My Process With Digital Painting — Landing in the Top 10 of a Warhammer 40,000 Coloring Competition
>>Entering the competition… //
One of my Necron miniatures as an example. These guys are tiny!
Recently, I participated in the Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus II Coloring Competition. Even though I’ve been drawing and improving my art for several years, I had never felt confident enough to join an art competition before. That changed when I discovered the Warhammer community earlier this year through a friend. I quickly became immersed in Warhammer’s rich lore, expansive universes, and its creative hobby side. After trying a few of the games, the first Mechanicus title especially caught my attention - so when I learned a second game was coming, and that a coloring competition was being held to celebrate it, I knew I wanted to participate.
For my entry, I chose to base the design on my personal Necron painting scheme! White base, gold details on the shoulders, and glowing rainbow energy for their weapons.
(For the unfamiliar: Necrons are evil undead skeleton robots. Yes, they’re as cool as they sound.)
//Reanimating My Creativity…//
Liv’s submission for the Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus II Coloring Competition. It features a skeletal robot with glowing rainbow blades and gold plating.
The glowing rainbow blade shifts colors from pink to purple. Depth is added with a darker ue in the middle.
The piece took me roughly six hours to complete. I began by blocking in the general colors (white, black, and gold) to establish the foundation. This is important to see how your colors contrast with each other, and if they remain readable. Then comes the real challenge: shading and texture. Necrons don’t have a lot of variation in their metal textures, so I had to be intentional about adding scratches, scuffs, and small details to keep the metal interesting without overwhelming the design. I was really happy with how those subtle touches turned out!
The glowing elements, however, were by far the hardest. Creating a believable glow without using the provided glowing brushes requires constant refinement: shading, brightening, and shading again. To sell the illusion that the light is intensely bright, everything surrounding it has to be correspondingly darker. On top of that, the glow needed to be multi-colored per my color scheme. Blending hues while maintaining texture was a challenge I genuinely enjoyed. I even deepened the center of the blade to make it look as though some sort of liquid energy was flowing through it.
Because of the competition rules, I avoided adding a full background to prevent any risk of introducing extra linework. Still, I added subtle color in the corners to enhance the overall vibrancy. The character is what should stand out, and with so many colors I would risk adding too much to the piece.
//Submitting entry…//
When I submitted the final piece, it came with its fair share of anxiety. This was my first entry into a competition ever. But I was proud of what I had made, and I was encouraged by the positive feedback from the community on Discord. Seeing everyone else’s submissions was amazing as well, each submission brought more creativity and unique content when working in the restrictions given. It was so much fun to see the community come together and be creative!
When submissions closed, and the task of shortening the huge mass of submissions fell upon the judges, I woke up a few days later to a huge surprise that I would never have expected: I had made it into the top ten finalists on the Necron side.
At first, I didn’t even understand what I was looking at. I had never valued my art this highly before, and seeing it recognized in such a visible way was incredibly validating. It felt like a milestone I wasn’t sure I would ever reach.
Progress images of my submission from blocking to shading to finalizing.
//Concluding message…//
I’m incredibly grateful for this experience, and I’m truly excited to see how the final results unfold. Voting continues through the end of the month and I highly recommend checking out the finalists’ entries if you get the chance! Every single piece is a testament to the creativity and passion of the Warhammer community.
Great job to everyone who participated, and those of you who made it to the shortlists!
Wishing everyone the best of luck,
Signed, Liv