Ghost Ark "Epic" Post

This post has been sitting in my draft like for a year. It roughly details how I painted the Necron Ghost Ark. I am just going to throw the pick out because this post is never going to get written. If the formatting is a little strange it is because I am doing this on my phone on vacation. 

The basics are I wanted a Necron scheme that was not the dry rushed metal that the codex has. I thought about doing them in a bone scheme but was not good enough at bone to pull that ows at the time I started. I ended up settling for a concept that is a rusty robot that is in the process of repairing itself. Someone commented that it looks like what a robot might think that camo looks like. 

It starts with a brown base thay is stipples red then orange. The metal areas are carcharodon Granite then chain mail. The whole model is washed agrax Earthshade then touched up. 

Finished - Bloodslaughterer

I got this mini, like so many others, in a trade. I was excited to get him and got a great deal. I am glad the deal was good because he was assembled so poorly that I considered scrapping it. Glue was gooped everywhere and the legs were a jumbled mess. It was also missing a few bits for the legs.

I started painting this mini back in June 2014 before I got married and moved across the country. He had to be packed carefully because he was not clear coated and shipped almost 3,000 miles in a moving container. On the other end, he was unpacked, finished painted and assembled.

I don't know that I did anything really special here but it does get quite a few comments whenever I bring it out. I think I made a good approximation of the way the Blood Slaughterer on the Forge World site. I think there is a little more orange in their red and my shadows are a bit darker.

I like the final product and it is a good clean paint job for me and at about 8.5/10 for me. I could have gone for a little more detail but the kit already took forever to paint. I like the little extra details on the base (Chaos symbol, skeleton and SM helmet).

Finished - Belakor

I am pretty impressed with how this guy turned out. I used some pretty simple techniques to achieve some pretty complex results.

I got Be'lakor in a trade on Bartertown. He was resin and incomplete, neither of which is optimal. I got a screaming deal on him. He is a difficult mini to find as anyone that has him only has one and they want to keep it. You do not see him up for trade often and in metal he is very rare.

I started by looking at pictures of Be'lakor painted on CoolMiniorNot and in his Codex. (I also found an Australian Death Metal band based on this mini while searching.) I disliked the grey color scheme that was in the Codex and wanted something a little more colorful but still muted. I have been wanting to learn to paint purple better and thought this was as good of a chance as any. I also liked the light below/dark above pattern. Sharks and older planes have similar colors.

With the color scheme chosen, I had a little conversion work to do.

Agrellan Earth and Crickle Paint revisited.

After the failure of trying to use Agrellian Earth to paint veins, I decided to give the technique a fair shake by getting some crinkle paint and trying the process they way they described it. 

Normally this would have started with me buying some purpose-made crackle stuff for minis but I didn't want to wait for shipping.  I started my process by trying to get some Weathered Crackle Glaze at Lowe's but sales person said they do not carry that. Now, I have had some experiences with Lowe's where their reps on the floor know nothing about hardware or products so even though I could not find it and the sales person could not find it, I don't know for sure that it is not sold there.

Next, I went to Hobby Lobby. I've never had an opportunity to go to one because there where not where I lived before. Since I moved, there are two very close to me. They don't really have anything a Michael's would not have which is good because they are run by awful awful people.