The Deceiver – Golden Demon UK 40K Monster Silver, 2002

Once upon a time the Golden Demons were a special event, held but once a year.  They were at the end of September, which meant late summer for me was a rush of endless painting to get everything done – usually the end of the debauchery of Reading Festival meant time to ‘knuckle down’.  Like many other GD winners I had always left it too late and was painting until 5am the morning of Games Day.

2002 was different.  I had actually managed to complete the intended projects early, and had a day and a half spare.  Was I going to rest up and take it easy before Games Day?  Nope!  I proudly declared to my housemate Dave (Palmer, GW Reading Overlord) that I was going to paint another entry in time for the event!  He scoffed, called me something mildly offensive and got on with his computer game.  I was determined to prove him wrong.  My Deceiver (for my Necron army that never got past 10 or so models) had already been built, so I was going to paint it…  In a day and a half <Note – at the time a model was taking me 6-7 weeks on average>.

 GW's original Deceiver:

 

I had always had the idea of the C’Tan emerging from some portal, rather than the original pose which I felt was fairly static in comparison.  The conversion was probably more simple than it appears – most of the work was done by bending the ‘robes’ so he appeared to be moving forwards.  The pointing right arm was repositioned keeping it parallel with the right leg to give more of the impression of forward motion, with the fingers removed and replaced as a fist.  The left hand was given some sculpted flames to balance the model out a bit and the arm repositioned to again follow the lines of the body, as was the head.

 

Our joyful alien friend was undercoated black and painted exclusively in GW paints.  GW painted their version gold, and I liked the metallic look for him (especially as he was part of the Necron army) but thought dark silver would suit the model better, especially with what I had planned, allowing the colours and stars to stand out from the darkness more.  Plus silver is relatively quick and simple to paint, especially since I only really painted highlights on this one.  I used metallic paints – I am not a fan at all of the Non-Metallic Metal style – there are perfectly good metallic paints so why not use them?  Plus I prefer my metals to look grim and dark; not every surface needs to be gleaming to a mirror shine!

 

 

After the skin it was mostly the detail left.  I painted all of the skin so I could choose later where to place the lozenges.  The lozenge pattern was a lot simpler than it looks; I painted the pattern in thin white first (so some of the shading showed through), one lozenge at a time, then randomly coloured them in, following the shading I had already painted on the skin.  I wanted them to appear radiating and falling and fading away from the body, so I painted the first lozenge in the centre of the chest and used that as a central point.  I then painted a number round the body and tops of the legs, following which I painted the patterns in lines in different directions round the body, some growing bigger and fading, others growing smaller and disappearing.

 

 

The ‘cloth’ was given a faint grey highlight, again so the stars would stand out better.  They were painted in a variety of colours (not all stars in the sky appear white!) starting as little dots nearer the body, growing in size and complexity, with a few nebulae, as they moved closer to the base.  After that some green spot colour, a simple base so as not to detract from the portal to deep space in the centre of the base, and that was it!

 

A matt varnish followed by a gloss varnish gave him a bit more shine.  I didn’t sleep the night before Games Day, but I did finish this fella in time.  A record for any model, let alone one this size!

 

I didn’t expect much from this model at the Demons.  I had painted him simply to challenge myself to see if I could finish him in time, and I knew how relatively simple it had been to paint.  Imagine my surprise when he picked up a Silver in the category (it had to be, for this metallic monster!  Then again, maybe I should have painted him gold after all?).  He came second to Matt Parkes’ Ork Warboss Ghazghkull Thraka - which went on to pick up the Slayer Sword - so who would I be to complain?  Interestingly Karsten Radzinski picked up bronze with another C’tan conversion, far more complex than mine!

You can see the winners here:
http://demonwinner.free.fr/uk/2002/golden_demon_winner.php?categorie=4

 

I even got my photo in the 2003 GW event programme!

 

 

My hair is also silver these days…

 

Thanks for reading... thoughts, tips, questions and comments are welcomed :)