Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I'm starting a Tyranid army and wondered about a colour scheme. I'd love some kind of electric-y lightning-y colour scheme but I'm not really sure what would work best. If anyone has done similar or has a good way to do this i'd love to know. Here's about the only image I can find that has anything to do with what I want to produce:



I do like this but the creator said it takes a lot of time and would be a nightmare if painting up a bunch of Gribblies. Also I think the carapace is a bit plain? (although still looks neat)

Suggestions and comments appreciated, thanks in advance!
the_vole

I think a whole army in that style would look quite impressive. Though as stated it may be time consuming. You could possibly speed it up by priming with white first then using liquid mask on the 'electric' parts before priming again with black, but it will still take a bit of time.

I think it's a neat idea. I've always considered painting up some Tyranids using inspiration from Kenner's old Aliens toys, and while I can't specifically think of an electric one, it might be worth having a look at them, or the recent Neca Aliens figures for ideas.

I'd say you could achieve that look in very little time.

Prime black
Paint the electric areas in blue
Glaze the electric areas with a fairly thick mix of white and water.
Second glaze of white and water mix if desired.
Paint teeth, tongues etc.

Hard to see in the blurry photo, but it doesn't appear there is anything more complex than that. No OSL going on or anything.

yea that aint hard to reproduse.

Paint the entire model black.
You can get a pretty ok blue glow effect if you drybrush heavily with white, give the white areas a wash with GW blue glaze and a very light drybrush of white again. (ifit is still too white just give it a very light wash of blue glaze and it will all get a blue tone)

Then toutch up the model again whit black after the messy white drybrush and paint the teeth, claw and eyes in the same colour, aka bone or grey.

An edge hightlight of dark blue would imo fit the carapace and break it up a bit.

Thanks for the ideas guys. I’ve got one of the gant 5 packs to test different ways of doing it; at the moment thinking spray white, thick wash of darker (teclis) blue, thinner wash of electric (barrahoth) blue, then skull white highlights, then cover with blue tac (haven’t got any masking fluid or anything fancy) and spray black. If it don’t work I’ll try a different way (and I’ll probably post some photos along the way).

Anyone got any other ideas feel free to comment, I’ve got 5 different possible ways to test it!

The_Vole

Just to clarify, are you aiming for an "electricity" effect, or bioluminescence?

If the latter, I might recommend basing the shells in black, with a very slight fade to grey / white near the edges. At that point, I would go back over the shells with a thinned down mahogany (reddish brown) to give a deep brown color with the reds coming out near the edges. That's just based on some bugs I saw on google with a similar effect, but I think it would be a nice compliment to the blues.

For the actual glow effect, I've had success in doing fades through sort of a dry brush method and repeatedly dabbing the central light area with white & working my way out. It will destroy your brush, but it can be effective. You could do wet blending or multiple washed out layers for the same effect, but it would add a significant amount of time if that's how you want to do the entire army.

I've got some ideas if you were trying to mimic actual electricity / arcs, but didn't want to get off topic if that was not what you were going for.

Alternatively, you could prime in grey and use a black wash (50/50 water/Abaddon Black), then apply your blue to the areas you want to 'glow'. It will give the Carapace more detail and the blue base should go over the black wash fairly well. This is sort of what I did with this old metal Zoanthrope (image from Flickr, sorry if it doesn't work).

Edit: Image now on Dakka.

Give me any ideas you’ve got nova! Anything electricity themed is great, whether it be electric blue bioluminescence, or arcs shooting off everywhere. These are just tests and any ideas appreciated, just so happens that only bioluminescence has been explored so far. Fire away!

And John photo doesn’t work :( I’d love to see it I’m action, hard to find anything online. Would you apply your blue as a wash? Dry brush? Highlight?

The_Vole

the_vole wrote:

And John photo doesn’t work :( I’d love to see it I’m action, hard to find anything online. Would you apply your blue as a wash? Dry brush? Highlight?

The_Vole

I moved the image to Dakka. Should work now. The first blue I'd put down 'normal' painting - probably an opaque but not too dark blue, then wash with darker blue and highlight with white.

