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EDIT: There is a 7 year gap in this blog! On page 5 there is the update/continuation post after that gap! I have updated the paint scheme, see below! Hello to new users who will see this for the first time, and hello to anyone who may still be here from before and remembers this thread! Formerly Hive Fleet Isvärld, now renamed to Hive Fleet Niflheim!


Ok so this will be my project blog on my new/revamped tyranid army. I started collecting tyranids around 2004 when I was about 13 years old. At the time I knew nothing about correct painting and modelling, so just did my best! I stopped collecting/painting around 2006 due to life stuff.
However, I kept my tyranids and planned to get back into them at some point. (I should mention that I never learned to play 40k, due to not being able to afford the rule book, so instead me and my brother invented our own way of battling our small armies)

Anyway, I recently got my old tyranids back (we have moved a lot so they have been in various boxes around the country!) I will show a few photos of the old scheme I chose to paint them. Bear in mind that these are not well painted due to doing them when I was young and no experience or knowledge of the proper techniques, didn't even thin the GW paints! Right now I am stripping them using Fairy Power Spray, which I learned about here

Once I have them stripped I'll be able to start painting. I also bought a new trygon, first tyranid I've bought in all those years! Nicknamed him Spike on account of how it was quite a painful experience assembling him thus far!
I am planning on doing green stuff sculpts on most of my tyranids.

The idea is that this fleet is from a cold world, perhaps they specialise in attacking cold planets, and their colours are starting to change to work in these environments. The name, which took me a while to decide on, Is-värld, is the Swedish for Ice-World or Ice-realm. Wanted a Nordic language to describe their origin The bases will be painted with a slate and snow theme, I've seen a lot of decent bark pieces near where I walk the dog, so may try to pick up some of those and see how it will work, once I get to the basing stage that is.

Here are a few pictures to begin this journey with!

Nice work ! Lets see some more !

 Big H wrote:
Nice work ! Lets see some more !

Hehe thanks! And yep will post updates as I go along of course

Will be trying airbrushing for the first time, and painting the scheme on some gaunts as a test to see how it turns out!

Your paint scheme ideas look really cool. Looking forward to seeing how this turns out. Always remember that the greatest painters out there all started out at the beginning. No one is perfect from the onset. The more you practice the better you will get. Keep at it!

 Glaiceana wrote:

 Big H wrote:
Nice work ! Lets see some more !

Hehe thanks! And yep will post updates as I go along of course

Will be trying airbrushing for the first time, and painting the scheme on some gaunts as a test to see how it turns out!

Cool , would like to see them , I don't do much with 'nids but have some on the painting desk for Space Hulk which one day i promise to finish !

'Isvärld' is spelled without a '-'

Good luck!

Warboss_Waaazag wrote:Your paint scheme ideas look really cool. Looking forward to seeing how this turns out. Always remember that the greatest painters out there all started out at the beginning. No one is perfect from the onset. The more you practice the better you will get. Keep at it!

Thank you! And I guess I do have the advantage of having painted before, as you can see from the pics, so not totally new to the whole thing. And I've been reading a lot of tutorials here and watching painting tips videos, so I definitely feel more prepared this time!

BrotherHaraldus wrote:'Isvärld' is spelled without a '-'

Good luck!

Oh so it will work as one word? I put "-" in because I was using them as two separate words but still wanted them linked for the name. If it works joined as one word I'll definitely update it

Can't wait to see how it the army turns out! It's always good to know there are some girls that enjoy the hobby too!

Lucarikx

Planning on starting a Tyranid army in the next couple of weeks, definately gonna keep an eye on this thread.
Interesting color pallette too, looking forward to how that turns out.

On the off chance its of interest, Peregrine achieved some epic (IMO) snow effects on the bases here http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/526208.page
he explains how he did it a few posts into the first page.
:bounce:

The paint scheme looks promising. Very cool colors.

Very cool paint scheme will keep a eye on thread as i have a nid army and love seeing what other people do with their hive fleet. i dont know if your going to give the bases a snow effect but here is something im going to do for my space wolves might give you some ideas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJyxP1mVhoo

Lucarikx wrote:Can't wait to see how it the army turns out! It's always good to know there are some girls that enjoy the hobby too!

Lucarikx

Hehe thanks!

Hart wrote:Planning on starting a Tyranid army in the next couple of weeks, definately gonna keep an eye on this thread.
Interesting color pallette too, looking forward to how that turns out.

