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Thanks!

The patterning on the carapace has been applied with a GW large brush, loaded pretty heavy with paint, then applied with the only description I can think of being "splotched on". It's very not neat or organized, I just get a good amount of paint on the brush, eyeball where I want the markings to be, and go!

I tried using a stippling brush, like Sgt.PJB suggested, but the result was too uniformly round-spot-ish. Though that might make it's way on to a model for variety's sake, overall I'm looking for a pattern that's more chaotic. Partly because patterns in nature are random so it makes sense, and partly (primarily) because such a pattern is easier to paint than something that needs to be uniform.

It's funny; I remember posting in the old GW forums in response to someone asking about painting lizardmen scales in bright colors, like red or yellow over a darker base. My advice was to load the paint on the brush and carefully "blob" (again, for lack of a better term) the paint on to individual scales, since a thin coat of a warm, low-opacity color would allow too much of the underlying color through and not achieve the desired result; whereas a thicker drop of paint would maintain the intended color. ...I got flamed to death for that! ! But, that's been the basic technique I've been using for the shells on these models. Thick gobs of blue, blobbed onto the red. Granted, blue covers red far better than the reverse, but the technique is the same. I guess the foot's on the other hand now, isn't it Kramer!?

-Dis.

So this update was supposed to go up last night, but I started playing this stupid flash game called Mechanism 2, which ate up all my evening! Before I knew it, it was time for re-runs of Medium and then bed.

Anyway, I did get a bunch of stuff done yesterday, and here it is!

First of all, I finished the Zoanthropes. I kept them nice and simple, the only difference was the brain-bits, which were done in the same fleshy style as the sacs/bladders on the venomthrope and the similar bits on the bigger guns. And my Doom of Malantai model got a little speckle of white dots to make him stand out:



Each one got a little different pattern on the head carapace, here's a closer look at the DoM:





I also, totally at random, got an idea to paint a unit of Ymgarl Genestealers. Now, all the stealers are still in the 'grot box' full of models that have been inked but are otherwise unpainted, and I'm slowly coming to grips with the fact that they might end up unfinished at the end of the month, but after my last game, I've been thinking I want to try utilizing the Tyranid alternate deployment meta more fully, so I pulled all of my Genestealers with the old Feeder Tentacle heads out of the pile and painted them up to be the Ymgarls, no conversion necessary!





They got the usual treatment, fleshy bits on the tentacles, etc.

Finally, and the reason I didn't get more done: the Venomthrope. I had a blast painting this model, and I really went to town on it.







I'm really happy with this model. The skin is a progressive mix of Beast Hide, Jack Bone, green ink to make it darker and tie in with the other greens on the model, and a touch of red ink to warm the tone slightly. I used Necrotite Green on the edges of the shell and all the vent/orifice areas on the model's carapace vents and head, streaked to look like drips of liquid poison in some places and areas where poison gas/spores had corroded the carapace. Final highlights on the skin were with Jack Bone watered down a tiny bit, and I finished the shell with the army's blue markings, except that I started the pattern with a mix of Meredius Blue and Ordic Olive to create a greenish-blue, to tie in the base of the pattern with the other greens.

I'm getting down to the wire, and I have 20 more termagants, both Tyrants, 24 Hormagaunts, and a bunch of Genestealers. I expect to get about half that done before the finish line, then wrap up the rest in the first week of February before I start whatever the next project is.

Now, though, it's time to go back to bed!

Thanks for reading!
-Dis.

Shame on you! You continue to way outpace me in painting which is just unacceptable! I couldn't even maintain a dozen Gaunt a day quota... Be less awesome!

Hey Dakka!

Well, it has been the end of the month around here, and I've been trying to get the brush moving when I can.

I had a bit of a snafu with one of my big work brushes, which has frayed beyond the point of usefulness and totally stalled out my gribbly assembly-line. It's my own fault; despite the fact that I work at a game store, I've gone three days without getting a replacement. Tomorrow, I say!

Regardless, I've gotten the fighty Tyrant finished, as well as a Lictor, and I've gotten basic colors over the inks on the other batch of warriors. I'm down to 20 termagants, 20 Hormagaunts, and the Genestealers. Getting close! I'm confident I'll be done within the next week or so.

