Mad Nids, Cult and ZITs blog (Update: Foetid Bloat Drone WIP1 and new addition )

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**Vespa**

Nice work! I really like your carapace!

I almost bought those half price hive guard at Vagabond myself, then I remembered that I already 6 metal and 2 finecast ones.

**Mad..**

Hi Vespa,

Thanks for the compliment, I really like the carapace as well. Worked just as well on the model as it did in my head when I was coming up with the scheme.

I only had one metal hive guard, so was in the market to at least get a brood together, so the 50% off encouraged me

Nice to meet you here on dakkadakka as well, always good meeting other kiwis on here

**Ratius**

Looking goodssss Mad

**StolleMan**

Looking forward to the Swarmlord pics!

**Knightley**

Arms look like they are off to a great start, can't wait to see how you do the blades!

Happy to help with the advice btw, helping the community strengthens it.

**Mad..**

Ratius wrote:Looking goodssss Mad

Are you waiting to see if my swarmlord can distract the sisters from Swarmy Hissy?

StolleMan wrote:Looking forward to the Swarmlord pics!

I'm really excited about getting it finished up, should be completely done by next "update".

Knightley wrote:Arms look like they are off to a great start, can't wait to see how you do the blades!

Happy to help with the advice btw, helping the community strengthens it.

I should be giving them a crack tonight, I've been drawing on a piece of paper trying to suss out how it is going to work and look. Strange thing for me is that there is four of them, and I figured they will be at different points of lightning pulses, so I've been trying out different shapes and styles on my paper before putting paint to the blades.

Fingers crossed it comes out as well in reality as it is in my head

**AnUnearthlyChilde**

Consider yourself followed

I've scan read this, so forgive me if I've missed stuff. Two things jump out for me from what I've seen. The Tyranids dice you got, contact gw, as the dice don't match the picture on the tin. Its a known issue with them, and I've heard a lot of people got replacements. The second thing is your stippling for the carapace, I'm assuming you've used a sponge, and I've a couple of tips which may help you. First is, don't over load whatever your using to stipple with, as it can go one too heavy which is a pain to remove. The second tip is, when stippling, you need three colours of whatever colour you want to stipple. a base, a midtone, and the highlight. As I say, don't overload your tool, and build each colour up in turn, that way you add depth to it, as well as a highlights. Also, I suggest adding a highlight to the edges of yellow which meet the edges of carapace, a 1-1 ratio of the yellow you've used and white should do, as it'll just make it pop that bit more.

Hope your ok with the advice lol, but I do love what I've seen so far and look forward to seeing more!

**Mad..**

Always good to have new followers, welcome

The dice, I see what you mean and I have read a post here on dakka about them now. Thanks.

Actually I use a brush for my carapace effect and have a pretty specific way that I do it. At this stage I'm going to leave it as is as I like how it looks and want to get rest of army done. I can always experiment with edge highlights and other tones later on down the track as it will be relatively easy to add some paint to the carapace parts of the models

And advice... please feel free anytime. I am still learning a heap with this side of the hobby, and am constantly learning, so advice is welcomed.

**AnUnearthlyChilde**

That's cool then lol. Didn't want to offend by offering unwanted advice tbh. And I thought it worth a mention about the dice, I only found out by a post on a fb group I'm part of, I didn't buy any so I lucked out unfortunately :(

Also, been doing this hobby 23 years now and I'm still learning, but if you've ever any questions, just inbox me or ask on my thread, always happy to help!

**Mad..**

Couple of mid week updates.

Firstly I emailed GW about the Tyranid dice quality. They asked for my address and said they would be sending out a new set... awesome!

Secondly, I sat down and had a crack at the bone sabres last night. Was a interesting learning curve to say the least, I got quite frustrated at a couple of points because it wasn't quite going right, but I feel like I saved it and they look pretty good overall.

Here is a smartphone photo of them:

Because there is four of them, I tried to do different phases of the lightning pulse on each blade, with mixed results.

Interested in peoples thoughts.

**AnUnearthlyChilde**

Looks good Mad, The only thing I'd suggest is to do a watered down purple wash over the lightning to knock it back slightly, but thats personal preference tbh. Other than that they look spot on

**Ratius**

Looking nice!

**Knightley**

Huzzah, so nice to see you stepping your game up so much!

**Mad..**

AnUnearthlyChilde wrote:Looks good Mad, The only thing I'd suggest is to do a watered down purple wash over the lightning to knock it back slightly, but thats personal preference tbh. Other than that they look spot on

Wash or a glaze?

Hmmm, I don't have any purple wash/glaze. Is there some way I can make one with the purple paint I have? Rather not spend money on something I'll probably only use once

Ratius wrote:Looking nice!

Knightley wrote:Huzzah, so nice to see you stepping your game up so much!

Thanks guys, I assume you approve of the purple lightning then Knightley... it was based off your power axe tutorial after all

**AnUnearthlyChilde**

Mad.. wrote:
AnUnearthlyChilde wrote:Looks good Mad, The only thing I'd suggest is to do a watered down purple wash over the lightning to knock it back slightly, but thats personal preference tbh. Other than that they look spot on

Wash or a glaze?

Hmmm, I don't have any purple wash/glaze. Is there some way I can make one with the purple paint I have? Rather not spend money on something I'll probably only use once

Wash, and not really, as the composition of a wash is similar to an ink, without being an ink. Sorry lol

**alabamaheretic**

very nice man...looks good. keep up the awesome.

**Mad..**

Update time, a little bit late as we had a holiday yesterday

Swarmlord is all finished!

Here is one of the shots, I had those glare issues again so will have to do another set...

So model number one for 2015 is all done... only 99 more to go in 2015 haha.

