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So last year I did a Christmas speed painting project with 1000 points of Craftworlds Eldar https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/768724.page, this year I've decided to tackle something that's been in the back shelf since 5th edition: Necrons. Way back then, a friend and I thought it would hilarious to do a tournament list of 100 warriors and 1 Overlord (101 Necrons), which rang in around the points limit at that time. I think we only ever bought and painted 20 Necrons before we gave up on it, but I also inherited some other Necrons from someone who left the hobby, also one of the old Start Collecting Necrons and a box or two of other stuff from back in 7th when I fancied reviving the idea of a Necron army - a pattern of abortive attempts I'm hoping to break, to be sure!

After a lot refurbishing and cleanup I was able to salvage about 24 Necron Warriors and 9 bases of Scarabs, and I picked up the Necron Apocalypse box to go with the half-built stuff I hadn't painted yet. Still more stuff incoming as I won a Start Collecting Necrons (new box) in a draw but it's being posted over from England and I'm hoping to convert some Destroyers to not look completely derpy. This isn't meant to be a fiercely competitive Necron army and a lot of my choices are about what I like the look of or what was available at a discount rate (or could be refurbished).

I've spent the last month or so building and planning after doing an initial scheme on a lark. My initial paint scheme turned out like this:


This was applied with grey primer (Stynylrez) followed by a basecoat of Vajello Chainmail Silver. Then 50/50 Contrast Medium/Terradon Turquoise, followed by 50/50 Contrast Medium Basilicanum Grey, with Sybarite Green and Gauss Blaster Green highlights. I enjoyed painting the Overlord so I also did the Canoptek Spyder I had kicking around:


Using the same scheme. It was then that I got grandiose plans and started spending money. I also decided to see if I could cut down on the effort (in true speepainting fashion) by lowering the steps even further, and bought some Stynylrez Silver primer and mixed Terradon Turquoise and Basilicanum Grey together (along with medium), chopping two steps out entirely. I did a trial model on a spare Warrior that turned out like this:


Not as dark as the Overlord, but close enough that it's not really noticeable on the tabletop. Also some of the darkness of the Overlord is just trick-of-the-light under photography, as metallics do fun things in pictures.

Note I'm going to be painting the green plastic bits over rather than inserting them after painting, as I think this was a gimmick that GW has rightly abandoned in all recent releases. Good riddance.

For basing, I'm using SuperSculpey clay and a GreenStuffWorld Eldar textured roller to make bits of demolished Eldar masonry. Or delicious Eldar cookies?


To further speed things along, I'm going to do something I've never done, and that's dipping the Warriors and Immortals and Scarabs into a bath of Contrast (way too much contrast).


Everything else will have to be hand painted as normal, but it shouldn't be too onerous, considering it's contrast paint.

So including what's already painted, it's above 2000 points of Necrons, though I think the points changes in CA2019 will drop it to 1900-ish. If I get this lot done I'll tuck into the new SC Necrons and Destroyers and see how far I can get. Realistically I figure there's an okay 1500 point list in there, and I may pick up Imhotek and I hear rumors of a new Necron character model coming with Psychic Awakening, that could be cool.



Here we have:
1 Overlord with Voidscythe and Resurrection Orb (painted!)
1 Cryptek with Staff of Light and Canoptek Cloak
40 Necron Warriors
5 Necron Immortals with Gauss Blasters (build before the new meta)
5 Necron Immortals with Tesla Carbines
2 Triarch Stalkers with Twin Heavy Gauss Cannons
6 Canoptek Wraiths with Transdimensional Beamers (expensive but amusing looking)
6 Tomb Blades with 2 Tesla Carbines
12 Canoptek Scarabs
1 Canoptek Spider with 2 Particle Beamers and Gloom Prism (painted!)
1 Doomsday Ark

Tomorrow (Monday December 9th) is my last day of work before vacation, so I plan on starting painting in earnest on the 10th, wish me luck!

