Night Lords Project Log

My 4 Favourite armies in order are Dark Eldar, Night Lords, Eldar and Elysian Drop Troops. I'm aiming to have an army in each at some point.

Work has begun on my night lords and seeing as I want to use them in a tournament in 3-4 weeks with the list being submitted in 2 weeks I need to get a move on!!

Here are my troops in the form of a 10 man squad of CSM with heavy bolter and power fist champion:






And here are 2 5 man squads each with a plasma gun:




And another:





I've got a huron blackheart nightlord conversion to complete and paint, as well as a heldrake, 10 raptors and a rhino to finish at least 75% in 2 weeks. Bring it on!!

Comments welcome

Nice work! I do love Night Lords. It's good to see each model looking distinctly individual from the others.

I wish you good luck in the tournament!

Adeo mori servus Imperator fictus. Ave Dominus Nox!

Night Lords are awesome and these look really good.

Good luck getting them all done on time!

MORE! My Raptors are here! Rawr... rawr...

I put a lot of time into these guys so I would really appreciate some feedback. Shame no natural light today so pictures aren't great. But hopefully you can see the effort!






And close ups of the champs:







Opinions please!

Raptors are looking topnotch. Really nice gold and bone tones and the lightning isn't over done, which I find it often is.

Have you thought about doing a blood effect on the combat weapons at all? I think it could look really good on these guys (I'd try it on a test model first to see if you like it).

Thank Nullus! Your comments are a much appreciated vindication of the extra effort. I just need to apply what I've learnt to my Dark Eldar now,,, Half heartedly did with my most recent painting of a haemonculus so getting there!

I was thinking about blood effect but thought it might clash with the red of the swords, though I had considered kind of green/purple blood maybe,, thoughts?

Anyways here is my converted Night lord version of Huron Blackheart (I really dislike the official model anyway)... Is 11pm here so lighting is super poor, may update if get a chance to take better pics:












I have finished the dark eldar that will be these guys allies (list is in army list section) but still have to finish my rhino which needs gold/silver/red and final blue highlight plus lightening on it and the heldrake doesn't even have primer...

Will have 2 whole day to do them next week though!!!

Thanks for reading and comments always welcome!

I still think red blood would work as it would tie in with the model well and not add a different colour that may clash completely. If you go for a different colour I think purple is the best option. If I can get some pictures done tomorrow morning I'll show you what I did for my plague marines which had red weapons and blood on them as an idea of what the colour combination would look like.

The Huron conversion is cool. Definitely better than the current gw version I think. I look forward to seeing the finished heldrake.

My Night Lords must look this good. Dang it. Can you do a youtube video on the lightning effects.

Here are a couple of pics of my plague marines just to show you how blood looks on red weapons (though the red I used was a more pastel colour than on your night lords).




Hope that helps in any decisions as to if that is the type of thing you want on not.

Hi guys, thanks for the comments!

@ Unorthodoxy - Not sure about a video unless I use my webcam but I will certainly try to put a step by step up for the models, the lightening itself is very simple, its just a line of Hoeth Blue (I think off the top of my head) with a GW fine detail brush (which I think are rubbish for fine detail) followed by a super thin line of pure skull white in the middle. But as I said will try to put some pictorial clues to that description.

Also as an aside, a lot of my inspiration for night lord tactics comes from your blog which I very recently commented on

@Nullus - nice plague marines! What red did you use for the blood effect? My red is a badab black washed mechrite red highlighted with evil sunz red which is a lot darker than your nice pastel red.

I was thinking about using the khorne technical paint for a bit of gloss, do you have any experience with that?


I'm hoping that the Heldrake will look really good in this scheme, but a hell of a lot of blue to paint on it!

Hoping to update this Plog on thursday and friday next week so see you guys then

I used a mix of the old inks and gloss varnish. Another way is to use tamiya red and smoke paint which works well for a really bright blood colour. The technical paint is good and easy to use straight out of the pot. You can mix in some uhu glue to do "stringy" blood as well but use a tooth pic or something similar for it as it will ruin a brush.

Dragontree wrote:

@ Unorthodoxy - Not sure about a video unless I use my webcam but I will certainly try to put a step by step up for the models, the lightening itself is very simple, its just a line of Hoeth Blue (I think off the top of my head) with a GW fine detail brush (which I think are rubbish for fine detail) followed by a super thin line of pure skull white in the middle. But as I said will try to put some pictorial clues to that description.

Also as an aside, a lot of my inspiration for night lord tactics comes from your blog which I very recently commented on

Nice. I hadn't thought of doing the blue first... I am such a NOOB when it comes to painting. How can someone as smart me as be so DUMB when it comes to painting. Grr.

Unorthodoxy wrote:

Nice.  I hadn't thought of doing the blue first...  I am such a NOOB when it comes to painting.  How can someone as smart me as be so DUMB when it comes to painting.  Grr.

Well I lack both your tactical acumen and the colossal painting skills of evil space evils! Jack of all master of none!

If I was less lazy I would put a 50-50 white/light blue mix line inbetween the blue and white to soften it further.

Anyway you can see more lightening on my finished Rhino!

First off I will just say this cost me £10 including shipping off ebay... It appears to have been put together by an 8 year old... I thought about taking tracks off etc and improving it but I thought for the price it will do as a learning curve project and I'll hope noone looks too closely!!!









On the whole fairly happy but my painting skills don't stand up to open big pieces anywhere near as much   


I bought some of GW's blood effect paint and tried out on a raptor sword (As well as the front spikes and severed heads on the rhino - not sure if you can see):







What do you guys think? Opinions Nullus?


Comments and criticism always welcomed!

The lightning on the rhino is good. I like the base coated heldrake in the back   


The blood fits in well and adds an extra focus point to the model, I like it. Maybe give it a coat of gloss (although it may be fine as you can't always tell in photos). I think the main question with it is do you like the blood on it? But there are looking really cool.

It's the Night Pimps!

Dragontree wrote:

I was thinking about using the khorne technical paint for a bit of gloss, do you have any experience with that?

I have quite a bit of experience using the Blood For the Blood God technical paint as well as Tamiya Red Clear for splatter effects on my 30K World Eaters.

The Technical paint works well for globular blood stains. You want to add it to the model after it has been varnished(especially if you use a matte sealant like Dullcote) to keep the look fresh and less like it was painted on. These models have only the technical paint applied:


To get a more realistic splatter effect I use Tamiya Red Clear, dip a stippling brush in it, and flick the paint on to get a splatter pattern. I then use a mix of 30/70 black ink/Red Clear and repeat the process. This second layer gives more of a thicker gore effect while adding depth. I lifted this technique from a local player that posts as Falsevariablex on Theindependentcharacters.com which he uses to awesome effect on his Carcharodons.



Link to Falsevariablex's painting log: http://www.theindependentcharacters.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=87&t=6061

The key is to add the gore AFTER varnishing.

Hope this helps?

What kind of varnish do you use ESE? I've always just left any models matt because many I've seen online that have been varnished or glossed just looked super shiny to me.

I would have guessed your were matt based on how they look, is that just a particular varnish with a matt finish to it?

Also thanks Nullus! I'm pleased with the Rhino, land raider would hopefully be the next tank! I've got 6 Termies to paint aforehand though.

I quite like the blood so fa, it looks better on the severed heads on the tank though. ESE advice is very interesting though, another step up in ability for me I think, hopefully I can manage it..

I've used Testors Dullcote for years. It's about as matte as you can get.

Ta muchly ESE, I'll have to grab myself a pot!

Hey dragontree. First time I checked this thread out but your night lords are looking good. I like the raptors especially as they are such cool models and your painting works really well on them, lightning looks great. I can back ese up on the testors dullcoat. I use it for my space wolves and it really is good for getting a great matt effect. A word of warning though it is not varnish, it is a laquer so if you want protection for your minis it is a good idea to gloss varnish first then use testors. It is pretty hard to get over here in the Uk though

@ Spellcheck - thanks, its very flattering to have caught the eye of an accomplished painter such as yourself (and ESE). Hopefully my skills will keep getting better!

Here's the Heldrake, few touches left and basing to be done but quite happy with the results.





And yes, that is a hades autocannon instead of a baleflamer.

I have to add some body parts to a raptor to act as an icon of excess and base my dark eldar but other than that I am all good to go for my tournament this weekend! Finishing in the nick of time!

Comments and suggestions for improvement always welcome.

Does anyone have any opinions on whether I should add more lightening to the Heldrake on its upper body?

I can't decide if that will be too much or not?

Question - Why the Hades Auto-Cannon instead of the flamer?

Also, I don't think it needs more lightening, I like how the wings are electrocuting to the sides but the main body would appear to much IMO

Hades with daemonforge is great AA

I picked it because I don't like the look of the baleflamer piece but practically speaking as massaen has said, its actually killer at destroying any heavily armoured things and ensuring that when you hit a flyer or anything else you do take a big chunk out of it.

I will hold back on more lightening then