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So, getting distracted from a bunch of other projects, I recently spotted an old piece of Tyranid artwork with a black and red Hive Fleet scheme I think I remember from the 3rd edition codex (please do correct me if I'm wrong?). I'd love to try recreate this, and haven't seen anyone else using this scheme, so thought I'd ask here to see if anyone has any neat ideas for a recipe!

Artwork in question, spoiler-ed for relatively large size:

And that a version of this scheme was included in this painting guide (right, 3rd from bottom):


Now, this doesn't seem all that close to the artwork to me, as:
1. The pale part of the head region looks like a dirty white-grey colour
2. The reds look a bit too dark and dull
3. The black doesn't look shiny

The most important of those to me are getting the pale skin and reds right, as I don't know if doing ALL the black stuff with gloss varnish would look any good, and just doing the carapace might look off against the flat black non-carapace bits?

Cheers!

well atleast to me it looks like their heads are mainly silver whit a red line.

it allso looks as if 90% of the model is black with a slight dark blue highlight/edge highlight whit a very gloss effect (alternativly sliver highlight over the dark blue "layer") on the black areas.
for the red it seems it starts dark red and progresses into orange. (possibly dark flesh tone progressing into red and into orange??)


anyways, if you google 3rd edition tyranids there are a few pics of people trying to replicate that art look, might wanna take a look at thouse.

You could do a lot worse than the new Fleshtearer contrast paint for the red (best applied over wraithbone primer). It’s a really rich, dark red and would save you a lot of time!

That was my first codex... Awwh brings back memeories