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Looking forward to you embracing the Way of D'Era! Jolan tru!

Neat idea. Always liked that design (looks vaguely Eldar to me). Good to see you still working!

Interested in this little side project. I sometimes feel the itch to get some Star Trek/Wars scale models when we are in toy stores with the kids.

 inmygravenimage wrote:
Looking forward to you embracing the Way of D'Era! Jolan tru!

Khnai'ra! Could never choose a favorite Star Trek alien race, but Romulans have always been near the top of the list. Cool villains that demanded a menacing respect.

 youwashock wrote:
Neat idea. Always liked that design (looks vaguely Eldar to me). Good to see you still working!

Cheers, I think I might do some of these pick-up jobs more often. This is one of my favorite ship designs of all time, honestly!

 Viterbi wrote:
Interested in this little side project. I sometimes feel the itch to get some Star Trek/Wars scale models when we are in toy stores with the kids.

It's been really tempting! When we were going to the FLGS more-or-less weekly I never saw many on display so I just didn't think about it. But it's nice to have a project with a clear finish point; not starting a Romulan armada anytime soon!

Small update before bed. This thing is huge. Plastic out of the box was greyish green and didn't look so hot, so sprayed it with a deeper green. The nacelles aren't assembled yet because they have transparent bobs and I want to paint before gluing. Not sure how bright I want to go with the green, it really popped on screen but it got pretty teal.

Interesting developments, it’s surprisingly big, I figured by the box size it would be much smaller. The green looks nice, but it looks like it could do with another coat

That is indeed a big ol' spaceship. I agree that it's a good green but it does look like it needs something to make it pop more.

Cool, I love the TNG era Romulan Warbird it is a beautiful looking design. How good would you say the detailing on the ship is? I think your updated green is more in fitting with colour on the show. Good luck with it.

Thanks Gobert and AT, agreed - went over with a second coat the next day. @Warriors, I think the detail is really great - the exterior of the smith is pretty smooth but there is an abstracted pattern of feathers on the wings, and the interiors have lots of lines that look like power couplings or similar.

Progress from over the weekend:



Excuse the gaps where the nacelles and pygostyle should be, I'm painting them separately and keeping the two halves separate until after I apply the decals. I think I might need to do another heavy drybrush of green - but I want the paint to be a bit dirty and streaky-looking. Space ain't clean after all.

Thanks for reading, all.

I really like it, but whilst I would Db more I'd wait till the nacelles are in situ for osl.

Plenty of space for carbon scoring and dings on this one, for sure. Looking good so far.

Thanks guys. Graven, got me thinking - would it be possible to paint it like it was just decloaking?



Hm. I thought it went top-to-bottom but it looks like it fades in all at once. I could try and do a star pattern on the back - but I don't have all the paints I need to do it justice. I'll stick to basics for now. I'll keep the OSL subtle, just where it is on the show; the tips of the nacelle and inner wings. This is turning out to be a lot of fun!

Yeah, it's that ripple decloak. The scimitar (nemesis) does a more progressive decloak like you're talking about. I would stick with the basics though, as you say. I think you can have a lot of fun with deep shadowing too, as in the show image.

Big fan of the D'Deridex, myself

Feeling pretty okay with where we're at! I thought it might end up being a weekend project but it took a few more days; always busier than expecting to be.

I'll set up a nice background and lighting before I submit to the October Painting Challenge, but here's two quick pictures I took with my phone:



Took about an hour today to finish up all the decals, I think two hours of applying decals altogether.

Wow, that is looking really great, I would have been very nervous to keep all those little dots halfway level

Looking good don. For a minute I thought you’d painted all of the dots! Still decals all over the model must’ve been pretty tricky too!

Absolutely stunning. Love it. Makes my nerdy heart sing.

Stellar work, the recess shading really pops and filling in all those internal lights must have been a right pain to paint in...a steady hand and eye served you well there.

 Viterbi wrote:
Wow, that is looking really great, I would have been very nervous to keep all those little dots halfway level

Thank you, Viterbi! I will confess to you that now that not all of the dots are level.

 gobert wrote:
Looking good don. For a minute I thought you’d painted all of the dots! Still decals all over the model must’ve been pretty tricky too!

