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I'm starting up my second army and I've settled on tyranids.

I've purchased a couple of models (a brood lord, and a zoanthrope), and decided after painting up my necrons I wanted a more colourful theme for my next army. I decided to draw my inspiration from nature and started my search by googling and searching for the most poisonous snakes in the world. I also googled around for "colourful reptiles, colourful fish, colourful shellfish, etc..."

My top picks to build my theme on were
- Palawan Crab
- Blue Poison Dart Frog
- Tiger Snake
- Boomslang Snake

After drafting up a bill of materials for the paint I'd need to do each I settled on the Boomslang Snake as it needed the least amount of paint from what I guessed I would need. On top of the paint I already had I purchased Moot Green, Sybarite Green, Temple Guard Blue, and Waywatcher Green.

I initially based the model in Ceramite white and glazed it with the waywatcher green and then blending the skin, and chitin into Moot, Sybarite with a Temple Guard Blue Highlight. The results were horrendous and I reset by rebasing in Celestra Gray and doing a lot more research into how people already painted up their Tyranids.

I decided to separate the Chitin and skin sections completely instead of trying to blend it together. Below are the results of my current works in progress

- Primed with Imperial Primer
- Base, Celestra Grey

I built up the bone plates by layering on Ulthuan Grey, and Pallid Wych Flesh, then dry brushing on thicker layers of Moot Green, then Sybarite Green. I layed down a light layer of Temple Guard Blue and attempted to dry brush on the Abaddon Black.

The Black did not dry brush on so well for some reason. In some areas I got the effect I wanted and in some areas I did not and it came off as more of a solid division instead of a gentle transition. After reading around I tried to feather on the black around the edges and the effect came off nice on the head plates on the Zoanthrope.

I glazed all the armour areas with Waywatcher Green, and then put down two coats of Seraphim Sepia on the skin and then dry brushed pallid wych flesh on the claws, talons and teeth.

I mixed together some red food colouring and 'Ard Coat to paint in the gills and joint sections which are shown up close on a few spots

I love using natural sources for painting like this, I've seen some amazing lizardman armies painted using reference to naturally occurring pattern and color mixes.

This is a really nice combo and a few units will look very visually arresting on the tabletop.

If I have one piece of advice, it's not the chitin, but the face on the genestealer and the claws on both, to go back and highlight after you've applied wash.

Thanks for the tip MeanGreen. Still WIP. I want to add some gore to the Brood lord and something (I have no idea what yet) to the Zoanthrope to show they mean business, plus some additional highlights like you mentioned

Be very subtle with gore and bloodsplatter, they are like the 'severed head of X on the base', something you see in young painters and something that can easily detract from the model's paintjob and overall picture.

Considering that your paint scheme is quite 'busy' with various colors, I'd be very wary about adding splotches of red gore to the palette or you risk overdoing it.

This is going to look fantastic when done across and entire army.
Keep it up, and have an exalt!

The Swarm continues to grow. After feeling good about my test paints on my Broodlord and Zoanthrope I bought a batch of genestealers and see below the results. I though the colour scheme of the Tyranids seem to blend so well with nature because they were inspired by it I took some great suggestions from the modelling forum and found some nice alien jungle looking basing supplies at the local pet store's aquarium section. Appreciate your thoughts as my swarm grows! Still trying to come up with a good name for the Hive Fleet. Any suggestions?


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The Genestealers come next


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My Zoanthrope is nearly complete. A little more for the base and we're done



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First Group Shot of the SWARM!

Love the vibrancy! What models are you planning on getting next? Would love to see a carnifex with this scheme

I've got some Gaunts on order. They should be arriving any day.

But I have a couple of X-mas gift boxes of Necrons I have to paint up and assemble first before I grow the Swarm some more

These are looking good!

My termagaunts are mostly finished. Here's some work in progress pictures on 2/3 of my brood. I'm very happy with the way the tubes coming out of the arm and into the rifles are looking. Nice and disgustingly alien. There's just a few touch ups left and then basing them. I must say, I'm super happy with the way they look as a group. and I'm having a lot of fun painting them up.

As soon as these are done, I have my first HQ to do up, a SwarmLord, then followed by a Carnifex.

I'll be making my first attempts at magnetizing these ones so I think I'll take a few assembly shots of those as I work along.

top down shot of the armour


lastly a couple of group shots

Lovely. The jungle plants really go well with the scheme. Would be great to see them "in the wild" so to speak- an in game shot or something.

