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Update on the Trygon,

It is coming along really nicely, just got a bit of highlighting to do here and there, the base to do up and the varnishes.

Here is some progress shots:




I'm going to be playing around with a photo editor on the "light box" carnifex photos to see what difference I can make with post production work on the images.

Hoping I can have it sussed by time I have finished the Trygon.

I figure I should do a troop brood after trygon is complete, any requests?

I'm thinking that as a rule moving forward I should go with a brood choice, then big bug as a "reward" and to break up painting so many troops. I'd hate to get towards the end of painting the army up and just have the small bugs left to do.

Plus like you say I will actually have painted enough models to actually start playing a few games with.

I think you have mentioned once or twice how much you like the carapace ... I'm really glad that you guys are jumping in here and are commenting on how much your liking the carapace pattern, as I reckon it is pretty eye catching and bug like. Helps stay motivated when painting a horde army too

Almost there on the Trygon:




Just got to paint up that basing and he is ready to go

Has been fun painting it up, once I have finished the basing I'll pop it into the light box for a proper photo session and we will see how that goes

Next up I'm going to peel out the six ripper bases, as I reckon they will be nice and quick to finish up, and will then move onto a eight strong brood of genestealers.... why genestealers? Because I have loved genestealers since I first encountered them in Milton Bradleys Space Crusade board game and Space Hulk of course. They are the reason I looked at Tyranids when I started playing/collecting 40k... I wanted to have genestealers.

Cheers

I have two eight model broods of genestealers to paint up. One brood is modelled with scything talons and one is modelled with all rending claws like a "purestrain" should look like.

With the fluff side (Ignoring Ymargls for now), genestealer broods are used within hive fleet armies as vanguard assault and shock troops, and you also have the infiltrating cult ones that try to stay away from the hive fleet.

I also have a broodlord who is already painted up in the hive fleet scheme, so my plan is that the brood with the scything talons will be led by the broodlord and they will be standard Ngaro paint scheme and are part of the hive fleet production line.

The other brood with rending claws will be the infiltrators that try to get away so I will paint them up in a scheme that is similar to the rest of the army so you know they are related to the fleet, but different enough to stand out. I'll also do different bases for them, and who knows maybe one day I'll find a patriarch model to go with them

What this special brood looks like.... well that's something I am working on. I could just reverse the scheme somewhat and go with blue stippling and yellow claws and teeth, so they are more stealthy than their hive fleet counterparts.

Happy to hear suggestions

I have basically finished the Trygon... will get it into the lightbox and get some nice solo photos in the next day or two.

I say basically as I will be adding bits of tau (and perhaps fire warrior) to a bunch of the bases once I get them from my brother.

Meanwhile here is a couple of group shots of what I have completed so far I reckon the scheme works well when there is a group of them:




What I am really happy about is as I was pulling all these models out I had a look at the paintjobs, and I am glad to report that I am getting better as I go along! I didn't think I had improved all that much, but when I look at some of the first models and what I was doing compared to the carnifex and trygon which are the most recent completions and I can see a noticeable difference. This keeps me motivated to keep going and feeling good overall on the army paint up.

At this point I have painted up nine units out of the thirty I have to get through... so basically a third of the way there.

Heh, cheers Knightley... I'm hoping that I won't have to copy paste images and that I'll have my whole army painted up in the not too distant future. Still several months away from completion I'd suggest.

Have been working away at the rippers, not much to see yet, so will post some progress pics in a few days. Also started building my Exocrine, looking at the kit thus far it looks like it will pretty easy to magnetise, so I might do that so I can make it a exocrine or a haruspex.

Trygon is all completed, here are the photos from his photo shoot in the new light box... still sussing out my lighting and what to alter in editing, but hey, looks better than previous "completed" photos I think you'll agree.






Thanks for checking in.

Yeah I know that piece of paper was waaaaay too small this is what it looked like full size:



I now have a pad of cartridge paper which is plenty big enough to cover the whole light box with on piece of paper, so that little problem should be solved.

Couple of new arrivals, first up I got some tyranid dice. Really nice, bone coloured with the classic genestealer purple, thinking I might use them as themed wound counters, or of course for those rolls that really matter



And I got these to use as objective markers for my army, they are done by secret weapon and are 25mm objective markers, three open eggs and three closed. If I don't use them for objective markers I can always use them as random little bits of scenery.

