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After digging through my garden shed I came across a small Tyranid Genestealer host that I had half put together and not painted. They have been sitting there for around 4 years. There are 30 genestealers that are assembled, and i believe 6 more boxes on top of that. The intention was to make an entire genestealer army, Broodlord HQ, rest genes. I've discovered that this wont be possible in 6th, but that hasn't stopped me from going to my local hobby store, picking up some paints, and getting back into the swing of things. Here is my first paint job in 4 years (so don't be too cruel ). It's the colour scheme I am planning on using for the rest of the host. I am looking forward to painting the big guys I am ordering. Would love to hear opinions on colour scheme or suggestions you guys might have.

Looks good, plenty playable. Only thoughts:
-a little bit of cleanup before painting would pay off strongly. That line down the center of the head is killer.
-a little bit more contrast between the 'chitin' and 'gross genestealer skin' would help the model look more distinct.
--Without changing the scheme, you could highlight further 'up' and do a bit more wash work to make the dark parts *dark*
-Base that sucker.
Still, especially after a four year hiatus? Nothing to be ashamed of there.

Okay well, I couldn't go back and shave off the parts I neglected to before. (It's not so obvious when you look at without zoom )

I have bought a couple washes to use, and went over the previous model. Could you let me know if this looks any better, or if I am not getting you at all. Would love to hear if anyone thinks it looks better, or any more suggestions people might have.



As you can see the contrast is a lot more visible now!! Thanks for the input.

Looks way better than tabletop to me. I'd be happy to see my marines torn apart by those guys. Great shading.

Haha you are showing off :(

very nice. and after 4 years with no painting?

The washes make the model look twice as good. I love the was line GW uses, they make everything just better!

That aside, they look great. It's nice to see 'Nids that aren't some bright color scheme but much more neutral.

So it's been almost a year, and I've finally started painting again. I have played around with the colour scheme on a few termagants and a flyrant. The colour scheme I have opted for is best seen in my gant, although the pictures don't seem to show it too well. I've opted to use less colours. I have also just purchased an iwata airbrush which I have used on parts of the flyrant after painting most of the model with a brush, so it really is kinda all over the place.

I am working on my second flyrant now, a tervigon and about 30 gants and still have around 40 genestealers to paint. I am painting almost every day now so I think I will begin updating this thread far more often than every 8 months . I just purchased 2 Eldar battleforce boxed sets, and 2 more wave serpents for an Alaitoc army I will be building, so I don't know if this tyranid project will go on the sidelines once that starts, either way there will be lots of modeling / painting posts from me in the near future .

Anyway, here are the pictures:

Gant:




Flyrant:

With Filters (couldn't get the lighting right without it)





No Filters:







Any suggestions welcomed. Please be aware these are all works in progress though. Much of the Hive Tyrant is unpolished and the wings require quite a bit more work as i've been blasting them with my airbrush trying to get used to it.

- Muyo

You have a colour scheme that can be 'cheated' (well shortcut very effectively) on with an airbrush.

Get a big bottle of Vallejo Russian Green primer (74609) and a bottle of the normal Light Grey primer. Lay on a good coat of the german green, then add a bit of grey and put on a few zenithal passes adding more grey each time. It's a nice shortcut to be able to do the zenithal work at the primer stage (on very large batches this can cut the working time massively).

Edit: You could even go so far as to pre-shade a bit by adding other colour primers (German Red-Brown and a spot of black to the russian green makes a good shade).

Then hand paint carapace and claws in VGC heavy brown (like a foundation, great coverage).

Then wash down with brown (just one even application on the green should do, but two on the brown) and you should have basically done most of the paintwork in short order.

I just read a tutorial on zenithal painting and it definitely looks like a great method. I'll have to look into it more. The more stuff i do with the airbrush the more and more a normal brush seems useless. It truely is an amazing tool.

The only problems i seem to be having are with the mixing of the paints, i had to buy a bunch of dropper bottles to use the rest of my citadel paints. Took ages, and I am ordering vallejo paints for the future. Right now i'm using a darker green goign up to nurgling green, and for the boneish colour i'm going from x-86 or whatever it is to ushanti bone, washing, then aplying ushanti bone again. I haven't been able to replicate the brush stroke effect with the airbrush yet which is disappointing as I love the effect but don't want to use a normal brush lol.

Any suggestions for that?

As far as airbrush mixing is concerned, don't sweat it too much. I usually just eyeball it (thinner in, squirt of whatever colour, mix with an old long-bristle brush, all in the cup, adding a squirt of thinner if needed here and there). Any washes or glazing you do will unify the colours a lot, and to be honest for 'natural' gribblies like 'nids, a bit of variety just makes things better.

You can't really replicate feathering with an airbrush, for that you definitely want a good pointy brush. You can blast down a gradient, but unless your control is spot on and you have a very reliable airbrush it'll end up costing you time as you correct overspray, and you still need to apply a reverse feather (toward the recess rather than the edge) using a brush and shade colour to get the streaks. Sometimes the basic method is best.

In terms of feathering, use thin paint (vallejo glaze medium is great for this) that isn't too opaque. You want the stroke to be stronger at the end. Once you get the hang of it it's a pretty fast technique - more layers makes a smoother result.
On these I used about 4 mixes, including a shade one to sharpen up the recesses: