Something Wicked This Way Comes

 I've gotten back into painting again after another absence (been working a 60hr up-at-4am-every-morning job since last September, but am now laid off) and am motivated to get some sort of 40K army painted, even if a small one, that I can game with. I came to the realization that out of all the half-finished projects, a Necron force I've had shelved since 2008 was the furthest along and, more importantly, the easiest to really get cracking with in terms of cutting corners and just getting them done! I've not really done "army style" painting before, but with these Warriors I did one step at a time on each figure on the batch of 5 until I got 'em done to move on to the next step.

 This current batch of Warriors have now all been painted over the base color with shading, several layers of highlight, and the glow effects more or less fleshed out. I'm normally better at writing down color recipes so I can go back to things after the fact, but for some reason I never jotted notes on doing the glow color or the greenish physical corrosion on these guys. I've had to reinvent a painting recipe and color progression for both of those, and made a few other tweaks besides since I've picked up new colors - and, um, additional painting skills - since I last set brush to these guys almost 4 years ago. I'm planning a replacement for the one hand of the guy with the spiky growths from his upper left body - I decided I just wasn't happy with the closed fist made from the hand sawn off from a gauss glayer stock - I just need to figger out what would look good in its place, since the other arm is angled out slightly.

 Although painted in advance of the rest of the troops, the Necron Lord pretty much follows the same scheme but has had a bit more conversion. I'm aiming to have the wrappings on his staff and his cloak painted to resemble flayed skin. Oh, and he's also magnetized, so I can swap out the Ressurection Orb in his hand and both ends of his staff in case I want to change his equipment for a 40K game. He has has had some revisions recently, primarily since the magnetized hand holding the Resurrection Orb wouldn't stay pinned/glued on and kept snapping off. I drilled deeper/thinner pin holes, swapped out the metal forearm for a plastic Necron one, and then drilled/pinned the other end with the hand as well. I like the end result, because his arm is now slightly exaggerated in length in addition to having the corrupted claws.

 I did pick up the new GW Necron Codex, but haven't really read through it much or done much research on quality/competitive units with which to game. At this point, I'm just going for the basic Lord w/ Res. Orb, Staff of Light and two(?) squads of Warriors. I'd ideally like to hit 500 points, so I can at least start with small games. I'm also working on accompanying Scarabs, but need 3 more finished bases before I can field those as a valid unit under the newest rules.

 I'd greatly appreciate feedback, in that I'm thinking the (unfinished) Lord looks a little bland - maybe I need to do something more with the claw arm to play it up a bit? The Orb and Staff of Light are going to get a green glowy effect so I'm not so worried about those, but he otherwise just seems kinda "flat" to me and I don't know what to do about it.