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http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-15749-10867_Lava%20Nids.html

Long time first time to Dakka. Up to this point I haven't felt confident enough in either my painting skills of the cameras I've worked with to really put my stuff out there. I think after competing in a few local contests I'm ready to post an in progress blog of my latest army project, the Lava Nids!

Some fluff:
-A splinter of hive fleet Behemoth, the brood that would come to be known as Lava Nids invaded a harsh and highly active mining planet controlled by imperials. The planets defenses were formidable and most of the splinter fleet was obliterated before making landfall, save for one progenitor organism and her small retinue who crashed in the planet's lava fields. Initially the temperatures were far too extreme for the invasion force to survive but after rippers managed to bring back samples of an indigenous crab-like creature that could survive contact with surface lava the entire brood was re-born. Now they are spawning on the single planet and gathering strength to take the limited biomass to be found in the imperial settlements while sending out calls to surrounding fleets.

Scheme:
-Flesh - Deep Red
-Chitin - Deep Blue with Turquoise highlighting
-Weaponry - Purple with Gray highlighting
-Claws/Teeth - Bone White with Delvan Mud wash

Current Brood:







On the Docket:
Zoenthrope x2
Hive Guard x3
Trygon Prime
Tervigon
Warrior Prime + more Warriors
Massive numbers of Gants...

Thoughts? Comments critiques?

I like the skin and carapace color, but honestly, I think the purple on the guns (and the green on the VC Warrior) offsets the colorscheme.

These are lovely.

But I agree, the purple conflicts with the deep blue.

I'd change it out for something else.

Some nice painting there, those lava bases are sweet.

But I have to agree with Darth and Mean on that purple I'm afraid. I'd say a yellow or a black may work ( a black? how many shades of black are there? think I meant just black). Wouldn't be sure, but just possibly, if you're really keen on purple, a purple highlight on black ?

I like the paint scheme here, except the purple. I think it takes away from the blue. And if I may make a suggestion, cut off the tentacle thing that the zoanthrope is standing on. It sticks out of the lava, which looks kinda cool but doesnt really make sense.. Sweet lava bases too!

A thought on the guns, paint the "fleshy" parts of the guns a nice flat black, and then paint them over in a thin dark blue wash. It gives a dark subtule shade of purple that looks nice and it should contrast well with the dark turquoise you're using for the carapace.

A small update:

I started work on the Lava Nid Trygon. I've started on the base work, creating a lava effect from scratch with putty and broken up chunks of plaster. The putty says it takes like 48 hours to dry, it's more likely to take a week at the rate it's going...oh well gotta learn somehow right?

Lookin good. I'm currently working on my trygon too, still can't think of a creative idea for the base...

Keep up the good work!

Trygon should be nice, can't wait to see it.

top job mate

in an unrelated note darth bob's avatar is pure nightmare fuel !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Finished the Trygon










I'm contemplating rimming the edge of the base in black to make it cleaner and using Hard Coat to give some of the lava and the nid's mouth a bit of wet shine.

Thoughts?

Turns out I'm likely to have to make another one of these bastards since they should be run in pairs...and I still have to make the Tervigon which will be a modeling challenge the likes of which I've yet to tackle...

I dunno about the Ard coat. I love how your nids swim through the lava. The trygon looks great btw. I cant wait to see the tervigon. And i think you should try some rippers. They could be like little Lava fishes

My friend did something similar to the bases for his salamanders. He used cork board (The kind used in barmats) and ripped it to create the stone on the lava.

I've got a suggestion for the Tervigon, but it could get expensive.
Many, many years ago, Armorcast was briefly licened to produce Resin Mini of a lot of the Epic line in 40k scale.
If you can find it the Malafactor makes a great Tervigon with crushing claws.
It's what I use and it would loke cool on one of those Lava base you've made.
By the way, how'd you get lava to look so naturaly gooy?

I really like this army. The lava theme is cool and the color scheme works well with it.

I think the Trigon looks great, but I'd really like to see the portion of the tail that's in the lava with some glow from the lava.

Also, I vote for the black rim. I'm not sure about the Hard Coat, tho. I think the colors and textures go well together as it is, but I think you should try it on a test model to really see if it's worth doing to the whole army. It could look amazing, after all.

I'm also going to agree with a few posts above about the purple. The only thing I can think of to try is more bone. Like those parts had calcified more... I guess they could be blue on the same note.

I think the green on the softer bits of these 'nids works great, btw.

Nice scheme!

Small update:



These are the current lava nids that I've managed to assemble. I still have a whole grip of devigants and normal termigants (spawned from the terv) to pick up and assemble. I ran out of bodies and slotted bases :-p

In addition, here's the first pass on the terv, I'll be adding another layer of detailing to the "buggy butt" to create tentacles, veins, and additional egg sacs. Also planning to add egg remains on the base to reflect already spawned bugs...though we'll see how long it takes me to get the rest of the details figured:







Thoughts?

1) the Stay puft Marshmallow man is creepy
2) The Tervigon looks great. Good GS work
3) What did you use for the meiotic spore? Its pretty cool

Hot Hot Hot!!!

I like the greenstuff work on your Bug layer.

Wow, that looks disgusting! Great work.

nice work those lava bases rock.

Really impressive. I like the theme and think you have executed it well.

Small Update:





Added tentacles, extra egg sacs, and generally made the tervigan even more disgusting.

That looks good, but so wrong to my poor lil' gutter brain.

The Tervigon just keeps getting cooler and more disgusting looking everytime I see it...Keep up the good work.

The paint scheme is great and the trygon is really cool and also the bases are brilliant

I'd like to put in a vote for painting the base rim black and trying out the gloss finish. Worse case scenario you spray it with matte finish.