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Like the topic title said, I'm brand new to 40k tabletop. I've played some Dawn Of War, and thats given me some inspiration in the army + painting I wanted to do.

I decided to go with tyranids, they were always kind of my favorite in DOW2, I just love the way their units look, and since they got a fresh codex right before I started, I figured it would be a nice place to start.

So I picked up a battleforce, a bunch of paints, and got started. I took my painting techniques mostly from a popular youtube video called "painting a tyranid warrior" or something like that, but I switched the colors up a bit. My color scheme overall is based on one from DOW2's army painter, Tarsis tendril of hive fleet leviathan I believe.

These guys are supposed to have a lighter gray skin tone, a blue carapace with gray highlights / edges, and blue claws with orange tints. I changed it around a bit, and am more or less satisfied with how it came out. The real thing I'm making this topic for is to get some more tips, maybe some ideas for different painting techniques that I could use to improve my work. (These ones I have pics of are my very first models, and while they are satisfactory I guess, I want them to be outstanding, worth the money I spent on them )

So anyways enough talk, on to the pics! note at the time I took these pics, I didn't mess with highlighting the carapace at all, I wanted to improve my technique a bit before that.

Edit: woops I think I messed up adding pics, will fix in a second!

Oh and sorry for the shoddy pics, I took them on a pos webcam, all I had at the moment

Looks very good!! Best advice is to have patience. It's good to work on your technique. The best way is to do it and learn from the experience. But it looks to me you've got good natural ability.

What I really need is tips on highlighting the carapace the right way.

I tried to do small lines with the smallest brush I have (GW fine detail) and just couldn't get it right. I originally painted the carapace with a blue wash over gray foundation, so some of the paint layering / mixing methods I've seen wouldn't exactly work out right...

Welcome to the forums!

First I have to say that those models look great for your first try!

Now on to some tips:

1. Thin your paint, if you want really great looking models thin your paint out with a thinning agent and some water, the consitancy should be like whole milk or half and half.

2. Prime white, while black is more forgiving it also muddies colors and makes the model look a lot less crisp.

3. Highlight 1 shade higher than you think you should. Most people tend to paint in bright light and play under florescent light, if you increase the contrast of a model it will look a lot better when you are actually using it.

4. Buy a set of GW washes, then uses them right before doing your last 2 highlights they work great!

Thanks for the welcome Clthomps

I guess I should have explained how I painted before so I could get some real tips for improving from you guys.

I basically followed this video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqOowCEJNew

I primed with GW white. I wanted a gray color skin, and that method uses a wash, so I used badab black to more or less get the gray result. Then I did the astrinomicon gray with azure blue wash on top for the carapace. I attempted some drybrushing orange on the claws, and that was the result.

However, that video doesn't cover highlighting in the normal way you see it on tyranids, with the bright streaks coming from the back edge of each carapace piece upwards, thats what I'm kind of unsure about how to do.

The feathering on the back is quite time consuming.

Some people simply dry brush it, but IMO it doesnt produce the sharp lines or quite the same effect and really is only good to give the background colour

I simply take a fine detail brush and paint very fine lines from the back straight upwards, its a simple flick of the wrist multiple times, good for RSI.


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have a look at the feathering on the back of the warrior here and it should be easy to see that each feather is a single painted line.
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?aId=4900028a

Man I guess I just need to work on getting a steadier hand for painting, I'm always blown away by how much detail all of you guys can pour into these little models. If anything else, trying it myself has caused me to gain some respect for you all

that's a great start if those are the first models you ever painted! really though the best advice is just keep at it. like they say practice makes perfect. You just have to keep painting and pick up on things as you go. Don't rush to have perfect models right away, and don't stress over the teeny details till you're more comfortable. Just get a good looking force on the table and start playing.

One trick you may not know about is stroking your brush on some paper towel after dipping it in the paint. Stroke the brush gently at about a 5 degree angle to the paper. This will take off some of the paint which will allow a better thin stroke if you've thinned your paints to a good consistency. That and practise with a steady hand may well help you get the effect you're looking for.

I like the color scheme a lot, the dull, gray-washed carapace looks really good with the cool, light-blue plating and the claws provide a nice contrast of a little orangeish brown