Anyway, here's the Tyrant. I remember reading something in one of the new WDs about how bigger and older stuff tended to have darker coloration, which makes sense to me, so I gave the Tyrant a layer of brown ink over the skin, then a light highlight, same for the shell with a red/brown ink mix:







I figured that the way I had been building the Tyrant for my list, it was clocking in at just 25 points under the cost of the Swarmlord, so, since He's packing four big blades, I'll probably just run him as the Swarmlord when I want to use it. In looking at the pics while getting them ready to upload, I noticed some spots I totally missed! So, the Tyrant will be getting some touch-ups before the night is over. I was also thinking about adding some dark spots on his skin near his carapace. Another level of detail to suggest age, perhaps.

That's it for tonight. I have to run a M:TG pre-release tomorrow, then it's club night again, but once I return to life on Sunday, hopefully I'll get some serious time at the paint desk.

Here's to the home stretch! Thanks again everyone for being a motivator!

-Dis.

Awesome stuff, my only critism is the Venomthrope's back. It kinda looks too splodgy. Everything else is great!

Youre a MACHINE

I love these guys! Brain on the Zoanthropes look so awesome!

shiney bio nasty gwibblieness. love it!

awesome - very inspiring, thanks for taking the time to share

Hello Again!

It's day 20 for the Tyranids, and I'm actually pretty close to the finish line! I managed to get some work done over the weekend; Saturday was such a grueling event that I got home and got sidelined due to exhaustion; no club night for me! So, in-between watching Point Break and eating pizza, I painted a bunch of bugs! Got a little bit done both Sunday and today, as well. Completed in this round were 11 standard Genestealers and 6 Warriors with talons and claws. The Stealers got a very simple all-bone color scheme with just a red crest on the head and the usual greeny bits and black claws. There's a precedent for stealers being one overall color scheme instead of having separate skin and shell areas, so it's not a complete cop-out . plus, I wanted to be able to distinguish them from the Ymgarls I did previously. Warriors got the usual treatment. Here they are:







The last touch for both of these is to edge the claws in red, but that's a minor concern at this point, the heavy-lifting is done.

So, after 20 days, the completed roll call is as follows:

- 1 Hive Tyrant/Swarmlord
- 2 Tyrant Guard
- 12 Tyranid Warriors
- 3 Zoanthropes incl. 1 Doom of Malan'tai
- 1 Venomthrope
- 1 Lictor/Deathleaper
- 6 Ymgarl Genestealers
- 24 Termagants
- 11 Ripper Bases
- 11 Standard Genestealers
- 3 Raveners
- 2 Carnifexes

And what remains is:

- 1 Hive Tyrant
- 26 Termagants
- 24 Hormagaunts
- 28 Genestealers
- 10 Spore Mines
- 1 Trygon

So, I didn't meet my super-secret goal of finishing the whole thing by January, oh well. My stated goal of February 22 is still completely within reach and I think with some dedicated work (and my spanking new replacement brush) over the next couple days I might be able to knock out most of what's left in the next week. Either way, it's been a great project so far and I have you all to thank, so thanks Dakka!

I'll be back tomorrow night with hopefully two ultra-special birthday battle reports vs. Shrike marines and either Templars or Salamanders. Fingers crossed!

-Dis.

Hey everyone!

Here's to heartbreaking last-minute losses on your birthday! I took a mean list last night against a Shrike-led SM army, had him on the ropes all game, then managed to hand over the win at the closing bell through a combination of grevious play errors on my part (which he exploited perfectly, to his credit), and my usual, just-in-the-nick-of-time dice failures. I'm not totally destroyed, though, since I know exactly what I did wrong, and having rectified those errors would have given my game the Mike Tyson Approach that it should have had. Next time, Rutan!!!

Mini Battle Reports notwithstanding, I did fall in love all over again with Trygons in last night's game, so I got off my duff and finished building the the two that I have:



First, the easy one, a Trygon prime from the new general-release GW kit. Yet again, thank you autoCAD, for allowing GW to make awesome models that have clear instructions and go together without issue. I built him very standard, I even added the extra containment spines he's supposed to have for his upgraded bio-electric pulse. I've actually come to appreciate his rattlesnake tail, though I still think it's a little meh in comparison to the Mawloc pincers or the standard Trygon's poison stinger.