Now that is a nice looking bug! See what you mean about about it, does really look amazing. Love the yellow and orange shapes on it... You going to run it as hive fleet jormungadr? (It’s a pretty similar scheme and those rumour bonuses are tasty)

How did you do your blue just out of interest?

The_Vole

Edit: your previous post just loaded for me; must have been typing at same time!

the_vole wrote:
Now that is a nice looking bug! See what you mean about about it, does really look amazing. Love the yellow and orange shapes on it... You going to run it as hive fleet jormungadr? (It’s a pretty similar scheme and those rumour bonuses are tasty)

How did you do your blue just out of interest?

The_Vole

Edit: your previous post just loaded for me; must have been typing at same time!

I'm not sure what I'll do with my 'nids. It's been so long since I painted them and I'd definitely do things differently now, and there are so many newer and better units I don't have. I also neglected the basing (green flock, yay).

The blue was straightforward dark-light-white progression, no washing, no tricks. I know better now.

I did something similar for the etherial effect on my undead.



It’s a very pale blue/grey with a turquoise glaze. Lightly drybrushed with the base in places I wanted it a bit lighter.

Black is just black, with some grey edging.

Primed white to start.

Painted the skulls first, and then the black very carefully. Overall not too hard, but a bit time consuming.

When I painted my Khemri stone statues i used black with 2 layers of red was. That made a very nice matt effekt, I think it would great on tyranid carapace. I found the recepy in white dwarf

Of course I had highlited some of the black with red. (It was red marmour) just highlight some of your black carpace in a dark blue.

From the start. Paint all black. Highlight edges dark blue. Paint what the others said i white/blue. Do a blue wash all over the model. Highlight the light parts. Do a blue wash all over the model.

With tyranids you REALLY want a method that is quick. That sounds like it.

I also really like dark tyranids. Just makes them look mean. Bright colours are like a signal colour found in nature. Excelent.

Nevelon that model is awesome! The blue is amazing, especially on the little blue guys on the base!

Guess i'll be doing lightning patterns on swords and wings and things so any ideas on that anyone?

The_Vole

Whoah. I really like the direction of those.

That Zoanthrope is dope!

Just found another pic in the same scheme, posting it below. I’m really not sure how they got it to “glow” so realistically! I guess there is some wash blending or something similar? I’ve tried a couple of times to replicate it but I always get quite a stark contrast between the electric blue and the white - maybe need some intermediary mix halfway between the two. (I’ll post pics of my attempts tomorrow when I can get some natural light)



Thoughts and comments appreciated as always!

The_Vole

If you had the model in front of you, yuy would see that all the places where it is white is in ressesses.

The rest of the model is mono coloured, despite having several details on them. Since the colour is dark, you do not see this. Eyes are drawn to bright colours. This is why black clothing is sliming.

Probably you could do this with a watered down white that you wash onto it. Then let it dry. Repeat some 2000 times. It is easier the less you water it down, but then less realistic it becomes.

I think the same has been used in the hive guards first posted. You see it in the 'brain' of the zoanthropes. Same teqnique.

The reason why it looks so good is because it seems like it has an internal light source. But you only see it where the skin is thin.

If you google 'simic' + 'mtg' you will find magic cards. The simic guild is one of the 10 guilds from the plane of ravnica. Ravnica is one big city. Like a hive city, but in a high fantasy setting. The simic are bio visionaries, burdened with guiding evolution in the urban enviorment. A lot of these cards have a biolumic glow. You can scroll around and find inspiration in simic cards. Try to find out why they glow. Take inspiration.

Ok so I’ve used 4 of the 5 Gants so far. 1 is garbage, 2 look good (could still be improved) and one is still WIP. I’d really like your opinions on the ones I’ve “finished”.

First one was done with Barrahoth blue, then a white wash:




The second was Teclis blue, 1:1 teclis:barrahoth, 10:1 skull white:barrahoth wash




Ignoring that one has carapace feathered and claws/teeth done, which looks better to you?
(Mostly talking about how realistic the glow looks)

Thank you in advance!

