Necrons!

[Will Vale]

Hi folks,

 

It's been cold here lately and I've been quietly building things in front of the telly since the end of April, and not progressing them to painting. Typical winter activity really, but I've been really enjoying it.

 

So far I've built a CMP truck, a small army's worth of Games Workshop Dark Eldar figures:

 

(There are more in the album, plus lots of stuff like the vehicles hasn't been photographed as they're only sub-assemblies for paint...)

and rather than get those primed I started on some Necrons. These are Games Workshop's synthesis of Space Skeletons, Terminators and Stargate, and while I always thought they were a bit silly, I've gradually come round to the idea that they've got something cool going on. I'm currently working my way though the models from the Forgebane set and I have a few others in the stash.

These are Immortals, which are a bit tougher and nastier looking than the basic warriors:

 

 

and these are Wraiths, which are flat-out awesome robot snake prawn things:

 

I've based them with the usual sand and grit, around slices of GW's pentagonal sprues tessellated together to make a sort of cheap-o Giant's Causeway. Hopefully it looks good when painted up.

We had a couple of nice days and I primed the models up with Alclad Black:





and spent an hour or so airbrushing the Immortals to get some basic metals on the body.




They are mainly Alclad Gunmetal, with local highlights of Duralumin and a global highlight of Pale Burnt Metal sprayed lightly from above. I added a shadow of Hotmetal Blue from below as well. In fact I used more colours than this but to be honest they didn't have much impact on the result so that's the recipe I'm going to try on the next lot. The face is Khorne Red, and the shoulders are Zandri Dust.

I didn't really like the tan though, so replaced that with a new paint called Ionrach Skin which is very close to IJN Grey-Green, a colour I love:



I also washed all the metal with a dark blue wash (the current one from Citadel, I forget the name). So at this point I'm really reaching back to a colour scheme I've used before, i.e. Hull Red and IJN grey-green. But it feels right at the moment.



Since then I've worked up the faces and armour areas further, using various oranges and yellows plus Bloodletter and a dot of white in the eyes:



Followed by shadowing with a Khorne Red/Black mix and highlights with Mephiston Red, Wild Rider Red and a tiny bit of Lugganuth Orange (I think!)



Last night I did some work on the armour, glazing it down by stippling on Athonian Camoshade and highlighting the edges with Ionrach Skin and Deepkin Flesh:

 

I think possibly that's lost too much of the mint green, and I need a green glaze or maybe a base colour glaze (or both?) to bring it back?

Still to do: paint the details on the guns, which have just had a coat of matt black and a dry-brush with dark grey so far. And do something to make the metals a little bit more interesting I guess.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Stew Dapple]

Hey Will, that glowing effect for the eyes is very effective

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[Will Vale]

Thanks Stew, glad it works for you. I'm surprised how convincing it is on a white background actually, given that the brightest parts of the lights are much darker than that.

 

I plucked up courage to do a bit more and have added glowy bits to one of the tesla carbines:

 

 

I filled in the gun cylinders with white and then a coat of Fire Dragon Bright. Various nooding around with Bloodletter, Mephiston Red, the bright and Lugganath Orange followed. Plus black for bringing things back down, and a glaze of Lamenter's Yellow to tie it together. I've edge-highlighted the other end of the gun with Mechanicus Standard Grey and Celestra Grey, but it could be neater!

 

I've also tweaked the carapace on all of them since I thought it got too brown. I glazed it with the base colour (Ionrach Skin) and then two glazes of Waywatcher Green mixed 1:1 with medium. That left the usual "glaze lumps" so I removed those with a very fine sanding sponge and sealed it with a coat of Klear. It's not super-obvious in the photo that it's changed, but it looks much better in person.

 

Need to replicate the glowy stuff four times next, and then they'll almost be done.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

 

 

[rockpopandchips]

Some very nice painting as usual Will, really like the glow effects on the eyes and gun. 

[Andy Moore]

I love the way you've painted these Will. I'm not usually a fan of OSL, but the glow you've added to the gun looks incredibly realistic. The eyes work amazingly well too. When I first saw the shots on Flickr, I thought you'd actually lit them with FO. The dark shading around the eyes really accentuates the effect as well.

 

Not sure if I prefer the earlier carapace or the re-worked one. They don't actually look that different on my (abysmal) monitor. The first, browner, version did have a look of old bone, which I thought made a great contrast to the metal, and gave them a cool biomech look. They might look nice with a slight texture or a few cracks?

