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Good day, chaps!

You might know me from a Grey Knight Blog which I started some months ago. After several games with my 2000 points list of choice I recognized that this style of play ain't really my thing. I played a mechanized Space Wolves force for several years before moving to GK so I changed from mech to 100% shock army to get some variety - it just made no real fun.

Since I was always on the look for some bargains on the bay I more or less accidentally bought a nice Tyranids starter army for some cheap money. It included an old Hive Tyrant, Mawloc, 3 Warriors, Carnifex, 12 Gaunts, a custom Lictor and some ripper swarms.

Without any real intention I started painting the Carnifex, I really liked the look of the model and it was pretty perfect for some airbrush action. In the end it was a real blast to paint. At first I thought it would take ages to get things right but it only took around 8 hours from priming to purity seal.





I then went on a 9 days holiday trip and packed all my painting stuff incl. the compressor and airbrush equipment to get some paint on the Mawloc. After some critics about the low contrast between the carapace and the flesh parts of the Carnifex I tried a darker brown on the Mawloc. Again, after 8 hours I was able to finish this dude who is around double the size of the Carnifex, yay! The painting quality is a bid behind that of the 'fex but should still look impressive on the tabletop.




Since I was pretty pleased about the fast painting process I got my hands on the custom lictor (counts as deathleaper) to try out how fast I could go without suffering too much quality. The lictor took me less than three hours and it was the first time I thought about switching from GK to 'Nids.




One week went by and I expanded the Hive by, guess what, some additional cheap 'Nids on the bay!
Here's a small list of what's in the queue right now:

- Hive Tyrant on Foot
- 3 Tyrant Guard
- Winged Hive Tyrant
- 3 Lictors
- around 40 Hormagaunts
- 6 Warriors

All minis except the Gaunts will be painted to a similar standard like the models shown above. I will use Army Painter with some fast and sloppy painting for the Gaunts because anything more complex would give me a sad face.

Here is the first finished test mini of the Gaunts. I gave the first batch 4 different carapace colours to keep them visually seperated during game play. The base colour is vallejo model air sand, teeth are skull white and the blades were made with a tri-fade airbrush gradient. I will paint them in batches of at least 10 so it will take only about 10-15 minutes for each gaunt to be ready for the tabletop.





Last but not least I finished the bases for most of my bigger critters. I used bark mulch for the stones, primed them black and sprayed 2 different greys with my airbrush. I then quickly drybrushed the whole thing with skull white - done. 15 minutes. Lovin' it.





That's about it by now. Thanks for stopping by, comments and critics are highly appreciated!

beautiful work. i love the slightly unconventional color scheme

Love the colour scheme, can't wait to see a full army of these nids

Let me be the first to say Awesome stuff

How durable is the bark mulch once it's primed?

Great work, very impressed with the bases

looking good so far. liking the story behind them as well

Those Nidz or amazing. The colors work really well togeather. Cant wait to see more.

These are some fantastically painted bugs. More natural in my opinion, and that's what makes them so great. keep it up!

Great work. Really like the toned down brown skin here.

Thanks a bunch, guys! At the moment I'm working on drilling the bigger metal critters to pin them securely on their bases, so no new pictures yet.

Flashman wrote:Let me be the first to say Awesome stuff
How durable is the bark mulch once it's primed?

Thanks, mate! I have to admit that it's not the most sturdy material for this use. Once it's sealed with purity seal it's pretty resistant to abrasion but it can happen that a whole chunk will come off from time to time - I usually fix it with some PVA glue.
I also have to pin every metal mini so it sits tight on the base and you have to move the model by grabbing itself and not with the base, otherwise heavier models will break the mulch pretty easily.

I really like the colors you are using here! It seems much more "realistic," which is kind of a funny thing to say about giant space bugs, I guess .

That is a very nice Lictor there, love conversions with retro Nids.

These are some beautiful nids, I especially love the talons on them, that color is awesome

Boy, those are pretty spectacular derd0m. I like the varying shades of brown between the sin and the armor plates... and the blue on the claws really sets them off nicely. Very good job! Please show us more.

I don't really know what I could add to the things everyone else is saying, but I felt the need to say something

Can't wait to see more!

Keep it up!

Rawson

Alfndrate wrote:

Spoiler:

These are some beautiful nids, I especially love the talons on them, that color is awesome

When I saw these, I agreed with that!

Simply put - WOW!

I love the more earth tone/muted looking Tyranids - and yours are some of the best I've ever seen using that palette of colors!

Fantastic!

Thanks for the kind replies, chaps!!

I entered both the trygon and carnifex on CMON, would be awesome if you could stop by and give them a vote!

Carnifex: http://www.coolminiornot.com/285686
Trygon: http://www.coolminiornot.com/287010

Very noice

Thanks to my beautiful kid, Space Marine game and play testing my new bugs I wasn't able make any real process on the painting side. Well, except my finished Winged Hive Tyrant - booyaka!



