Painting my Necrons

I already posted my pledge in the August painting challenge.
I started this thread to post my photos as I work through my models.

Quick back story.
I have been playing 40k for about 5 years now, loyal to my Necrons through their waxing/waning of relative strength.
All my original models have long since been painted.
All the models I built from this release cycle needs painting and basing.

Got into fantasy at the beginning of the year and collected and assembeled 400+ Skaven models.
To my discredit I have not put a brush to a single one of them.

At gamesday I snagged 2 battalions of ogres and a ironblaster to start Ogres.
I pledged to myself to finish my open projects before I can break the shrink wrap on my new army.

Monthly challenge >> http://www.ogrestronghold.com/forum/index.php?topic=27310.0
So far this month I have completed 2 nightscythes and am in the middle of a third one.

Flat black base coat and layer more black down.
Bolt gun metal base.
Washed with 3:1 sepia:Baal red washes.
Dry brushed with mithril silver.
Touched up black layer.

Will paint the green in 4+ color layer from dark angels green to moot then a yellow highlight with white very sparingly.
I water down all but metallic paint at about 2paint:1water.

I've got the dark angels green down.
Used very broad brush to keep some osl effect. I will have this model done tonight.

Warpstone Glow layer down feathered to the dark green.

Moot Green layer done same as last step leaving previous color exposed on edges.

Highlight layer with generic pure yellow.

And finally a slightly off white, almost a bone white. I only touch up the Tesla power sources and tips of anything optical looking with white

Welcome to the Stronghold Slayith! Very nice work on the Nightscythe so far! Looking forward to seeing more

JJ

p.s; I have moved the thread to the Gnoblog board, so it can be with it's comrades

Started work on base. Only one of the three scythes will have a special basing.
Styrofoam obelisk carved and a crumbled notch taken out and cleaned up with an xacto.
Bits were cutouts of the floor panel of a monolith I modified years ago. I'll saw off the last 2" or so out of the flying stand and find some way to incorporate it at the top.

The other 2 will use a gravel and concrete rubble. With the standard flying plastic stand.

All the flying bases have gravel and concrete glued down.
I'll have to greenstuff the custom one to fill gaps where flying stand is imbedded.

Bases painted base coat chaos black.
Dry brushed codex grey.
Dry brushed bone white.

Custom base still needs a few layers for other elements.

If plans tomorrow to play some kill team matches keeps, this will be the last update for the weekend.

The custom base is complete.
Metal plates are bolt gun base layer, and washed with 3:1 sepia:red.
Based obelisk with dark angels green, highlighted first with Warpstone green then moot green.
Added a few decals ardcoat on them. And then matte seal the whole thing.

Hopefully I can mash out the death rays and portals tomorrow night.

Started on all the magnetized pieces.

Wash and Mithril Silver highlighting done.

Been a few days since my last post.
Doing all the scythe attachments took me a few nights of painting after work.


I took out a 5 man unit of deathmarks to tackle next for the August pledge.
I expected to have several more productive hours of painting under my wing by this time. Alas life deemed I had more important stuff to bother with.
I still have 15 days to try and meet my goal. If I can bang out all the praetorians, immortals and deathmarks this weekend I should be in good position to earn my first gnoblar.

Deathmark squad undercoated and based.

All the metal has been base coated bolt gun, washed 2x with 1:1 devlan:bedab, then highlighted with mithril.
Currently cleaning up the black and base coating the baseing black.

What's going on with the Deathmarks? Are they stepping through something?

The hunters from hyperspace Necrons sub space.
Fits in with the units fluff.
Also finds a use for those leftover bits when u make immortals instead.

These are a different unit done similarly about a year ago.

Pic

Put down a silver basecoat,
Washed with a self made blue wash 3 coats.
Highlighted with chainmail.

Last update for tonight.
Had to do all 3 greens at the same time to wet blend them.
Dark angels.
Warpstone glow.
Moot green.


