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I don't know if I'm actually good enough to do it mind, but I kinda want to. The Jive Tyrant color scheme I made from DoW2-- I just wonder how it might look on an actual model.

General idea is black chitin, but with bloodied golden plates and bright blue claws, perhaps with a gold undertone to the claws.

This is probably too ambitious of a painting project for me though... but I might end up trying anyway if I get some money freed up to get a hive tyrant.

Spray on Black primer. Drybrush everything with a gray, then wash these parts on the body with badab black until its blended back to black.

Shining gold > Burnished gold drybrush > Touches of red using baal red wash.

Maybe even consider using enamels (very sparingly) to get that bright, bright blue color. Some bright freakin blues in hobby car enamels, for sure.

Good luck on the miasma. I guess you could use a really pulled apart cotton ball sprayed green?

Oh, the miasma isn't important. It's just the game's representation of the tyrant being a synapse creature.

How would I work with enamel paints? I haven't ever used them before, at least... I don't remember using them.

You could always buy a fog machine...but I don't think they make them that small. I doubt you'll be able to get the blue colour sticking with Citadel.

Amusing, but I'm only interested in the actual paintjob rather than any special effects. If I am to get a Tyrant I'd want to be able to use it (I'm not a huge fan of tyranids, but Dawn of War 2 warmed me up to them a bit).

Its hard. They're really uhm... sticky, for lack of a better word.
Its going to ruin any regular brush you use, hardening the bristles together into one mass. I generally use my old drybrushing brushes. Once they're too messed up for drybrush, i use em for enamel.

The upside is they will always have a natural gloss to them, and look really organic on Nids. I use them to fill in the muscles on my nids. Bright orange peeking out from a tannish brown.

But seriously. If you havnt worked with enamels, they can be messy like whoa. They become tacky almost immediately, so try and apply it in one go, which should be easy if you're just doing the talons. Retouching the brush to pats that have not dried will have bad effects, as the paint will pull like taffy and give you weird detail.

On second thought, Im going to try that right now on a spare warrior claw. I'll post my results.

That would look cool on the table top.

I think for bloodied up plates you could use pigments or a wash.

(This topic has me wanting to finally play my copy of DoW2)

Results not worth posting, at least not yet. It looks like I let PVA glue get tacky and then put a piece of paper on it and removed it before it stuck. I tried using this to my advantage by making creases and folds to make the claws more organic, maybe even laced with veins, but so far its just a mess.

Oh. And since they are not acryllic based, you can't really strip it without scraping it off with a razor. Wont be too bad, since its nid claws, which are pretty easy to do that with.

Shining gold base>Burnished gold highlights> Baal red wash for the plates. Maybe consider dunking a toothbrush in the wash and using that as an applicator.

I'm sure vallejo do fluorescent paint. Not sure If they do a blue, but they do produce fluoro.

Edit - Yes they do - Vallejo 209 17ml Blue Fluorescent Acrylic Modelling Paint # 736

Yeah, Vallejo has a blue fluorescent.

http://www.modelhobbies.co.uk/shop/vallejo-17ml-model-color-fluorescent-blue-acrylic-paint-p-6014.html

But that's quite a bit for 17 mils of paint.


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This is being an interesting challenge. Hopefully I'll be able to get the tyrant model, I really want to actually have the Jive Tyrant finished now. It's mostly a matter of funds (which explains why I haven't done much 40k recently).

Yeah, that sounds right. I wish I could have every model from every army, but short of robbing someone (I won't) it doesnt seem fiscally possible right now. (maybe soon)


Edit: I also love the name "Jive Tyrant", and that is almost the sole reason I've been interested in helping! Well, that and I'm generally pretty nice.

For the carapace I would use a NMM technique (brown/muted palette) , rather than gold paint itself, to seem more natural. You can always at washes/varnish after.

well, I want it to look metallic rather than natural or chitin/skin like. Unless you mean something else by that?

Perhaps a picture of a model with gold done through the NMM technique?

Ok, not to worry then. I just assumed it was the games engine making it look like gold. I dunno, kinda seems out of place.