Well, the Eldar project was a ton of fun to watch. I imagine this will be, as well. The color scheme is quite cool, and I look forward to seeing it across a larger group of models.

There is a ghostly wraith-like look to these guys, which suits Necrons well.

They look great!

 youwashock wrote:
Well, the Eldar project was a ton of fun to watch. I imagine this will be, as well. The color scheme is quite cool, and I look forward to seeing it across a larger group of models.

Thanks. I have to admit that painting this many models in roughly 3 weeks is a bit intimidating, but it's a lot simpler than the Eldar project (no lava blades for one!)

Dig the project, good looking test minis

Hadn't considered dipping in Contrast!

 Boss Salvage wrote:
Dig the project, good looking test minis

Hadn't considered dipping in Contrast!

Probably because it's ruinously expensive. I bought 3 bottles of medium and 2 of each color just to get enough depth to be able to dip a bunch of minis.

Good Luck John, models so far look every good. I hope you get them all done in time

 John Prins wrote:
Probably because it's ruinously expensive. I bought 3 bottles of medium and 2 of each color just to get enough depth to be able to dip a bunch of minis.

Too true Well, all the more excited for your experiments in the name of Science / speedpainting.

Giving the compressor a chance to cool down, but all the troops and scarabs are primed.



It's a little hard to tell if you miss areas spraying silver (Synylrez Metal Primer) over grey plastic.

Edit: Finished priming. Note the bases will be re-primed black so I don't worry about good coverage on the bases.

I had a lot of stuff to do today, but I finally got a chance to attempt dipping a Necron Warrior, and the results were disappointing. Contrast has too much surface tension and that leads to heavy pooling in any recess, and those pools can sometimes run down the miniature later creating ugly streaking. In other (raised) areas so little pigment is deposited that going over it again with a brush is basically necessary.

Seems like brush application is the only way to proceed.

Tonight's WIP. Highlights and base details still needed.

Finished the first group of Necron Warriors. Next time I think I'll do them in blocks of 10, as 20 is too much at one go.

Boom! Nice big unit of meat-hating space robots. Did you paint their eyes? I think you did, but can't tell? Would be a mostly-painless way to add a smidge more life to them if not.

Very spectral. I like it.

 Boss Salvage wrote:
Boom! Nice big unit of meat-hating space robots. Did you paint their eyes? I think you did, but can't tell? Would be a mostly-painless way to add a smidge more life to them if not.

I did paint the eyes, it's just not the best photograph. The rocks shouldn't be so dark either.


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 youwashock wrote:
Very spectral. I like it.

The mottling effect of contrast really helps in that regard. I've taken to referring to them as 'cold-light' Necrons. I think the effect would look great on gobbo mushrooms.


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Today I did 12 bases of Canoptek Scarabs!



This took about 6 hours total. Longer than I thought! Most of the time was spent on the bases, ironically, as getting to the base detail around the miniatures themselves is a huge pain in the butt. Nine of the 12 were rescue models I stripped from previous efforts, three of which took multiple passes in solvent and ultrasonic cleaning. The scarabs themselves are a joy to paint, they love contrast paint and simple highlights work to great effect. I'd happily paint 12 more tomorrow, though I think I'd paint the scarabs (and their flight stands) separately from the basing, it would save tons of time. I'd also happily field 27 bases of scarabs in a game as a stampede of the mighty cyber-buggalo.

An unsurprisingly great start to this years Christmas project. Your Eldar were amazing last year and these guys look like they’ll follow suit. The contrast paint works amazingly well on the necrons, but it’s the mild mint green weapons that steal it for me! Looking forward to seeing an unfeasibly high rate of production continue

Today I did some Wraiths (well, technically yesterday, but I did these before I went to bed, so for me it's the same day).



These guys kicked my butt. They're stupidly complex with all the limbs and I gave up trying to highlight the snake tails (or all the panels) entirely. As a miniature, I love them, but painting them is a slog. I have three more but they can wait a while.

