[Boc]

I'll be filling in the meaty details at a later date... suffice it to say, the Necron scarab has bitten me, and I've collected maaany boxes of Necrons that are now awaiting to be painted.

I'll keep this post relatively uncluttered to make organizing it farther along easier...

Paint schemes I'm still debating on, and will probably test run NMM silver and gold onto a couple of warriors before really starting into the meat of the force.

But it's late, I'm tired, so on to the next post for now...

 

[Boc]

Guardians of the Orrery - First 5, unpainted

The first "actual" models I'll be painting will be the Guardians of the Orrery.

The Celestial Orrery is a device located at the heart of the Necron Crownworld of Thanatos and is considered one of the galaxy's greatest treasures. It was crafted by the artisans of the Oruscar Dynasty long before the War in Heaven and is beyond any price in artistic value alone. This machine consists of a web of holograms and Necrodermis with the various tiny floating glowing lights representing a star in the galaxy. Each of these are recorded in an intricate matrix record that contains the locations of every star in the cosmos.

An act that snuffs out any of these lights leads to its physical counterpart undergoing a supernova millennia before its time that destroys all the nearby worlds that circle it. Thus, the Celestial Orrery is capable of immense destructive power but the act of destroying a star must be done with careful consideration as it would as it would upset the natural order of the cosmos that could create a critical chain reaction. Through further manipulation can any balance be rectified and returned to proper balance though this can take thousands of years of constant precise micromanagement.

Despite this great power, the Royal Court of Thanatos see themselves as gardeners of creation who dispassionately use the Orrery in a precise but sparing manner. They believe in only pruning the galaxy to prevent it from becoming overgrown and wild. However, the power represented by the Celestial Orrery has led to the Oruscar Dynasty waging wars to protect the device from falling into the hands of other Necrons or aliens.

The Guardians of the Orrery are those Necrons who, in life, were charged with the protection of the fate the treasure, and in death continue their eternal vigil. Fierce and indefatigable, the towering machines of the Guardians will decimate any foes that encroach upon Thanatos.

Unpainted:

I definitely had some fun posing these guys, and with the build of Necrons, I've been pleasantly surprised at how easy the minis are to manipulate. I've gone for a much more aggressive, dynamic posture than I would have for Warriors or Immortals, since Lychguard theoretically have maintained some sort of cognitive ability, and their ponderous, powerful blows coupled with their echoes of a personality seemed to lend themselves more towards aggression than simple mechanical postures.

 

[cirs85]

I loved putting these models together too, they were also very fun to paint. Alas I think they are a giant points sink on the tabletop.

 

[CattleBruiser]

The middle Lych guard is like come at me bro!
and i like this so far

 

[Boc]

cirs85: No argument here, the Lychguard are a huge points sink, especially since I want to run 10 of them! But I admit, I'm more looking to run these as a shits-n-giggles Apoc style army until my beloved CSM get their rules update. That, and I'm just trying to paint something other than space marines haha.

CattleBruiser: Cheers, that's the pose I was going for. "What, bitches?!"

Well I opted to experiment on my NMM (as I've never done it before!) gold on a warrior squad before I tried it on more complicated (and expensive) models.

I followed Ragnar's NMM Nade Easy (Gold Edition), using the Khemri Brown then all Vallejos 'counts as' paints found here. Unfortunately, I had to try a few times to get the base colour (a mix of khemri brown/'snakebite leather') to what I actually wanted it to, which wasted about 2 hours until I got it to where I wanted it, which was roughly a 5:2 KB/vallejos tan yellow (instead of snakebite) mix. On top of that, I blended/feathered on 2-3 layers of a 3:2:2 mix of KB/tan yellow/bubonic brown (V equivalent yellow ochre) to lighten up the source of the light. Then, I used another 2-3 light layers of a 2:1:1:2 mix of KB/TY/YO/'bleached bone' aka pale sand to further lighten up the point of the light source. Each mix of paint I diluted to approximately 1:1 with water as well to keep it from being too thick.

