The new Necrons models in the Indomitus boxed set are glorious, and we couldn’t wait to see what some of the expert painters among the Warhammer community could do with them… so we didn’t! We sent models out to a number of renowned painters, and the results are staggering. Let’s take a look.
Garfy Etherington
Garfy: With a new edition of a game, it’s tradition for a lot of hobbyists to start a new army, and for me that’s the Necrons. I wanted a regal Egyptian theme, and chose bone and blue for my main colours. I kept them recognisable as Necrons by painting the majority of them in metallic paints.
The bone colour on my Necrons is a lot cooler and less yellow than I use on my Dark Angels Deathwing. I started with a basecoat of Corax White, then layered Wraithbone before painting all over it with Skeleton Horde Contrast. I then glazed on layers of Screaming Skull, and edge highlighted with Wraithbone.
Johan Egerkrans
Johan: I sponged my Necrons with Stirland Mud before they were undercoated to give them a bit of texture. They've been in the ground for millions of years, after all, so I wanted them to appear really battered and dingy. The lights were painted red and orange/yellow respectively. I really like the evil red glow of the eyes – they make them look very sinister.
Tyler Mengel
Tyler: It's no secret that I'm a fan of the forces of Death over in the Age of Sigmar, and what's closer to that in Warhammer 40,000 than the Necrons? When I started painting them I had two main goals in mind. First, do a scheme that would be quick and easy to paint at an army level, and secondly, throw a little ancient Egyptian flair in there with an homage to a certain Egyptian-inspired army of the world-that-was. I'd say I completed both of these.
The Warriors took me about three days’ worth of painting, the Scarabs a day, and the Plasmancer about three days as well. I wanted to spend a bit more time on the Characters and more "important" units, but make sure I didn't go overboard, as I wanted it to look like a cohesive force.
My original goal was to have a Combat Patrol's worth of models – 25 Power Level – finished, but I fell a unit of Skorpekh Destroyers and a Skorpekh Destroyer Lord short of that goal. I'm well on my way though, and I'm already working on the Skorpekh Destroyers. I think I've settled on a name for my Dynasty as well – the Setrakh Dynasty, an offshoot of one of the larger dynasties. I'm hoping to get all the Necrons from Indomitus done in the next two or three weeks, and I look forward to adding even more of the new units as they come out. I think the Silent King would look particularly good with a gold cape…
Richard Gray
Richard: I've been incredibly excited by the Indomitus box, the new Necrons look amazing! The Skorpekh Lord is my favourite model – it's so big, brutal and downright vicious looking.
I wanted to try and capture a dark and aggressive atmosphere in the paintwork and decided that non-metallic metal (NMM) with red object source lighting (OSL) was the way to go. NMM is a style of painting that represents metal, but uses colours like grey and white and techniques similar to those used in traditional two-dimensional painting. OSL allows you to make it look like there is a light on the model using paint, rather than using something like LEDs.
I tried to keep the colour palette very limited and just relied on the red glow to make the model pop out. I added a small amount of yellow in the form of NMM gold to add interest, and make it obvious that he's an important Character. I also added some very desaturated green into the armour, which contrasts against the red glow but also shows the ground reflecting in the armour and helps to sell the metal effect.
Migs
Migs: What a set this is! The evolved and refined silhouettes of the Necrons immediately inspired me to see where I could push their imagery. The concept of aeons-old black metal death came up in my brainstorming, and I knew that would be what to translate onto the models.
My 10-year old son has gotten into the hobby in the past few years, and building and painting together, as well as working up schemes that create max impact for minimum frustration, has been key to his enjoyment. I strongly recommend that other parents out there invest the time in planning – the return of shared hobby time is such a magical thing.
Here’s a look of what we produced in a week of whirlwind activity. The idea is to add hordes of warriors and more war machines, and finally a white metallic, extremely brightly glowing C’tan Shard to lead them all. We’ve used fluorescent pigments for the green glow, an effect that is quite striking against black metals.
Thanks to all our fantastic painters. If you’ve been inspired by these creations, you can pick up a Made to Order copy of Indomitus now and start planning your colour scheme!