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So I started yet another project (right after finishing the Soulblight Gravelords army two weeks ago). This time it'll be some serious Dark Mechanicum scratch building, kitbashing, Lego chopping and proxying madness. I'd like to be able to field this army as either Chaos or Adeptus Mechanicus force (as there are no official Dark Mech rules atm). But since I've already got a few different Chaos armies, will be more focused on getting a good fit with the AdMech Codex.

Basically I want big corrupted robots (of many kinds), creepy Tech Priests, and scuttling hordes of their servants. Trying to stay away from clearly chaos related things such as evil spikes, icons, bloated daemonic mutations and such. Also going for quite thin, lithe and insectoid shapes. Avoiding bulky Orkyness while still just throwing random bits together like a proper Mekboy!

Maybe these guys are lead (and manufactured) by a Tech Priest whose fleet had just been wrecked. With only pieces of broken contraptions and malfunctioned servitors everywhere, the Tech Priest just HAD to do whatever they could and ask the Dark Powers for help and rebuild the forces.

Here's what I've got so far. A table full of tools & materials, three "Sydonian Dragoons", an "Onager Dunecrawler" and a small squad of "Skitarii Rangers". I'll be making more Skitarii, then some Electro-Priests, Kastellan Robots and Kataphron Breachers at least.





















A few more pics at my blog.


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Project continues...

A group of infantry for the army! These Electro-Priests will be delivering some dangerous close range discharges and proceed to zap foes in melee as well. Unless they get shot first. Which might be okay.

The unit is mostly made out of the Blackstone Fortress Negavolt Cultists. There's a Spindle Drone, two Ghouls and an Ur-Ghul among their ranks, with some Skaven, Drukhari and (Chaos) Space Marine bits thrown in among other little random doodads and guitar strings. I especially like the guy who's got his head mounted high above shoulders on a giddy rack.

Woooow, amazing amount of heresy here, keep it up !
The scratch built dragoons are especially impressive.

HELL YEA! I'm in

Always loving a good, wire infested wretch project

What sort of colour scheme are you intending for them?

Mutant Modifier,

I am going to have to show this to my gaming buddy who is building a Dark Mechanicus army in a similar fashion (loads of scratch builds and conversions). But yours are even more complex and he is going to love trying to figure out all the parts you used. Great imagination.

Cheers,

CB

Thanks for the kind words people. Much appreciated!

Also cheers to your gaming buddy, Captain Brown! It would be very interesting to see what they're building!

And Sherrypie, for the colour scheme I'm currently planning on quite monotonous and very matt bone / cream overall feel. Maybe glossy black eyeballs? Pure black & white detail areas in a few choice places (like white cog transfer on black shoulder pad or such). Some glossy and wet sepia / brown rust runs? Very few details with purple or something? And then the bases might get very bright. The reddish rust martian earth could be a solution, but I'm trying to come up with some other idea. Super lush an multi-coloured jungle type setting with lots of flowers?


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Progress here with some hazardous looking robot insect mechanoids! Got a box of the actual and very nice looking Sicarian Infiltrators from a FLGS a while ago when they moved and had a reasonable discount on many things.

I wanted to have more than just 5 of these guys, so kitbashed in a couple Necron Warriors. Elongated leg segments were made from guitar string and glass beads. Then an exquisite selection of Drukhari, Eldar, Kharadron Overlords, Chaos Cultist, Ork, Skitarii and Skaven parts was glued in for good measure. I wanted the unit to look unpredictable and wobbly yet dangerous, so spiky antennas and flailing mecha-tentacles were in order to accentuate their frantic postures.

Really cool conversions so far, good luck with the painting!

Thanks Olthannon !

Just got the army primed and put some Citadel Technicals on top. Now waiting for them to dry to actually get painting! More babble and pics at my blog.

Love the primed shot! Man, there is a lot of weirdness going on, as expected

Mutant Modifier,

Your painting logs are great in that within a month you have another 1000 point army completed.

I know this was is still WIP, but you already have the basecoat started and there is still a week or two to go.

Exalted.

Cheers,

CB

The Captain is right, the rate of progress you achieve is amazing. You’ll probably have this lot done by the time I finish my current project!

Thanks for the kind words people, they mean a lot!

***

Oh dear, it's been almost a month since the last update. Been super busy at the work, but still managed to make some progress with this army. I really thought this would be relatively quick group to batch paint, but was wrong. There's just so many fiddly bits, curly cables and tiny rivets everywhere that just demand lots of attention. And I wanted the army to have quite pale feel to them, so there's lots of dirty whites and light greys going on.

After the initial grey undercoat and blotches of Agrellan Earth, I (zenithally) sprayed Matt White over the army. That was followed by heavy coat of Apothecary White on top parts of the models. The lower areas got mixes of dirty grey washes splattered on them, and a drybrush of Underhive Ash. Then I stippled on some Pale Grey Blue, and lightly drybrushed all the important and up facing bits with Dead White. Big eyeballs, gun barrels and some of the lenses were painted Matt Black (they'll get a coat gloss varnish in the end).

For the rest of the lenses and all the electric cables, taser spikes, plasma coils, power swords and such I gave Aethermatic Blue and Blue Ink washes, Hellion Green drybrush and Verdigris Glaze highlights. They'll probably get another super bright highlight, a fine glaze of Aethermatic Blue and some gloss varnish later on. At his point I realized everything needed a bit more definition that the pale grey shadows were just not providing. So I went to recess shade almost everything with Nuln Oil. Took many days, but was well worth it!

More things still to do: Redefine important bits with pale grey / light blue / white highlits (heads, fingers, weapons, antennas and such). Maybe even more dirty staining on the legs? Matt Varnish (followed by gloss varnish on the few specific bits mentioned earlier). And maybe then it's time to try super lush vegetation on the bases (btw, the bases are currently covered with just garden dirt)!





















More WIP pics at my blog as usual.

This is already looking amazing, keep it up !

The dirty white and blue energy bits look great, a really menacing vibe they have, from the conversions to the paint job! Did you use texture paint on the walker? It looks to have crackles and rough texture in the pic?

Thanks for the comments, fellows!

There's quite a bit of Agrellan Earth and some Astrogranite Debris (in addition to the super glue + bicarb sodium mess) on all of the minis. And oh, I also super glued some cotton wool on the walkers for some mossy patches.

Dark Mechanicum project (pt.6) - Batch painting the whole army some more

Another night shift here. Have been doing some recess & underside washing and staining with Seraphim Sepia, Athonian Camoshade & Nuln Oil. The cyan parts got highlighted (with a mix of maybe Dead White & Royal Cloak, not sure) and glazed down again with varying mixes of Aethermatic Blue & very little Tesseract Glow. The fleshy parts got a wash of Guilliman Flesh & Royal Cloak, to which I then added Mummy Robes & Dead White for highlights. Very few details got Volupus Pink. The base rims were painted Matt Black, and then everything got a layer of spray matt varnish. I'll be gloss varnishing all the cyan & black bits next week and see if I feel like the army is done then.

And oh, almost forgot to mention the dozens and dozens of grass tufts, moss (Summer Undergrowth) and flock on the bases - all from The Army Painter.

Your rate of progress and the effectiveness of the paint scheme is dazzling MM! They look like a horde of ghost robots marching to war already, great stuff!

And a month goes by and Mutant Modifier completes another army.

Like clockwork.

Cheers,

CB

Gorgeous blue, it really pops!

Thanks for the nice comments! <3

The army is finished and done (for now): https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/801537.page