Will do yellow and white to finish them off tomorrow. Maybe get started on the immortals.

Yellow is down. White and the base to go.

All done. Base is bird gravel, black under, grey heavy dry brushing, off white dry brushing.

I'll start the immortals tomorrow.

Immortals have black undercoat.
Silver and bolt gun bases.
Washed with sepia:Baal red @ 10:3 drops. 3-5 layers waiting for each to dry.

For me this represents a realistic enough rust without having to resort to weathering powders.

Dry brushed with chainmail over the rust wash.

Blue wash on the silver shoulders, leg plates, forehead and bayonet.

Touched up the black in prep for laying down the greens tomorrow night.

The first pic is with just Warpstone green.
Second is with the moot green layer as well.
I think these photos represent the rust wash layers peeking out thru the chainmail.

Immortals are done.

Just FYI I always use a wet palette and water based acrylic paints and inks.

You can swap out water for gin/vodka or denatured alcohol when using alcohol based acrylics.

My wet palette is very cheap.   Very.
Requires 1 pan/tray with a pronounced lip.
1 sheet watercolor paper. Acid free heavy weight. Sold as a pad at any art store/Walmart for a few dollars.
Wax paper $1.50 at any supermarket.

Cut sheet of watercolor paper to fit bottom of your tray. Immerse a new sheet for a few minutes to let it absorb as much water as possible. Reused sheets don't need priming.
Drain the majority of the water, leaving only barely more than the paper will absorb.
Take an oversized piece of wax paper and press it to form against the watercolor paper.
Don't cut the wax too small cause the water will roll over the top of the paper.

The paint will replace lost moisture thru the wax paper.
Lift the wax paper and add water to the "sponge" as necessary to keep it wet.

Paint still cures eventually but a couple drops of paint mixed with a couple drops of thinner will be viable for hours.
Longer if your tray is sealable.
This is invaluable if you prefer to mix colors, washes, Inks, mediums, ect.

Praetorians needed a ton of mold line cleanup before I could base paint them.
In the meantime their void blades and rods are based black and magnetized.
I've based the gold spots with brown before layering on the gold.

Some great updates here It's really shaping up to be a great looking force! Keep up the fantastic work

JJ

Thanks for the reply.
I've had most these guys for years.
Finally tackling all the unpainted ones and snagging a few curios to display instead of hiding them in my army carrier.
I still have like 6k Skaven to paint after these guys and I'm chomping at the bit to open and start my ogres.

Whilst I am a big fan of the 'Crons, I am very eager to see the Skaven! We haven't had a Skaven blog on here for years

JJ

Black library got me into the scene. A friend dragged me into 40k. I tried other armies but I don't like them.

That led me to fantasy where the Skaven fluff sold me on them. I like bringing chaotic lists. Last match my bell rang 18 and decimated about 75 % of my army.
I have 300 slaves/clan rats and full units of most everything Skaven. It will take months to paint through em.

Other than a few models I've collected enough Skaven and Ogres won out over the lizardmen for my next army.

I have 2 shrink wrapped ogre battalions and iron blaster waiting to be assembeled. By the time I get around to em I hope to have another battalion and a few other units.

Start of the September challenge.
Praetorian rod of the covenant x 10. All finished.
Magnetized in the hand.

Finished the praetorians  and all magnetized pieces this weekend.
Found nasty mould line/finecast mess on the 6 crypteks I had primed months ago.
Spent this evening basing the gravel and cleaning mold lines.
These photos are how they are displayed in case.
2x 5 man units one with custom rod of the covenant, the other with void blade.

Been busy. Crypteks are almost done.
Differently washed for identification purposes.
Just need moot green layer and the yellow/white highlighting.
Then the simple dead earth dry brushing on the gravel.

Finished the crypteks Sunday night.
Started my ctan deciever.
This is also my first time working light to dark starting with a pure white base.

