Start Collecting! TYRANIDS [WIP] (Now with Hive Tyrant!)

[r34dy5t34dydr4w]

Hello. I'm a regular over at Dakka, but I wanted to get some input from some other people.

I've recently re-kindled my oassion for Warhammer 40,000. After mulling around several different options of what I wanted to play, I decided to embrace the Tyranids once again. They were my first love of Warhammer 40,000 and I always had plans to assemble a really grandiose Tyranid swarm, but never really had the resources in my childhood to do such a thing. Also, I haven't painted a model in roughly 4 years. Needless to say, I'm out-of-practice. I started out by purchasing the Start Collecting! TYRANIDS box. Honestly, I don't care about how completely under-whelming they are game-wise, nor will I ever be a part of the competitive gaming scene. That said, I though the discount was awesome (I got it for $60.00 USD on a Black Friday special) and it was a interesting little formation.

Anyway, I started painting the Gargoyles first. In my earlier years of painting, I was an obnoxious GW color scheme fanatic. GW color schemes or bust. Always. I've since grown away from that school of thought (thankfully) but this is honestly my first foray into something that I would consider to be the antithesis of such a way of painting. I never would have attempted to do something like this before now. I've become quite a fan of ThirdEyeNuke's style of painting. If you haven't seen the Tyranids they paint, I definitely suggest you check it out. I've really fallen for the dirty and 'realistic' approach they took to designing the color palette they use for their Tyranids... so much so that I really wanted to emulate their style. However, since ThirdEyeNuke has notably never authored a guide to painting Tyranids, I just sort of winged it.

So, this is my first attempt:



Thoughts? Input? I'd love to hear anything.

[tomb]

Looking great!

You've successfully made gargoyles look like they came straight out of the nightmare before Christmas, nice.

This will be a quick (I'm assuming the airbrush work was quick) and effective way to get a stylish army painted. Looking forwards to seeing your Flyrant and Warriors.

Some tips for your next purchases...

Read the tactics units sticky and previous advise. Although you arn't aiming for competitive your paint scheme lends itself to flying nids. Consider picking up a couple of flyrants and crones as your next purchases. eBay some rippers and/or sculpt some mucalids as troops.

Welcome to the hive.

[r34dy5t34dydr4w]

I will definitely look into that. Thank you.

The wings were looking a little too pastel and chalky for me, so I traced around the "finges" in the wings with a mixture of Agrax Earthshade and Reikland Fleshshade to add some sort of definition to them. After that was dry, I took an old, stiff brush and loaded it with Athonian Camoshade and Agrax Earthshade and flicked it at the wings to add some sort of random, yet natural looking, spots on the wings.

[tomb]

I like the shade and splatter, your right the wings needed a little definition.

whats your plan for basing?

keep it coming, nice one.

[r34dy5t34dydr4w]

Much appreciated, sir. Honestly, I don't know if I'm quite finished with the Gargoyles quite yet. I have a few more things I want to try first before I hang up the towel on them. As for the bases... I have some coarse small and medium-sized talus and, of course, sand. I've had it for awhile but never actually used it, so I think I'm just going to go for the generic "rocky/sandy" variety of bases with some sort of tufts to break up the monotony. I've always wanted to use sand and slate chips, but I've only recently ordered a bunch of slate chips so I don't have them yet. I never thought I'd be so anxious to get chipped rocks in the mail. Hahah.

[r34dy5t34dydr4w]

Since I'm waiting on some Tamiya Clear Red and some random Vallejo stuff to arrive in the mail, I decided to poke around with one of the bases tonight before bed.







Front/back views.

I think I might add some sort of brown, grey and red pigments to the base. The model over-all is really grey. Pigments might be a good way to add some other natural colors into the fold.

[tomb]

That base is tidy.

Pigments are great for bases, I use a blob of brown paint then I place the brush in the mud pigment and dab it in to the brown blob, it creates a two tone patch of weathering. But that's me...

[r34dy5t34dydr4w]

I didn't get a whole lot done today; sore from work. ;_;

I liked the fleshy effect on the head so much that I wanted to try to replicate it on the Fleshborers. I loaded up the airbrush with Pallid Wychflesh and hit the Fleshborers. Unfortunately, over-spray hit a lot of things I'd already done, so it sort of mottled those effects a bit. After it was dry, I slathered a generous amount of Reikland Fleshshade onto them and tried to, like, feather it up the arms so the two different tones might meld together on the arms. It worked reasonably well on some and not so well on others. Painting a fully assembled model is always a nightmare for me.

After everything was dry, I touched up the carapace, crest and Fleshborer shell again. I'll probably be done until I get the other mediums I ordered to work with. Enjoy!

[blackrainbow]

I definately like the gargs, splatter, shading, teeth and guns up above, all great work. Get the bases set with basics and they're all done.

[r34dy5t34dydr4w]

... and I think I'm going to call this a wrap. Going to take professional pictures of them tomorrow and re-post them in all of their glory.



Any feedback, opinions or thoughts would be greatly appreciated..! Don't be kind just to spare my feelings or anything.



A few people asked me if they're for sale or not. I don't have a price in mind, but since these are essentially test models for me, if someone was interested in taking them, I'd just like to get back the approximate MSRP for a squad of Tyranid Gargoyles ($29.00 USD) plus shipping, which would probably be ~$10.00 or so for a small box.



Anyway, let me know what you think.

[r34dy5t34dydr4w]

Here are some pseudo-professional pictures:

[sunshine]

Those gargoyles are awesome! Especially like the spots on the wing membranes, very cool. Can't wait to see the Tyrant and warriors!

[r34dy5t34dydr4w]

Thanks, man! I'm on a holiday vacation right now for seven days, but when I get back, I'm going to start work on the Hive Tyrant. I learned a lot from this experience and I think it's going to be a lot better.

[Remalis]

Very cool looking work there indeed! An army in such a scheme, will be the absolute pride if anyone's collection and a sight to behold if it were ever to field against an opponent.
I second previous posts regarding a flying theme to the army. The style of painting lends itself to make use of large wing surfaces.
Can't wait to see more.

[r34dy5t34dydr4w]

Finally had some time to work on this beauty. The holidays have really put the crunch on my time to paint.



I was working on some of the TL-Devourers from ForgeWorld, but I absolutely hate resin and they looked really terrible when I got done with them. I think I'll just try to find some Tyrannofex Fleshborer Hive bits on eBay or something and use those instead.



Anyway! Thoughts? Opinions?