 

Andy

[Will Vale]

Thanks for the suggestions! I was wondering about chipping the edges, but I don't want it to look like metal in any way so it needs some care. Pale or white might work. Ceramic and bone are both good ideas.

 

There's quite a lot of texture in the shading I think, or at least there was - maybe the glazes took too much away from it? I'll have to take a top-down pic and see. 

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[LotusArenco]

Nice one Will. Those eyes are great, I wouldn’t have been surprised if you’d said you’d used LEDs!

 

Although I’m a diehard servant of the Imperium, I did buy a couple of Necrons when they first came out years ago. The story and background for them was wonderful – Ancient race of beings hidden for millennia, only to RISE again! dun dun duuunnn.

 

And I’m still having a good chuckle at the new Citadel paint names.

 

Mart

[Will Vale]

I didn't have a whole lot of time last night but I did a little bit of tidying on the gun and added some orange glow in the power coupling's seam. I also put a little bit of reflected light on the knuckles, which I'd put off until I was sure the glowing guns were a good idea.

 

 

What I'm currently having trouble with is the hoses, I don't seem to have the control or technique to get a good highlight on them as you can see:

 

 

I could paint them glowy which would help, but would also create a lot of work and detract from the slightly more grounded look I was keen to end up with. Tips welcome!

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Stew Dapple]

I'd vote against glowy tubing; the eye & gun combination really does work well but the tubes as well... well, it might be too much glowy and detract from the sinister impact of seeing them from the front, if they are illuminated from both sides, if you follow me.

 

I sense you are not happy with the tubing as is, which is a shame, as it does look like heavy duty insulated cabling which might be what you would expect it to look like

 

Got no better idea than that though, soz.

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[Carts]

Crikey Will,they look fantastic!

[Will Vale]

On ‎5‎/‎31‎/‎2018 at 4:21 PM, Stew Dapple said:

I sense you are not happy with the tubing as is, which is a shame, as it does look like heavy duty insulated cabling which might be what you would expect it to look like

Thanks, that is what I want it to look like, but at the moment it's not sleek enough, if you know what I mean? You can see where the highlights are a bit rough.

 

I did a bit of low-energy painting last night and today, dry-brushing the legs with a light silver and painting the bases.

 

 

The grit is Rakarth Flesh with Gryphonne Sepia and Reikland Fleshshade washes and a drybrush of Screaming Skull and a little Pallid Wych Flesh.

 

The blackstone is Mechanicus Standard Grey with washes of Nuln Oil and edge highlights of Celestra Grey and Schminke white ink. The Schminke ink is really good, much easier to use than paint and I'm tempted to get some more colours. Not cheap though!

I finished the stone by washing it with dark blue (Naggaroth Night) and purple (Asurmen Purple) washes and filled in the base edges with Steel Legion Drab.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Hunter Rose]

Holy crap Will the painted glowing effect looks amazing! Stunning paint on these guys dude

[Will Vale]

Thanks!

 

I had a rather busy weekend so most of the work on these was put off until the start of this week. I've brought the guns on the other four up to the same state as the first model, which was a fair bit of work.

 

(click for bigger)

 

The muzzles/effectors on the Tesla Carbines were painted Screaming Bell with a wash of Reikland Fleshshade mixed with Agrax Earthshade. I retouched the outer surfaces with Vallejo Liquid Metal Copper and washed the inner surfaces with a thin Nuln Oil/Nihilakh Oxide mix. Lastly I drybrushed the edges with Auric Armour Gold.

 

The dreaded hoses had a Nuln oil wash with highlights of Mechanicus Standard Grey mixed with the white Schminke ink I used to edge-highlight the guns. They're dull, but a bit neater than the first one. I used the same ink to add an edge-highlight to the green ceramic armour and sponged on a few chips using Krieg Khaki to break up the edges. Essentially following Andy's suggestion earlier, but trying to keep it looking ceramic.

 

With all that in place I varnished the bases, guns, armour and faces with two coats of Alclad Klear Kote Flat taking care to keep it off the metals as much as possible. To finish I sprayed a mist of Zandri Dust on the feet, calves and lower hoses of each model. Then I added a little AK Engine Oil to all the joints and pistons, rubbed some MIG Copper Pigment onto the Tesla things and a little AK Steel pigment onto the spines.

 

The last step was assembly of the torsos to the legs. I wiped the paint away from the top of the hips (and pin) using lacquer thinner and joined the halves with medium gap filling CA. It seems to be holding

 

Not much light left by the time I got done today - the pic above is a 10-second exposure and I still had to bump it up a couple of stops in post - so I'll hopefully take some better ones tomorrow.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Will Vale]

Still haven't managed to take pictures of the Immortals due to lack of light, but I did get some basic paint on the Wraiths.