On the off chance its of interest, Peregrine achieved some epic (IMO) snow effects on the bases here http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/526208.page
he explains how he did it a few posts into the first page.
:bounce:

Thanks for the link! I was going to use a tutorial I found here, I think it was in the article section on how to make snow bases, but I can't find it now which is really annoying.

VetGrunt wrote:Very cool paint scheme will keep a eye on thread as i have a nid army and love seeing what other people do with their hive fleet. i dont know if your going to give the bases a snow effect but here is something im going to do for my space wolves might give you some ideas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJyxP1mVhoo

Thanks for the link, it was a great tutorial!

Ok a small update: I put in a few gaunts to be stripped with Fairy Power Spray, to see how it went. Left them for 24 hours after trying to scrub one that was in for only an hour, just to check if there was anything happening. Which there was just not much. So I have 4 clean ish ones that I scrubbed with a toothbrush today. Will show a picture below. The hardest part was getting the old graveyard earth paint off of the bases! They are about as clean as I can get them really, and I think that once they are base coated, they will be fine. Will obviously need to clean up the models themselves as back when I assembled them I didn't know about removing mold lines and extra bits of plastic!
Also, I'll show the paints that were suggested to me by a GW employee for my paint scheme. I bought the teclis blue later for use in the carapace pattern. Thinking I should be able to use the other colours to blend for everything else I might need. Will probably need a white paint though. Was thinking about using one of my spare cheap acrylic paints, but thinking it might not be a good idea now.
I've ordered some magnets for Spike, should be here soon, and I'll also work on some green stuff sculpting on him in the next few days.

So a new update. I am waiting on a couple of adapters for my compressor before I can start airbrushing. In the mean time I have cleaned up a few more old gaunts. Managed to lose a head down the sink, so that's a warning to everyone who might try cleaning their miniatures at the sink!
Also, I bought a small set of termagaunts, 5 in total in the box, they are the clip together kind. I will be using these as the test subjects for the paint scheme! I figured that since I'm starting out painting properly, and it being a test, I might as well start on decent models rather than 8 year old, recently stripped ones, to give myself a better chance The set of 5 was only about £6, so was a pretty good buy.

However, as you're about to see, while I was assembling them today, I noticed that one had some kind of mold error. On his left arm, he kind of had a wing attaching to his chest, a big chunk of plastic basically, and it looked very silly! So... I decided to solve the problem by carving out the plastic as best as I could. Actually turned out ok as you'll see below.

The top 4 images show the problem, compared to a normal gaunt and from different angles. You can see where I marked in lines where the arm SHOULD be. (it looked a lot worse before I drew in those lines!) The bottom 4 images show the problem solved. Still needs a little bit of work to smooth it out, but from a normal standing view, he now looks like the others!

Can't wait to see the scheme on them - give them Gaunts a reward for their no doubt terrifying stripping experience.

Open plug holes will devour model parts ! Run a few inches of water with the plug in !!

I've never lost parts down the sink myself , obviously !

Sparkadia wrote:Can't wait to see the scheme on them - give them Gaunts a reward for their no doubt terrifying stripping experience.

I guess their reward will be getting an awesome new paint scheme

Big H wrote:Open plug holes will devour model parts ! Run a few inches of water with the plug in !!

I've never lost parts down the sink myself , obviously !

Lost the plug for the kitchen sink sadly xD But yeah I'll be more careful next time. The annoying part was that it didn't even bounce, didn't even hit the sides of the plug or anything, just went straight down xD

Oh dear thats why I dont recycle models n strip them, shall be another update soon on my blog showing the leg workings on flyrant, attached and all

wargamer1985 wrote:
Oh dear thats why I dont recycle models n strip them

You're missing out !

Lol not really but thats just my opinion

Uh oh. BUGS!!! We're gonna dieeeeeeee!!!


Okay, had to get that out of my system. Welcome back to the hobby! Unfortunately I must inform you that there are no girls on the internet, and by default you are now assumed to be a 40 year old man named Earl with severe psoriasis. It's just standard internet procedure

Trygon looks good so far, and I can see in your earlier scheme the potential for a very nice army if you'd had more years' worth of experience in painting or just life in general. Looking forward to seeing where this goes.

 bossfearless wrote:
Uh oh. BUGS!!! We're gonna dieeeeeeee!!!


Okay, had to get that out of my system. Welcome back to the hobby! Unfortunately I must inform you that there are no girls on the internet, and by default you are now assumed to be a 40 year old man named Earl with severe psoriasis. It's just standard internet procedure

Trygon looks good so far, and I can see in your earlier scheme the potential for a very nice army if you'd had more years' worth of experience in painting or just life in general. Looking forward to seeing where this goes.

