How to paint Necron Infantry: Speed, Sprays and Washes

If you have any questions / comments, please feel free to post on the forum thread for this tutorial.

It's been a while since I've done a tutorial, and after sending a friend the test photos for these guys he asked what I used to get them to tabletop standard so quickly so I thought I'd oblige with a tutorial.

There are XXX things to bear in mind when painting necrons fast in my opinion:

1.) What colour is the metal?
2.) What colour is the base?
3.) What colour is the rod/glowy bits?

and most importantly do these go together?

The only specification I have been given for this army is that it is to feature gold quite heavily, asides from that I have had free reign. Gold is a warm colour by nature so I picked icy blue (hawk turquoise base) rods for some nice contrast, and used my fail-safe dark grey basing with pigments and army painter swamp tuft.

Enough wittering, here we go:

Equipment:

The Army Painter 'Plate Mail Metal' (this stuff is magic)
White Paint Cermite White
Black Paint Abaddon Black
Bestial Brown (Now Mournfang Brown )
Asurmian Blue Wash (Drakenhof Nightshade)
Badab Black Wash (Nuln Oil)
Ice Blue (Lothlern Blue)
Hawk Turquoise (Sotek Green)
Codex Grey (Dawnstone)
Gryphonne Sepia (Seraphim Sepia)

(Devlan Mud sneaked in there, it is not used, it's just desperate for attention since I replaced it with Sepia)

Step 1: ASSEMBLE MANY ROBOTS

Step 2: Spray 'em, TAP sprays are fantastic for mass production, they're not as precise as others, but they go on well, dry fast, and have amazing coverage.

Seriously, read it: there's horror stories out there from people who have sprayed entire armies and the spray has come out 'rough' or 'sandy', all sprays are different, shake it well, make sure the can is warm, test it on something non-precious first.

Step 3: I want these guys looking a bit evil, and everyone knows that all self-respecting bad guys wear eye make-up, I watered down chaos black and 'dotted' it in each eye socket. I also blacked out the sections which I will later use pre-highlighting on for a lighting effect.

Step 4: Gold.
I used Vallejo Liquid Gold, fear not; this will be available from EG as soon as possible! It is an alcohol based paint so evaporates very fast, do not clean your brush in water while using it, alcohol only, water will cause it all to clot up on your brush. A good alternative is a Base brown (Mournfang = ideal) + Gold, and then a 2nd layer with just gold.

Step 5: Wash it all over. (Apologies for blurry picture)
5 Parts Sepia (XXXXXXXX)
1 Part Black (Nuln Oil)
Dot of Brown (Mournfang Brown)

Step 6: Paint your base, I airbrushed this but a fair bit of watered down paint will work well, if you have used a good quality spray then your sand will not come off the base (another huge bonus IMO). I used Black + Grey about 3:2. I based the cables with this colour at this stage as well.

Step 7: Lighter Grey: if you're not using an airbrush put this on top of the last layer of paint wet-on-wet, it's the ground: it is not meant to be neat! Using the airbrush I sprayed randomly, also catching the middle section of the piping which will be blue 'pre highlighting' it.

Step 8: White.
Concentrating on the middle of the tubing I sprayed pure white on. Below is a picture of my custom trade secret paper-taped-to-thumb, this is a world exclusive! Basically if you tape it and cut it to the right shape you can use it to stop overspray/overbrush when airbrushing or drybrushing this pre-highlight, it is incredibly useful!

I also used watered down white to 'wash' the sections of the weapon I wanted to look nice and glowy.

Step 9: Blue.
I thinned down hawk turquoise with Gin, and hit all of the piping with it, airbrushing this stage be careful, and painting it use thin consistent glazes, the aim is that the pre-highlighting does as much of the work as possible for you. I added skull white and concentrated on the middle more (1:1) and then used a final mostly skull white mix to get the highlight. I used the first mix on the sections of the weapons I wanted to glow.

Step 10: Basing.
1 Blob of Grey, 1 blob of white, mix to taste, wipe off, drybrush. I go for a fair bit of contrast at this stage, roughly it's probably 1:1

Step 11: Eyes: Skull White + Ice Blue.
This is where the time spent dotting them pays dividends, they should really stand out against the dark background.

Step 12: Pigments.
Vallejo Burnt Sienna pigment, mixed with water, blob it on liberally and randomly. I apply it, do another aspect of the painting while it dries, and then come back to it with a wet (old) brush and agitate it around and blend it in a little.

Step 13: Rods done in the same way as the cables while the pigment is drying

Step 14: Finishing the basing:
Paint the rims black, 'mix in' the pigments, and it's time for tufts! In this case Swamp Tuft from TAP.

Done. I will get some better quality finished product pictures up here shortly.

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