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I'm painting up a lot of 'Nids before the Codex release, but have a problem with making detail stand out. My colour scheme is a washed Regal Blue for the skin, and Liche Purple washed with Badab Black for the Carapace plates. However, when you're even 1ft away from the model, the carapace just blurs together and you can't make out any detail. I've decided I need to highlight the edges of the carapace somehow, but am unsure on a colour. As the Liche Purple is very, very dark (as I use Badab to darken it more, as well as shadowing in between the plates), I don't want something that'll be extremely noticable. Does anyone have any suggestions for a colour or colour mix that would highlight enough to be noticable but without being overpowering?

Secondly, how do the 'Nid players highlight carapace plates? I've seen some nids that appear to just have very small brush strokes running along the edges of the carapace- is this drybrushed on, or applied another way?

Thanks for any answers!

I like this type of painting , very simple yet yields amazing effects.
Probably what you seem to be looking for?

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Auxellion%27s_Orion_Effect_%28Tyranid_Army%29

Very fine strokes along the back of the carapace gives the best effect, I've found. Do it with a fine brush and slightly thinned paint and it's surprisingly fast, too.

As for highlight colour, have you tried shadow grey? It has that blue tinge that will tie in to the skin and complements purple quite well. I'd say if that's too bright to mix it with some liche purple, but if you're going for a basic colour scheme on a horde of nids that might not be the best option. Unless you made up a bulk batch in an empty paint pot.

You color scheme sounds like a slightly darker version of my own. I paint the carapaces on mine black, and then give a straight blue ink wash. After that, I drybrush codex grey very lightly over all the plates, making sure it's nice and uniform. I usually go back to the edges an extreme highlight.

Unfortunately I don't have any good examples of it, but you could try a test model if you want to.

I think it sounds like you need extreme highlighting. But you'll need a couple layers.

I'd go liche purple/codex grey (50:50) for the first layer painted in streaks.

Then the shadow grey or liche purple 25:75 w/ space wolves grey.

Thanks for all the suggestions, I'll give Codex Grey and/or Shadow Grey a shot and see what it looks like. On smaller bugs, I can get away with not highlighting as much, but it really matters on the larger stuff, like Carnifexes.

I just didn't want to ruin the work I'd already done, so figured getting some help here would be an idea.