Cheers, Gobert! I don't have a lot of experience with decals, only recently applying them to my CSM shoulderpads, so this was a good learning experience. More forgiving than I expected of mistakes.

 inmygravenimage wrote:
Absolutely stunning. Love it. Makes my nerdy heart sing.

Thanks, Graven. It was a lot of fun to put together. I applied the first half of the decals while watching "The Defector" (TNG Season 3 Episode 10).

ListenToMeWarriors wrote:
Stellar work, the recess shading really pops and filling in all those internal lights must have been a right pain to paint in...a steady hand and eye served you well there.

Cheers warriors, I'm afraid I cannot take credits for those lights, they are decals; but were they a pain to get in? Yes, they were.

Here's the D'deridax with better lighting, that I'll post to the October painting contest thread. Thanks for your kind words everyone!

You should not have divulged that they were decals, I would never have known!

The patina looks even better with the overhead shot and better lighting great stuff.

Cool glamour shots! The last one almost looked like a scene from TNG... until I saw the X-Wing in the background! . Good luck in the comp

Great display piece. The weathering looks very good.

Fantastic. Love the ship.
Romulans are like a neat combination of Klingons and Vulcans. Brilliant, and ferocious. You've done them justice.

Glamour shots are cool, would be fun to remove the background and put stars or a nebula behind it, would look like a still from the show.

Sparse was the praise bestowed upon the weakest of the undying ones, the false prophets from the stars. Yet the phaerons did its bidding nevertheless, for how could they know they served the avatar of rulership itself? Tehz Kaht'li, the Sovereign, glutted its incorporeal form on the cruel-minded ambitions of their undying servants even as they revolted against its kin. The Sovereign defied attempts to be bound, destroyed, escaping the battlefield in the form of the germ of an idea. From the inside did it work its evil will, causing allies to turn against each other as one petty noble suddenly claims the title of phaeron for his own. Only in the frenzied peak of battle would the Sovereign manifest in its tortured brilliance, growing stronger from the enemy's very attempts to conquer it. The revolt of the undying would surely have failed had not Tez Kaht'li encountered ambition of an entirely other kind - martyrdom.

Mehektek the Solar Lord of All Creation, Lord of the Jade Legion, had seen biotransferrance as the ultimate blasphemy. Unable to experience the ecstatic bliss induced by manic rituals performed when they wore their bodies of flesh, the Jade Legion became possessed with a fanatical hatred of the false prophets and fought in the War of Heaven with a nihilistic rage that consumed entire systems. During the Purge of the Screaming Nebula, Mehektek participated in the Siege of Kardun, in which the Sovereign had manifested, baleful spears of loathing hurling from its formlessness. Command ships and heavy cruisers were left adrift, legions of soulless Necron warriors standing silent while their masters destroyed each other. The Jade Legion appeared committed to its own self-destruction, planet-killing bursts of gauss energy leaping from ship to ship, planet to planet. In the wake of this battle, the entire system would be reduced to an Oort cloud ringing an exhausted sun. But Mehkektek's hatred kept his will intact, and was able to maintain control of his personal command ship, Godbane. Promising an ultimate victory for his people, he activated his ultimate contingency protocol. Godbane hurled itself into the sun, overloading his shields as he went. Star-killing radiation was scattered through the system, reducing everything in it to fine dust.

So did the reign of the Sovereign come to an end.

The War of Heaven was fought to a terrible end, the Silent King departed from the galaxy, and the Necrons entered the Great Sleep. The being known as the Sovereign never again manifested itself upon the battlefield, only the fragments of fragments of memory of its maleficence present in the ruinous ambitions of mortals. Until the great cataclysm shook the galaxy, and the Cicatrix Maledictum split the sky in half, immersing the Kardun system in a warpstorm of impossible fury. When the system emerged, something had awoken.