Looking good! Makes me want to go back to converting my tyranids into crustaceans for hive fleet "Blue Swimmer Crab"

It is a great idea to use natural colours and I like your choices but I would like to see the black edges blended in a bit more.
The zoanthrope is a good example of what I mean, its back looks better than its head IMO because the black seems to be more blended.

But feel free to ignore me They look great anyway!

 Shanks wrote:
Looking good! Makes me want to go back to converting my tyranids into crustaceans for hive fleet "Blue Swimmer Crab"

It is a great idea to use natural colours and I like your choices but I would like to see the black edges blended in a bit more.
The zoanthrope is a good example of what I mean, its back looks better than its head IMO because the black seems to be more blended.

But feel free to ignore me They look great anyway!

Hi Shanks, I assume you talking about the blend on the back vents vs. the hard line on the skull plates? My original plan was to blend, but for some reason I'm have a very difficult time properly graduating my black in. More often than not it turned out looking like a solid black line. I don't quite understand it because blending the greens and whites together was no problem for me. So I decided to stick with the feathered technique and product a kind of tiger-strip effect. I'm sure I just need more practice with the paint but my main goal is to have fun and so I'm having fun with the tiger stripe look so that's why I stuck with that look ultimately.

No worries mate, like I said it still looks good!

It is now time for the swarm to birth its leader. My hormagaunts are finished and based and now is time for my first HQ slot. I have a Hive Tyrant/Swarm Lord and I've also chosen this mini-project to learn how to magnetize the model so I can swap out the parts as needed. I also have a Carnifex I'm planning on magnetizing next so I purchased what I'm hoping will be enough magnets for both projects.

I bought 30 Neodymium magnets from KJMagnetics.com (part number: D21B-N52 if any one is interested) they are 1/8" X 1/16" and they're strong little suckers. I was playing around with them and I accidentally let one slip out of my hand when I had Like Poles together. It flew across the room and it took me 5 minutes to find the little guy. I know keep the magnets tucked safely in their bag when I'm not using them.

After reading through the assembly instructions and thinking things over I decided to forgo the flying lets, but still magnetize the wings. That way I'll have a strongly glued base on legs and I only need to worry about getting the arm parts fine. I also decided on the Swarm Lord head as a permanent fixture rather than magnetizing both and swapping them back and for as needed when they look so similar except for a slight size difference and the top blade protruding out of the head.

With my decisions made I have glued the legs and lower body together and the head to the middle chest sections.

You can see in the background my Necrons I'm working on in tandem with my Tyranids. The head I'm planning on customizing a little. I'm hoping to modify the horns a little bit or perhaps have some protruding out of the side of his face. Still mulling it over in my head.

Next you can see the magnets I've mounted into the shoulder sections of the HQ. I used 4 drills of increasing size and then cleaned out the little ridges with a small swiss army knife. I've also coated the back and front of the magnets with a layer of glue that will harden to a plastic and form a shell to hopefully keep the magnet in place once I'm swapping out parts.


Once the glue fully cures I'm going to prime the sections and begin a magnetizing a few of the weapon options while priming those too.

I have finished magnetizing all components of both the swarm lord and hive tyrant configs. Below are a few test assemblies. Just waiting on the magnet in one wing to glue before everything is ready to go.

Also including the painting and basing.

You can see he's been primed and base coated and is ready for painting. All the removable components are mostly primed.


Magnetizing was super-fun. Totally worth the experience for when I start on my Carnifex next..
You can see in a few shots the should slots have red paint marks on them. This is where I would put a dab of red paint on the magnet, and then slide the weapon in place. When I pulled the weapon out it would have a red paint mark to tell me exactly where to drill so that it would line up with the magnet nicely. I highly recommend it.

I would also paint one side of the magnets so that I knew which side was "down" so that all the magnets would properly attract

Now a couple of shots of the main body in the first stages of painting. He's got a couple layers of paint on and a little nuln oil in spots. Looking rough, but he'll improve over the next few days.

Well here we are with another update to my first magnetizing project.

All the hive tyrant parts are fully magnetized. just a couple of swords left for the swarm lord config to do. Also a few more layers of paint and a little shading on the main body.


Do you see how the right wing the primer is extremely thin in some places and thick in others? Anyone have any suggestions on how I can avoid that? I scrubbed and soaked that thing in soapy water. Scrubbed it with a brush, rinsed, and wiped it down and somehow the paint on primer still pools and draws together. I can't seem to get an even coat of it and as you can see it's really noticible on the wings. It also makes getting an even basecoat hard because I'm basing over thick and thin black primer. It doesn't seem to effect the end result after all the layers of paint are on, but still, would love to know how to prevent this if at all possible.



