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Have to say the crinkle actually looks pretty cool

Liking the scheme, espescially the armor plate, to bad the paint wrinkled. Are you gonna stick with the dipping? I think the body would look better with some other coloured wash than brown.
Keep up the good work!

Whats with the weird texture on the Ravenors back? Otherwise the paint scheme looks sick!

Limbo wrote:Ah, genestealers and mold lines...remember those -.- Good job doing all 16 of them.

I'm liking your progress so far, can't wait to see what scheme you choose. Have you thought about adding a venomthrope btw?

Limbo wrote:Liking the scheme, espescially the armor plate, to bad the paint wrinkled. Are you gonna stick with the dipping? I think the body would look better with some other coloured wash than brown.
Keep up the good work!

I never really looked at the venomthropes entry, I actually quite like the look of the models so I might have a look into it. Thanks for the suggestion
Yeah, I was thinking of going for a blue wash on the body actually, but the amount of time that dipping seems to save may well make the difference between me getting the project done, and getting a month in and feeling disheartened and getting bored

Norn King wrote:Whats with the weird texture on the Ravenors back? Otherwise the paint scheme looks sick!

I think it's something I did wrong with the anti-shine varnish. it came out fine on the front of the model, but I guess I either didnt shake the can enough or sprayed a little too much on the back. As I said in the last post, I've never seen or heard of it happening before, It's really odd.

SilverMK2 wrote:Have to say the crinkle actually looks pretty cool

Thanks I dont mind it so much on the armoured parts (as long as its not going to end up flaking off after a few games of being moved about). It's just the blue areas where I think it looks a bit dodgey.

GoDz BuZzSaW wrote:That looks awesome Gorechild, good job I wish i had thought of that colour scheme!

Thanks It was a bit of a stab in the dark when I was deciding on which base colour to go for but I think it looks pretty neat too.


Last night I really didn't have much time for warhammering but I did sneak 20 minutes to get some Genestealers done. 5 of them now have the claws and teath painted up and I had a quick go at doing the purple detailing on one of them. Hopefully I'll have a little longer this evening to try and get a bit more of he squad ready for dipping, my aim is to get the whole unit done this week

I also bought 3 sets of Ravener rending claws for use on my warriors. For some stupid reason GW only include 1 pair for every 3 warriors, despite the fact that every model in the brood can take them! Hopefully they will arrive by the weekend, along with the Chapterhouse Boneswords that I ordered almost a month ago now! As long as that appears by the time the Stealers are done, they should be my next mini project!

My replacement Zoanthrope arrved yesterday, it's still not perfect (a couple of bubbles on the little chest plate.) but at least all of the peices are more or less intact this time!




You can probably still see a few of the bubble's even after a couple coats of liquid greenstuff. I didn't want to go over it too heavily for fear of completely covering the detail on the front of the model. Buts still, I'm not really happy with it.

In Finecasts defence, I have to say that Zoanthropes are utterly horrible models to assemble! I have no doubt that the old metal version would have been worse than this, but even in finecast it was a pain. There were massive gaps on both sides where the rows of sticky out fins join the body that I had to fill with greenstuff and then smooth off with liquid greenstuff. This resulted in the ugly green mess that you can see in the second picture


After this hash up of a model I think I really will look into other options that I might take with these 60 points People have mentioned a Broodlord and a Venomthrope so far and I will really look into those this evening, but is there anything else that might be worth me having a look at? (a rough copy of my list is on the first page if anyone missed it).

Venomthrope's a fiddly Finecast model. I admire your courage.

Pity about the Zoey. Hope a good paintjob makes it look way better. And hope that quickshade doesn't do something like melt resin.

I like the color scheme, too bad its shiny

Good luck with all that finecast ! Good scheme keep up the good work ! I dont mind the shiny its nids they are gross and such lol

Updates, we need updates!

Norn King wrote:Updates, we need updates!

And here one comes!


Some bits I ordered off ebay arrived on Friday so I got a little preoccupied building Warriors when I really should have been cracking on with the Genestealers There didn't seem to be any Warrior Rending Claws available anywhere on the bitz sites, so I resorted to buying 3 pairs of Ravener claws as I thought they'd be roughly the right size. It turns out that they are a little bit skinnier that the proper ones, but over all I don't think they're that bad, the difference looks more noticable in the pics than in real life....

