As you might already know, I have a love-hate relationship with Necrons. I love Necrons because they're awesome, like robotic space zombies, but I share the blight of many a Necron player in that I can't stand how absolutely dull to paint they are. So I was messing around with some spare/unpainted Necrons I have, trying to come up with a decent color scheme and I think I unwittingly stumbled upon something interesting (at least for a Necron).
Apologizes for the crappy quality, my desk lamp went out today and I can't find a light bulb anywhere in the apartment for the life of me.
I know this goes against Necron fluff in so much as that living metal would be resistant to aging, but I wanted my 'crons to have a look of oxidized bronze. After painting a phalanx of warriors the regular off-the-box color scheme, I have come to absolutely despise boltgun metal. I like the bronze with blue, although it doesn't match the green gauss rifle rods, so I'm going to get some blue acrylic rods and kill myself trying to fit them later. Most likely I will go the easy route and paint over the green rods. It'll make customizing that Monolith I finally got much easier.
As for bases, if I can stomach rebasing my old Necrons with their tiny little skinny legs, I'd like to try something like Drathmere's tutorial, which Paul found and linked to me a month or two ago.
I like it a lot. It's a subtle look but one the sets your Necrons apart from the typically bright silver ones.
ReplyDeleteGood scheme on your Necrons. Here's more ideas for the sake of complicating things for you!
ReplyDeleteThis guy here:
http://www.the-vanus-temple.com/?p=1563
has some great OSL (in the regular, but scary green) that he says he does fairly quickly but looks great in the pics. Seems like blue could be just as good looking in your scheme. Not to mention his use of the bent wire and glowy OSL instead of the acrylic rods in the gauss rifles. A bit more work, but cheap too for bent paperclips/wire.
The bronze looks good those with the wire are very nice the iner glow is cool. I never did like the green rods when I had Necrons I cut down the guns to get rid of them.
ReplyDeleteYeah I think your right, it would be best to just spray the green rods then build up the colour the same way as you did the piping and other bits of the gun. Test it with one rod first, and if it doesnt work go with the other option.
ReplyDeleteAlso you could just make up some background, for example it could be a benefical (for the necrons) microscopic bacteria living on the armour after quarantine protocols were breached on the Tombworld.
Just some food for thought.
Love the oxidized bronze scheme on the necrons. My wife hasn't started painting her 'crons yet, but she feels the same about doing them in boltgun. I might send her this way to take a look
ReplyDeleteLike the darker look on your Necrons. Mine are aged metal as well (black, drybrushed with tin bitz, then boltgun metal) , but I'm looking for a new look for my Tyranid-Necron hybrids (check my blog for test models of those) and might give yours a try.
ReplyDeleteHi, I just followed the link back! I am honored to be referenced by a famous BOLS personality! :)
ReplyDeleteI've done a couple more testings of the bronze look and I like it thus far, but it feels like it's lacking something still. I'll post more pics when I find my camera chip adapter.
ReplyDelete@Nick: Those are absolutely amazing. I love the wire in the gauss rods, I want to start working on it now! My problem is that most all my Necrons are already assembled, I'd have to find a way to pry the old rods out without damaging them. Worth a shot though!
@awroe11: Brilliant. I've never been good with background stories much. Do you mind if I borrow your idea and roll with it?
@Hudson: Trying to make Necrons original looking has been the source of many a headache for me. My other idea was painting them like Ironman.
@#2501: Mine are black drybrushed with 1 part tin bits, 1 part burnished gold, then dry brushed again with hawk turquoise. Also, you can't drop the words "Tyranid-Necron hybrids" without making me insanely curious, I'll have to check it out.
@Drathmere: I'd call myself insanely lucky before I'd say famous. Love your work, very jealous (but also inspired). :)
Have you considered using a Ceramic look for you necrons ? I remember a while back, one of the Firebase e-zines on Warseer had a ceramic bronze/darkred looking necron force in it. It look really good and was a farcry from the normal boltgun metal forces you see around.
ReplyDeletemight i recommend vallejo verdigris paint (more like gloop) for an instant aged bronze effect? it's a bit hard to use, but greatly speeds up batch painting.:)
ReplyDeletealso, from an aesthetic standpoint, a contrast colour like off-white on the face or the spine would really make the mini pop. ;)
@Grifthin: I've thought about ceramics, I'm still not sure about it, I can't wrap my head around Necrons looking like anything but metal. It's killing me I can't find this link I was thinking of now...
ReplyDelete@TheMighty: Man, everyone keeps telling me to get vallejo stuff. I get the regular citadel paints because I can use my store discount on them, but this might be the last straw, they just sound too good to pass up. Also, I redid my test of the paint scheme, they have white chest plates around the glyph and the destroyers have white masks now, it really looks great. Spine sounds like a good idea though, I never thought about it before. :)
@ Zephri: No problem I just made it up on the spot to give an idea of getting around the problem. If you like it though I could expand that background more for you in my spare time (which I have alot of :P), so could use it to explain away any inconsistencies with your models against the offical background. Its what I do all the time with my models!
ReplyDeleteIf you are willing to Dremel some, old circuit boards (sans resistors, etc) cut to 25mm round make for striking bases for Necrons once dry-brushed.
ReplyDeleteHave a few around somewhere. Just can't locate them at the moment. Once I find them I'll drop a pic link if you're interested.
@awroe11: I'm sure you're infinitely more knowledgeable about the 40K fluff than me, it's something I'm admittedly new to, so I'm super grateful for the input!
ReplyDelete@Dryw: I'm scared from the last time I used my dremel to convert a metal model, being that I'm extremely accident prone. It sounds really appealing though, I would like to see some pics if you ever find them, but no rush.
In theory a blue ink should do the trick on the green deeleys for the necrons as it should filter out the yellow component... as we're talking light spectrum though it may not work [plus adherence issues]
ReplyDeleteIn fact my advice may be utter tosh and best ignored.