Incompetence at Work: Night Lords

[Captain Incompetence]

Greetings Bolter & Chainsword!

 

It's been quite a while since I've started collecting my Chaos Space Marines and I'm finally going to be starting the long journey of painting up these midnight clad warriors of the VIIIth legion. I'm still not entirely happy with the paint scheme, but this is about as close as I'm likely to get for the foreseeable future. Without further ado, I present to you the little test model that could: Spooky McDerpSkull.

 

 

 

I didn't bother to finish up the entire model seeing as this is just a test figure, however there are some parts which I think could use improvement. Specifically the lenses aren't quite as vibrant and glowing as I'd like so I'll have to try to fix that for the upcoming models. I might end up finishing this model in it's entirety, but it's likely I'll be starting the chaos side of the Shadowspear boxset instead. They're currently based in a ruined urban environment, but I'm open to other suggestions that might be more interesting visually.

 

Feel free to comment & critique.

 

[Scribe]

I dig it, looks good!

[hushrong]

I'm digging it and I say finish it up. What exactly aren't you liking about your paint scheme?

 

The blue is different but I really like it. Especially where its highlighted on the top of the shoulder pad, along the side of the arm and hand, and the back of the leg. Lightning on the armor also looks good. I would def say add a streak or two to the legs if nothing else is going there.

 

I love the terror mark. That is always a nice touch. Even more so with the OSL.

 

So besides the base maybe spritz a bit of Tamiya clear red for blood effect on the mini and I'd call that killer good to go!

[Marshal Loss]

Looks great, lovely texture on the armour

[ranulf the revenant]

Don't be so hard on Spooky McDerpSkull. He's doing his best.

[Captain Incompetence]

I'm digging it and I say finish it up. What exactly aren't you liking about your paint scheme?

So this is down to my phone's camera changing the hue of the blue a bit and making it a bit more vibrant than it is in reality. However, I can't really seem to get it to take a picture in which the colours are completely accurate. So in reality the model is a bit less saturated and perhaps a bit more violet than it would appear in the picture. I'll try to get some better pictures and a comparison to an older test model tomorrow when there's some more natural light to work with.

 

Then again, I might just be staring myself blind on these minis and the colour "blue".

Edited May 12, 2020 by Captain Incompetence

[Zephaniah Adriyen]

I love the lightning strikes, they're well done. I've seen some bad ones, this ain't a bad one.

[Captain Incompetence]

As promised some slightly different pictures of the model that are a bit closer to how it looks in reality. As you can see the colours are a bit more desaturated and the model is a bit messier than it might first appear. Bonus pictures with another test model to highlight the difference in hue. While I do like both, I found the right model to be a bit too bright and straddling the line between a bright Night Lord and a Dark Ultramarine too much. Unfortunately the blue does tend to draw the eye a bit more, but that's the price you pay for darker paint schemes I suppose.

 

 

 

 

[BadgersinHills]

Lovely paintjob. Certainly, Captain Incompetence is a misnomer. 

[hushrong]

Yeah, I wonder if you could just spend a hobby session or two maybe building up minis and not painting and then coming back to these with fresh eyes. Aside from that I like both of your test minis. I see what you mean by the legionnaire on the right being brighter, looking at the lighter color used on the highlight of the shoulder or on the back pack vent. However, I see these dudes and I see Night Lords!

 

I say keep them coming!

[6PlusPainting]

The paint on these is great, really good work on the lightning!

[Dosjetka]

Both look great; I actually prefer the right one but I can understand why you might prefer the other. :)

Is there any chance you'd be willing to share your painting method/recipe that you're using, please?

[Captain Incompetence]

Is there any chance you'd be willing to share your painting method/recipe that you're using, please?

 

Certainly. I used the method from Kujo Painting to get this result, however I changed some of the colours used and did it in a faster and sloppier way by painting in some thicker lines than showcased in the video.

 

I start with priming the model black, then basecoating everything with Black Leather. I follow up with blocking in the area's where the light will be reflecting on the armour with Navy Blue. Then I mix Black Leather and Navy together in a 1:1 mix and use this to wetblend the transition between both colours.

 

For the more muted violet tone I then mix Mediterranean Blue and Fuchia in a 2:1 mix to create the first highlights. I do the second highlight by adding in White Sand into the previous mixture and finish it by applying a small dot or stripe of pure white sand

 

For the more vibrant blue tint I mix Mediterranean Blue and Navy Blue in a 2:1 mix to create the first highlight. The second highlight is done with a mixture of Mediterranean and Nacar in a 2:1 mix. Again I finish it off with a tiny dot or stripe of pure Nacar.

 

All the colours are from Scale75 Scale Color line, but you can likely find equivalents in other paint brands or just use different colours all together. The method might seem a bit daunting at first but it really isn't that bad if you're decent at thinning down your paints and drawing lines with a brush. You also do not have to mix paints together as much as I do, as Kujo pretty much uses paint straight from a single bottle for the most part.

 

 

Lovely paintjob. Certainly, Captain Incompetence is a misnomer. 

 

It's because you haven't played against me on the tabletop

 

 

Yeah, I wonder if you could just spend a hobby session or two maybe building up minis and not painting and then coming back to these with fresh eyes.

That's probably not a bad idea actually.

Edited May 13, 2020 by Captain Incompetence

[Captain Incompetence]

Got around to doing some painting this afternoon. Decided to try mixing both the previous test models a bit and just go all out with the highlights of the armor. Came out looking like this. I think it actually looks pretty good and really pops now from a distance though perhaps it's a bit bright and it looks a bit much from up close? In any case, I'll hopefully paint up the rest of the model tomorrow and clean up some of the armor highlights that look a bit off or I ended up missing (oops!). It'll also be the first time trying to paint up that iconic marble-esque skintone of the Night Lords, so hopefully that won't give me too much trouble.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And some family pictures that sort of show the difference between the test models even though the camera again had a bit of trouble figuring out the difference in hue between the middle and right one.

 

 

[hushrong]

Daaaaamn! That looks killer! I was all about your blue but you just dialed it to 11!

[Zephaniah Adriyen]

I need your blue recipe, I've got a small Tzeentch Daemonkin NL army in the works.

[Captain Incompetence]

I need your blue recipe, I've got a small Tzeentch Daemonkin NL army in the works.

As I mentiond in an above comment, it's a bunch of different blues from Scale75 along with Black Leather. If you're in the market for blue paints, the Sky and Ice set from Scale75 is really good. It has a lot of really vibrant and heavily pigmented blues. However, as with any Scale75 paint, they do take a bit to get used to and dry extremely matte. Once you get the hang of these paints however, they're absolutely fantastic and would look super well on anything Tzeentch related.

[BadgersinHills]

Excellent painting. That force should look astounding on the table. 

[Captain Incompetence]

Took a bit longer than expected, but he's finally finished. Experimented a bit with some Tamiya Clear Red to make dried up blood effects, which came out decent but not great. Overall the model is a bit sloppy and base might be a bit boring, but I'm just happy he's done and quite content with the final product. I can now start painting up the newer CSM sculpts from the Shadowspear boxset in this scheme. Hopefully I'll get some progress done this weekend.

 

 

 

 

[Captain Incompetence]

Got some more work done in the past few days. Still need to finish them up obviously, but I decided to paint up all the armour panels for my Shadowspear CSM before I fill in the details as I figure it'll save me a bit of time in the end. Colourscheme seems to be working pretty well with the new sculpts, though I'm already certain I'll end up question my existance trying to paint all those little belts, fangs and other details that are scattered all over these models.

 

[Noctus Cornix]

Gods your blue is gorgeous... like, I'm envious of how fantastic your Night Lords look, man.

[sockwithaticket]

Getting the blue right is most of the battle with the NLs, you don't want them looking like Crimson Fists with a flayed skin and brass fetish or dark Ultras. Definitely avoided that pitfall.

[BadgersinHills]

Looks great! :) 

[Captain Incompetence]

Looks like my boys got stuck in the warp for a bit longer than anticipated, but the entire claw is now (almost) ready to bring fear and terror to the lapdogs of the false emperor.

 

 

 

 

 

Still need to put Mr. Big F'ing Gun on his base of course, but I was too lazy to prime a single base. I also need to figure out how I'm going to be doing those Night Lord logo's on these Shadowspear models. I got some decals, but they don't really work too well with the painting style I applied. Maybe I'll just have to learn to freehand those symbols .  Overall I'm pretty content with these guys, some things came out better than others, but live and learn.

 

Up next is either the Venomcrawler, the 5 chainsword marines or some snapfit cultists I got lying around for Kill Team.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Excellent work on the Night Lords.