Paintin'.

I get a lot of complements on my Necrons' paint job.  It's not the best, and my method is gimmicky, but it works.  It also allowed me to quickly put together a respectable-looking army.  When I first became interested in 40K, after hearing about a dozen conflicting opinions regarding what faction I should play, what sides were over/under powered, what was the most fun, etc, I ultimately went with my initial gut reaction and went with the Necrons.  I liked their lore - what else can I say?

I wanted something different for their aesthetic.  The black / green combination is great and all, but I feel like most folks go with it just because of the green rods that are pre-packaged with almost all Necron models.  After a lot of debate, I decided to go for a red / rusted look.  I could mass produce pieces this way, and the technique that I was to use didn't require all that much painting talent.  I was pretty happy with the result.

Rust.  Although I'm a lawyer now, I have a technical theater undergraduate degree, complete with props training.  I remembered a few (a few) techniques for how to make rust.  The technique that I would use was simple:  apply a coat of rust-colored spray paint, let it dry, create a salt mask, then spray over the whole thing with silver spray paint.  Scrape the salt away, and bam, I had rust.  I did this to all the models in my Necron army, but I think it's best illustrated with my Monolith, where I could use sea salt because of the increased size of the piece.  (I apologize for the quality of these pictures - all I had with me in the shop was my Droid.)

If you look closely, you can probably see bits of salt left on.  I didn't mind that - it gave some texture to the finished product:

As you can see, I used red tubes from Hobbylinc instead of the stock green tubes that normally come with Necron models.  I like the way it turned out.  Instead of the crystal at the top, I crushed up some cheap red faux-gems that I found at Walmart for about $4.  I went out and beat them with a hammer.  Like a boss.

I used the same gems at the base of my (extra blurry, ugh) Necron Lord.  The only other motif I went with was that of metal - shards of metal, leaping up from the base.  I accomplished this by cutting the wirefram that bits came on, twisting it, and spraying over it with silver.  Easy to do, and it gave the pieces a really unique look.  The most extreme example of this would be on my Nightbringer:

This was when he was almost done.  If you look closely, you can see some gaps missing in the red, and you can tell that some of the red was bleeding into the bottom of his robe.

As of the end of last summer, this was my whole army:

I really, really need to give these guys some TLC.  I've been playing with them a lot, and, being Necrons, they're really fragile models.  They're falling apart.  I'm waiting to do repair work until my Chaos army reaches 1500, which should happen very soon.  Here's an adorable preview: