Many Necrons

So here is my (incomplete) necron army, the paintjobs are all
incomplete except possibly the destroyer, which may need to be touched
up.

I love the wraith model, and was tempted to do more with their poses but
they are already a little top heavy so for the most part they are straight
from the blisters. except for the lights.


The warriors, these were the model that got me into this mess. luckily
they (being plastic) were really easy to work with. Originally I ran fiber optic
cable through thir bodies (VERY long process) but decided that the ammount
of light that could be piped in wasnt sufficient, so i unthreaded them and
replaced them with surface mount LEDs on 30 guage kynar wire, which
despite being of smaller diamater than the light pipe i was using, has more friction
and was actually harder to string through the model after it was drilled full
of holes. the ones in the picture not lit are all wired, i just dont have enough
batteries to fill them all, and the batts i use i cant find at any stores so i have to
order them online, luckily they only cost about $.25 a piece.


Immortals anyone? these were my favorite, i love the model and compared
to the flayed ones, they are much easier to find a good path for the wires.
metal models also just feel nicer, even if they are slopily cast sometimes.
the lower pic is to show what they look like with lights off. nothing special.


and here they are, love the model, hate building them. Its bad enough that
you really have to pin each arm on these freaks, but then trying to drill a path
from the feet to the head is a nightmare. my friend who introduced me to
this mess had 20, so i had to do 20. in hindsight i would have done more immortals
and half the flayeds. i used amber/orange eyes in them because they look
a little more crazy to me like that, come on, they are already wearing the skins
of their latest kills. These have yet to be painted at all, which will be fun.
the first step is done which had to be done to all the models, and thats a thick coat of
paint around the neck and face to keep light from leaking out in places
i dont want it. i did let it leak out for the warriors because it just looks awesome.

continued below?

sory about that, didnt know there was a limit to pictures in posts, continued:



nightbringer, he brings night. i guess. for the most expensive (points cost)
model in the game, i decided he needed the brightest eyes in the game. and
cause hes a god. and stuff. its actually painful to look into his face, which is
what i was going for, although in person you can see the definition of his eyes,
unlike in the picture where he turned into cyclops from xmen. the base was alot
of fun, and each scarab, 8 in all (including the switch) are illuminated with a length
of fiber optic cable. the switch (right most scarab when viewed from the front)
lights up quite well even though its hindered by having to push the cable under it.

my temporary storage/transport solution, foam with holes punched out, made
by sharpening a piece of pipe and banging it into the foam what seemed like a
million times.


and the destroyers. i have one more unbuilt, because i decided to do a step by
step how to, and thought this would be the most interesting. the destroyer
lord also has a fiberoptic lead going to his arm where it lights the scarab
thingie that he can have. the diffusers over the lights on the finished ones
body to smooth out the green light are made from the top of a soda cup from
jack in the box. what do the insides look like?

yuck. This is not the way to do it, mind you, just a temporary solution, each
light when fished should have its own resistor. also they are on huge bases
because i wanted to put larger batteries in them. a standard model with one
light lasts over 12 hours (shockingly low? high? i dont know) on the small battery,
but when you have 8 lights and alot of resistors i decided more power would
be better. and they are the ones most likely to be turned on and off by
people playing with them.
about the switches, they are all on the tops of the bases and will be hidden by
debris so they blend into the stuff i will litter the bases with. but for now they
are all exposed.
So there it is, my in production army. I will also have 10 pariahs and some
scarab swarms, plus perhaps some tomb spiders. oh and the monolith. i have
some interesting plans for that, but nothing concrete to show so far.
I dont actually play the game, and this was sort of done 'because i could'
so after i finish i plan to sell the army.
and then i get to build some tau, hip hip huzzah!
-Daniel

just a note because it still looks funny to me, the base of that firewarrior is HUGE
because i used two leds in the head, and one of them is blue. the blue led
instead of operating at 3v like everything else (except white) operates closer
to 4.5v, so i used a huge 9v and an small army of resistors. in hindsight i would
just stack two small 3v batteries, but i didnt think of that at the time.

No No you dont get to build Tau "YOU MUST" Build Tau like that.
I am asking you to do it. Please?

I have to see Tau all lighted up like your awesome Necrons.

I can even sit here in one single post and tell you how impressed I am with your lighting.
I am totally amazed right now.
Very, very cool.
I love that army and its not even painted and it just kicks butt because of all the hard work you did to light them.

Each of them!
The bases is awesome where the junk hides switches etc.
Very cool. and the scarab as the switch is way cool too good idea.

About the fire warrior well on the future ones run the lower V lights?
Can you find the smaller blues in a less V?
Or is that the trouble?

I have to guess and I am shure you get this all the time but do you work with electronics?
Is that what made you do this?
Or have you learned as you went along?

You seem to know what your doing and with the lights and getting them that small etc.
Wire and resistors etc. batteries and what not.
Very cool.

Well thank you so much for sharing this with us.
As far as conversions go I have just started to scratch the surface of adding lights and magnets.
Only because Hobbes hooked me up with some lights etc.

Wow.
Again Highly Impressed with the hole look and how well your doing the installation not to totally be seen.
Good work.

the scarabs are my favorite, very well done. Id like to see what oyu could do with a tomb spyder

What the deuce?! That has got to be the coolest army I have ever seen...even topping that Thousand Sons army from WD a couple years back for lighting. Those Wraith and Flayed ones are just bone-chilling and the destroyer lord is great. I would love to see a walk through on drilling through the bodies and you say that most of them are fiber-optic? I'm assuming for the newer necrons that the leds are in the torso with a hole drilled through the neck into the head and wire running down the leg into the base with the bat and switch? Pure genious, can't wait to see more and the Tau when they come.

Ok, I edited my last post because it was stupid.
But these are really cool.

Just wow.

I would love a walkthrough on your wiring for these, and a general where to get parts. You wouldn't happen to be interested in generating a wire arrangement on commission would you? I have a relatively complicated lighting project that I'd love some help on.

PM me if interested.

Oooooooh Polkadot!

They are just great!!!!!!!!!

If you could do a walk through it would be brilliant - Please make it as simple as possible if you do - for us thickies who don't know the first thing about electronics!

You should try getting some piccies in a low light with them striding through some scenery with the smoke of battle drifting past (I'm sure a smoking gamer could help with the special effects )

Great, great, greater!

And yeah, I'd like to know how to pull that off too.

Hot damn! That's impressive. would make a great image on a table in a barely lighted room! ^^

Hehe, very cool, but i wouldn't go that far...

uhm, so uhh yea, i think you need to give me the step by step in wiring (as i had a box of the warriors sitting under my desk that i was going to do something close to this with, hell of a lot easier if i dont' have to figure it all out:)

I demand that you make a tutorial for this stuff!!!

I definatly will write up a walkthrough
and it really isnt complicated, just a few
steps and really the only difficulty is manipulating
some small parts, but anyone who deals with minitures
should be used to that.
and the parts are very easy to get and cheap online, with
the exception of the switches. the ones i use are 8.5mm x 3.5mm
and 3.2 tall. these are very hard to find i think, and the only place
ive found them was at a local electronics shop (something that might
be unique to silicon valley) and they only had a couple hundred.
ive found them online from manufacturers in china and the like, but
im afraid they dont want to talk to me unless i order 10,000. which
maybe i do... but i dont think so. ive found many slightly larger switches
on ebay and such, but the ones ive used are really the maximim size
you can have while still using a decent battery. the other option is a
different kind of switch, a magnetic or reed switch which would be pretty
cool. ive got a dreadnaught which i plan to put a mercury switch in with
a timer so when he is moved he will be activated for a short time.
-daniel

Nice nice... i plan on using reed switches myself... and i have a few other plans for mine... what paint did you use for that silver, it doesn't look GW to me:) (pretty chrome ish and not silver)

Must be entertaining when they run out of power halfway through a battle.... You just see the eyes of each warrior wink out...

plink.....plink.....plink.....plink.....plink.....plink.....plink.....plink.....*darkness*

Awesome job...

I love the flayed ones....

One question... why did you paint the green rods black? You can get the same sort of rod in red from some hobby shops... if you got that [and maybe lit that as well] It would be beyond beleif....

okay, two questions... Why not just use the one battery for both sets of led's, use a pair of resistors to split the voltage to the right amounts... just replace the batteries twice as often... *shrugs*

im not sure what you mean about both sets of leds...
as for the rods just my opinion, but they look terrible out of the box.
i do have some that i tried smoking by sanding a little, but they
didnt look that great. i was really impressed with how good
UltraMagnus' looked when lit, so i may procde with some plans to
do that as well.

