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I don't believe I'm starting *another* P&M blog... need my head examined. But what the heck!

So, as many of you know I have two young boys who have adopted my hobby after being introduced to it at school by their friends (I did not push it on them). Over the last couple of years their interest and exptertise has grown, and just recently each one made an independent decision to begin a new (second) army.

My eldest started with space marines and has chosen Necrons for his second army. Not to be out done, my 7 year old announced that he wanted a tyranid army.

So here we are.


Luckily the decision came right before his birthday and I have been playing 40k since the RT days so I have accumulated a few odds and ends. So he begins his journey with 20 gene stealers from the original Space Hulk game and the original Carnifex model. To which over his birthday have been added the parts to make a Trygon (somhow he's fixated on this creature), a box of Termigaunts and a Brood Lord... OH, and a codex.

While all GW figs are expensive, I must admit to being a bit taken aback by the cost of the 'Nids... just didn't expect it I guess. Good thing I had the stealers and the fex... that saved us a few bucks.



So... first things first.. picking a color scheme. Fired up dakka and we went through the tyranid photos until we came upon one he liked... kind of a buff underside with a dark green carapace. So I needed to come up with a way to paint the bugs that my 7-year old could do with reasonable success. I've decided to stick to 3 basic principles... undercoat, washing and dry-brushing. I think he can master these basics with the 20 stealers he needs to paint, which will get him warmed up to do the larger, more expensive figures afterwards.

So... prototype #1 (and probably the last prototype) is one of my old stealers painted by ME it the basic color scheme. These old guys are a lot different that then new ones in that they are harder to paint as they don't have the clearly defined plates... but I figure if he can get through these, the rest will be a snap! The color on these isn't quite right... I wanted to underside to be a bone color but wanted to keep the process a clean and simple as possible, so this one is just primed white with a sepia wash, then some bleached bone highlights over that. The rest will get a coat of bone colored Army Painter primer, then a sepia wash. That should bring them up to a nice tone to contrast with the dark angles green. I'll re-do the ring on the base so it's not spotty. In seeing a close-up of the figure, I think we'll paint the thigh plates green as well, that should help tie the figure together and make it look a little less like a bug in a green shirt!



Next (for fun) is the old carnifex. I think I could easily convert it into something slightly more modern by replacing the hips/rear legs/tail area, but I'll leave it up to him to decide.

There have been some great conversions using the old 'fex, I shall be inerested to see what it looks like. (nice green sand BTW!)

Wow, a new army.

And be careful, Tyranids are very expensive. I should know.

Git, I still have a small pile of 'nid bitz leftover, I'll be mroe than happy to send them your way.

--B.

( Subscribed. Again. Stop making P&M blogs! )

Ah geez.. you must have no time for work, wife, food, toiler or anything keeping these PM blogs up to date

Such a masochist Gitsplitta! Lucky you have a lot of friends here on Dakka to keep you painting and posting


I can't wait till my kid is old enough to set her to painting my old armies

He name his Hive Fleet yet?

That's great your kids are interested into 40k. How old were they when they played there first game?

Yeah, yeah... I'm stupid... and have a very loving wife who's been buying me figures for 15 years or so...


Lessee... the eldest came back from school all excited about this new game he'd found about what... 2 years ago at most. Of course his little brother jumped right in so... the eldest was 8 and the youngest was 5. I walked them downstairs to an old chest and opened up about 7000 points of fully painted marines and eldar... the rest was history. The little one's got a pretty darn good command of the game considering he's just learning how to read.


Having pondered the figure I've done a bit of a re-paint on the gene stealer... expect a photo soon... after some of the Bushmills wears off.


@Briancj: given Thing2's limited earning power, I'd welcome any bits you'd care to give. Will trade with you if I can. Please PM me & we'll work something out.

OH, and the re-paint... we both like this much better...




