Necrons: Paint Plan

I think I've heard enough Grey Knights hate, so I've been full speed ahead assembling and painting my shambling hordes of robots.  Here is the first batch of Necrons finished.  To help tell the units apart, I'm putting a little symbol on their shoulders.  This is a pretty easy paint scheme, and I think it works for the 'crons. 

The majority of the armor is a simple drybrush and wash.

- Base black
- Heavy brush of Tin Bitz
- Drybrush Dwarf Bronze
- Drybrush Burnished Gold
- Drybrush Mithril Silver
- Wash of Jade Green.  I'll need to find an alternative when my last bottle runs out!

"Metal" (guns)
- Paint Chainmail
- Wash black wash

Power rods, painted in successive smaller highlights
- Dark Angels Green
- Paint in Snot Green
- Paint in Goblin Green
- Paint in Scorpion Green
- Gloss coat with 'Ard Coat gloss

Teal Highlights
- Paint Hawk Turqoise
- Line highlight Ice Blue
- Wash Gryphonne Sepia
- Paint on little squad markings with Burnished Gold.

Basing
- Paint Khemri Brown
- Drybrush Desert Yellow
- Drybrush Bleached Bone

I have found that the new GW inks are truly shades and don't work for me anymore.  After reading online reviews, the Army Painter washes are awesome and a close match for Badaab Black, Devlan Mud and Gryphonne Sepia.  They're doing the trick for me.

Done, and simple.  I think almost the assembly (especially the vehicles) is taking me longer.  I think I'll end up using some of the Necron decals for the vehicles.  They look pretty sweet and will save me time. 

Here's the list as of now I'm toying with.  I had a hard time figuring out the last 150 points... I really needed about 200 to do what I wanted. I ended up buying a transmogrification cryptic to ride with a unit of immortals, and beefed up my non-farming scarabs. 

2k Necrons (I may not have the options exact)

HQ - Overlord with warscythe on Command Barge
HQ - Cryptic Harbringer of Destruction, Solar Pulse (rides in ghost ark)
       - Cryptic Harbringer of Destruction (rides in ghost ark)
       - Cryptic Harbringer of Transmogrification, tremorstave and seismic crucible (rides with immortals)
Troop - 5 Warriors in Ghost Ark (backfield holder)
Troop - 5 Warriors in Ghost Ark (backfield holder)
Troop - 7 Immortals with tesla carbines in Night Scythe (dropped off mid field)
Troop - 5 Warriors in Night Scythe
Troop - 5 Warriors in Night Scythe
Troop - 5 Warriors in Night Scythe 
Fast - 8 Scarabs
Fast - 8 Scarabs
Fast - 3 Scarabs (base for the scarab farm)
Heavy - 3 Canoptek Spyders
Heavy - Annihilation Barge
Heavy - Annihilation Barge

This list gives me one turn of night fight, a whole lot of twin linked tesla destructors (6) and a bunch of armor 13.  The Overlord helpss with the heavy stuff that needs cracking, and hopefully the scarabs can have an impact.  I just can't get myself to do a fully cloned/spammed list.  Maybe I'll go that route. 

Blog Props: Great Grey Knight Tutorial

Every so often I like to post an amazing blog tutorial or article that I've seen on the blogs I follow.  Not only does this how to paint grey knights tutorial do a great job detailing step by steps (better then the magazine articles) it uses the new GW paints which I'm sure are a mystery to those of us who haven't used them yet!

Check out  Stahly's Tale of Painters: How to Paint Grey Knights.  If you're not following his blog, I would highly recommend it. 

Plus it covers painting the force weapons, something I'm very interested in seeing that I may be trying my hand at Grey Knights for Nova.

I just finished up my 5 hellions, so as soon as I get the chance I'm going to prime up the 5 objective markers and begin on them.  The boats are half way finished, pictures incoming!

Desert & Diamondplate Basing - How To

For my Dark Eldar army, I was faced with a challenge.  Wyches had to be on slot bases since the connection point of the foot was way too weak to connect with any specialty resin bases.  I also wanted to have a base that could both work on a desert "arena" area as well as on board a raider or my pleasure ship (out of Return of the Jedi) that I'll eventually have.

