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The subject for August was elite, so I painted a small unit of Necron Flayed Ones. I would have painted more, but I didn't realise I only had four models, and my budget demanded I not purchase any more for the time being. Fortunately, the minimum unit size for Necron Flayed Ones is only four models. Naturally I will be expanding on this unit, as I rather like how Flayed Ones perform, especially as a roving unit with Necron Immortals or Warriors putting down fire support for them.

I really like them though, because they play on the imagery of zombies, but are a bit more horrific, as they use that primordial fear as a weapon...even though it seems the Necrontyr Psyche in these creatures is damaged, longing for life, and wearing flesh in a grim mockery of life.

I started with a white base coat. Usually for metals, I go with a black base coat, as it makes it much easier to create shadows. However with the abundance of flesh, I felt white would be better. It certainly sped up the paint time as I didn't have to do multiple coats of flesh paint on top of black to give it a smooth surface.

 I then gave the models a wash of Asurmen Blue, over the entire model. The reason was threefold. 

1. It helps to pick out details on a white primed model more easily if you give it a thin wash before painting. This made it much easier to determine where the skin was and where the metal was.
2. I am painting my Necrons to have a bluish chrome type of finish. Starting with blue in the shadows helps to further that tone.
3. Dead flesh has blue undertones, so this then becomes a starter base of a blotchy blue on the decayed flesh.

After the wash, I then painted Boltgun Metal on all of the metal bits, careful not to get too much on the flesh. I wasn't worried if I did, but it pays to be tidy as it means less touchup painting later, especially if you are going to use washes as a majority part of your method.

Next, I broke out the Ogryn Flesh wash, and went over all of the fleshy bits. I kept it undiluted, and painted it on into all the tears and rents, and in all the folds of skin. This gives the skin a blue and ruddy blotchy fleshy appearance right off the bat. You can continue this process with other colour washes to reflect decaying skin, or build on it with rotting flesh, or even pink flesh to represent different tones of flesh and different points of decay, from just flensed, to old and moribund.

I chose to leave it as it as this point, but plan to come back and add more detail to the flesh. Besides, with the touch of blue, they also appear to be perhaps from some Tau volunteers.

The base is first painted with a 50/50 mix of Chaos Black and Brown Ink, thinned so it just absorbs into the sand. I then lightly overbrushed codex grey over the still wet base. This actually has the effect of a touch of blending on the edges, as the dark paint bleeds through. I then hit it with a final highlight of codex grey when it was dry, and tidied it up by painting the ring of the base in two coats of thinned Chaos Black.

Again, I'm keeping thins simple right now. Note that there is less shading on the metal of these models. This will be done later one as I add more models to the unit, and I will use some washes and inks to give more depth and help tint the metal bodies. But these are now ready for the table top, so Job done! 

For now...