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Hi everyone!

Ever since I found alien looking grass in my local shop ( http://www.gamersgrass.com/alien-tufts/345-133-alien-neon-4mm.html ) I really wanted to do something with it. I thought an alien landscape with Tyranids would be cool.

Then I found CatgutPainting's wonderful tutorial on Mantis Shrimp Tyranids and thought it would be cool to combine. Yesterday I did a quick 'draft' to combine these ideas.

So what I made is a grey barren landscape which with some pools of 'goop' and the blue/pink grass. I also speed-painted a mantis shrimp tyranid. However, I used contrast paints instead of the inks suggested by CatgutPainting. This is the result: https://imgur.com/a/1Joam3n
Now my problem is I've never really been good with colours, so I'd like to ask for your opinion:

1) Are the colours of this creature too bright for the 'colourful' base?
2) Would it be better if I use the less saturated palette of Catgutpainting's tutorial?
3) Do you think a different colour scheme for the tyranid would fit better with this type of base?

As you can see on one of the pictures, I'm making more of these bases. Some will have rocks, some will have puddles and many of them will have the blue/pink grass. I might even add some other alien vegetation as well.

Thanks a lot for your help!

Personally I would say the best colours to use would be a variation of the colours already on the base.
That's If you want the alien grass to star and also blend in
if you start with the base in mind then using the colours you already have is a good idea.
Something like the bottom right scheme here



If you want to keep your origional scheme.
Using a colour wheel may help.


Complementary colours look good together. So do triads of adjacent colours.
Also warm colours work together.

Cool colours work together which is best for what you have going here.
From yellow to red are warm colours the other half are cold colours

to me the brown orangey colour on the gun and claws is the main thing for me that is making this scheme look off.
It's adding a warm colour to a cold pallet

Change this to a more neutral off white/bone colour and it would help this scheme a lot.

Toning down the saturation of the colours may help, but really I think ditching the warm colour from this scheme will help the most.

What a lovely reply, thanks so much!

I'll maybe try doing both (blue/purple nids, and same colourscheme nids with bone-coloured weapons) to see what works best. Can always strip the paint if need be.

Thanks a ton!

I guess my reply is, why are the weapons the same color as the claws? What makes those two similar? We are creating a story. IMO, make them unique.

That's a good point. I guess the biggest reason was to not have too many colours going on. Are there any colours you would suggest?

Yesterday I tried a bit of a muted version with bone-coloured weapon and claws as suggested by Flying Pooo.

https://imgur.com/a/qm6qU5I

What do you think? It could of course also be combined (bright blue with bone-white weapons etc.) or any other colours could be used. I'm open to suggestions!

Not everything has to be different colours. You could use differing tones of the same colours.

^looking good,

More colours/ shades at this point would probably just make things look too busy. Having a limited selection of colours also helps when painting in batches later as you don't have to switch out as much.

I'd say breaking up the big blocks of colour would balance it further and make it look more defined.

I'd try painting the webbing, joins and the vent(?) thingys on the guns a dark grey (almost black). Would also tie in with the grey on the base.

That's adding more steps though and it looks good enough as is. When you're painting a lot of these the less steps the better.