I've been told I don't exist plenty of times before, so used to it by now
Thanks, and yep I'm magnetising his first set of scythe arms right now, will post later if it goes well.
Love your dubsetp tau btw!

Welcome back. Definately look forward to seeing the first model. How many figures are you planning on? Make sure your color scheme holds up well en masse, otherwise you will go crazy when you look at that sea of termagants.

Good luck, girl! If you can paint models half as well as you make colour scheme concepts, this is an army that I'll be watching.

 bossfearless wrote:
there are no girls on the internet

I don't exist either?

Welcome back to the hobby!! Really cool paint scheme! Looking forward to seeing it on model!!
Cheers

BB

Nifty paint scheme. I am interrested in your progess and seeing the end results.

Btw: Girls on the internet exist, they are just very rare so treat them delicately

Ifurita wrote:Welcome back. Definately look forward to seeing the first model. How many figures are you planning on? Make sure your color scheme holds up well en masse, otherwise you will go crazy when you look at that sea of termagants.

I think the colour scheme will work out pretty well in a group, just picturing the sharp blue pattern on all the carapaces, should stand out quite nicely Not sure how many models yet, I'm not planning on playing competitively, if I do learn that is.

BrotherHaraldus wrote:Good luck, girl! If you can paint models half as well as you make colour scheme concepts, this is an army that I'll be watching.

 bossfearless wrote:
there are no girls on the internet

I don't exist either?

Thanks! And yeah we know we exist at least XD

bebopdrums2424 wrote:Welcome back to the hobby!! Really cool paint scheme! Looking forward to seeing it on model!!
Cheers
BB

Thanks! Will be getting to painting soon!

Evariuda wrote:Nifty paint scheme. I am interrested in your progess and seeing the end results.

Btw: Girls on the internet exist, they are just very rare so treat them delicately

Thanks!

And now for the update. Spike is pretty much done. I worked on magnetising his top set of arms, the large ones, and made a couple of mistakes. Decided therefore that I won't magnetise his smaller arms, as this was more of a learning thing. Will save the other magnets for other big models that will need them, such as the flyrant I hope to get eventually But yes, with his large arms removable, it will be easier than painting around them lol.
I may do some more green stuff additions to him, I find that the head spikes are rather repetative, so think I'll add in some variation to those, and thinking of doing something with his tail as well. But yes, here's some pics of Spike fully assembled!

 Glaiceana wrote:

 bossfearless wrote:

Love your dubsetp tau btw!

Thanks!


Do you have the new Nid codex in hand yet? If not, I advise you to refrain from painting on the Trygon until you've had a chance to really sink your teeth into the new book. There have been plenty of times when I started building and painting a model only to have to pop the arms/head/tail/whatever off when I realized that my chosen wargear was no longer what I wanted. For example, I've read conflicting rumors about scything talons becoming rather pointless, so Spike might have a slight problem there.

 Glaiceana wrote:

 bossfearless wrote:

Love your dubsetp tau btw!

Thanks!


Do you have the new Nid codex in hand yet? If not, I advise you to refrain from painting on the Trygon until you've had a chance to really sink your teeth into the new book. There have been plenty of times when I started building and painting a model only to have to pop the arms/head/tail/whatever off when I realized that my chosen wargear was no longer what I wanted. For example, I've read conflicting rumors about scything talons becoming rather pointless, so Spike might have a slight problem there.

Your quotes are a bit mixed up, but no I don't have the new codex. I have the previous one though, hoping that the Trygon isn't changing too much. Although, I don't think trygons have any other options other than scythes, so he's stuck that way anyway XD


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Seems there's a problem with the site, if you quote someone and reply to it, it makes it part of their message and not your own, I tried to fix the above one but cannot. Hope that's fixed soon.

You need to make sure your text is not inside the [quote ][/quote ] signs. Hope this helps, if the problem isn't elsewhere.

Slap some paint on 'em already!

 Scrazza wrote:
You need to make sure your text is not inside the [quote ][/quote ] signs. Hope this helps, if the problem isn't elsewhere.

Slap some paint on 'em already!

Its definitely not inside the quote marks, I'm replying to you normally as well, lets see if it does it here too.

EDIT: Seems to work now, perhaps its a problem when there's several quotes going on, oh well, nevermind.

And yep I'll be painting them soon, I am waiting for some adapters for my airbrush to arrive