Mekhetek possessed many obscure phylacteries, one of which was an experimental nano-engram that could be imprinted upon atoms themselves. Slowly, over the course of millennia, fragments of his consciousness began to congeal, but scattered across lightyears throughout the oort field. Perhaps the skeins of fate, which could have left the Solar Lord of All Creation in restful oblivion, were corrupted by the time spent in the maelstrom. Perhaps they were twisted to a vengeful purpose. Mekhetek's consciousness was stitched painfully back together, and his body slowly resurrected atom-by-atom from cosmic dust. Hurtling patchwork through the emptiness of space, Mekhetek was driven quite mad.

What would have taken infinite time to occur by chance occurred in mere centuries. Alone in an endless cloud of debris, Mekhetek watched as his vast fleet formed around him, populated by ranks and ranks of mindless warriors. He desired nothing more than to once again take command of his Jade Legion, and begin a new, hateful crusade against all life, everywhere. After centuries of waiting, trapped in orbit around a dying sun, Mekhetek extended a hand blindly into the thick particle clouds around him and grasped onto a handle - the exterior hatch of a freshly reconstituted Godbane. Declaring himself Mekhetek, Presider of the End of All Things, the mad phaeron rules the Jade Legion once again. Does he also rule himself?

-------------

If you hear the clop of hooves right now, that's because I've jumped on the bandwagon and started a Necron army, inspired by all the cool versions I've seen here. I wanted to have an army that I could get to "battle ready" quickly, so I had to sit down and think about what my standards for "battle ready" are. I'll post more in the next update, but writing the nonsense above took longer than I thought. So here's some pictures!








The last one is a kitbash to make a Lokhust Heavy Destroyer; although I realize it looks more like the older version from the upgrade kit.

Thanks for reading, all.

Cool fluff and a very colorful and unusual scheme for your Necrons, excited to see more!

Nice to have you aboard the bandwagon! A really different scheme you’ve gone for, is it contrast over metallics or reusing the greens from the warbird? It works well, I especially like the gold under the damaged bits. A good bit of fluff too, angry Necrons are the best kind!

Warbird looks awesome and the necrons are coming along nicely, they'll look sweet on the table

Those guys look COOL. Awesome color scheme. Nearly insectoid.

 Viterbi wrote:
Cool fluff and a very colorful and unusual scheme for your Necrons, excited to see more!

Thanks! I wanted to go for a classic B-Movie science fiction color scheme. Something you'd see on a garish poster.

 gobert wrote:
Nice to have you aboard the bandwagon! A really different scheme you’ve gone for, is it contrast over metallics or reusing the greens from the warbird? It works well, I especially like the gold under the damaged bits. A good bit of fluff too, angry Necrons are the best kind!

Yeah, it's leftover paints from the warbird, plus a few GW paints; recipe below.

 MegaDave wrote:
Warbird looks awesome and the necrons are coming along nicely, they'll look sweet on the table

Cheers to both! Hoping to start a Crusade force or similar. I don't really know how Crusade works. I've been trying to make a competitive list, but it's all theoretical at this point; mostly I'm painting what looks cool.

 youwashock wrote:
Those guys look COOL. Awesome color scheme. Nearly insectoid.

Yeah, I didn't realize but I was definitely thinking jade as in jade beetles.
-----
Thanks for the good vibes guys! Step by step (including leftover generic-brand Romulan paints)
1) your choice of olive green primer; 2) heavy drybrush of your choice of teal, two thin coats of your choice of ultramarine blue, details in Yriel Yellow (one or more thin coats); 3) wash the carapace with Biel-Tan Green, wash the blue and yellow with Drukhari Violet; 4) highlight carapace with teal, highlight yellow to soft glow in thin coats gradually mixing in white. Martion Ironcrust/Ironearth in generous combination for the base, wash the base with Drukhari Violet when dry.



Hey! That's what I call a three-color minimum. I'm happy with this as a tabletop standard. Lizardmen became a bit tedious because of the number of steps involved, this one is much easier to paint in batches. Speaking of batches, finished some scarabs, immortals, and royal warden!






Thanks for reading, all.

EDIT: dang semicolon

I really like this, it makes me think of the glorious colours of a sarcophagus. A really unique take on crons, really interesting.