Rippers are coming along:



Just need to wash the carapace joins, and highlight the teeth and claws. (and base them) Then onto the genestealer squad.

SBG - Yeah I agree they do have a great bumblebee look going on, kind of a mini version of what I'm hoping the whole army looks like when I've finished painting it up

Here's an update with a very shoddy photo, sorry to say.

They just need their varnish coats and then based and done... I'll be honest, I struggled motivationally painting these guys, and I'm not sure why. But at least once they are done I can move on to bigger and better things, and at least I'll have two troops choices painted up for when I get back into the gaming side of things in the New Year.



My brother (the one I painted the Chaos Lord for) gave me a couple of random Leman Russ tanks that he got given. So I decided that as a bit of practice I would paint one up for him in his colours as a Christmas present.

Base coats done so far:




Like I say, they are his army colours.... pre heresy Emperors Children, and I'm using it as a chance to practice some techniques (like weathering) and on something I have never painted before (vehicle)

Oh yeah, I also built my Exocrine, he has a few join gaps that I'll fill in with some plastic putty before priming.



Thanks for checking in.

Hi all,

My update for this week.

Exocrine join lines have been plastic puttied and it has been primed with black spray, so the big shooter goes onto the to paint list

Picked up a box of the new Venomthrope kit.... I'll be making the Neurothrope, and one venomthrope out of this kit.... what I do with the third, I'm not sure yet.... probably a second venomthrope as I already have two zoanthropes.



Rippers are coming along, they are varnished and I am just working on painting up the bases... will post photos once they are all complete.

Made a good start on my "pure strain" genestealer brood. This is the one that will be different in some ways to the main Hive Fleet Ngaro so will be darker and a bit more camo/darker overall, but still related. At this stage my plan is to do my normal carapace technique but with dark blue instead of yellow, and then the claws and teeth etc will be yellow. Also the skin will be a bit bluer. I have also ordered some "alien invasion" by secret weapon bases for them to further differentiate them from the main hive. Here is a progress photo of the genestealers so far, if you look closely you can see my carapace technique has been used on the little bits they have. Will get onto the claws and other bits this week.



The Leman Russ tank I'm doing up for my brother... was coming along awesome! I did a base layer of heavy violet, another 50/50 layer of heavy violet/hexed lichen and then did another layer of hexed lichen... hit the other parts with gold... it was looking awesome and I figured is was time to do the washes, sepia wash went fine on the guns, grey metal bits and looks good. The blue wash on the gold and purple however looks like this




Now, what I would really like is advice from experienced painters out there.
Did I use too much wash? Should I have only hit the areas I wanted to shade? Should I have done it after the initial base and before the next layers? Is the wash too thick? Is it a combination of all I have mentioned? Or something I haven't thought of?

Now I will be able to save it and make it look awesome again... I'd just like to understand what I did wrong? (if anything)

Thanks in advance for any help!

Ok so I spent my lunch break reading up on washing tanks (don't get video at work) and general consensus seems to be that I should have only washed where I wanted shading as opposed to hitting the whole surface on a large model like a tank.

Ah well, will put this into the "gaining experience" bucket... onto fixing it up now and getting that nice purple colour my brother likes so much back.

If anyone has anything to add, feel free, I'm a happy learner

Hi everyone,

Weekly progress update time.

Genestealer brood, I have done the green tendon bits in the skin. However the squad has stalled as I ordered two new paints and the different bases for these guys and the order has been held up, so hopefully I will get it all this week and can get some more work done on this brood!

Ripper swarms, just need their bases dry brushed and they are ready to go. Will pop them into the light box this week and get their photo shoot done... if I can keep them still long enough, they are always hungry!

Leman Russ, this week most of my hobby time has gone into this and progress is being made... I reckon I did ok in saving it! I have also had a crack at a glowing plasma type effect on the coils and under the main gun.





I'm going to tidy up a few bits of over spill, give it some highlighting and then I'll call it done... well in time to give it to my brother for Christmas

Thanks for checking in, as always advice is appreciated!

 Knightley wrote:
quite the cost in time to learn that mistake right

Very much so... basically had to redo all the purple work on the armour that I had already done.