The_Vole

Edit: the images are huge for me actually. Imgur hasn’t done that before... any ideas how to change that?

I like the look of the second one from a color POV, but did you skip a clean up pass on him? The first one looks a lot tidier. IMHO the blue-white looks better when it’s not oozing out of the recesses.

Both of those seem to get the feel you are looking for, at least on the little guys. Nice job!

Yeah I’ll take photos post clean up. And I think i will have to use it on something bigger to try it out.

The_Vole


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ok here’s the cleaned up model:




I agree with you, the blue does look better. I’ll probably tweak it a bit but for now I’m happy with it. Comments and suggestions appreciated as always!

The_Vole

Edit: also just on a side note, ordered some sky slasher swarms a while ago and they’ve finally arrived. These critters are adorable!

Those are good atempts. However I think your contrasting colour is all wrong. You see light and colours affect each other in the eye receptors and the interpetation of the brain. If you look at the first picture you posted notice that the skinn is a dark blue grey. Only the karapace is in fact black. Try this and you will have a much better resolt. The black does not look good encrocing on the glow effect. The contrast is to big. Once you have one colour for skin and one for carapace/chitin you will have a much more lifelike model.

Man I wish I had this colour scheme. It is growing on me. And it is very good use of the tyranid model.

I see what you mean there - i hadn’t noticed the slight grey/blue hint to the skin. Isn’t it worth doing this on gribblies though? Or just warriors and above?

I guess it wouldnt be a massive amount more effort; thank you very much for the insight!
Any other things you can spot or any other suggestions?

Thanks so much for your help so far guys, nearly ready to start buying stuff!

The_Vole

You could paint them in Incubi Darkness, which is a very nearly black blue-green colour

the_vole wrote:
I see what you mean there - i hadn’t noticed the slight grey/blue hint to the skin. Isn’t it worth doing this on gribblies though? Or just warriors and above?

I guess it wouldnt be a massive amount more effort; thank you very much for the insight!
Any other things you can spot or any other suggestions?

Thanks so much for your help so far guys, nearly ready to start buying stuff!

The_Vole

No no no. It is very important. The idea is that you prime them black. Then you get the biggest brush you find to paint them that dark colour. And after that you start painting the electic colours you are talking about. It will not take long.

Possumcraft sugests Incuby Darkness. That is the wrong colour. You want the blue lizard colour. Perhaps mix it abut 50/50 with black. But it is very umportant to suptly make them much cooler. The reason for this is because they have an internal glow/bioluminesence. And the shell is to thick so it does not glow there.

Stegadon Scale Green is the colour.

Stegadon scale green is a very similar colour just (ironically) more blue than Incubi Darkness, lol.

I was thinking Incubi as it comes in a base/primer spray can for easy application.

Looking like a solid start. Think grey primer would ultimately serve you better though.
Prime grey
Couple heavy blue/green/purple washes for the fleshy bits.
Couple heavy washes of a similar but different color for the chitin.
Black gives you nowhere to go in darkening for recesses. Ends up looking like, well, black primer. Flat and featureless. The only thing to see on the models is the blue glow. I'd want that brilliant blue to be the focus but not the only thing actually there.
Imagine black primed Space Marines with beautiful, freehand shoulder pads. They'd look incomple. Same boat.
Not trying to pee in your cornflakes, I think you're on to an amazing idea. It's my opinion that black primer is a lead weight holding you down.

Yeah, I saw steggadon scale in GW the other day actually. I’ll pick some up and try it out.

And for the carapace I was thinking maybe a layer of ‘ardcoat? I would like to keep the eye carapace as dark as possible but it definitely does need something to make it less plain, a bit of a shine could do that...

The_Vole

Future floor wax. Nothing shines like that stuff, it's magic.
A bottle is under ten bucks and will last forever.

Another effect is this. Probably won't explore it too much because it looks far more complex, but the glow is interesting. Tips/ideas?



The_Vole