A shot of the back detail. I'm not quite happy with the striping effect. I can't decide if it's too thick, or too thin, or not lined up properly. I'm thinking of resetting the back part and just have the green to blue blend and leave the black fade on the pipes coming out of the back with no stripes. Any thoughts?

The Hive Tyrant/Swarm Lord is now fully magnetized and mostly painted aside from a few small touch ups.

Here's some finished shots

Up next is several projects. I have a Carnifex to magnetize, and Haruspex, Tyranid Warriors, and Tyrgon Prime

With the Hive Tyrant Completed I wanted to take a break from the careful work of magnetizing before going to my Carnifex and wanted to work on my Haruspex.

I've put the most work and detail into this one so far and I'm happy with the various blends I've got and some of the highlight and shading I was able to put in. Below, the haruspex!

Yesss, looking good! Are you leaving the whites the way they are though?

I think that the Haruspex needs the black lines on the carapace. It looks a bit smooth currently. That could be what you want, though.

Also, the white is slightly too white.

They are really nicely painted, though. Especially the Hive Tyrant.

Those big bugs look pretty awesome in that paint scheme... Love the brightness of what you are going with.

Nice work thus far... looks like things are improving as you go, which is what I am finding with my painting "journey"

I did end up putting the black stripes on the Haruspex. I'll get an updated shot up here. It does look much better with the stripes. I was recently at a local tournament and got a lot of comments on my haruspex. A few people even took some pictures of it so I think the paint scheme must be working.

As I've been painting them I'm finding I need different techniques to get the effects I want and I'm discovering each Tyranid has some differences that make me have to re-think my scheme every time I get to a new model. I've discovered a Fine Line Marker works great for getting the black lines I've been working on, especially for the smaller sections. I'm going to be using this from now on. The only thing I need to do is give it a thin line of black paint on the edge and work the stripes with the marker and it goes a lot faster, with less chance for error.

Below as some shots of my Trygon Prime and Deathleaper that I just finished up most of the painting for. On to a couple of small touch ups and then basing them. I had to really think out the Trygon Prime's tail. I knew I wanted it to look like a real rattlesnake tail, and thanks to a suggestion from the painting forum I think I got the effect I was looking for with a little modification to the suggestion.

I have my Carnifex and Mawloc primed and based, so they'll be up next on the project blog

My Trygon Prime


Some shots of Deathleaper


And a little group shot

Thought I'd throw in a group shot of the whole lot that's completed so far. Here you go.

Nice progress!

Looking really good, and when they are in a big group it looks impressive and catches the eye.

Keep up the great work

Another round of painting finished! I've completed a Mawloc and a Carnifex. Pics below. Appreciate any comments, suggestions, and feedback. I have to say that I really enjoyed painting the mawloc. It's probably my favourite one so far next to the haruspex. I'm trying to throw in a little more interest into the bases aside from just some grass and some greenery. I made a nice big moss covered rock feature out of cork for the Mawloc.

I really would appreciate any suggestions anyone has over how I can add more interest to my bases while still keeping the jungle/forest theme.

If you want to see more pics, please visit my gallery. I have tons of pics and not all make this thread.

Carnifex Below



And Here Be Mawlocs!!

Very cool, I like the black/green look!

Nice work on the bigger bugs, I really love the carapace colourations you have chosen.

And that is a nice rock

Other features for your basing while staying in theme could be:

- Bit of old ruin from an ancient civilisation
- Water... like a puddle/stream in the forest, that could be cool, have a bit of fun with water effects.
- Then your normal ones - bones, bits from other armies etc.

Good luck with the next bit of painting!

how do you do water effects?

I'd like to thank Neil1975 and his Hive Fleet Colossus for the inspiration and tips I used for my objective markers.

linky to his blog: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/535923.page

I used his ideas for the aliens coming out of the egg sacks for my own objective markers. I thought they just fit so great so I ordered some and below are the results of my first two test markers. I also went out to Michaels and found some fake plants on super-sale and bought some to use to add more variety to my jungle foliage. I wanted a larger scene that a small objective marker so these pieces are large enough to double for area terrain too.

I'm extremely happy with the results. My only gripe is that I have some bubbles in my alien slime and I'm not sure how they got there because there were no bubbles when I laid the goo. Otherwise, I'm super happy with the overall look and effect. Thanks again Neil1975!







This little guy is just crawling out of the sack and you see the alien slime still clinging to him as he makes he way free