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Hi

I'm working on a few nids at the moment, with a view to maybe building an army. I kind of wanted to get a kind of 'Alien' Xenomorph style going on - having them dark and stealthy-looking.
These are two sides of the same Termagant. Any thoughts on which looks better would be appreciated! They're not entirely finished though. I still need to decide on how I'm gonna do the fangs and if I'm going to try OSL on the weapons, or some other glowing affect or whatever. The carapace and skin are however, essentially finished.
For the lighter one, I'm thinking of going as far as adding some further highlights of white scar, and even sticking some 'ardcoat on the skin.
Thanks for looking!
Poser McBogus

First pic looks like a solid scheme to me.

However, I'd make the details stand out a tad more.
So teeth, claws, fleshy bits etc.

Keep in mind that when you apply this scheme to a larger model the look changes alot.
So you would need something to break it up a bit.

I like the top one better. I find it pops more.

Love the colors! What colors are those if you don't mind sharing?

Mdlbuildr wrote:
I like the top one better. I find it pops more.

Love the colors! What colors are those if you don't mind sharing?

Cheers man, I for the body I used Incubi Darkness, a wash of Coelia Greenshade, then highlighted with Kabalite Green then Sybarite Green, then just Abbadon Black with highlights of Kabalite then Sybarite again for the carapace. It's pretty much the standard for Dark Eldar

Top pic is better.

Taking inspiration from the xenomorphs in Alien sounds like a great idea but I think in practice it doesn't complement the Tyranid range very well. An army in this scheme just ends up looking flat. I think more vibrant colours look better on Tyranids.

Don't mean to sound negative, just my thoughts on the subject

Looks cool, but as mentioned before you need to make some of the details pop.

EDC

I like it. I'm going to disagree with other people and say Tyranids don't NEED to be vibrant or contrasting, it's just what people are accustomed to seeing.

Of course if you want more contrast, you could pick out the eye in a brighter colour, the teeth in a brighter grey, the claws could be a contrasting colour. A splash of red never hurts, maybe just the eyes. But if you don't want that, it'll still look fine IMO.

What sort of base are you planning on giving them? I think that will make or break the low-contrast look. If the model itself has very little contrast but the base has higher contrast I think the model will be overshadowed by the base. At the moment the model stands out on a black base, but once you paint the base you may no longer like the look of the model itself.

El Torro wrote:
Top pic is better.

Taking inspiration from the xenomorphs in Alien sounds like a great idea but I think in practice it doesn't complement the Tyranid range very well. An army in this scheme just ends up looking flat. I think more vibrant colours look better on Tyranids.

Don't mean to sound negative, just my thoughts on the subject

Nah man, that's a fair point. I've had a couple of people suggest I try to make my 'nids "pop" a bit, does that mean just widening the range of the base colours I'm using?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I like it. I'm going to disagree with other people and say Tyranids don't NEED to be vibrant or contrasting, it's just what people are accustomed to seeing.

Of course if you want more contrast, you could pick out the eye in a brighter colour, the teeth in a brighter grey, the claws could be a contrasting colour. A splash of red never hurts, maybe just the eyes. But if you don't want that, it'll still look fine IMO.

What sort of base are you planning on giving them? I think that will make or break the low-contrast look. If the model itself has very little contrast but the base has higher contrast I think the model will be overshadowed by the base. At the moment the model stands out on a black base, but once you paint the base you may no longer like the look of the model itself.

Thanks! I've yet to properly do the teeth etc, but I'll bear in mind your suggestions. I'm thinking of actually going Rakarth Flesh, Agrax, then Palid Wytch Flesh. I'm tempted to leave the eyes as they are, I quite like the idea of not quite being able to make out where the creature's eyes are, like on, say a whale or something, though obviously that's open to change, especially as I progress with these little monsters.
I was thinking of a generic astrogranite and snow sort of deal for the bases, just because those 25.mm bases seem so fiddly, especially with all the trailing limbs that Termagants have going on.

As an Alien inspired paint scheme, I prefer the 2nd pic, but the first one works better on this scale of model.

You could do the eyes jet black and hit them with gloss varnish. I think that'd get the effect your after, but would be the opposite of making them "pop".

Making it pop would be making the eyes yellow or something like that. A high contrast spot colour, and pushing the highlights up another brighter tone.

I think going in a different direction would really make them stand out as an army.