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Hi all, im new to warhammer and necrons but really took a liking to them. It's just that i need blue necron gauss tubes, not green. I know i can buy them from MWG.com but is there another way? Will they still look cool if i just paint over them? I could but them from that site but id like to know if there was a quicker, easier way. Thanks in advance to any answers.

As far as I know, painting over them CAN look good, but only if you do it well. It depends on how confident you are with your painting and how much effort you're willing to put in painting them to look good. a solid green overtop probably won't do.

And with a quick google search, I found someone who posted their conversion and said this place is good (but its more expensive):

http://www.games2trains.com/auctionsearch.php?posted=1&satitle=necron&exactany_hp=exact&country_hp=all&category=0&itemsearchokX=Go

I personally can't vouch for it though, as I haven't bought from there.

Thats really expensive so im not going to do that. But say i go over the green ones with something like ice blue, will it still have the luminescent kind of see through looking style, or will it just become a solid color?

you could make a mold of the tubes, then use see through resin, with blue pigment in it. it should work out fine that way...

As for painting, doing a quick google image search found me these. The first one is how Id attempt it, the second one will be easier by far, and still looks decent enough.


Looking at these you can tell the technique looks easy enough on both really. The first Id base the tubes in a medium to darker blue(since thats what your going for) The rule of thumb on blending colors is at 3. So start with your darkest color, then blend with the medium color, then finish with the lightest.

So looking at the first picture, base it the darkest blue you pick, the whole tube. Then come in towards the center a little bit and then start blending your medium, then in the center more, the brightest. You can even do this with drybrushing if your not confident with your painting skills, as drybrushing is the easiest way to get blending done. So following what it looks like on the first pic youll end up with a nice pulsing look on your tubes, and it wont cost you more then what you bought the paint for. Good luck man and post some pics when your done

The first looks really good but got any tips on how i can get that glowing on the metal of his gun and hand look? Mabye just some messy dry brushing?

Uh...kindda but but really lol.

In the tutorial section do a search for light reflection. Its not to hard once you get the hang of it. Basically the rule of thumb on THAT one, is the light reflecting will always start off darker then the light its coming from. Also your pretty much just painting the surfaces that the light would really be hitting. As far as your crons go, it would be fairly simple to see what the light would hit. Just use that picture as a reference and basically copy what that guy did. Its simple really, and your tubes will look pretty good even if done half assed

I'm using the plain green tubes for mine, I think they look good. They can be painted to look good too, or another trick you can try is to take ink to the bare clear plastic rods and paint it on and keep painting it on till it sticks and stops beading up, when it dries you'll get a nice energy flowing kind of effect like I did on my old necrons



I used blue rods that I ordered from Plastruct and cut down to size, but the blue was very faint and almost clear, thats why I did the ink thing.

You'd have to do a bit of searching, but you can find plastic rod in various colors, including some translucent ones (I know Plastruct offers colors, but I don't recall whether they have clear rods, as well). That conversion kit linked above is just some of that rod, pre-cut and rebagged with a heinous markup on the price. If you can find the rod, it would be a snap to measure and chop it to length. Just make sure you can find it in a usable diameter.

These are some useful tips I could use to paint up my old Necrons! I will have to re-glue a few first though.

The easiest way to do it, in my opinion, would go to a hobby supply store and see if they carry any plastruct supplies. You can find exactly what your looking for and in almost any color. They are long rods, they just have to be cut down to fit in the gauss tubes.

Honeslty the easiest way would be to paint them. By the time you drove somewhere that sold them, got home, cut them up and glued them on, youd be done with the paint job. Really it wouldnt be had at all to paint them that way

Is the insides of the tubes liquid or solid?

Solid