Something wicked this way comes... WIP [Update 4/16/2012]

[Tinweasel]

@ rb2610 - I'm going to have the cloak end up quite a bit darker, and I'll probably have the shading in the deepest crevices a very dark brown - dunno about black, though, as I'm wanting it to look like it's made out of flayed skin and flesh tones look better IMO if they don't go so far into shadow as to be pure black. Like reds and yellows, I think they look more natural if shaded with (dark) browns. I kinda see what you mean, though, in that when he's done there likely won't be any excessively dark colors. If the surface of the cloak is manageable, maybe I'll put some Necron runes on it. I was kicking around the idea of having the alternating "disks" of his staff painted black - kinda like every other Necron's weapon has black on it, that way so could his. I'm still undecided, though...

I didn't realize that about the spikes/holes, but yeah, it kinda does look like they're growing out of them. I just put on irregular spikes and then decided in the in-between parts I'd do the same sort of "corrupted" pattern as the rest of the Necrons so far. This is the first guy I've used a Dremel on for sculpting purposes and I have to say it's a lot easier than what I was doing before - I mean, stripping off all traces of a hand from the stock of his Gauss rifle and then hollowing it out? That would've taken me forever if I'd done it any other way... I think I'm really starting to like "Dremel sculpture" with figures, now that I've figgered out the appropriate speeds for plastic vs. metal vs. detail vs. rough surfaces.

these are looking excellent as always, will you be doing any flayed ones?

Thanks!

Yeah, I've got a couple blisters of 'em so far since I've always liked the concept. I think I've got the "Necron architecture" down to where I could likely make Flayed Ones out of regular troopers so I won't be stuck with the same 4 static poses (and they'll be cheaper). The proportions are the same, I've got a bit of practice in sculpting giant claws, the spikes they're covered in are easy enough to replicate, and I've got enough extra Necron joints now that I can swap out body parts - like this last one's right arm is actually made up of the original arm and a spare rifle butt arm, for example. (Did anyone else realize the Flayed Ones are covered all over in tiny barbs for the flesh to cling to? That's cool as hell, and I'm glad I bought some!)

The title of this thread kinda sounds like yoda though, "wickedness this way comes"? WTF?

Heathen! Blasphemer! (I'm kidding, but not really...) The title's a shorter quote from Shakespeare - "By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes" and also happens to be the title of an excellent Ray Bradbury novel ("Something Wicked This Way Comes")and a very cool, very grim and dark Disney(!) movie based on it - I'm shocked as hell that something like that was put out by Disney, but then again they put out "Song of the South" and you're never going to see the like of that kind of movie again either... hell, I doubt it'll ever be brought back out of "the Disney vaults" again for re-release in my lifetime. I'd highly recommend both the book and the movie (although I have to admit, I did like the movie better than the book with this one - better pacing and such).

[Edit] I was right about the quote, it's one of the sayings by the Witches in Macbeth, among others that have now become famous. Another good read, although Yoda's not bad in himself... [/Edit]

[Tinweasel]

Been a while since I've gotten any solid painting done - I've been occupied with the occasional filing and prepping of Necron parts or playing LEGO Star Wars II that my friend bought me for my birthday. That and when I do get a chance to paint, I've been doing touch-ups here and there so that all the troops I'm working on will look similar. Anyhow, without belaboring things, I'm nearly finished with the Lord and two of his sidekicks:


I'm kinda ambivalent about the multiple glowing areas on the Lord, oddly enough, since I think there might be a bit too many of 'em so they lose their effect. I know that I'll be doing the "breast bone" of all of 'em in black aside from the Necron glyph - I'm wondering if I should do alternating rings of his staff in black as well? Maybe change the glyph on his forehead to the reddish metal? Dunno...

I still need to do a bit of work on his cloak and staff dressings, as they need to look quite a bit more fleshy, but hopefully you can see where I'm going with 'em. They'll eventually be more of a reddened fleshy color with exsanguinated edges/raised areas.

Any suggestions?

[Grand Master]

Definitely paint his glyph in the metal colour, it would be a nice contrast to the eyes. Otherwise it just looks too much green on his head, you could also consider black for the glyph? I think the staff would look nice if all the bands were black, or maybe a dark grey?

These look awesome, much better then boltgun metal imo. I was looking at the Necron codex and also thought that the lighter coloured ones where more presentable.

[NeoHunter]

Nice!

Though one thing I have to suggest is giving the Resurrection Orb a different colour other than Chaos Black. Maybe give it a sort of reddish or yellowish or greenish glow? May sound rather difficult but its just a suggestion.

[Anonymous]

I was a little worried about the lord at first, but the scheme wrapped up very, very nicely. The striking black blades and the green glow are really amazing. I just think the claws might look good in black, but that might be weird with the black orb and all. Anyway I agree with Grand Master for a black glyph.