I picked up a bunch of diamond plate plastic from Plastruct product code: 91682.  I started by cutting out various shapes and gluing them down to the base. I then added one layer of sand, not overlapping any of the plastic.

At this point, I wanted to make sure the sand looked like it was blowing over the edges of the decking.  I layered on a second portion of sand over the edges of the decking and raised other areas of the sand to give it depth.

 

I then primed the models and started with the decking first.  

- Based Tin Bitz

- Heavy drybrush of Dwarf Bronze

- Drybrush of Chainmail

- Washed with Devlan Mud

Now I let the ink dry for awhile and could start on the sand.
- First I drybrushed very lightly another coat of Chainmail to pick up the raised part of the decking
- Heavy coat of Khemri Brown on the sand
- Drybrush heavy Desert Sand
- Drybrush Bleached Bone
- Painted the lip of the base black (personal preference).

I'm happy with how they turned out.  Simple but effective.  I'll spend some time next stepping how I did the flesh tones.  This weekend will be a lot of work around the house but I'm going to try and build some of my beastman Wrack substitutes so the Wyches have something to fight in the arena!

Completed Raider & Wych

I had a blast painting the raider and the test wych model.  I didn't add any of the extra crew on the raider yet since I wanted to make sure that they'll fit in the new battlefoam trays I have coming.  I went with a different metal color for the exhaust, which helps break up all the silver.  Additionally I downloaded a bunch of Japanese Kanji translations... since my Kabaal is the "Kabaal of the Death Rune" the word on the side is "Death Dream" and I put "Poison" up in a couple places.  Figure it'd make it more fun.

For the wych, I kept with my desert / diamondplate basing scheme.  I'll post a how-to on that as soon as I'm able to prime my next set of miniatures (pouring rain here).  Here's how I did the skin tone - I wanted to keep it easy.

- Base Dneb Stone
- Heavy wash of Leviathan Purple
- Paint raised areas Dneb Stone
- 2/3 water & 1/3 Asurman Blue wash
- Raised areas 1/2 Dneb Stone 1/2 White

I'm pretty happy.  For the hair it was:

- Base Mechrite Red
- Paint Blood Red
- Wash Leviathan Purple
- Highlight Blazing Orange

I just got the first season of Sparticus Blood on the Sand, looking forward to getting some inspiration for making my abhuman wrack gladiators.  This has been some of the most fun I've had on a project yet.

Dark Eldar - new project paint scheme thoughts

Now that Adepticon is done, I can start working on my next project; Dark Eldar.  I absolutely love the new warrior models, they're beautiful.  Before I tackle any new project I try and think really hard about the paint scheme.  The extra planning early pays off in the end.  Part of my inspiration for this round is trying a new method, gold inlay.  When you see old suits of armor, some of the nicer suits had intricate designs.

I'd like to bring this style into the dark eldar plates.  Now the big challenge will be the small surface area I'm dealing with.  I'll get a lot more help on the vehicles, but for infantry it will be tight.

I'm a big proponent of sticking with a limited color pallet.  In this case, my primary color is going to be a dark silver metallic with accents of purple (cloth) and mettalic gold (inlay).  Certain straps and casings will be in black, and there will be a small amount of lighting effects (eyes, etc.) in bright green.  I'll probably incorporate that green into whatever symbol I paint on the sails of the raiders.  Flesh tones and the skin tabbards will be in a very grey/cool based skin tone (probably using dneb stone as a base).

I'm looking at three options for my main silver metallic tone.  I base coated an armor plate and worked on the triad.  The first is the standard GW silver, and the 2nd and 3rd are reaper triads.  What are your thoughts?

