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Anyone know any methods (preferably quick/easy as I'm new) for making blackish tyranids similar to the color of the aliens in the Aliens movies? I'm thinking about trying something like that for my spawn gants rather than paint every single one in my army colors.

Black spray paint, a grey drybrush and some purple on the claws, eyes, tongue, etc if you're feeling saucy, then hit it with a gloss varnish from Krylon or a pot varnish. Voila.

How I'd recommend to do them, is like this. Primer them all a gray, wash them all in nul oil to darken them. Paint there hard shell/claws in a deep blue or purple. Wash them to darken that then glaze the guns in a red or green and add highlights

I wouldn't do a pure grey drybrush, do something like a heavy shadow grey drybrush, then a space wolves grey drybrush (or similar colours whatever they are called now) and then follow it with a black wash to tie it all together and then the gloss varnish.

If you have more time to spend, you could start with a grey basecoat (again, something like a blue-ish grey would be better than pure grey) and then do a really heavy black wash over it. Not so much like Badab Black, but more like regular black paint just thinned down heavily (not so heavily that it becomes as thin as Badab Black). Then if you have the time, go over with an edge highlight of the original grey (or blue-grey), you might have to mix it with black depending on how thick your black wash was to avoid making the edge highlight stand out too much, then follow up with a gloss varnish over the whole thing.

Cool, thanks for the tips.

Honestly I wouldn't do it man. This is from experience. I tried my very best to do Alienids and it didn't work out. I tried my very best 4 different times and nothing looked good. The thing is, the lighting in the movie is what makes the Aliens look so good. It just doesn't transfer well to models.

I actually ended up taking my alienids apart because of it.

In the movies, the Aliens were actually painted black with a mix of gold and metallic highlights. This and the lighting gave the Aliens and black and grey colouring.

I'd suggest getting some Paynes Grey (Windsor & Newton Galeria do a good one) as the base coat - it's a very dark blue grey, almost black.

You can then go the slow route with it and do a full base coat over your choice of primer. Black wash and bring it up with grey highlights.

Or

The quick route which would be to do a white or grey primer, a thinned coat of paynes grey followed by a black wash a this should leave the model pretty much self highlighted. You should be able to do 20+ nids a night like that to a decent tabletop standard. This is sort of a Greyscale method, the results while quick are not for everyone as the can look a little washer out.

In either case hit it with a gloss varnish and your golden.

Prime and paint in black.

Bright silver like Vallejo steel faded into the black (airbrushed if possible) along areas where you want that metalic oily sheen such as the edges of the carapace.

Transparent blue paint like those Badger ghost tints or GW washes over the silver. Another wash with a transparent purple alongside the blue meeting up with the black.

Watered down black wash over the whole thing to tie it together.

Something like this with a gloss coat is what I think you are looking for.

Don't give up. I am working on the same project. The color is tricky. I have several statues and figures of the aliens from aliens movie. They were more of a bronzish brown color. Do this, prime black. Then take either flesh wash or chestnut, mix bronze paint in it, just a little, and shake very well. Apply wash (ink), and viola! My test model looks really nice.

I did some "alien" style nids awhile back and they turned out pretty well. Matte black primer, with a VERY gloss black for the carapace. I used a gold to edge the carapace, and to give the claws dimention. Based with alien texture bases and fin... Looked really good in hordes, but the big bugs looked kinda plain, so i did a little bit of gold stippiling unter the carapace.