How to Paint Nihilakh Dynasty Necrons - Zuul the Cat's Method

This article is part of a larger series on how to paint Necrons. To return to that series, click here.

Nihilakh Supremacy. Nihilakh is my favorite dynasty, and just because I once got a shout out on how to paint them. If someone ever tells you “Painting Necrons seems like it would be really easy because you’re basically just spraying them silver”, listen to them because they’re 100% right. Necrons are an easy army to knock out quickly. I painted up my entire Necron army in less than two months, starting on March 8^th and finishing them at the on May 5^th.

Credit: ZuultheCat

My method of painting Necrons is simple. It’s made up of a few simple steps that when added together looks great.

The Metal Skeleton

This is the first step. Simply prime then wash the models. I primed my Necrons with Bare Metal Primer from Ammo by MIG and then washed them with 2 coats of Nuln Oil, letting each coat fully dry before proceeding to the next step.

The skeleton should be very dark following 2 directly coats of Nuln Oil. Following this the entire skeleton gets a drybrush of Necron Compound, starting from the top and only brushing straight down.

Credit: ZuultheCat

The Teal Bits

These are easier than they look: Start with 2 base coats of Sotek Green to get a solid base coat. Once this is dry, load up some Temple Guard Blue on a small dry brush and get most of the paint off, like you’re going to drybrush. Stab the brush directly onto the sotek green parts, breaking up the solid blue base coat. Once this dries, simply glaze over the teal parts with an undiluted coat of Lamenter’s Yellow.

If you don’t have any of that long-lost liquid gold, you can mix up Iyanden Yellow contrast paint with Contrast Medium or just make your own Lamenter’s Yellow.

The green Parts

This is the part that takes the longest on my models. For this, I use the following paints in successive, very thin layers, building up the intensity through successive layers:

Caliban Green
Warpstone Glow
Moot Green
Yriel Yellow and finally,
Skull White.

Make sure you let each layer dry before moving onto the new one.

The Gold Parts

The Gold is relatively simple. I use two different methods for the gold in this army. Troops got a simple base coat of Retributor Armor followed by a wash of the contrast paint Guilliman Flesh thinned out.

The characters & vehicles got a treatment of Scale 75 gold paints. Starting with a base coat of Decayed Metal, then Dwarven Gold and lastly Elven Gold. Once this is all laid down, I give it a thin coat of Guilliman Flesh. The Black sections are by far the easiest – simply do two thin layers of Vallejo Black.

That’s it! A few simple steps that make for a striking appearance on the tabletop.