Posting tonights work.
A non-whitened yellow coat.
Then a 3:1 yellow : orange mix layer.

Put down a darker orange layer.
I've been thinking I will need to wash some areas so the blends are not as drastic.
If anyone has any suggestions on what coloring wash to use that wouldn't dull the yellow too much.
I can mix my own inks/washes if I have some gw version to use as a guide.

Another coat of orange and a few layers of Baal red wash later.

I really like the color scheme on that ctan, keep it up man your work looks great!

Got a lot finished and all the truly difficult steps to go.

Shadow grey base coat.
Regal Blue layer.
3-5 thick coats of Levithian Purple wash I wanted a very close to black in the crevices.
Layered regal blue back over the washes.

All day today. But it is done.
Many purple layers later and one last wash to blend it all together.
Base was simple in comparison.

Very cool indeed   

Got Szeras primed black, base coat of bolt gun.
Layer of chainmail.
Sepia wash. Gives a good fresh oil look.
Tomorrow I'll dry brush mithril over it then a black base coat later for all the armor plating, covering the dry brush overspill.

Went with the oranges and reds first.

Chainmail drydrushing.
Tiny bit of yellow highlights.
Fresh black coat for base coat for next layers.
And about the 4th time this crappy finecast staff has snapped...

I think we snould all take time out to thank GW for some wonderful resin door-stoppers!

Tell me about it.  It is too bad this model has never been cast in metal. Most the details in the staff are already eradicated by bubbles. 
I've been making a cheap snow themed gaming board for some gaming taking place at my house. I'll probably get back to szeras on Monday

Finished all the highlighting work on szeras.
Working on the head/spine in his hand now.
I picked up some tamiya clear red for the gore layer a few steps from now.

I'll snap a better photo tomorrow.

Beautiful socks   

As promised here is the photos of szeras.
Haven't had any time to continue to paint him as I was out eating with extended family earlier this evening.

It seems tapatalk photo uploads are not working

Photobucket to the rescue!

I've been spending IMO way more time on these models than ever before.
Mostly I think it was from being inspired by attending my first gamesday and entering my first golden demon contest.
I knew full well my work was not capable of competing but entered it anyways.
It didn't look terribly out of place but didn't make first cut.

Finished all but the base on szeras.
Bloody coat where appropriate.
Used tamiya clear red and a dab of black.

Working on Orikan today, 2 more layers to finish the gold.
Then the turquoise shoulder pads and codpiece.
Finally the green parts.

Orikan is finished.. As close to the official picture insert as I can personally achieve.

Just finished Zahndrekh and Obyron.
I attempted to match the gw pictures.
I'm getting close to being done.
I have the stormlord, a annihilation barge, 2 ghost arks, and 10 lychguard.

Then I can start a new blog for my Skaven friends.

WIP Imotekh. Got the metallic areas done.
Got a few colors left on the green chest inlay and eyes.
Then a careful application of black to cover all the missed brush strokes.

Then either start on the green highlighting or grey highlighting.

Another closer pic

Little more done. Re coated the black areas.
Some spot shading and washes.

All done tonight. Got a few green layers down. Should be complete tomorrow.

All done with the model. Just need some dry brushing on the gravel.

This week I've been busy painting a annihilation barge. I'll put the finishing highlights and gold flourishes on tomorrow.

Figured I'd give a better update. Been focusing too hard on painting.
My local group has several soccer coaches with their sons as players in the league.
This interruption for a few months makes playing a fantasy or 40k game highly unlikely without a hour drive to the local gw or flgs to maybe get a pickup game.
This is not a complaint as it gives me more time to model which I enjoy more.

I've created a mother of a backlog of grey models to paint and have been painting solidly since I started this thread in August. I have noticed a great improvement in my ability and have been pushing myself to add techniques  I haven't attempted before. This has been met with varying degrees of success.

Well here comes more photos of the anni barge.

The barge itself

And the magnetized undercarriage guns and Tesla destructor.