The paint is my way of making up for the time spend lighting up
the army. it took about 2 hours total to paint all the guys, minus
some setup time. its a product called alclad II lacquer (can ya tell
its from england?) and its amazing. when done properly you can see
your reflection in it. you have to start with a really clean basecoat
of gloss black, the smoother the better, and then spray this stuff
on at about 12psi. i use a really fine airbrush (Iwata eclipse hp-bs)
which works great for the small guys, but id rather use a larger one
for some of the broad surfaces like the wraiths backs. through trial
and error i found a great way to do it quickly is to first using a small
brush hand paint gloss black enamel around the eyes, let it dry, then put
a blob of blue-tac (mines white actually, but i dont know what its called)
over them and then airbrush on a nice even coat of shiney black. its
more important to be shiney than to be even. then after you take
off the blob you can just spray the chrome over the whole model,
its so thin the light is barely affected by the nearly monomolecular layer
of laquer, and you dont have to try masking a hundred tiny points.
ive tried masking them. it sucks. i tried with paint on stuff, blue tac, tape, its
a mess. the less masking the better. the other thing is the switches get
fouled quite easily so they should be covered when spraying anything
nearby, but im kinda lax on that one.
-Daniel

man how have i missed this topic, its INSANE!!!!!! i love the lights they have to be the best lighting ever, it must have taken ages! i would love to see a space marine with those lights, ut an army of tau like that will satisfy me well enough! mmmmmmmm battlesuits with lights or even stealthsuits or devilfish and all its varients and and and...... i could go on and on and on! but i shall shut up now in the hope that you will post some more and get that walk though done soon. not sure how that works though of well. keep up the AWSOME work!

Ok so now the tough question.
What do I have to trade you to get you to make me one Fire Warrior unpainted like the one you just did with the lights in his helmet?...

Sheesh now I want to take all my Crisis Suits apart and put lights in there lenses...
Dang you...



Serious though,
Thanks for being so cool about letting us in on your tips and tricks on doing them.
I have to say not only are they way cool but I loved the photo of your wiring in your destoyer.
Very cool to see.

That would be great to see a walk through.
I would like to post it in the walk through section for everyone if you get around to doing that for us.

And wow that chrome is cool although sounds a little more work to do especially if you dont have an airbrush or live in England.
But very cool.

Well again just awesome.

The chrome laquer is actually really easy to get a good result
and only a little more difficult to get a brilliant finish. and what
with the web, its pretty easy to order such things online. as for
the airbrush, i know what you mean. maybe ten years ago
i got a very cheap one and some cans of air, and immediatly
lost interest, then a few years ago i decided i wanted to get into
it so i bought a fairly nice one, but decided to wait on a compressor
or use tanks, which of course didnt happen. finally i broke down
and bought a small silentaire, and love it. i can run it at 3 in the morning
20 feet from someone asleep and not worry about disturbing them, assuming
i hook up my fan and vent the room *cough cough*
-Daniel

HOLY [I Swear To Much]!!!! Those are plain amazing. Just wondering how long did it take to do all those light? I am thinking of doind an army that has all of that kinda stuff done.

this is the coolest army I'v ever seen... I'm amased at the amount of work you put into this army

Can't wait for your walk-through... please PM me when it's done

Most seckselent! I will buy a nice necron lord and do that to him, just because!
Also, i noticed that your metallics are very very clean, how do you do it!?

try reading the post, he says how he did it in there...

Bravo. Truely incredible!

I'm terribly jelous of how amazing they all look. Oh my poor Eldar, they are all going to be full of boreholes and Xmas lights as I attempt to duplicate this. But a challenge like this cannot be ignored!

yeah i agree eldar is probably the only army that would
be more difficult to light up than necrons. those eldar heads
are so skinny! and the jewles all over them are just too tempting
to leave alone. i have som expereince recasting models in clear
resin for various purposes, and if i was to do eldar i would probably
try to cast them with the lights already in place. but thats crazy talk.
CRAZY TALK. i look forward to seeing how they come along.
-Daniel

how does the plastic not melt or distort.



oh yeah, very cool.
but why did you not light the gunz!?!!?!?! you lit the eyes not the gunz!?!?!??!

oh well, they are cooler then anything or weverything.
-Hippo

How does the plastic next to the lights not melt? or how do
i not melt the plastic while im drilling through it...?
as for the lights if they are not properly wired they do get
hot (and eventually burn out) but with the correct voltage
they should never get even warm unless you have several
touching each other.
as for the plastic when i drill through it to run wires, it does
melt and causes me no end of grief. i just try to keep the bit
cool and drill small ammounts at a time at a very low rpm.
lighting the guns is a fine idea but actually doing it on a large
scale while also doing the eyes wasnt something i was ready
for. i have another 36 warriors who will have their guns lit
in some way, but im still working on making them look a little
better.
the whole army is a gimic and i realize that, but i would still
like to end up with the best product i can.
-Daniel

WOW! You have talent! Excellent work and most impressive!

oh... cool.

sorry if i came across like, "ug, this sucks! why didn't this moron light his guns?"

i didn't mean that at all. the whole thing is absolutly wizard and you deserve a prize. they are fabulous.


-Hippo



OH! you know what would be cool? if you hollowed out a reb cage and it glowed from inside... yeah.




are you going to do a monolith? that would be bitchin'.

SHHHHHHHHHH