Proper arms:


Skinny arms:


The Ravener ones are also 1 finger short when compared to set you get in the warrior box as well, so they definitely aren't a perfect match. Ooh well, it's the best I could do If I want the army to be WYSIWYG! All I'm left waiting for now is for the Chapterhouse Boneswords I ordered to arrive then I'll be able to get that unit sprayed up It's been just over a month since I ordered them and the estimated delivery time was 2-8 weeks, so they could appear any day now....I hope.

Now, on to the Stealers! In the last update I'd just sprayed the squad up. Since then I've been slowly making my way through the brood painting the claws, teeth and all the other little details. As Kerrgrim and sam0 suggested, I hit the entire unit with Dheneb Stone for the claws and teeth first, before going back to do all of the tongues, eyes and the weird broken skin patches (no idea what to actually call them ) in the purple. It really did seem to speed things up, so thanks for the suggestion guys

This is the end reslut:


It was really foggy where I live for a couple days this week so I had to wait patiently for a window when I'd be able to take these guys out to dip them. Annoyingly that window didn't come until yesterday so I still haven't been able to get out and use the anti-shine varnish stuff on them quite yet. But I have got them all dipped and based now



Another useful tip, that would probably seem stupidly obvious, but when you're shaking off any excess quickshade from a dipped model, for gods sake make sure you have a firm hold on the mini! One of these guys managed to slip out of the pair of pliers I was using when dipping them when I was mid-shake. Long story short, he got a bit of practice infiltrating whilst I had to clamber through a soaking wet hedge to find him... Luckily nothing got broken, so once I was able to get the clumps of dirt off he was as good a new

I'm just looking out my window now and things seem to be brightening up, so I'm going to take this opportunity to go out and get a bit more spraying done! Let me know what you guys think so far

I usually just use the larger stealer claws for warriors, i prefer the slimmer look meself.

Looking good though!

Vitruvian XVII wrote:I usually just use the larger stealer claws for warriors, i prefer the slimmer look meself.

Looking good though!

Yeah I think I prefer the smaller ones in all fairness. It's just that fact that some are thin and some are fat that makes the squad look a little odd, It probably would have been better if I had been able to get them all with the smaller ones. Ooh well.

Another quick little update
It's probably good I jumped out there to get spraying when I did, It's raining again now!

Here's a de-shiny'd stealer:

Just noticed I missed some mould lines on his hand! damn'd larger than life pictures make you notice so many little problems!


And just got the Zoe base coated I'll see If I can have a go at sorting her out this week


Here's a pic of the WIP Ravener brood that I seem to have forgotten to upload earlier in the week These guys (and the Zoanthrope if I have time) will be my goal for this week

I really am liking that paint scheme.

Norn King wrote:I really am liking that paint scheme.

Thanks again mate, The more and more i'm getting used to it the more i'm liking it as well. So simple but I think it looks ace.

Okay, Time for another update

This is probably mind-numbingly basic but I though I'd do some pictures for a step by step guide to dipping. It really is straight forward, but I couldnt resist taking a picture of a Ravener upside down going head first into a tin of goop I got four of the 5 remaining Raveners painted so far (the 6th model was the test models I posted a while ago) and did a little bit on the Zoey when I got bored. But anyway, onto the mini "tutorial".

Step One:


Get a decent pair of pliers to get a really firm hold on the base of your mini. Make sure you hold it firmly, or you might have a mishap like I previously had with my genestealer

Step Two:


As the name would suggest, the next stage in "dipping" a model is to dip it head first into the tin of quick shade At this point I realised it would probably been more sensible to do this with a smaller mini, as all the big claws got caught in the rim of the pot, making it a real pain to get out again!

Step Three:


After getting the man/monster out of the quickshade, leave it a few seconds (4 or 5 is ample) up the tight way so that it all settles in the recesses. Then comes the fun bit...shake the model fairly vigorously a couple of times, then turn the pliers around in your hand and shake it again, so that the model is facing the opposite way from when you shook it the first few times, this stops most of the dip gathering all on one side.


Then put it down somewhere safe and repeat with the next model! See I told you it was simples.

Here they are back up at my painting station, post-dip.




And here is the 'Thrope



Well....I said dipping was simples..... The attentive ones of you may notice that I said above that I'd done 4 Raveners. BUT WHY ARE THERE ONLY THREE IN THAT PICTURE GORECHILD?!?!?!?!?! I may have had a small disaster with the last one. I'm going to spoiler this picture, because to be quite honest I find it a little depressing, and I don't want to have to keep looking at how stupid I was.

Oh dear

But thanks for the dipping 101

The poor ravenor, then again, he is sort of used to hitting the ground anyway, maybe not concrete though.

