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Hello Dakka!

As I have recently just joined Dakka Dakka, and taken my wargaming to the next level by ACTUALLY starting an army which I intend to complete and play with, I thought I would share my experiences with you all. Hopefully, this will be both enjoyable and interesting for both myself, and you, the readers!

My skills currently are developing, along with my sculpting and general modeling. I have been part of the hobby of Miniature War Gaming for nearly four years, but I have never really stepped beyond picking up select models I like, reading the lore, fluff and RPG books. As an Art Student I hope to translate what I have learned into the miniatures, and hopefully create a Hive Fleet worth of Digesting all Biomass in the galaxy.... Or perhaps a small patch of it.

Anyway, I hope to update this fairly regularly with progress. Money is always an issue... unless your a great big stonking rich playboy million, so I will hope to be sculpting my own models, scenery and bits'n'bobs along the way once my hobby skills improve. *presses ungodly amounts of desperate faith in the lottery ticket in my pocket*

Without further procrastination, I will add some images of what I have, and what I plan to do. (Hopefully this weekend I can go to my local craft store and purchase supplies!)
[u]
Hive Fleet Lusus [/u]

All of this began when I was rooting through my loft for some old canvases, and lo and behold, I find TWO Battleforces of Tyranids! After inspecting these treasures, I decided to pick up my extra-extra small brushes, blow off the dust, and begin my beloved-forgotten hobby once more. Anyway... these are what I currently have.




Lucky me!
33 Hormagaunts - Scything Talons
41 Termagants - Fleshborers
18 Genestealers - Rending Claws
6 Ripper Swarms - .... Teeth I guess?
6 Warriors - Scything Talons and Deathspitters

I started gluing the models together. Must have rolled on 'Perils of the Warp' since whilst my Initial luck on having found two battleforces is GREAT, I only realised when I only had four warriors to go that the game/rules might have changed! (Which they had! )
My Tyranid Codex was out of date, and my Rulebook was 4th edition. ( I have the 5th edition, but stopped just after it was released)

So I made my ebay orders of 1 codex! It arrived and I was able to look through the book. Not much help without the 6th edition rulebook however...
Anyway. I postponed assembling the remaining four warriors untill I had chance to look it over ( or, get advice from the people at Dakka Dakka!)

A few days later I managed to get a SWEET deal on a Carnifex and a Hive Tyrant, both unopened from a friend. Two for the price of one. Result!
Again, I had no luck in what to equip them with at the time so I took to the forums and tried to assemble the core parts to both.

- My lovely Art desk, re-purposed as a large assembly line and general work space. Cutting mats placed and a Pencil tin lid re-purposed as a mixing palette.

After noticing ( due to artistic OCD!) the gaps in joins, imperfections and little... torn marks from where the pieces had been cut from the sprue, I made a thread to investigate the use of GreenStuff and modelling advice. (Big thanks to all who have commented so far! I plan to get hold of the tools and goods this weekend. )

Whilst waiting I thought... Why waste time doing NOTHING.
- I dug out my Big Blue Book. BBB..

Battle scarred and veteran, as you can see, held together with sellotape and sheer willpower! ( MAN I LOVED THAT BOOK! )

Whilst flicking through for inspiration, I found several very nice things. Tutorials on how to scratch-built ruins, craters and a Imperial bunker, fences, boards, and the like. My personal favorite section is on the kill-team section. (Now Sadly left from the new rule books. WHY GW. Its possibly the best thing I have seen in the Warhammer 40k game. SO much potential and fun!)

Most importantly, I came across my color scheme in the Kill team section.
Tah-Dah!

Behold, Kroot!

While not exactly Tyranid-Spawned, These look striking and appealing in my opinion, with the bold face and jaw, pale green flesh and bright white bones!

Instead of moping around, waiting for the weekend to come... I wanted to get my miniature painters hands back into their groove! ( which reminds me, my paintbrushes are... Atrocious... and the Paints are four years old, dried up and crusty. Any advice? )

I noticed the spare half of the head on the Carnifex sprue... and thought : "Hey! Thats a nice, large, going to waste Tyranid piece. I can practice on that!"
Here is my result.


- I changed the wash over the flesh from the brown in the Kroot Kill-team example to a red wash... I will find the name of it! - anyway what do you think? I am unsure of the Carapace being grey.... and do not think the teeth are up to scratch. The teeth and eyes are the hardest part In my opinion. Any advice?
Tips and constructive criticism is welcome! I would love to improve in any way I can.

Regardless, This is the way I want to go with them. My next task is finding out how to do the bodies, since there is not much color variation on the examples, but I don't want to ruin the look by adding to many distractions, detracting from the face. - again, another idea is making the smaller bugs a different color. (Perhaps the carapace the same color as the fleshier parts of the bigger organisms to represent their inferior nature. Thoughts?)

And to finish up my first post in this, Hopefully Successful and Enjoyable, blog, I leave you with this little Tid-Bit.
Fluff-wise, my Hive is called : Hive Fleet Lusus. The origins being the term 'Lusus Naturae' : a person or animal that is markedly unusual or deformed; (or in my opinion, to summarize the attitude of the Hive Mind) Latin: whim of nature

Thanks for your time! Hope it was interesting as a First Post!