Have learned my lesson, now I can get on with finishing it up... I'm glad I gave myself plenty of time to get it done or else I'd be under a lot of time pressure for Christmas Day delivery.

Ask and you shall receive SBG, update time!

The two paints I ordered arrived with the bases for the Genestealers, so I decided to lay of the Leman Russ for a while and do some work on the brood, here it is with all the base coating done:



This week I will do washes and highlights on the greens and yellows (so they aren't so vibrant), a spray of gloss coat and that will be the models done, then I'll get these bases painted up for them:



They are secret weapon alien invasion bases. I reckon they will suit the brood perfectly, as it is a bunch of steel flight deck base with alien stuff growing onto them, will highlight the "space hulk" or sneakiness of the brood

I did some minor work on the Leman Russ, but not really noticeable, I'll finish the highlighting this week and share in next update.

Thanks for stopping by!

Genestealers are coming along nicely. All I need to do with them is do the varnishing and pop them onto the unique bases.



Have done base coats on the bases, while I work on these I am popping the stealers off their current sprue bit and getting the ready to be super glued onto these.



I have finished the rippers and the Leman Russ.

I put them into the lightbox last night to get their photos done up and ended up with a bit of a mess. Not sure if it was the settings on the camera, or I need more diffusion on the bulbs... what is happening is I am getting way to much light coming in from one side in particular and it seems to be washing out the images... here is a couple of examples:




Any advice would be appreciated as I'd like to be able to do nice photos of finished works

Thanks.

Hmmm, maybe I bumped the light and made it point back towards the camera a bit.

I'll set it back up in the next day or two and give it another crack. If I'm still getting the "glare" then I'll put some more baking paper on it to get more diffusion.

Or maybe my bulbs are just too bright.

Hi everyone.

Trust everyone is having a nice holiday season... unfortunately I drew the short straw and am working through... ah well.

Hive Fleet Santa dropped this in my lap on Christmas day, very much looking forward to getting it built and painted up! (be a while though)



Genestealers are nearing completion, I have finished their bases, popped them off their old boring black bases and super glued them all to the new ones. Just need their varnish work done and I'll get them into the lightbox!



Here is a close up of one of the bases, basic, but effective



What's next on the Hive Fleet Ngaro list? Well, I sat down and had a look at what I have painted up and something is missing.... an HQ. So if I want to get some small games in soon I'll need one of those. I have a metal hive tyrant who is magnetised. So I am going to paint it up, I have also grabbed the bone sabres out of the plastic Tyrant set I've got as I figure I'll make it so this beasty can be a Swarmlord or a tyrant seeing as though he is magnetised. Also gives me a chance to try out some "power weapon" lightning techniques on those bone sabres... I'll be using Knightleys guide but with different colour. So a bit of a shout out to Knightley



And lastly, I altered my lightbox set up every so slightly to try get rid of the glare problems I was having as mentioned above... I am happy to say the new photos looks a lot better. So I will sit down and edit the set and then upload it to dakka and add it to first page showcases. Here is an unedited one... you can see the difference from above.



Take care, have an awesome New Years Eve and I'll see you next year

Thanks Knightley. I'm pretty pleased with how those bases turned out and they make the whole brood look very cool.

Heh, I'm looking forward to 2015 hobby wise, I've gotten back into the hobby mid this year and have learned a lot about the painting side of things, so I'm going to be interested to see what sort of progress I make. I'm aiming to have the whole army completed by this time 2015, I'd say that is definitely achievable and takes into account going to Europe for 5-6weeks, daddy duties, sport commitments etc.

Happy New Year to everyone out there, hope 2015 is a good one.

So have got a bit of work done on the Swarmlord/Hive Tyrant here is how it looks currently:




And here are the images for the Leman Russ I painted up for my brother for Christmas, he was pretty stoked when he got it, so I guess it was a success!

I enjoyed painting it up, learned a lot doing it (like how NOT to wash a vehicle) and am looking forward to doing another one some day.







Now that I have got my lightbox and photos working better I'll start putting through the Hive Fleet Ngaro stuff I have completed through it, starting with the Genestealers I recently completed

Thanks all.

Yeah I'm looking at using your Purple power weapon lightning technique on his bone sabres, I'm going to do a bit of practice on some sprue or cardboard first to try get my eye in, and then I'll give it a crack on the sabres.