So to sum it up here's the plan so far:

armor: silver with gold inlay
clothing: deep purple
pouches/belts/gun casings: black
skin: dneb stone base (with washes tbd)
lighting sources: scorpion green

I think the next most important thing after choosing the color pallet is basing.  Basing really should make the miniature pop and set the tone.  I'm going to go with a pretty elaborate display base based around Jabba's pleasure barge in Return of the Jedi.  I don't want it to just be deck plating though since that would wash out with the armor plates, so I'm going to go with deck plating mostly covered in sand - almost like sand was blowing over areas.  The desert sand color should be a nice contrast with the armor.  Here's my first take on how this will be prepared.

I haven't decided if I'm going to try and add another new teqnique in, source lighting... that might be biting off more then I can chew.  Please let me know what you think of the main silver color!

Ork Skin: AoBR Orks

I needed a break from painting some Blood Angels so there is nothing like speed painting some orks.  Here's the new ork skin method I'm trying out, would love to get your feedback. These orks below haven't been finished completely, but they're tabletop ready.

The goal with this skin is to not be neon green or overly green.  I wanted a dirtier / more earthy tone.  The mystery ingredient is gryphonne sepia.  It rocks.

- Base Gretchin Green (foundation paint)
- Wash fairly heavy with Thraka Green (wash)
- Paint 80% (tops of muscles) back with Gretchin Green
- Wash with Gryphonne Sepia (wash)
- Highlight 20% (tops of muscles) with Camo Green

For a fast paint scheme, I'm fairly happy with how it turns out.  It's enough to at least make the skin a decent focal point which allows me to cheat a little on the rest of the model with base colors and washing only.

Tonight I'm getting a game in with the Sanguinary Guard List... will bring the camera for good pictures and a real report.

Ginger(hair) Recipe & Wolf Updates

The weekend of hobby marathon has been progressing great and I'm making huge strides on my Space Wolves.  I decided to tackle an extra lot of grey hunters.  In progress of 25 and started an additional 5 to catch up to my batch last night.  Combined with the 10 behind my paint, that would complete my 40 grey hunters needed for my 1850 list.

While paining up the bunch at my local battle bunker (Downers Grove, IL) I figured I'd mix up some hair color a bit and in honor of one of the employees there... figure out how to paint some gingers!  Here's my attempt at the hair color.  The photo turned out a bit more orange that it is in person.  Started with Vomit Brown, washed with Gryphonne Sepia, then line highlighted with Iyanden Darksun, then a final real light wash of Baal Red.  Voila!  Two Gingers, the one with the mohawk is now named Dave.

For my two wolf lords on Thunderwolves, I figured it'd be best to magnetize the arms.  Was a little bit of a process to make sure everything went together right, especially since I didn't have the patience to let the green stuff dry before letting the magnets set.  After it's all said and done, here are the two lords.  Had to hack up Canis Wolfborn a little to make sure both arms fit.  Now I can swap arms as I chose.  The second wolf is from a great miniatures company http://www.mrdandy.com/wargamma-battle-wolves/

Tonight I'll work on a couple additional long fangs along with sculpting additional fenrisian wolves. I'll be putting a tutorial on the wolves, stay tuned.

 

Empire State of Mind

Damn... hobby ADD strikes again.  I've been bitten by the Warhammer bug.  It's been 8 years since I've dabbled with Fantasy, and I think I'll give it another shot.  The challenege is painting en masse - I'm used to the individual nature of 40k painting. 

Here's my stab at the empire.  I wanted to keep a dirty feel - not too bright on the colors.  I saw a long time ago the city of Boghaffen; purple and dirty white.  Either that or Ostermark (purple and white?)

Using mainly foundation paints - foundation purple and dhneb stone were the base colors.  Quick highlight of white (on dhneb stone) and mixed in a little light purple then washed a black wash on the purple and devlan mud on the white.  Chainmail on the metal parts with a little burnished gold trim, and foundation red for accents.  Hit them both with a black wash.  Picked up the red with some blood red accents.  Flesh was simple.  Foundation Tallarn flesh with bleached bone highlights then washed with ogryn flesh wash.  Finally trimed off the black and did a little calthan brown on some hair.  Parchment & Skulls were bleached bone, white highlight and mud washed.

Simply done!  The purple photographed really dark - but that is the look I'm going with.  Thoughts?