Gits

Its a good scheme and even follows colour theory for minis, IIRC two main complementary colours the red and green and a third opposing colour, the bone. I may be wrong there please don't netbash me all you actual artists out there

They are kinda Dark Angel colors. Did they eat some Space Marines?

Crunchy on the outside... soft on the inside. The main 'nids will be more of a bone and green, it's just that these old figures are such that you really need 3 main colors to do them right. Red is a natural compliment to the green so there you go.

It's good to see that you don't show favouritism with your blogs. It's also nice to see another 'Nid player our there.

Thanks GS. Going to be fun having both Necrons and Nids in the house. I expect we'll all be better gamers having so many different armies to play with and against. Thing 2 is already starting to paint his stealers... he's got them primed (bone color) and sepia washed. Next comes the green on the plates.

he'll most likely need to learn some new tactic's as well. Consider me subscribed. I like the bone color and the dark green. I would stay away from that red and suggest a purple. You then can use a blue or red highlight contrast. Looks more organic.

Either way... now I have another army that thing 2 and I can play together. That is my evil plan....

Hmmm, purple... I like purple.

Oh, git I just love your blogs. Tyranids were my first army, and seeing you or one of your offspring doing them has put a great smile on my face and brought up some good memories. Thank you for this. Can't wait to see more!

Thanks Munch. This'll be a slow one as he's much less focused than his older brother. But hopefully it will be just as interesting.

He git,

love the new blog consider me subscribed. but on with the real deal. what do i hear about red compliment green and bone opposing green and red? thats wrong. green and bone compliment and the red is a contrast. in art you have a colour circle with the 3 main colours red , blue and green with those colours you kan make any colour.in the coulour circle any colour thats oppose and other colour is its contrast colour. any colour next too it compliments its colour. bone btw is a real good extreem highlight for green i use it a lot on my orks (when they get any paint time been bussy on my Dark Eldar see my blog for the test mini's).

well these where my 2 cents hope its help full.

Gits = never had an art class

So thanks for the lesson & tip fatty!

I thought the three colours were red, blue and yellow. What is this colour circle is it different than the primary colours then?

damn my bad. but still green is opposed too red

no no was just checking we weren't thinking of different things, I'm not much of a painter so I was just checking there wasn't some secret artist tricks or tips I'd missed.

haha well i am not a genius thats why i have repeted a class with Art. one of the reasons i choose the class was the fact that the teacher let me paint mini's at school

Yeah, we had a teacher who had a similar approach, a friend of mine completed a diorama as his coursework. Should have taken the class myself I think.

My intent to suggest purple was in an attemt to acomplish 2 things .. 1 purple can either be on the red side or the blue side. this avoids some options to the orange/yellow for lighter ( avoiding pink ) or into the brown/ rust direction. I think to complicated for a 7 year old. Not all nature is using the opposite color on the wheel. I like looking at real insects to get ideas ( thou I'm not good enough to replicate)

adding red or blue for a 7 year old is easy enough to explain and uses the primary colors.

But ( pause ) the real reason I suggested it was avoid any X-mas looking color scheme from which I my brain has been programmed to equate!

All said I'g go with what ever makes him happy!

2 cents.....Looking forward to seeing his first pics. Go thing 2!

Makes good sense... no explanation necessary.

What do you think about using quickshade on these guys Gits, or wood stain apparently the cheaper and actually better alternative. I just think it may be interesting for them to have that shine that the Aliens from the films have.

Hadn't thought about quickshade. It will give them a distinct patina and shine, though the same might be achieved by the right kind of varnish. I guess what I'm more concerned about is the fact that these old gene stealers are pretty complex in the way the various elements of their bodies intertwine and interact. Hell, I have difficulty painting them well, my 7 year old isn't going to stand a chance.

He's got some good strong colour combos though. The three basic colours then a dip. Job done he has a very fast table top quality model. Great, especially if he doesn't have the attention of his brother and its a horde army. It should keep him interested as he sees tangible results fast. And lets face it what kid wouldn't love dipping their model then flinging it round the back yard?