A little side-step into 40k

I'm posting something a tad out of the ordinary for me.  Anyone who knows my blog and my tastes knows that I'll dabble into other realms, but usually with swords and magic, not guns and warp storms.  No, I haven't converted completely over to the dark side, but I did have fun with this little excursion into the 41st millennium.  I must admit, the 40k universe has always fascinated me.  I love the lore and the dark gritty futuristic sci-fi feel of the miniatures. 

I remember when the Necrons first came out in the mid to late 90's when I was a teenager.  I thought the idea of crazy T-1000 terminator machines was pretty cool and I remember picking up a box set of the first bulk troops and some scarabs.  I slopped some paint on them (they looked pretty terrible) and when I eventually fell out of painting miniatures all together, they got thrown in a bin and spent the next several years in my parents attic.

Fast forward to about a month ago.  While I was at my local GW store browsing, the manager said to me "Hey Dave, your like a big painter hobby kind of guy" in which I responded by saying "Yeah, you could say that".  He then says "Well, I got this painting competition coming up that's a bit unusual.  Basically everyone who enters has to buy one blister pack of any hero model of any system then throw it in this box right here".  He then lifts up a random cardboard box that already has a few models inside.  "This Saturday, everyone who's bought a blister pack comes back here at noon.  We then draw names out of a hat and when your name is drawn, we pull and random blister pack out of the box and you have a month to paint it.  All the models are due by April 25th, and everyone votes on the best painted model.  The person who's model gets voted best painted gets to pick one model from the competition to keep, then the 2nd place person gets to pick, and so on and so forth until everyone gets a model.".  I started thinking to myself and eventually came to the conclusion that this was a brilliant idea.  Not only does the store make a decent amount of money from the deal, but it forces people competing to paint something that they're not used to painting.  I love a good challenge and within 5 minutes, I had picked a Brae Shaman (mainly due to the fact it was $14) as my entry fee, payed for it, and dropped it in the box.  The gauntlet had been thrown down.

The following Saturday I showed up at the store expecting maybe 5 or 10 people at the most to be participating.  Apparently we had over 20 and I'm guessing that a fair amount know how to paint.  That's a pretty good turnout for a painting competition where the prize is someone's painted model.  The GW manager then showed everyone what was in the box and it pretty much ran the gambit of 40k and Warhammer Fantasy.  There was one Goblin Captain from The Hobbit range in there too which I thought was kind of funny seeing how most of The Hobbit stuff is in the process of being shipped back to the main warehouse in Nashville.  Getting back on topic, he started drawing names.  During which I was hoping to get one of the newer Harlequin models or something with a lot of detail where I could embellish it and try to show off my painting prowess.  My name finally got drawn towards the end, and the manager's hand went to the box and pulled out..... The Necron Overlord.  "Great, a very mono-toned model" I initially thought as I stared at it in my hands.  I left the shop after the drawing and went home.  I opened the blister and started snipping stuff and cleaning the pieces until this was infront of me.

Stolen from the GW FB page of me dropping off my entry

As I looked at the pieces and the box art, I was thinking about what I could do.  A rocky base was definitely in this models future.  I know enough about 40k to know that the Necron's are as evil as they come.  As far as they're weaponry goes, I believe they use gauss technology which I believe is to disintegrate they're foes?  I'm still not sure, but I though maybe tossing some skeleton remnants on the base would give it the feel I was looking for, regardless of it being in continuity with the lore.  Also, the box art had some pretty cool OSL effects from the eyes and orb that I could try my hand at.  Okay, at that point I think I had a model I could do something cool with and after watching the Warhammer TV video on youtube, I had a pretty good idea on the paint scheme when it came to the gold and bronze bits.  So I put the model together, greenstuffed my seams, carved out some cork and got to work.  After a few hours, I had the bulk of the work done and today I finished up the detail work on him.  This is the end results.....

It was a different, but fun model to paint.  I enjoyed it in the sense that I got to try my hand at something new.  I think part of this competition is to pull you from your comfort zone of painting models and armies your used to and put something completely new in your lap.  If that was the case, bravo, mission accomplished.  We'll see how the competition goes tomorrow.  Hope you guys enjoyed the pictures and weren't too bored with my ramblings.