And then the difficult one. I got a Forgeworld Trygon from a friend of mine (the Space Wolf player from my most recent BatRep, as a matter of fact) that he had sitting around gathering dust. Getting this was, of course, totally awesome. Not having a base for it was not. I was originally going to cut a piece of five-ply hobby wood to shape, but then I remembered that I had magical, magical plasticard. I used the base that I had as a template and cut two layers of 1/8" plasticard to shape, glued them together, then took a big flat file to the edge to smooth the join and bevel. For as much as I was stressing about having to make a base, this was actually very easy and quick. The lesson? Plasticard is truly magical, and while it probably won't see constant use, having a stash of it is always a good idea!



They ended up being about the same size; the GW kit is slightly larger, so I hunched him over at the waist a bit. Obviously, the resin kit has a lot more detail, I'm going to have to take care painting it so I don't obscure anything. The big question: FW or GW? resin's got the detail, but it also has the fragility and cost to go with it. Plastic's far easier to work with, and it's readily available now for a good price, but you lose a lot of little detail in the translation. I'm kinda a resin fan, so my vote's on the FW beastie, and I'm glad I got one, but I'm totally happy with the GW kit too.

Should have some paint on them this weekend if all goes well, then gribblies, and a marathon of basing, then it's all in the can! Which will clear the way for my next project, which is now a lock to be IG, since I got a new entry into the 'best birthday present ever' category, a mostly complete IG Army! It's been ..."gently" used, so there's going to be some work to bring it back to life, but, a gift horse in the mouth and all that. I'm definitely not complaining!

Anyway, more soon. We'll see if I can sneak a Cygnar army in before I start the Guardsmen...
-Dis.

this blog is very nice been reading through it, and I must say that I like the way you paint the caraphaces on your nids, gives them the character

props to you. Your paint scheme is very nice and has inspired me to create a Nid army myself, now only if Games Workshop hadn't gone out of buisness where I live........

Here it is, the home stretch!

So, after how well the Trygons treated me in my last game, they were due for final touches of paint. I had worked them up to inks during the week, and polished them off last night and this afternoon. They got the usual treatment, with the slight modification that I started the carapace markings with the lightest blue, Arcane Blue, first, to emphasize the contrast, then highlighted them with a mix of Arcane Blue and White, then edged the markings with Solar Orange like the fexes.













At this point, I'm basically done, I'm going to wrap up some hormagaunts tonight, then start the bases tomorrow, and this army will be in the can! There's still some genestealers and termagants that are only in inks, but the realist in me has come out and I've decided that since those models would be redundant I'll leave them in the grot box until later this year when I host my big, fully painted, multi-table Apocalypse game of doom at the store.

Hopefully I'll have a family photo ready to go before the end of the week!

Thanks for reading!
-Dis.

Your blog is full of amazing absolute awsomeness. I hope one day to master that arcania of the speed paint which you so clearly have. I am not worthy!

The green parts on the first Trygon are so sweet! Can't wait for the family foto

Thanks everyone!

The green on the FW Trygon's gland bits was done with a straight coat of Necrotite green over the base skin color, then inked with a green ink watered down slightly, then I used my finger to wipe off the raised areas to try and get some more definition.

That FW Trygon really is the hotness. The more I look at the two of them, the more the GW Trygon pales in comparison. He's definitely got the $$$ on his side though!

Anyway, here's the second-to-last update before the family portrait, which will wrap this whole thing up with a nice chitinous bow. I finished the hormagaunts last night and this morning:



Nice and simple, just the same treatment as the rest of the gribblies. I was sweating these guys in particular, but when I finally sat down to start working them, I realized that they're a lot easier than termagants; since there's no gun, there's less shell and greeny bits to eat up time on each model.

Next I'll be doing a stage-by-stage entry on the basing. I've talked to so many people and said it so many times, but it always bears repeating that a cohesive, finished basing scheme adds more to an army than can be measured. It's making my soul cry that these models don't have bases yet, but I know that doing it all at once at the end is the best move.

I'm off to the cold, cold battlefield, squaring off against a tournament-winning salamanders list. And it's not even the 10(!) TH/SS terminators I'm worried about: it's the flamers and meltas! Wish me luck!

-Dis.

Destroy him! Death to the servents of the corpse god!

It's done!

The Great Tyranid army project of 2010 is in the books. All the bases are done, the big models are in the display case at work, and everything else is sealed away in a big red GW army case to await a lifetime of miniature battles.

