at the outside edges, reversing the contrast?

 

Will

[Will Vale]

I wanted to get these ticked off in June, so I very quickly painted a few little details like the face claw and added some grass tufts to the bases, and here they are with their smaller chums:

 

 

I haven't had time to take some individual pics yet - we hosted a party yesterday and there was a lot of prep involved, plus I had to go out and pick up my Soul Wars preorder I'll probably tidy up the claw a bit and add some glossy weathering to the joints before then. I'm very happy with how they've come out though. They took a bit longer than I thought but I had a gap in the middle around L's birthday, and they are (once finally together) surprisingly big models.

 

 

I've got a couple of boxes of Necron warriors which I think might be a quick win, as each box produces a unit of warriors (mostly metal, easy to paint) and a unit of scarabs (small!) but I'm also tempted to start cutting out the funky ghosts from Soul Wars.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Will Vale]

I had the tools out and an hour or so spare last night so I put together a couple of Necron warriors:

 

 

The moulds date to 2005 and it shows - rough finish and lots of mould lines to clean up. Once that's done they fit quite accurately so it's not all bad news.

I cut down the ridiculous axe-rifles to be more snub-nosed and also filled in their mouth grilles since the background says that lowly Necrons might not get bodies with the capability of speech! Hopefully this will give them a sinister air...

I was going to go for a full squad of ten, but the building is quite labour intensive so I might do them a few at a time. Hopefully the painting is a bit quicker though

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Brundledonk]

On 19 June 2018 at 5:57 AM, Will Vale said:

Thanks Pete, that's very kind of you! I've really been enjoying your Gundam thread and the excellent photography in it, we're all our own worst critics I suspect. Excited that you're going to be painting some wee people, what's going to be first out of the stash ?

 

That's very kind of you too Will, I disagree a little bit about my photos though as compared to yours I think they are horrendous lol, but I have my eye on a photo tent and once I can scrape the money together I'll bag ine and hopefully that will make things look a bit better as the clutter in the background of my pictures lets the side side down a lot

 

ive dug out some Malifaux metal miniatures that I've had kicking around for ages and also some Games workshop plastic 40k stuff, a box of gretchins and an ork warboss, some night goblin fanatics and chaos space marines.

 

also a little while ago I did some work in one of the rooms in the house that hadn't been touched since we moved here 8 years ago and had become a dumping ground for all the stuff from our old house that didn't find a place in this one. Whilst clearing it out I found a box full of citadel miniatures from the early and mid 80s all unpainted so I will be having a go at some of those too.

 

Pete

[Will Vale]

Sounds like it'll be an interesting collection. The fanatics are really fun minis

 

You might not need to spring for a light tent, this is my current setup:

 

 

The plastic storage crate makes a nice diffuser, and a sheet of styrene helps reflect light onto the foreground.

 

HTH,

 

Will

[Brundledonk]

absolutely brilliant Will !

 

I honestly thought you would be using an expensive set up to get pictures in such a high quality. this is such an ingenious way to do it and one that I will be fully emulating as soon as I get a chance to get out and bag the required items.

 

Thank you so much for showing that, you have saved me a few quid there my friend

 

Pete

[Will Vale]

Catching up with some Newcrons, this is the long-awaited (by me at least) Psychomancer, who was quite fiddly to put together but strong once everything had set. I was really taken by the voxel skull and I think that's going to be fun to paint.

I airbrushed Alclad black primer and then masked off with clingfilm and re-primed the white bits with first grey, then white. I think I touched up the black primer without masking and that's why there's overspray on the white  Metals are the same Alclad mix as above - Gunmetal, Duralumin and/or Pale Burnt metal Highlights, and Hotmetal Blue shadows. The rest is brush painted.



I've since filled in a load of details and painted the head - here the head and armour panels are blu-tacked in place.



I wasn't sure if the black-with-glowing-bits recipe would work for bladed weapons like the staff, but so far I think it's fine.

I'm currently debating whether to paint the cowl in green, which I think would look better. But it's effectively an extension of the ribcage (which should definitely be metal) so there isn't exactly a clear break to do the colour change. I guess I could paint one in.

I also need to decide what colour to paint the skull projection, and I'm leaning towards green/teal to pick up the little stone element in the staff.

Cheers,

 

Will

[Will Vale]

I threw caution to the wind and repainted the cowl. Much better. I think if I had my time again I'd have tried to scribe a panel line between the ribs and the cowl, but because it's inside a concave area it's not too bad as it is with just paint.

 

Now to finish the base, paint the skull and tidy up before sticking the panels and head on.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Hunter Rose]

Nice paint, like the green cowel! I really like that voxel skull too, it's like a crazy digital spirit! 

[Will Vale]

Yeah it's a neat detail. There are some "pixelley artifacts" on a few of the new Necrons, like flesh or capes with cutouts and protrusions. Quite weird but it definitely gives them a unique look.

 

Talking of the skull, I had a go at painting it in place, with a gradient of contrast colours, but it looked awful and I had to hack it out and start again. Well, carefully cut it out with an etched saw and then strip to bare plastic using a toothbrush and lacquer thinner. Looking at the model with just tendrils I think adding a victim between them would be a neat conversion.



but I do like the skull so after reassembling it (the lacquer thinner ate the glue bonds) and re-priming with grey and white I sprayed a gradient using Hotmetal Red/Blue/Violet and Tamiya Clear Green.



I'm trying to bridge the gap between the orange glows (which will be on the effectors at the ends of the tendrils) and the teal colour from the staff (the skull itself). It's not quite either at the moment but I think it's a good enough base to persevere with.

I also finished off the base, varnished the flat areas and assembled all the armour panels and head to the model, so it's just the skull and some weathering/touch-up/light interactions to go.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Will Vale]

I worked up the skull a bit more, adding in the black-with-orange-glow emitter thingies to match the Necron weapons.

 

 

I've blended and highlighted the blue-purple transitions quite carefully and added highlights to the green and blue, but I think the middle bit still feels a bit empty. Maybe the inside of the mouth needs to be darker?

 

Will

[Hunter Rose]

Really nice colours on that! Yeah I think your right though about darkening the middle of the mouth, it will help give more depth too

[Andy Moore]

I like the way the skull is looking Will. Would a white or very pale green wash around the blocks give it a lighter, more ethereal look? Or maybe some kind of scan lines to make it look more like a projection? 

 

Andy