Oh, and for anyone questioning my giving them Transdimensional Beamers...how anyone could NOT equip a weapon called Transdimensional Beamer is a mystery to me. Yeah, they drive up the cost of the unit, but come on...Transdimensional Beamers!

...also they look like glowing robot willies, which is hilarious. Necrons understand how to terrorize the enemy.

Great job mate, I love the choice of base for these guys, the colours really look good together

 Snake Tortoise wrote:
Great job mate, I love the choice of base for these guys, the colours really look good together

Thank you. It's a very Christmas scheme (red and green!), though to be honest the basing was chosen to match my Eldar basing scheme.

Looking very nice so far. I second the idea of glowing eyes. Probably red.

Those Wraiths REALLY work with your technique. They look fantastic. Transdimensional Peeners and all. And their little bugs, too. This is off to a rockin' start.

So decided to take yesterday (Sunday) off to read a book and maybe relax after putting in something like 30 hours of painting over the course of last week, but then after dinner I start thinking "Well, slopping some contrast on models doesn't take much effort..." and the next thing I know it's 1am on Monday and I've finished a Triarch Stalker.



Base isn't quite dry yet, though, darn texture paint.



Minimal highlights on the pilot, too hard to get to places. I couldn't even reach all the areas of the cockpit to put down contrast, but it's really hard to see those areas anyways.



The bigger the surfaces get, though, the harder it is to keep the mottling in check, contrast doesn't like large surfaces at all. I mostly try to keep the pooling down and use 2 coats on the larger panels.

You're on a tear! Impressive pace man. Cold blue bots continue to look great as well.

The stalker doesn't come on a base normally, right? Bless you for basing that walker up, unbased gaming models are bad

 Boss Salvage wrote:
You're on a tear! Impressive pace man. Cold blue bots continue to look great as well.

The stalker doesn't come on a base normally, right? Bless you for basing that walker up, unbased gaming models are bad

Thanks. No, the Stalker doesn't come with a base, I ordered some of the bases the Onager Dunecrawler uses (160mm?). I don't mind unbased minis, but this one A.) Fits a base and B.) is almost impossible to adjudicate how many models can attack it in CC without a base.

 John Prins wrote:
I don't mind unbased minis, but this one A.) Fits a base and B.) is almost impossible to adjudicate how many models can attack it in CC without a base.

I suppose I mostly meant spider walkers - looking at the stalker, the dunestrider, and especially the defiler. Like 15 years of arguments with that one (do the spikes count as the hull???)

 Boss Salvage wrote:

 John Prins wrote:
I don't mind unbased minis, but this one A.) Fits a base and B.) is almost impossible to adjudicate how many models can attack it in CC without a base.

I suppose I mostly meant spider walkers - looking at the stalker, the dunestrider, and especially the defiler. Like 15 years of arguments with that one (do the spikes count as the hull???)

Yeah the Defiler is basically the worst model ever for ease of play.


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Today I did some Tomb Blades.



Note I went with 32mm regular bases rather than the small flight stands. Mostly because I don't like clear flight bases.

I've also been painting in earnest for a week now, so it's time to take stock of my progress.



To date, I have 912 points of Necrons painted. Of that, 742 points were painted during this first week of vacation painting - pretty darn good if I do say so myself. It would have been more but the point drops in CA2019 means the overall force isn't even the 2006 points I started with. Maybe I'll build some more Necrons if it comes to that, though I'm not absolutely committed to the 2K mark.

These guys make me want to eat mints and paint necrons all at the same time! Excellent progress you’re making too

Spooky spooky spooky - very quick too!

Took it a bit easy today, only 5 nice, easy, not too fiddly Immortals.

Highly impressive. The larger models are really looking good.

*teslaing intensifies*

Digging that group shot, nice to see the project's progress on an army scale. Also I'm increasingly reminded of the Necron boxes I've got amassed on my shelf of shame