[Andyslegion]

Holy BEEP they are brilliant! i don't think i'll be able to paint like that till i'm 30 lol

[Tinweasel]

Here's one that I was just wanting to do up as a straight unaltered Necron, but at the last minute I just couldn't restrain myself from cutting at the joints, digging out a head from my bag of SM bits, and working at it with the Dremel a bit. (I finally found a use for the leftover piece of the Necron Lord's staff, too!)

A bit over the top? Dunno - the base of the head has been stripped in successive lines to represent being "flayed" by a Gauss weapon. Looking at the pics in the Codex, there's one of an Imperial Guard who's all skeletonized where the beam is hitting him but his gloves hand and his belt downwards where the beam doesn't touch is left intact. I figger so long as I paint the "stripped" areas as charred, I can get away with it...


I also changed the glyph on the Lord's head to black - it makes a world of difference. I guess I'm locking into the bone/red thing, so thanks for the suggestions! I'll likely post more pics when I'm a little further along with the Lord's cloak - it's not nearly "flayed fleshy" enough IMO.

[Jianaran]

LOVE the black orb! Really different, and kind of makes you think of the Monoliths from 2001. Now there's a thought... 2001 = Necrons.

[Tinweasel]

I'm getting the sense that I ought to paint the Resurrection Orb and the blades on his staff some sort of black.

Ever since repainting over what was previously red metallic, they've been Orkhide Shade with my intention to paint striations/whorls of lighter green.

Black, eh?

[misterjustin]

I like the colour they are now, actually. Of course I'm the guy that didn't know Necron Warriors had hoses in 'em -- so...

[Anonymous]

I'm getting the sense that I ought to paint the Resurrection Orb and the blades on his staff some sort of black.

Ever since repainting over what was previously red metallic, they've been Orkhide Shade with my intention to paint striations/whorls of lighter green.

Black, eh?

lol well I guess everyone assumed that was the color you were going with since it looks great right now. Green swirls might be nice but not necessary IMO.

[Tinweasel]

Well, I've been away all weekend with the family visiting my wife's parents up north, and at least for a little while there I got to file and glue a few more new Necrons - I'm one shy of a full squad and the last one is merely missing his arms but has already been converted.

We also found out that my mother-in-law has stage 1 cancer in addition to my father-in-law's existing diagnosis and ongoing treatment... he's resigned to likely being on chemo for the remainder of his days after having his colon removed, an ostomy, and spots discovered on his liver. My wife's going with them to her mom's pre-surgery consultation tomorrow afternoon - likely surgically treatable since it's been discovered fairly early.

In other happy news, whilst sitting down to take pictures of the unpainted Necron group tonight, I dropped our digital camera...



















But I managed to catch it between my ankles as one end hit the tile-covered concrete floor in the basement. The casing was a little disjointed and the battery door misaligned, but I was able to skew things back into their proper places and it still takes pictures.

So yeah, here's some Necrons:


I'm off to bed...

[Sheep]

Awesome catch!

Things are still looking great Tinweasel, the lord is amazing and i can't wait to see more warriors completed. The green glowing is really good and adds a fantastic contrast with the bone and red, and paling of the bone around damaged areas is also such a great addition to detail.

Keep up the work.

[Tinweasel]

I'm looking for suggestions as to improving the appearance of the basing for my Necron Lord.

He's essentially standing on a shattered piece of rock/necrodermis painted in a scheme with the same colors as the standard GW Necron equipment (Monolith, etc.) This is theoretically on a grey and dusty moon world stripped of life - possibly their Tomb World. I've been kicking around the idea of adding an angular crystal formation or two "sprouting" from the lowest part of the base, but I'm really open to any/all suggestions. (Like "it needs more skulls," for example, or something suitably "cool looking.") Not only is he to be the centerpiece of my smallish converted Necron army but also I'm wanting to enter him in the Golden Demon competition coming up July 26th in Chicago...

[Evil-Termite]

Idea for the Lord base.

The rock he is standing on looks like a stone carved for an ancient building. Perhaps carving some necron glyphs into it would look neat.

Also, the top of the rock is very flat. Some skulls and bones in a pile could look pretty cool.

[Mormoran]

I have a suggestion for the warrior with the SM head. Perhaps, instead of posing him as standing on top of his trophy, bend the leg a little more inward, so he looks more like walking, instead of showing his kill, this way it will have more of that necron "we stop for nothing, always forward bringing death" look. Basically what I mean, is, I think the leg is a little too wide open, perhaps close it a little. Necron warriors wouldn't be showing off trophies I think. Just a suggestion, the army looks great btw, I love Necs the most!