Before I get ahead of myself though, here's the step-by-step for how I based them:

1. I paint the whole top of the base in a thick layer of Scorched Brown, then I dip the paint-covered base in my sand and shake of the excess. Once I do a few models, I'll go back and brush off any sand that got on the rim of the base.

...Yes, Scorched Brown. I know; you're supposed to use watered-down PVA glue, but this is how I do it. Always have, always will. Just a habit I picked up and never shook. It does have some benefits, one being that the paint dries faster than PVA, so I'm able to work more quickly. Another is less easy to explain, but I will try to down in step 3.



As a note, throughout the army I used the GW sand that was available through the early 2000's, which was a blend of small grains and larger grains and gives a really awesome effect. It's not available anymore that I know of, and my supply is running low, much to my dismay. I took a look at the current GW sand, and it looks like sand-box sand. I'll give it a shot, but I get the feeling I'd be better off buying the 25lb. bag from Home Depot and never worrying about basing material ever again.



2. I ink the sand on the base in step 2; I used to use GW Brown ink in the days before the washes, but I have found a more-than-ideal replacement in the P3 Brown Ink. Here's where using paint instead of glue is a huge benefit. You can use the dropper bottle the P3 ink comes in to just drop ink onto the sand, and it will soak in and coat the whole area of the base with just a few drops. You can use a brush to, for a similar effect. Just load the brush with ink, then touch it to the sand. It'll soak into the sand and color the whole base. Don't ask me why, but if you use PVA glue, the ink won't soak through properly, which means you have to paint over the whole thing with a brush. My best guess would have to do with capillary action, and either the paint facilitating it or the glue impeding it. Either way, you can crank through a lot of models in a short amount of time. It takes a while for the ink to dry, and if I have the time I'll leave the models out for the ink to dry overnight; if I'm in a hurry or under the gun to get them finished I'll set them in front of a fan for an hour or so.



3. Step 3 is a simple drybrush. I used P3 Jack Bone for consistency on these, you could easily use Bleached Bone or any other medium- to light-brown in this step, depending on the finish you want.



4. Step four is static grass. I used standard GW grass; If my brain had been on when I stopped by the store today, I would have bought some of the bright green Glade Grass for these, since it's a stronger green I think it would have set off a better contrast between the reds on the model, but instead of getting that and the super glue I needed I left with plastic glue and a Big Mek. Go figure. I use the static grass step as a dual-purpose step, both to add a second level of detail to the base and to cover up areas I'm not happy with, like spots where the sand didn't cover or areas where the drybrush went on too heavy. I usually use drops of super glue to attach the grass, but since I was out, I just used globs of Scorched Brown paint! You can alter the tone of your grass patches with the color of paint you use to adhere it, too. Looking back, I probably should have used a green. Too bad the whole army's already done.



5. Finally, paint the rim of the base Scorched Brown, and it's done. Nice and simple. I've tried using other browns for the base rim before, but I think Scorched Brown is the most neutral and unobtrusive.



This is the sand-ink-drybrush-static grass technique I learned in the trenches of GW, when we were trying to crank out armies for the retail stores to display. I've done lots of different basing schemes, and they all looked very cool, but there's a Haagen-Dazs effect here; complicated, intricate bases look amazing, but the standard (in this sense) method looks just as good, en masse, and it's done a lot faster.

I'll have the Family Portrait up tomorrow, hopefully, and then this thread can comfortably fall to the sweet sleep of a buried forum page, where it will live, like the Road Warrior, "only in my memories"! And my sig, just in case I get nostalgic, or need inspiration!

Anyway, thanks again everyone who dropped in on this thread over the last month! I know it inspired at least one Space Wolf army to get finished, since I saw it at the tournament yesterday!

See you all soon in my next P&M Blog, which will either be all about Grotz and Gargants, or Imperial Guard Armor!

-Dis.

Bases are looking good! In all fairness though my Space Wolves weren't quite finished... They were missing the highlighting, and company icon But yes your project was definitely my inspiration to finish the 1850 point army. Now all that's left is to get my fully painted tournament winning Salamanders out against your fully painted league proven (and very scary) Tyranids. I think some pictures may be necessary during this game, which it looks like will take place since there isn't any rain forecasted for this week!!

Nice nids! I saw your demstration on hw to paint them but, what courors do you use after the brown and rd inks?

Good god HAZZER, this thread is over a year old!

Please read the date of the last post next time...