~ Nidception

I like the inspiration. I look forward to seeing a complete model with the scheme.

@- Mr Nobody
Thanks for the reply, I'm glad you like it! Hopefully I will be able to go into town today to pick up more paint to continue.
I will hopefully post more up later today or tomorrow.

~ Nidception

That colour scheme looks great on the nids looking forward to seeing them all painted.

Going back to the old rule book, that was definatly the best bit of the book, I don't understand why GW ever took te modeling bit out of the back, ah well

Young Logan

Welcome to Dakka! That's a great start to a blog and I'll be sticking around to see how it develops.

@- Young_Logan

Thanks for the reply! Glad you think so, I thought so too. I was looking for something different to the usual nid color scheme and think its going to look good on all of them. Hopefully they will be up to expectations. I'm still debating on how to pull it off for the different units, I think I will post some variations of the color schemes, see what people think.

I was thinking about making bits of each. Perhaps Ill scan some of the templates to this P&M blog, to my knowledge this should be alright to do.

I see a definite shift in motivation and agenda for gamesworkshop. I think its a negative shift but hey, its not my company.


@- Casey's Law

Thanks for the reply! Glad I did it justice haha
Hopefully tomorrow Ill be able to post up some more pictures of progress!



Thanks for your time!

~ Nidception

UPDATE No.2

Hello Dakka!

My second update of the P&M blog!

I went out to the shops today, looking for the list of hobby goods recommended in my Modelling thread by you good people. Overall, a semi-productive day...
Looks like Green-stuff and its Alternatives HAS to be bought online.. since none of the hobby stores I went to possessed any of them!

But I did manage to get some sculpting tools!



- Fairly cheap, a good variety of shapes and tips. I'm yet to put these to work!



- One small Color Shaper, since this was most advised in the thread! They were Very Expensive, so I decided to only get one. Money is best spend on material than the tools I think at the start.



- I found this spray paint ( pretty cheap too!), and it looked like it was a similar color to the base coat I used for the test-head. Unsure of its quality or true color... I bit the bullet ( with all my ravenous teeth) and bought the thing. - Here are the results.....



- Not bad ! Pretty good coverage, I only had to spray it with two light passes of the spray, and it didn't congeal, drying into crevasses and details, blocking them up.The only complaint I have is that its darker than my ideal base coat.
On that, I was considering getting some 'Necrotic Flesh' from the Army Painter. Can anyone advice this as being a decent spray paint for base coating?

- Currently I am painting up 5 of the Termagants as test models. Hopefully will post them up later tonight or tomorrow!


Thanks for reading! - this will pick up with the painting and the larger models once I get my hands on Files and Green Stuff to make sure they get a nice finish!

If you have anything to comment on or advice ( Particularly on Color Scheme, if I should paint the black and red face onto the little bugs, or leave that for the creatures with more Synapse 'Authority'... or tips in general) all would appreciated!

~ Nidception

UPDATE No. 3

Hello Dakka!

So far, I have painted a couple of Termagants. Surprisingly, I find these harder to paint then the large Monstrous creatures!
- I'm finding the bodies the hardest the paint. I feel they are looking a little bland.

If you want an image of the termagants, do shout!


Anyway! As I am waiting to get my hands on the Green Stuff, I have pre-assembled the Hive Tyrant using Blu-tac. Positions and all. So far, here is the sort I like!







Minor Kit bash - taking one of the heads from the Carnifex Kit. I both like the part on its own and on the Tyrant. Looks more aggressive than the tyrant head, sturdy, capable of tearing through things AND makes it look as though I has the ability to control the swarm through its Antenna!

Also, I have the feeling the Devourers look a little weedy to represent 2X twin linked Devourers. Any suggestions?
-Although, I like the way they are held in the first image below.

Also debating on making the face entirely red to signify its leader status. What do you think?

( Will be getting pictures of a kit bash Tyranid Prime also soon! )

Thanks for your time!

~ Nidception

Awesome Like the variety of conversions

Nice start so far. But as i have no clue on tyranids i can't help you with most of your questions.

The painted head looks really great. And grey as the carapace might work if you add more red details. But that on the other hand will draw attention away from the red heads. Maybe you could try a grey and light brow combination with only a few red applications. Or if you want to stay grey a grey and light grey combination alonside your red washed details. But i'm not the best painter. Maybe try out a few paint styles on some of your gaunts.


And for the twin linked devourer i have seen some pictures of a two barreled one, made from two devourer glued together on their flat side. But you'd need to get hold of another pair of those arms for that.

Thanks for the replies!

@- happygolucky
Glad you like it so far! More shall come!

@- bltdoomhammer
Thanks for the suggestions! Glad you like the color scheme!

I was thinking about trying to change it up. The problem with my test gant is that there is too much light colours. Pale flesh, pale carapace, white grey claws.

If you look at the test head, the pale green and red wash is on the 'squishy' imo part. I was thinking about carrying the black over to the armour parts, like the outer casing so to speak, with the slippery insides joining them together along with the sinuous tails.

Ill get some example gants up tomorrow


~ Nidception