[Tinweasel]

@ Evil-Termite - Necron glyphs sound like a good idea - it's a relatively flat area on the facing sides. Can't do carved glyphs at this point as that would mean stabbing into painted insulation foam, but I can surely try to paint (maybe on the back side) some weathered-looking Necron symbols. Plenty of inspiration for those...

When you posted about skulls and bones in a pile, the idea popped into my head of having flayed, charred remains in a pile either on top of the rock or against the rock. In thinking it through, though, for a realistic "Gauss flayed" appearance, I'd probably have to add clothing and at least part of an IG uniform or something to the "back half" of the bones - probably more conversion work than I think I have time for.

In maybe putting some simple bones on the base, would weathered bones look better (been there a while) or would fresh bones? I'm thinking weathered, myself, and I could pile up an accumulation of dust or grit around them so they look like they're partially covered by the environment despite being on top of a rock. Again, in thinking about things here, it'd probably be much quicker to paint bones amidst a pile of "dirt" than to do an exposed skeleton - drybrushing vs. layered painting, ya know?


@ Mormoran - Good point about the positioning of the legs. I don't know what I was thinking putting him into a "posing" posture as opposed to a "stepping over a mere obstacle" posture. I unfortunately can't change it now as the figure's glued into position with plastic cement and has been basecoat primed, but I'll have to see if maybe I can twist him off at the spine so maybe instead of facing sideways in a "pose" he could be facing forwards at a slight lean and it would look more like just a long stride with the leading foot on the head.


So what do folks think about some crystals sprouting out of the ground from in front of the rock something along the lines of this:

And if it sounds good, I should do them in what color? If I do translucent green, they'd be similar in color to his glowing innards (which may or may not be a big thing.)

[Svartmetall]

posting from work

Ooo! I like the crystals; how about using the Necron green fluorescent plastic bits and cutting them to a more crystalline shape...?

[Jopax]

Suggestion for the base of the lord, adding a few patches of flat necrodermis with some symbols on it, to look like it is an ancient obelisk covered by somethging, also if you do the pile of bones make some charred areas on the rock too, so it doesn't look like they are all extremley accurate.Everything looks good so far

[Gacu666]

Awesome! I love the Genestealers and the way they're painted, makes me wanna play Space hulk all over again.

[Skeeve]

Just for the starter take a look at this diorama

http://www.coolminiornot.com/194205

As you can see there is nothing very unusual here except your typical (although very well done) ruins.

Problem with necrons is the lack of extensive background information. I don't presume to know everything out there, but personally besides Necron codex I am aware about only one short story by Cindy Mitchell where commissar Cain found himself in an unfortunate Adeptus Mechanicus expedition trashed by necrons.

In the final scene of this short story a bunch of damaged necron warriors have been teleported into underground necron repair facility followed by space marines that were send to deal with them. What I am driving at you can put your lord on a heavily industrial base semi-robotic repair-dock type base. That would require, however painting extensive battle damage to make such a base self-explanatory.

[Evil-Termite]

Ok, I just had another idea that you may like.

The lord is holding out the resurrection orb as if he's showing it off right before he uses it. Some fallen Necron corpses nearby could look really neat. That could work in a diorama but I don't think you have time for that. Hmmm.

For the bones, weathered will look good. Painting up a body would probably catch the eye and detour it from looking at the lord, which is the main focus.

A fresh necron corpse with some dust could also work as he may be about to resurrect him.

[Tinweasel]

Figgered I may as well post a WIP shot of just the Lord. Rather than doing work on the Skaven display base last night (well, outside of spraypainting it) I decided to do some stuff to the Necron Lord. The one thing that's been bothering me about the appearance is the starkness of the glow - seems to me it would look better with some slight edging in a darker green within the crevices. On that note, I did a bit of shading and then a bit of brightening, and this is what I ended up with:


What do you guys think of the interior "glow" as compared to in this post?

[Tinweasel]

In deciding how to approach this guy, I'm thinking I'd like to paint him as extremely weather-worn and aged. I've already got the basis for that in the initial dark brown washing built up to highlights (you can somewhat make out the discoloration in spots and I'd like to accentuate that.)

I was wondering if I could get some suggestions on how to approach it, however. I'm thinking of using thinned glazes of a darker blue in the shaded areas - I'd approach things with a dark olive green as I think it turns out pretty well as a cooler color for shading, but I've already got the "corrupted" part of his body being delineated by dark and pale greens. The paintjob has a fairly healthy yellow-orange tint in the primary basecolor and subsequent layering worked up to creamy white highlights.

On some other of my Necron figures I've done something akin to portions "chipped" off of the exterior plating/enamel with what presents as a black "undercoat" under the current color with an off-white interior layer. Do you guys think this would look better as multiple fine scratches or as whole sections "chipped" away from his exterior with additional weathering on the exposed surfaces.

