One very cheap Necron!

 I've been working on a large terrain piece - yet another house for my kitchen table - but it's taking a while and so I decided to paint a single miniature for a bit of a change.

A couple of weeks ago I bought the first issue of some kind of "make your own 40k army" publication. It was £3, and you got a Necron and space marine on the front - although I suspect that future issues won't be anywhere near as cheap. As the great Tom Lehrer sang about dope peddling: "He gives the kids free samples, because he knows full well / that today's young smiling faces, are tomorrow's clientele..."

Anyhow, I decided to paint the Necron. He's an Immortal, I think, and definitely a heavy weapons guy. He's also absolutely huge, and would be well over 7 feet tall in 40k terms. He's a good sculpt, although for an allegedly push-fit model he felt very brittle, and if I'd actually push-fitted him I expect some bits would have snapped (I used glue).

I made a couple of changes. I sliced off some weird cloak/sleeve/dangly bits, and cut his slightly goofy lower jaw away, to make his head look more like a cranium. Then it was painting time.

I decided on a battered military look, using Vallejo Russian Uniform as the basis for his armour. The exposed metal was painted as tarnished, but not especially rusty, as he'd probably smear himself in grease to stop his piston bits seizing up (what a lovely mental image that is). I used a more virulent green in the creases of his armour and gun, to suggest some kind of internal power source.

The head got a paint scheme inspired by the robot skull in an old 1980s film called Hardware. In it, an artist sprays the American flag onto a severed robot head. The robot head then builds itself a body (while listening to popular industrial beat combo The Ministry, IIRC) and runs amok. Which just goes to show that modern art is a terrible idea and young people's music only leads to trouble.

I'm not sure that the head really goes with the rest of the model, but what the heck. I also used some weathering powder on his lower legs, which I really like. Overall, an enjoyable model and well worth £3.