Another model I bought off the bay. Finding the right colors for the wings was a slight pain in the butt but after several thin airbrush layers I pretty much managed the look I wanted to achieve. The rest of the bug was the same quick process as the previous models.

So what's next in the queue? I will finally finish the first batch of the gaunts and start to get some paint on the other Hive Tyrant including his Tyrant Guard.


Thanks for watching!

Beautiful, as always...

Is the flyrant a metal model? The aircraft stand seems like overkill and is a bit distracting. It might be a little late to be suggesting this, but have you thought of other options?

I agree with rawson, the flying stand is a bit distracting from the awesomeness od the flyrant.

Rawson wrote:Beautiful, as always...
Is the flyrant a metal model? The aircraft stand seems like overkill and is a bit distracting. It might be a little late to be suggesting this, but have you thought of other options?

bigfish wrote:I agree with rawson, the flying stand is a bit distracting from the awesomeness od the flyrant.

Thanks for the critics, chaps. I understand what you mean but there are two reasons I had to do it that way.
Thanks to the horizontal wings the hive tyrant would have problems with tight terrain pieces so the aircraft height should lift him above most of the terrain, at least on my board.
Another problem is the weight of it - it just wouldn't hold on a smaller stand, especially on the plastic base. If you have an appropriate solution please let me know!

derd0m wrote: Thanks for the critics, chaps. I understand what you mean but there are two reasons I had to do it that way.
Thanks to the horizontal wings the hive tyrant would have problems with tight terrain pieces so the aircraft height should lift him above most of the terrain, at least on my board.
Another problem is the weight of it - it just wouldn't hold on a smaller stand, especially on the plastic base. If you have an appropriate solution please let me know!

I see your points. What if you trimmed down the stand that it's on? I think it's the lateral arms that are the most distracting. You could file down the lateral arms of the stand so they are full width at the base and taper into nothing before you get to the tyrant (maybe where the stand starts getting skinny). That way you still get your height, it's not so visibly distracting, and it's still beefier than any of the other flying bases. Whaddaya think?

Rawson wrote:
I see your points. What if you trimmed down the stand that it's on? I think it's the lateral arms that are the most distracting. You could file down the lateral arms of the stand so they are full width at the base and taper into nothing before you get to the tyrant (maybe where the stand starts getting skinny). That way you still get your height, it's not so visibly distracting, and it's still beefier than any of the other flying bases. Whaddaya think?

That would be a solution but thanks to my minor craftsman skills I don't think I could pull that off.

Kid at grandma = some extra time for painting, yay! I was able to finish my three Tyrant Guards today, it only took about 5 hours for all models.
There are still some minor things to clean up but they are ready to hit the table top for now.
Next in the line: Hive Tyrant on foot.

looking good and fair enough with the explaination

Little update: I managed to paint the bases for all minis except the gaunts, prime all models and airbrush every CC weapon of the little critters. Here's a small pic of my current workspace chaos:



The past models were not equipped with any ranged weapon and I'm struggling to find a suitable colour for it.
At the moment I tend to use a pale pinkish gradient which should fit quite nicely to the current colour scheme.
On the other hand a harder contrast would make them pop out like the current close combat weapons. Other colours could be:
- olive grey
- gradient from dark to light grey
- gradient from dark red to orange
- same colours as the current cc weapons

Any ideas?

Man those are looking better and better. That color scheme is one of the best I've seen so far. And love how the carapace has a slight shene to it. Its gonna be one outstanding nid army when finished.

derd0m wrote:The past models were not equipped with any ranged weapon and I'm struggling to find a suitable colour for it.
At the moment I tend to use a pale pinkish gradient which should fit quite nicely to the current colour scheme.
On the other hand a harder contrast would make them pop out like the current close combat weapons. Other colours could be:
- olive grey
- gradient from dark to light grey
- gradient from dark red to orange
- same colours as the current cc weapons

Any ideas?

What about a darker brown color, like the carapace on the first carnifex?

schank23 wrote:Man those are looking better and better. That color scheme is one of the best I've seen so far. And love how the carapace has a slight shene to it. Its gonna be one outstanding nid army when finished.

Thanks, chap! I'm totally happy with the slighty glossiness of the carapace parts. For the carnifex I used a mix of GW gloss 'ard coat and vallejo matte airbrush colour.
The other critters didn't recieve this last coat as the vallejo airbrush colours have a comparable look when painted smooth and evenly.

Rawson wrote:

derd0m wrote:The past models were not equipped with any ranged weapon and I'm struggling to find a suitable colour for it.
At the moment I tend to use a pale pinkish gradient which should fit quite nicely to the current colour scheme.
On the other hand a harder contrast would make them pop out like the current close combat weapons. Other colours could be:
- olive grey
- gradient from dark to light grey
- gradient from dark red to orange
- same colours as the current cc weapons

Any ideas?

What about a darker brown color, like the carapace on the first carnifex?

Ofc this would fit pretty good but I want to have a distinctive and unique colour for the ranged weapons. I will start working on the second hive tyrant today to try out some colour combinations, hopefully I will have pics up by tomorrow!