That crinkling on the first Ravener is pretty much what happens when people brake-clean/dettol/whatever models. It's the paint having a reaction and changing consistency. Because you let it sit, it sloughed up like that, then eventually dried again. If you had've touched it when that first happened the paint would have slide right off the model.

It's probably not the dip that did that, but if there were certain chemicals in the spray, or if you sprayed too close, or if you sprayed before everything dryed completely, you can get reactions like that.

It doesn't look too bad... but it's irreversable unless you sand or strip the model and do it all over again.

I would check and see if the dip has a recommended wait time for drying... like "Ready to Paint in 2 hours! Fully Cured in 8!" and aim for 10. Better safe than sorry.

Good luck with your nids!

SilverMK2 wrote:Oh dear

But thanks for the dipping 101

No problem I felt like just having another post of "This is what I painted this week" would be a little dull, and dipping is pretty much the only other thing I can talk about in any sort of detail for this project! Hopefully somebody might find it slightly useful

Norn King wrote:The poor ravenor, then again, he is sort of used to hitting the ground anyway, maybe not concrete though.

I'm going to see if I can put him back together this evening. I'll try and update tomorrow, hopefully he'll be okay

Chemical Cutthroat wrote:That crinkling on the first Ravener is pretty much what happens when people brake-clean/dettol/whatever models. It's the paint having a reaction and changing consistency. Because you let it sit, it sloughed up like that, then eventually dried again. If you had've touched it when that first happened the paint would have slide right off the model.

It's probably not the dip that did that, but if there were certain chemicals in the spray, or if you sprayed too close, or if you sprayed before everything dryed completely, you can get reactions like that.

It doesn't look too bad... but it's irreversable unless you sand or strip the model and do it all over again.

I would check and see if the dip has a recommended wait time for drying... like "Ready to Paint in 2 hours! Fully Cured in 8!" and aim for 10. Better safe than sorry.

Good luck with your nids!

Thanks for the advice
They suggest to leave the mini's 24 hours between dipping and spraying with the varnish, which is what I did. I think, as you mentioned, the problem was because I was holding the mini too close when I was spraying. It started happening again when I was doing the squad of genesteaers, so I went back and sprayed them at full arms length. After I started doing it like that the problem seems to have stopped.

Time for another mini update

It turns out that it took quite a while to fix the Ravener that I broke to bits. Super glue and plastic glue don't seem to take very well over the quickshade, so I had to file off the surface, which obviously meant I'd have to go back and re-paint and re-shade everything that I'd removed! But after all of that, he ended up looking like this



With him all fixed up, the unit is pretty much done. There is 1 left that still needs spraying to get rid of the shine, but other than that they're done and dusted




I also got the Zoanthrope all finished off too, but I seem to have forgotten to take a close up picture of him. I'll try and get one up soon. That said, I did get a group shot of everything I've painted so far. It's a bit blurry, but you can see the Zoan lurking in the top corner.



That's all for now! All that's left is a little teaser of what I've got ahead of me this week.....Gaunts.....lots and lots of Gaunts!

And that is why I'm thinking of investing in Quickshade when I start my Nids. The thought of painting all those gaunts is terrifying.

These are some excellent Nids.

Excuse me while I put my Jeremy Clarkson wig on.

"You idiot! You're sticking together your Raveners with the WRONG GLUE! Have you never heard of plastic glue? What were you thinking?"


Just being silly. Great job!

Nice - I've always wondered what effect 'dipping' had... now I know

Seems to be quicker then the current 'washing' of my nids... may need to try it out some time.

Looking forward to seeing more

Very nice color scheme.

As for the weirdness on the ravener; the best I could think is it "orange peeled" to an extreme. Usually the result of spraying when it's either too humid or too cold.

Swordwind wrote:And that is why I'm thinking of investing in Quickshade when I start my Nids. The thought of painting all those gaunts is terrifying.

I agree, I'd never get this project done in a million years if it meant doing it all by hand! Even with the coloured spray and quick shade I'm still feeling like its a pretty long winded job
Thanks for the comment

LoneLictor wrote:These are some excellent Nids.

Thanks

Squigsquasher wrote:Excuse me while I put my Jeremy Clarkson wig on.

"You idiot! You're sticking together your Raveners with the WRONG GLUE! Have you never heard of plastic glue? What were you thinking?"


Just being silly. Great job!

Yeah, I ran out of plastic glue after doing about 40 gaunts Rather than just stopping and not doing any more I resorted to the super glue until I can pop to the shop next.

slice'n'dice wrote:Nice - I've always wondered what effect 'dipping' had... now I know

Seems to be quicker then the current 'washing' of my nids... may need to try it out some time.