Being a New Year I have been having a think, and I came to this conclusion:

2014 was me getting back into things after a long hiatus and starting to finally paint up my army. Was slow but steady progress and got a lot done, main achievement was gaining some skills and confidence in actually painting, and photography

2015, my goals are:

- Get all currently owned tyranids modelled and painted.
- Paint up the terrain pieces I have to match Hive Fleet.
- Actually play some games... haven't had a rumble on the table since fourth edition
- Keep learning and getting better... I'm still pretty new, so easy goal this one

These may seem pretty simple but I have a big year coming up including trip to Europe with family etc, so we will see how I go. I'm confident I'll get the army painted up and some games played.

I got the Genestealer squad into the lightbox last night, so I just need to edit and upload the pictures... watch this space

I believe it is the same model as Hissys one. It's the metal hive tyrant model from around fourth edition. It's a heavy model for sure.

I have it magnetised so am hoping to put that to good use, at this stage I am working on the bone sabres from the plastic hive tyrant/swarmlord kit to get them magnetised and painted up for this model., from there, I'll probably magnetise a bunch of other weapon options so I can use it as a standard tyrant if needed.

Hi readers,

Weekly update! I have made good progress on the Swarmlord/Hive Tyrant. All the washes are done, just need to pick out some details in the carapce, highlight the blue claws and give the whole thing its varnish work.




Here is some photos of the genestealer brood I completed recently.

Group shot, then a pair front and rear and then lastly is close up of one of the bases.






I'm still learning with the photography and editing the images afterwards... I'm finding it more frustrating than the painting learning curve if I'm honest.

Thanks Alabamaheretic, I like how they are turning out.

My mottled effect on the chitin plates is pretty simple.

Base coat the chitin with black, then using golden yellow straight from the bottle I dabble/stipple it on using a brush in a random pattern until all the chitin is covered, then I use a blue wash in the chitin joins, and finish it off with some black in the little cuts and grooves details the chitin has and it is varnished with a matt varnish.

The application of the golden yellow did take me a bit of practice, if you look at some of my earlier work, the chitin isn't as good as it is coming out now, I was experimenting with thickness and amount of paint and those other little things that you don't click to until you are actually doing it

So I went to a gaming store yesterday to pick up a black wash... made the mistake of checking the specials section. They had two fine cast hive guard at 50% off. After checking the casts were ok I ended up buying them both.

So I now have 91 models to get painted up during 2015

Vagabonds in Auckland CBD have a spot on a shelf where they have 50% off some things. Most of the time it is older models in blister packs, codexes and stuff like that, but sometimes something pops up that are something I need

Like two finecast hive guard... goes well with my metal one to at least get a three strong brood.

Hi all,

Update time! Have finished painting up the swarmlords body this week, just needs the arms and basing done now... no photo though, came out really blurry for some reason.

I have however got a photo of where I am up to with the arms (little bit washed out due to sunny day, but you get the idea)



The four bone sabres are obviously for the Swarmlord, and I just need to do the power weapon lightning effect on the blades from here and attach them to the rest of the model. Also in that photo is a Tau fire warrior arm and a ripper which will be going onto the base of swarmy. The crushing claws are for a yet to be painted Tervigon, but I figured while I had paints out for the other arms I might as well not waste any paint, so did them up as well.

So I am loving how the swarmlord and sabres have come out thus far, next up is getting that lightning into the blades, which I'm a little nervous about as it may make or break the model... hence why I thought I'd do it on a fresh session

I also learned something very very useful this week. Paint dry times. All tutorials and advice say make sure one layer is dry before starting on next layer, but never really mention how long this should be. As it turns out, I was being waaaaay to cautious with my dry times. I was basically doing a layer and then leaving it overnight before doing anymore on that layer... as you can imagine that made things very slow, so I asked Knightley for a bit of advice and came up with rule of thumb that if the paint is still shiny, its still wet, if its matt, its dry. Well... I managed to get everything on the photo above done in one session, instead of what would have taken me several days. So I am veeeery happy to have learned this! Thanks Knightley.

Cheers for checking in. Should see a completed Swarmlord next week and a good start made on a bunch of gribblies, 15 gaunts is next on list.

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 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

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.

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.