 

(click for bigger)

 

Save recipe as the previous metal, slightly simplified by removing the layers I thought didn't contribute. All Alclad so far.

 

NB: I fixed the photo!

 

Cheers,

 

W

[Stew Dapple]

36 minutes ago, Will Vale said:

Not sure if posting the pic will work as I'm on a phone, but you never know

 

Sadly not. However the Necrons are looking really nice in the picture I can see from the earlier post

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[Will Vale]

Got these done now, and have put them in RFI here:

 

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Will Vale]

Back on the wraiths, I gave them the wash and drybrush last night with Naggaroth Night (blue-black) and Necron Compound (silver) as with the others. The drybrushing got a bit out of hand in places and I need to glaze something dark over it to clean it up.

 

 

I added a little Auric Armour Gold over the gold-airbrushed bits but I'm not sure if that had a visible effect.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Will Vale]

And now for the least fun stage - base coating the light green areas.

 

 

This is about three coats of Citadel Ionrach Skin thinned with water. I sanded with a 2000 grit sponge after that since the pale base paints sometimes have bits in, and gave it another couple of very thin coats.

 

I also worked on the orbs - rather than making a rod for my own back painting them all glowy, I gave them a quick drybrush with Retributor Armour (red-gold) and a wash of Reikland Fleshshade (red-brown) to distinguish them from the holders. After that I stippled a little lighter gold (Auric Armour Gold) onto the high spots.

 

For the ones on the back, I picked out the four prongs in a copper-bronze colour (Screaming Bell) since they'd got a bit gold with the not-very-accurate drybrushing.

 

I also based the upper claws in the green for one of the wraiths, I still need to clean up the edges and do the others as well. But you can get an idea of how they should look:

 

 

I'd better catch up on the other two, then I can start aging the green with washes.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[rockpopandchips]

They look very nice, you not adding any glow to these? 

[Will Vale]

Thanks!

 

4 hours ago, rockpopandchips said:

you not adding any glow to these? 

 

I will add something to the eyes and weapons I think. I'm trying not to make too many things on the models glow because a) it makes them very busy and b) it's a lot of work!

 

I haven't actually got any paint on the faces yet apart from primer - they're separate parts which fit over the blob on the end of each neck.

 

I have some green on all the green bits now, and have given them a wash of Athonian Camoshade thinned with medium. It dries a bit blotchy but that's probably OK for this as I'm going to stipple over it afterwards.

 

 

I think paint dries quite fast in the winter here despite the humidity - when I went in with a damp brush to suck up some of the wash blobs I got tidemarks because the under-layer was partially dry already!

 

Cheers,

 

Will

 

 

[Will Vale]

I had a bit of time at lunch to work on one of the carapaces a bit further:

 

 

Much like the shoulders of the Immortals, I stippled more Athonian Camoshade into the dark areas of the panels and a little Agrax Earthshade into the very corners. Then I sponged some thinned Ionrach Skin onto the outer areas, drybrushed it all with Deepkin Flesh and added an edge highlight of white ink.

 

To blend it together and tweak the hue I added a couple of filters of Waywatcher Green mixed with medium, but it probably needs another one.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Ian Shumsky]

Really great work -- the glowing effects are brilliant!

[Will Vale]

Thanks Ian!

 

Last night I replicated the carapace paint job another two times and added more green glazes and dark/white definition to all three. Then I sealed the paint with a brushed coat of Klear and this morning rubbed it down with a 2000 grit sponge:

 

 

Now back to the legs, I suspect, although I might take time to paint the orbs at the front in glowing orange?

 

Will

[Will Vale]

Not a lot of painting time last night as we were out doing a high school visit - nearly time for Miss. V. to move up to big school, you see. I did eventually pull out the paints and spend a little while on the legs of one of the wraiths:

 

 

This is basically the same treatment as the carapace, i.e. stippled highlights/shading followed by drybrushed highlights, edge highlights, and a green glaze. But in less detail as there's less space.

 

 

I quite like it and I suspect I've fully drunk the edge-highlighting Kool-Aid now! I used to be a bit scathing as it doesn't always make much sense, but it does show the form and increase perceived sharpness, so maybe it's cool?

 

W

[rockpopandchips]

Really like the look of these wraiths, the green on the legs is very nice, I like the shading from very dark to light and I'm a fan of the edge-highlighting here as well. Will you be highlight the edge of the lower metal legs as well? 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.