The Silent King Szarekh Cosplay is the Last of its Kind
This Necron Lord sits on the Dias of Dominion and taunts convention attendees- all hail the Szarekh cosplay!
Biotransference seems like a bitch. To be stuck in a metal shell for millennia, never knowing if you’re going to find a way to get back into the flesh? I’d certainly be bitter and angsty, too, just like Szarekh–the Silent King. This week’s Warhammer 40k cosplay features a fantastic depiction of the Necron leader that will leave you searching for a vessel of your own!
The Necrons are one of the oldest and most elusive armies in the Warhammer 40k universe. Their metal shells and glowing eyes make them an incredible visual presence on the wargaming table. To bring this style of cosplay to life, cosplayer xeo_xonin spent years learning techniques to apply to the complicated build. His long-standing love of Necrons fueled the efforts, and resulted in a gorgeous cosplay that’s getting a lot of attention!
I have always been a Necron enthusiast, ever since Third Edition. A friend at school introduced me to 40k, and already being a massive fan of the droid army from Star Wars, the prospect of creating my very own robot army overstimulated my childhood brain to the max!
But most important of all to me, was the single metal model I owned; the Necron Lord. He was the lynchpin of my army, and the single model I spent the most amount of time on. My brain would often dream up scenarios during games, where I was standing in his place, commanding the mechanical legions of the dead to do my sinister bidding.
Szarekh Cosplay with permission by xeo_xonin
I genuinely felt an emotional punch to the gut whenever my opponent would take him out on the tabletop, and my entire battle plan would fall apart because resurrection was now no longer an option.And even when there was a shortage of game tables, I used to bring a little sketchbook with me that I endlessly drew pictures of the Necron Lord in. Reimagining it, in many different colours and styles, and endlessly hoping for new Necron characters to be released so I could customise further (little did I know that this would eventually come true!)
First and foremost, it would have to be the raw element of escapism. Especially in times like these, it’s important to have something you can ‘escape’ to and have fun. Video games fit in this same category, but 40k is different. Very different.
The immersion it brings, is a dopamine hit like nothing else.Every battle I play feels like a continuation of some larger, grand campaign that is always being written. I’ve been a Dungeon Master for twenty years now, so story and immersion have always been paramount to me. It’s such a difficult thing to craft; requiring time, inspiration and the correct mental space, but playing a narrative game of 40k is a story unto itself.
Every shot fired, every character slain, and every tank that blows up – it’s all chapters of a story that you intimately share with your opponent, and it’s all hilariously good fun!
This is actually the third iteration of the Necron suit I’ve built. I debuted the first Necron Lord build at the London Comicon Expo in 2015. Back then, I was using stacked Yoga blocks to increase my height, but it was neither a long-lasting approach nor faithful to the design.
The first few iterations of the suit were massive and clunky. The shoulders, chest and back were all a single piece, and a nightmare to transport. There were many times where I moved house, with a leg or a Staff of Light poking out of a car window down the motorway.
I’ve had a lot of experience painting on foam before, and this time I wanted to get it right. When you paint directly onto EVA Foam with no preparation, it absorbs the paint and makes it heavier, with the added bonus of frankly looking terrible. So this time, I followed a lot of Kamui Cosplay’s foam tutorials online.It involves heat-sealing, triple-layering with glue to harden it, priming, painting, and then finishing with spray fixative. It’s a long process, but I’m happy to say after nearly twenty hours of wearing this suit across the three days of Warhammer Fest, the damage has only been superficial!
Cosplay-wise, I would have to say it was David ‘Warmachine’ Roth, from ExeterCosplay. I met him at that London Comic Con in 2016, when he was wearing his Khorne Berzerker suit, and it set a firm benchmark in my mind of how high standard Warhammer 40k cosplay truly was. The scale, the quality, and the portrayal of the character was incredible, and was what inspired me to step up my game. Something to really aspire to.I met him again at Warhammer Fest 2023 and spoke to him properly for the first time. He and his wife are incredibly talented and friendly people, and a total joy to be around.
The photos I got with the two of us are truly unforgettable ones, and I’m super looking forward to next year’s Warhammer Fest, because I can’t wait to see what they bring next!
~Join us next week for more Cosplay Coverage~
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