Hive Fleet Damocles - Shrikes and flyrant update

[forteh]

Hello Hive,
I've decided to repaint my nids from a variation of leviathan so here is my painting blog thread, hopefully I will manage to get it all painted! Decided to name it Hive Fleet Damocles as that is the system that they are currently invading (as per FLGS campaign).

The miniatures I have painted already will be stripped using Biostrip as it doesn't smell, works better than dettol and doesn't affect the plastic/resin

For the new colour scheme I was inspired by the link to the sand nids in EQ's thread so stole it unashamedly

Quickly did a couple of test gaunts. Using the airbrush to lay down brown to sand zentithal highlights for the skin, the rest is brushed.

The slightly odd texture is caused by using dettol to strip the existing paint (these were ebay specials).





I wanted a scheme that was quick and easy to repeat, simple but effective and would hopefully be a nice cohesive sight when completed on the table.

Any pointers, constructive criticism or random abuse will all be appreciated!

[Evan Quinn]

Looking good!

Evan~

[vespa]

I like it! How are you going to do the bases?

[Hive Carnithrope]

[Randomabuse] Your mother is a less than reputable character, nave! [/Randomabuse]



Aaaanyway. They look great! The contrast of the white and blue looks very cool, and the red goes well on the claws and face. Then need to be winter based to match the carapace! Either simple snow, or, maybe for the bigger beasties, ice? Not sure how you'd do that though. They're looking great though! Keep it up and show us more!

[forteh]

Yay! Random abuse

I was going to base them as I do the rest of my miniatures, ie: plain and boring! Fine grit (1-2mm) painted dark brown and drybrushed with grey, I've never been one for busy, fancy bases.

Having said that I quite like the idea of a snow base theme, however none of the tables at my flgs are snow themed and neither is my gameboard at home; I might pick up some snow basing stuff and add it in patches to my default brown/grey grit and see how it looks

I've refined my technique with the carapaces, on the test gaunts I used a Vallejo blue wash and drybrush, however it hasn't given the slightly more distinct layered finish I was after. By brushing them GW festering blue (old, old, old paint from the mid '90s), overbrushed with GW thunderhawk blue and sponge drybrushed (drysponged?) with GW hideous blue (same age as the festering) for highlights, I find it gives a better covering for the effect I want. For the larger bugs I will hopefully be blending the carapace colours in and just using a wash to pick out the darker recesses.

Again props to EQ for the sponge brushing, never thought to try that before. Also mounting the miniatures for brush painting is a revelation! I used an upturned shot glass and a blob of blutak and I can't understand why it's taken me so long to do this.

I have also played with a test of black spot patterning on the shoulders of the limbs and below the edges of carapaces, used a fine tip permanent marker borrowed from work to add the spots. Larger bugs will get additional details brushed in as well.

Will get some photos of the brood of 15 gaunts as soon as I've finished them, hopefully in the next day or two if I can get time to spend on them

[vespa]

I don't think I'd want to start out with a new army relying on paint colors from the mid 90s for one of the main features. What if you run out half way through the army and can't find a good match to finish? Something to think about.

I mentioned the bases earlier because as much as I like your scheme, I think you will have to be careful not to overpower it with the bases. Darker colored bases might be a problem for this. The snow bases idea might work well actually.

[forteh]

Aha, I'm confident in this pot of paint, there was about 30% of the pot left which has thickened very slightly, added a load of mixing medium and a dash of water, it is now thin enough to brush from the pot and there is a tonne of it - probably about 30ml. In the time that I've been painting I've not managed to use up an entire pot of GW paint unless I managed to spill it everywhere! Even if I do manage to use it all, it shouldn't be impossible to find a match from the current GW/P3/Vallejo/Army Painter range

I don't feel that the dark basing on my deathwing army overpowers the white/bone (this is essentially the same base colour as the way I paint deathwing), I will grab some photos of them up so you can get an idea of how it should look. I still quite like the idea of the patchy snow over the grit though.

[forteh]

A couple of quick photos of some of my deathwing showing how I was intending to base my nids. These were painted with an almost identical method to the test gaunts so hopefully you will show how the dark basing will look, patchy snow might help balance it though. Any specs of blue you can see showing through on the base is because I use blue aquarium grit and obviously didn't cover it all with the brown paint

[forteh]

Got the first brood of gaunts mostly done to a reasonable standard, some mouth details and eyes to pick out but that's about it. I based them last night with my conventional grit/burnt umber which will be drybrushed with greys now it's dried and the rim painted black. I've also added the shoulder/limb spot patterning to see how it looks - yays or nays on the spots would be appreciated as I'm not 100% on them yet

I'm also debating whether to not bother highlighting the claws at all on the little swarmy bugs, I quite like the dull flat look.

Photo is of the lot together (17 in total I think) to show how they look with the dark bases contrasting with the pale skin. What are peoples thoughts on the base colour? Would the addition of some patches of snow (going to try PVA glue + baking soda) help at all?

They're all glossed at the moment but will be hit with matte once the bases are finished

Apologies for the poor photo, it was taken in poor light with a phone flash!

Again any comments good or bad are welcome

[tofu]

I think the spots would look better with smaller spots closer together. You could also try a lighter colour(basically not black).

Another thing is I would suggest you paint the rims of your bases black so they don't stand out too much. The contrast between the black grit and the paint scheme looks great otherwise.

[forteh]

Finished the first brood

tofu: I put the spots on with a fine felt marker pen (my brush control probably isn't good enough to do proper painted spots!), I will have a play with them and see if I can get a repeatability with the smaller ones.

The base rims were always going to be back, I needed to wait for the paint on the grit to dry first though - All done with the basing at the moment. Will probably hold off the snow for the moment, I can always add it in at a later date.

[vespa]

Looking good! That's a great start to your hive.

More please!

[forteh]

Thanks for the encouraging words! Pretty pleased with how it's going so far, got another 15 hormagaunts to paint, but going to reward the slog of painting broods of gribblies with a bigger monster. Spent most of today stripping my trygon (which pained me greatly as I was really pleased with how it turned out ) so will start laying the base colours down on it tomorrow night

[tofu]

Ahhh OK. Looks really good.

Are you planning to add any details to the scheme for the trygon?

[forteh]

I'm not sure as to what additional details I might add, sort of a bit blank on that front so far. I was going to lay the base skin colour with the airbrush in the same way but take more time with overbrushing the highlights. I was also going to blend in the carapace and probably add some more wear and tear to it and washing in the recesses to give more contrast. The spotting pattern will also be detailed more, probably the black background with a mid/dark blue centre to try to blend with the carapace.

Whatever I do with the trygon, I will continue to the other big bugs

I've also pressed up what should be a decent instantmould of my brainleech devourer conversion so I can start reproducing them in milliput, hoping to run the first pair off tonight and see how well the mould worked. Got eight sets to run off so hopefully it's a good copy, will post pictures of them if they work!