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The tyranids GW showed here, how are they made, they are amasing!

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/wnt/blog.jsp?pid=13000030 (the one from 30/january)

They are just so good to look, it is like my eyes are corusing wivid colour scheme. I have 2 questions:

1: How do you get those effects? They say the teqnique in the article but come on, he needs to use an airbrush right?

2: How do you feel about breaking away from the standar colour scheme and just do it like that. For instance the skin is not very white,

3: I am alaways having a hard time making the right colour on my wing as this often needs a colour that is not the carapce or the rest of the body. How do you think about colouring them in purple as he or she did here.

 Niiai wrote:
The tyranids GW showed here, how are they made, they are amasing!

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/wnt/blog.jsp?pid=13000030 (the one from 30/january)

They are just so good to look, it is like my eyes are corusing wivid colour scheme. I have 2 questions:

1: How do you get those effects? They say the teqnique in the article but come on, he needs to use an airbrush right?

Yeah, looks like an airbrush and then done some extra tinting to bring out certain colours. BuyPainted has done a Trygon that, while not the same, is also done with an airbrush and you can get some really good effects.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJha39IUztU

It almost makes me want to repaint my 'nids with an airbrush.... almost, lol.

2: How do you feel about breaking away from the standar colour scheme and just do it like that. For instance the skin is not very white,

Tyranids are pretty open to painting however the heck you want. They're one of the better armies to airbrush in the sense you can do a lot of funky things and they'll still look good as long as you can make the funky things look good

3: I am alaways having a hard time making the right colour on my wing as this often needs a colour that is not the carapce or the rest of the body. How do you think about colouring them in purple as he or she did here.

Man I wish I could airbush.

I am doing the leviathan scheem. Pretty striaght up:

Bone coloured "flesh" with a red wash and a very white highlight. Mostly bright. Black to purple to grey in the carapace. a very dark red, (washed red) to the red/orange highlight on the claws. Details like eyes can be done in green. Same with toxic parts (not a lot of it)

Functions quite well in my opinion. I try to do the wings in a very dark brown, or a light black for my tyrant.

I am quite pleased with them, but I am really loving airbushed nids. But as long as I am using brushes i need to stick to the strenght of brushes.

Airbrushing for sure. Damn, I gotta get one ffs.

Jupp. Organic surfaces + airbrush = true love.

they are some of the most beautifully-painted tyranids I've seen in ages.

The guy that painted them has a channel on youtube and I follow him on Facebook. He uses a no name airbrush and paints at extremely high pressures all the time but he accomplishes miracles.. His nids are pretty awesome and the other day I think he posted the colors he used to achieve the color scheme you see. Pretty nice fella .

Found the linky http://www.medowsarts.com/

I had a little chuckle to myself reading the GW Blog.

You can imagine the conversation....

"he uses a what to do those Nids?"

"....can we convince everyone he does that with a Spray Gun?"

"...ok, so just write the colours out like he paints them with a brush, THEY MUST NOT KNOW ABOUT THINGS WE DO NOT SELL!!!!"

Seems legit .

Do you think the guys at Heavy metal team don't use an airbrush? It is their little secret

Man am I yellus. Those things are radical.

However I see he ussualy uses some very basiq teqnuices on that homepage.

1: Make the model very dark. Shade it with grey, black and/or brown.

2: Pick 2 spot colours, preferably contrasting each other 180 degres on the colour wheel. Use one one the whole model as a whole. Use the other one as a spot colour on details.

There are some expetions to the colour scheeme. For instance theese nids are purple/white. (And one uses orange as a second spot colour.)

I wish I had picked this as a base colour for my nids, but I suppose the shading works best with an airbrush.

Yeah, as someone who has been airbrushing for a year or so now, I appreciate the quality of his finished article, but there don't seem to be any particularly advanced techniques used, just some simple ones well executed.

Beyond my ability to replicate right now, but not beyond my ability to identify.