Lastly, one of the things I was thinking about was using grey pastels in various shades to weather the depressions and crevices. Do you guys think this wholesale buildup of dirt/grit on the figure would best be represented on the lower portions (kicked-up ash/soot from the grey ground) to accentuate the undirtied upper portions of the figure, or do you think I should apply "environmental weathering" across his whole body, except for maybe the areas where his armor/enamel have "chipped" away?

Any and all ideas would be welcome - I've never done wholescale weathering/distressing to a figure so I'm on somewhat shaky ground here...

[SocietySoldier]

maybe try the metallic weathering that Schweet has on his mechanicus space marine chapter?
give em the metal under their tanny exterior?

[Tinweasel]

I've been doing some work on this guy off and on, essentially tidying things up before I make 'em messy again:

I did a lot of painting on the corrupted sections of the arm and torso the past few days, and was wondering if I could get some feedback on how it looks. Is it high-contrast enough? Does it look appropriate? Does it need more highlighting and/or shading?

I also tidied up the interior glow a bit and made it smaller by overpainting his "skin" - I think the look is much more crisp now, especially the eyes and face, than when I had the glow partially onto the facing parts of his body. (In hindsight, that's just poor planning there as line of sight from the glowing areas would dictate that the exterior surface not be illuminated.)


One thing I'm stuck on is how to paint the blades on his staff. I've got the idea for the Resurrection Orb firmly in my mind - shading from bottom to top like a glass sphere and then painted glowing whorls and swirls (think paisley pattern-esque) across the surface. I'm at a dead stop when it comes to the blades, though. I don't know if I should do jagged streaks of light playing across the entire surface, an overall even edge glow with dark interior, whorls and swirls in the flat areas with sharp edge highlighting elsewhere (although I can't even visualize how I'd paint that when comparing it to the imagined surface of the Orb) - I'm basically at a loss and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions or really good reference pics of crackling power-type weapons anywhere.

[Tempe]

Looking good but it seems odd that the rock reflects the green light when his legs don't.

[Tinweasel]

@ Colonel Temp - Thanks for the compliment. The rock, though, is actually green and that has nothing to do with the business end of his staff. Heh.

[misterjustin]

I really like this scheme. I also think that the arm has plenty of contrast and interest but that the model as a whole could use more. Perhaps even something as simple as a different colour for his head?

No reference on crackling weapons, I'm afraid, but I hope you'll share any you find

[[MaGiC]]

I'm so envious on your color scheme..

is it just me or does he have a slight smirk on?

[Kazetenshu]

Dude that NL is savage, the realistic glow is way hawt too. And like magic, it looks like hes got one narly grin going on.

[Tinweasel]

I've gotten back into painting again after another absence (been working a 60hr up-at-4am-every-morning job since last September, but am now laid off) and am motivated to get some sort of army painted, even if a small one, that I can game with. I came to the realization that out of all the half-finished projects, my Necron force was the furthest along and, more importantly, the easiest to really get cracking with in terms of cutting corners and just getting the damn thing done!

The current batch of Warriors have now all been painted over the base color with shading, several layers of highlight, and the glow effects more or less fleshed out. I'm normally better at writing down color recipes so I can go back to things after the fact, but for my Necrons, for some reason I never jotted notes on doing the glow color or the greenish physical corrosion. I've had to reinvent a painting recipe and color progression for both of those, and made a few other tweaks besides since I've picked up new colors and, um, additional painting skills since I last set brush to these guys in 2008. I'm planning a replacement for the one hand of the guy with the spiky growths from his upper left body - I decided I just wasn't happy with the closed fist made from the hand sawn off from a gauss glayer stock - I just need to figger out what would look good in its place, since the other arm is angled out slightly.

The Necron Lord has had some revisions, primarily since the magnetized hand holding the Resurrection Orb wouldn't stay pinned/glued on and kept snapping off. I drilled deeper/thinner pin holes, swapped out the metal forearm for a plastic Necron one, and then drilled/pinned the other end with the hand as well. I like the end result, because his arm is now slightly exaggerated in length in addition to having the corrupted claws.


Linky for bigger pic

I did pick up the new Codex, but haven't really read through it much or done much research on quality/competitive units. At this point, I'm just going for the basic Lord w/ Res. Orb, Staff of Light and two(?) squads of Warriors. I'd ideally like to hit 500 points. I'm also working on accompanying Scarabs, but need 3 more finished bases before I can field those as a unit.

I'd appreciate feedback, in that I'm thinking the (unfinished) Lord looks a little bland - maybe I need to do something more with the claw arm to play it up a bit? The Orb and Staff of Light are going to get a green glowy effect, so I'm not so worried about those, but he otherwise just seems kinda "flat" to me and I don't know what to do about it.

[Shoota Fodder]

I would wait until you give green glowy effect before you decide it's bland. I see what you mean about it though. Do you have a more close up picture?