Looking forward to seeing more

Yeah, its a real time saver. It was a bit of a fiddle with the Raveners as they are so much bigger, but I got that whole lot of Genestealers done in about 10 minutes I might actually time to see how long it takes to do the 30 model termagaunt unit just so I can see how fast it actually is!

l33tninj4 wrote:Very nice color scheme.

As for the weirdness on the ravener; the best I could think is it "orange peeled" to an extreme. Usually the result of spraying when it's either too humid or too cold.

Thank you I think I've narrowed the cause down to either being because of humidity (had just been raining an hour or so before), or because I was simply spraying from too close a distance. Either way, thankfully it hasn't really happened since


Next update! I got a decent bit of time yesterday evening to crack on with the Tyranids, so I thought I'd make another post to show you what's happening now



Here's the full squad of Terma's all assembled After the painstaking removal of the millions of mold lines on my genestealers, this squad, despite being nearly twice as big, was done in no time at all. It even gave me time to go out and spray them, I really look forward to getting them sprayed as it finally allows me to get them on bases! Then they suddenly start to look like an army, rather than just a pile of unassembled bits!.




As I forgot to post a close up of the Zoan yesterday I thought I'd bring you one now



This guy made me realise I hadn't really decided on a colour for the plant-like bits on all of their bases! I'm kind of stuck for idea's, I want something that stands out from what is on the mini's without looking too out of place on the rest of the base. The rest of bases will be sand painted scorched brown, with a grey dry brush afterwards. What colour do you suggest?

Thanks again for reading guys, I look forward to seeing some of your suggestions!

Interesting stuff - I have often contemplated using the army painter stuff but never really taken the plunge yet. Apologies if this has already been asked, but what 'type' are you using? Is it the strong tone or dark tone etc?

I think if I did it I would be a bit averse to whole mini dipping - I think it lacks control plus I don't like the idea of going outside and whanging the mini around to shake the excess off. I wonder what the comparison is with applying the dip by brush alone? And running on from that, what is the difference between dipping and simply slathering the mini with devlan mud?

Very good work so far though and I like the colour scheme.

filbert wrote:Interesting stuff - I have often contemplated using the army painter stuff but never really taken the plunge yet. Apologies if this has already been asked, but what 'type' are you using? Is it the strong tone or dark tone etc?

I think if I did it I would be a bit averse to whole mini dipping - I think it lacks control plus I don't like the idea of going outside and whanging the mini around to shake the excess off. I wonder what the comparison is with applying the dip by brush alone? And running on from that, what is the difference between dipping and simply slathering the mini with devlan mud?

Very good work so far though and I like the colour scheme.

Nobody has asked and I think I forgot to mention, good catch! The one I'm using is the strong tone, I really had no idea how it would come out what I bought it, so I just went for the middle of the range.

I was petrified just dunking mini's into the tin of quick shade at first, it just seems to go against everything I've ever really tried before. But after the first few fig's are done yo sort of get the hang of it. What I've found to be good about this method is that, as you're not meticulously brushing the wash into every nook and cranny yourself, each mini ends up slightly different as the quick shade settles in slightly different places and different amounts remain on the model each time.

I think I'll have to end up brushing it on to the larger models later on, as the depth of wash in the can gets shallower and wont cover the entire figure. It would work just as well as far as I can see, when my bone swords finally arrive from chapter house I'll be brushing it onto my Prime and Warrior's, so keep checking back and I'll go through it in more detail when the time comes! The only thing to point out is that you really will need some turpentine to clean the brushes off, water doesn't work too well at all. Other than that, it basically is the same as covering the models in Devlan mud, but just far cheaper than having to buy dozens of little pots!

Thanks for the comment!

Re the Plant bits on the bases, IMO paint them the same way you paint your nids, carapace bits bone and fleshy bit blue.

Norn King wrote:Re the Plant bits on the bases, IMO paint them the same way you paint your nids, carapace bits bone and fleshy bit blue.

I've been looking through the gallery and that does seem to be how most people do it. I just though they might blend in a bit too much. I'll have a go at it and see what I think, thanks for the suggestion


Whilst I was out this morning I popped into GW to pick up some glue and another bottle of dheneb stone, I came out with this




So much for sticking to 1500 points and not taking any big beasties

I also got the bone colour done on 10 of the 30 Gaunts this morning, even doing it this way it is tedious....hopefully they wont take me too long!

Looking good. I really like that GW is now selling assembled models.

Did you magnetise any of the bits or did you keep make the kit purely as the Tervigon?