Seeing as I've finished this at nearly 11 PM my local time, the outside lighting wasn't great, so the pictures here don't really do the models a whole lot of justice in terms of the contrast from the darkest to lightest layer. I've still got 2 layers of dark away from the lighting (darkening to a mix of black/KB) as well as two more layers of light (up to a VERY light feathering of skull white) to the lightest points. I'm still debating whether or not I want to fuck around with actually painting on a shadow from the weapons as that'll be a lot of work, especially since I'm admittedly a fairly average painter.

Warrior Squad 1, after 6 layers working towards NMM:

This is the first time I've really tried doing anything other than straight-out-of-the-bottle GW paints, and I'm liking the results so far. Let me know what you think!

 

[Boc]

More WIP pictures of the warriors.

I've applied both a darkening layer to the bottom of the models as well as a few lightening models to the point of the light. One model... kind of over did the light, but I'll probably just wash it down a little bit with devlan mud.

Still, the blending wasn't as clean with the light as I would've wanted, the next batch I'll probably add another drop or two of water to the mix to keep it from being so stark of a contrast.

 

[Doelago]

Nice! Looking forward to seeing more!

 

[Midge913]

Looking nice indeed Boc! I will be following along with interest.

 

[Khorne's Fist]

Very nice. I like the whole ceramic look they have going on at the minute.

 

[Boc]

As a not-really update, currently had to put painting on hold due to being busy as hell with work. I have, however, been perusing for what bases I'd want to get for the army... and the nominees are:

1. Dragon Forge's Ancient Ruins

2. Back 2 Base-ix's Celtic Ruins

3. Black Cat Bases's Barren Earth

4. Ironhalo's Valhalla

5. Secret Weapon Miniature's Urban Rubble

Thoughts?

 

[Iron Angel]

#2, no contest.

 

[Djinn24]

Interesting so far. Have you seen the "necron" bases that where released today?

 

[DeathKlokk]

You can't go wrong with Basix or Dragonforge. The Secret Weapon ones look ace as well. Black Cat's bases always look like crap to me.

 

[Midge913]

I think that the dragon forge ones are my favorite, runner up would be the Secret Weapon ones.

 

[Boc]

Djinn, I did see the bases, but with the necron heads protruding from the bases they look like it'd be difficult to actually position the model on them.

I had just started to check out with the Baseix ones... until I saw shipping costs! Now I'm back to debating, crap I hate decisions... -_- at least I've got a few days until PayPal funds are available from my ebay auctions haha

Edit: Just bought the Baseix ones, 60x 25mm, 20x 40mm and 3x 60mm (in case I pick up some C'Tan later on...) daaaamn Aussie shipping is horrible

 

[Deneris]

Love the work on the Warriors, but aren't you worried about it getting to be "too much" after doing a few squads of these guys?

 

[Boc]

Yeah, the paint scheme has/will probably be a bit too intensive for the practicality of mass-painting. I've been leaning more towards a dark kind of slanity gray look for them, but haven't ereally get much done due to work/being more social than usual. I should be able to sit down this weekend (I freaking hope) to maybe get some WIP pics done on more of the stone look.

 

[Boc]

As a minor update, finally decided upon a paint job, and finally got my first models actually completed, woohoo!

Here's the first two warriors:

Not happy with how the coils on the gauss flayers turned out, but I'll try to get a bright green ink that would work better than the wash I used.

Yes... it's the standard metal 'crons, but I'm doing them in a variation of the Nihilakh paint scheme, using a DE-ish green as opposed to the blue that Nihilakh uses. We'll see how it turns out on larger things, as just the chest icon of these models isn't really enough to get a good bearing on.

I'll be looking up doing glowing effects for the coils, as I plan on trying to implement that into the glasters a little bit and more so on larger vehicles.

I REALLY like how the Back 2 Base-ix bases turned out okay. I think I overdid the devlan mud wash on the mud portions, since it'd probably look better a bit lighter. These first 10 warriors will be completed this same way though, just to keep uniformity.

That's it for now, should have the first squad done by the end of the week!

 

[Boc]

Necron Warrior Squad 1:

Completed the first unit I've actually managed to paint in I think 6 months, to include basing. Fairly happy about it. Here's the squad:

Let me know what you think!

 

[Midge913]

Looking good Boc! The bronze came out very nicely and the splash of turquoise really pops. nice work.