Model count complete will speed up with this next lot:

7 hormagaunts and 7 spinegaunts.

Current painted up army shot:

I'll get the better swarmlord photos up in the day or two... will take them tonight

**Knightley**

Yep, that lightning on the swords is pretty ace if you ask me!

**Mad..**

Thanks Knightley, it is awesome to hear that from the person whose tutorial I followed... I must have done something right

Personally I am happy with how they turned out, and it works in the big army scheme of things as you can see in the latest army shot

I'm really happy with how the model turned out overall, I took a bit more time on it being an HQ and given that it might get a bit more scrutiny thrown its way. The base has a ripper, few tufts and rocks, and a Tau fire warrior arm on it. Main thing I am unhappy with is that I didn't notice the gaps on the back carapace where the model joined until after I started painting. I did model this years ago, so I'll live with it for now, and will fix it one day once the main push of getting army finished is complete.

I edited up a set of the swarmlord photos that I thought were ok in terms of glare, but I'm getting to a point where I have looked at them so much that I think maybe I am being to picky, so here are some photos:

What do my readers think? Should I redo the photo shoot or is this set ok?

I am going to start a 2015 goal progress counter here, to help me stay motivated (or make me depressed when I fall way behind

). My goal is to finish modelling and painting everything I currently own by end of 2015, which is 96 more models (list on page one). So here is the counter!

2015 goal progress: 1/96 models complete

Thanks for stopping by.

**Mad..**

Weekly update.

Been working away on the Hormagaunt and Spinegant models, here is where I am up to:

Just need to do some washes, and detail work and they will be ready for basing etc, making good progress on this lot.

My brother gave me these:

Couple of busted up old battlesuits of his, so I have thrown them into a "bath" for stripping and will repaint them in a basic scheme and use them as broken tau on some of my bases, because taunting my brother is fun

Thanks for checking in.

**Knightley**

Interesting with the Tau, have you got any ideas on the paint scheme going into it?

**Mad..**

Erm, at this point I'm looking at a basic paint up as it is "only" for the base

I'm currently looking at a charcoal grey base colour of the armour with glowing lines in the gaps.... now my bro likes orange, so I was considering that for glow, or maybe go with red to make it look like they are defending this red planet?

Still mulling it over. Good way to practice some new stuff though, still eager to try new stuff, hence the lightning on the bone sabres...

You got any thoughts?

**Mad..**

Time for my weekly update.

First, got a nice package in the mail this week.... dice!

Pack on left is the original ones, and the bag has 20 of the "proper" ones in it.... so I have lotsa Tyranid dice now. Good on you GW for stepping up and giving out the proper set of dice

Have completed hormagaunt and spinegant broods, here is a bit of a photo pre them having the final touches added to their bases, I'll get some nice photos done in next few days. I need to add an extra green colour into the mix I feel as the green currently looks a bit flat, ill keep working on it.

So, progress update on my goal looks a lot better after peeling out some troop broods

2015 goal progress: 17/96 models complete

And next... well following my rule of Troops - Elites - MC, I'm up to an elite slot... so here is what is coming next:

I'm thinking I'll have a bit of an experiment on one or both of these models with the chameleon skin special rule they have and get them transitioning into different colours... see how I go

Thanks for checking in, C & C welcome as always.

**Mad..**

So, its update day... and I have got a grand total of zero hobby work done this week.

Been doing a bunch of maintenance and DIY around the house which has taken up all my spare time this week.

Not all bad news though, I got the deck water blasted and stained, also got a bunch of pavers down among other odd jobs around the house, looks really good and I have a happy wife which probably means I can get away with something 40k related in the near future

Should be able to get onto the Lictors this week.

**Mad..**

Hi everyone,

Been yet another quiet week on the modelling and painting front. I managed to build a venomthrope, and lay down a base coat on the lictors, but not much else... why?

This is why:

It was my aunts birthday down in a little town called Te Anau, so I went down there to surprise her for the birthday and ended up staying a few extra days and going on a good hike/tramp... awesome down there, I love it

So we will see if I get the lictors finished this week...

**Knightley**

Great views there mate, perfect weather as well!

**Mad..**

Man time goes quickly... its been a month since my last update, whoa. Time flies when you're having fun and I've been having plenty of it

So this will be a decent update.

First up have finished the lictors. I have had a go at representing the chamelonic skin by matching parts of them to base colour etc. I think it works quite well, although I'm not completely happy with the red splotches on the one standing on the rock.

Next up on the paint up list is mumma Tervigon!

Have also built up a few more models, not many to go until the whole fleet is built, then just need to finish up the paint side.

Creepy snakey venomthropes:

The big brained nerdy Neurothrope:

Flying hive tyrant.... modelled with scything talons because I like them more than the nid "guns". Nid guns need to be part of the creatures body in my mind, like thorax weapons, spitting, or things that are just gun beasts, like exocrine and biovore, just how I feel

Lastly, Lego in the title? What the... here is something that I thought I'd share with you all and show off... because it has taken me a long time to hunt down all the pieces and build the thing.

The Winchester tavern from Shaun of the Dead fame in all its Lego glory!

So thats what I've been up to... next update should be some progress on the big Tervigon

Thanks for reading.

**Knightley**

Definitely liking the lictors, I've seen a similar look to the tau stealth suits and can totally see the lictors doing the same thing!

**Mad..**

Thanks Kinghtley, was the effect I was going for... nice to know it worked

**Mad..**

Hi all,

Have been quietly beavering away at the Tervigon. Have finished the green on the birthing sacs and I am happy with how they have come out, I'm planning on using the same technique and colours on wings of gargoyles and flying hive tyrant.

Have started working on the carapace now, and some detailing to go... is progressing nicely

Thanks for checking in.