I assumed it was "Bling"

NoBaconz4You wrote:Ok, not to worry then. I just assumed it was the games engine making it look like gold. I dunno, kinda seems out of place.

Nope! It's actually a speciifc gold texture which is intentionally shiny. There are non-metallic gold textures in the game.

That blue is also a special texture, one of three peculiar textures (Golden purple, spectral blue, and crystal blue) which rather defy description by me. That one in particular is Spectral Blue.

You do ghet chromatics on real life creepy crawlies. So maybe you could take a look at a few beetles for inspiration?

Interesting. II actually like the chromatic texture on the green beetle on the bottom right... but I don't think I'm good enough to do something like that on a small model like this.

Woah! Good luck. I feel like the only seriously complicated part would be the armoured plated/feetsies. Getting it that shiny reminds me of C3-P0

The scheme is great, I think.

Phayse wrote:You do ghet chromatics on real life creepy crawlies. So maybe you could take a look at a few beetles for inspiration?

If you managed to do a nids army themed like this, with maybe antennae, then it would look amazing.

You mean like mine?

That's an excellent finish!

Thank you. The skin is Bleached bone, washed with a 10:1 mix of GW water effects and brown ink.

But lets talk about your models...

Model masters also makes a regular "Pearl" paint. Layered over a GW metallic gold, thats your plates right there.

Well if you want to stick with GW paints... Mithryl Silver would be perfect.

Base everything Black. Drybrush the underparts gray or brown, then paint claws Necron Abyss. Drybrush the claws, or even better - blend them - upto Ice blue. Perhaps starting with Enchanted Blue then Ice blue...

Finally paint the armour parts with Mythril silver and just keep washing them first with GW Gryphon Sepia, washing the entire parts. Do this probably 2-3 times. Then just in the crevasses wash Baal Red.

There's some alcohol based paint called liguid gold, does a couple of different colours, gold, silver, copper, they are ridiculously shiny, should do the job.

example from Ifalna : http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/330/307516.page#1973826

Years ago (3rd Edition maybe?) I painted up Tyranid Warriors using a scheme where their carapace looked like June bugs (iridescent green). It really wasn't too bad.

Black, drybrushed up from Tin Bitz>Boltgun Metal>Chainmail>Mithril, then washed with green ink (back when GW sold ink, not washes). The repeated drybrushing was important, as it created a variety of reflective colors under the green tint.

Only problem was, everywhere I took them, someone commented on how pretty my Tyranids were. Man, the last thing I wanted was pretty tyranids. Plus, I felt bad for Jess, because he always seemed frustrated that people looked at tyranids as bugs, rather than space dinosaurs.

Ive had some very limited success mixing boltgun metal and regal blue together to create a shiney blue for my Librarian. I wouldnt recommend it though as it probably wouldnt look right on the scale of a hive tyrant. Maybe try using mithril or chainmail silver instead of boltgun?

1.) Tastes differ, but I have my doubts that gold with black look that good on the tabletop, maybe I have seen to many plastic toys like Gormiti in that colour scheme. At least it is a challenge to make it look believable and not just a toy.
2.) All bright colours need a bright base, e.g. Astronomicon Grey or Deneb Stone when base coating black. Tricky to get the gold that shiney though. There are special sprays in DIY stores that might work, something like chrome from a can.
3.) While Acryl paints like Citadel are water based and can be diluted and cleaned with water, enamel paints are a lacque needing turpentine to clean the brushes. Never mix those brushes and paints from Acryl to Enamel. And enamel and turpentine is toxic, including the fumes.

For the blue:

Its even called Brilliant Ultramarine. Not much more win to be found there.


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And oh, I just thought of a way to do the gold.

Go buy some Rollos. Chocolate covered caramel in gold foil wrap. Get a burnishing tool and some superglue and work the foil over the carapace. coat with a varnish.

That blue is very strange.

I'm not sure if iridescent is what you're going for, but Createx has a line of iridescent airbrush paints that should get you a finish sort of like the beetle shell there. No clue how well they brush on, but if I can find some time I can try it with the purple one I have.