If you want to paint a whole army you must use simple techniques or a lot of time.

azreal13 wrote:Yeah, as someone who has been airbrushing for a year or so now, I appreciate the quality of his finished article, but there don't seem to be any particularly advanced techniques used, just some simple ones well executed.

Beyond my ability to replicate right now, but not beyond my ability to identify.

True. I have been airbrushing for a year and a half now and after I saw his hydra video I could identify all the techniques but I am not sure I can replicate that well .

Kilkrazy wrote:If you want to paint a whole army you must use simple techniques or a lot of time.

If you wish to finish in the next 10 years then yes you are right. Simple techniques that work well on the whole army.

For me painting always seems a loot like cooking.

You should always follow a respire. Of course I always want to do my own thing and I am not happy with the result until after a few attempts. Our airbrush cook do not use advanced meals, he just executes them very well.

I got an airbrush just so I could stomach doing a nid army. I'm getting old and painting 100+ small gribbles and 9-14 monstrous creatures all by had just wasn't in the stars for me. I've got a batch of nids done just as a proof of concept thing and I have to say I don't know how I survived before I got my airbrush. I've only barely started to scratch the surface of whats possible but i'm loving it. Here's a batch of my first dudes. Even with no experience you can still get some ok results.

Guinness, if we are to goggle at your 'nids, we need bigger pix!

Guinnes707 I love that old tyranid hive commander! He is just so menasing. The old warriors where not that great but the swarm leader is ace.

Also good claws on that carnifex!

I am currentlu living in a colective, I do not have a good aired room to airbush in. I discussed airbushing a lot but I would need some sort of kabinet to do it in or something. :-(

The models in the article in the OP, as others have said, must have been done with an airbrush... it's odd that it makes no mention of that, but maybe it's a secret

Well, the point was just to show the pre-shading done on the Mawloc really. All the shading there (ala the BuyPainted guys wonderful youtube vid posted above) is just from the airbrush. After you do that and throw on a wash the gradient is really nice. If any of you are on the fence about an airbrush I'd advise taking the plunge. Really, its the best thing for the hobby i've ever bought not including the original Rogue Trader book.


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 Niiai wrote:
Guinnes707 I love that old tyranid hive commander! He is just so menasing. The old warriors where not that great but the swarm leader is ace.

Also good claws on that carnifex!

I am currentlu living in a colective, I do not have a good aired room to airbush in. I discussed airbushing a lot but I would need some sort of kabinet to do it in or something. :-(

I wish I had a pic showing my airbrushing area. Basically its a very small desk under a window with some newspapers spread-out. I use an old box top for overspray and that's it. My wife complains about the smell a bit but its not that bad. Have you thought about getting a small fold up card table? you could just airbrush outside (perish the thought) maybe? I've thought about doing that if the wind ever died down.

 azreal13 wrote:
I had a little chuckle to myself reading the GW Blog.

You can imagine the conversation....

"he uses a what to do those Nids?"

"....can we convince everyone he does that with a Spray Gun?"

"...ok, so just write the colours out like he paints them with a brush, THEY MUST NOT KNOW ABOUT THINGS WE DO NOT SELL!!!!"

Didn't GW use to sell an airbrush that was styled to look like a hand flamer (as I recall it was crap by all reports: suprise suprise)? I swear I saw such a thing not that long ago.

No, that's what I was referencing with the Spray Gun.

That thing is no closer to a proper airbrush than me blowing paint through a straw.

 azreal13 wrote:
No, that's what I was referencing with the Spray Gun.

That thing is no closer to a proper airbrush than me blowing paint through a straw.

Oh, yeah. Missed that.

Proprietary CO2 cartridges and no capacity for a compressor, right?

Yep, it is also a syphon feed, single action and about a 3" nozzle!

The gw brush had problem. It always got full of paint.

Here we go:


surely you can get a set up that can trump mine even in a collective. I had one of those GW air...gun..things. The comparison of it to a proper gravity fed airbrush is akin to miniature painting with a rock over a kolinsky brush.