Tips for painting Tyranids

[shadowblade4444]

Been painting and building up my army for a while now, Hive Fleet Umbra I'm calling it. Whenever I finish with a unit I'm never 100% happy with how it turns out, a lot of the techniques I see online can't really help me as my color scheme uses very dark colors. Some pics of my units below.







Been trying my best with highlighting, dry brushing and edge highlighitng but it never turns out the way I want it too.

[yoritomo]

It doesn't look bad, just kind of flat.

You've been doing three different kinds of highlighting, but what shading have you been doing? If I had to guess I'd say that you've primed the models black and then left bare undercoat exposed where you want shadows on your model. If this is the case I disagree with the decision. You either take the time to blend it properly or evenly apply the basecoat and throw a wash on the model. I think a wash of agrax earthshade would do wonders for your models. Throw it on after your basecoat but before your highlights and it should bring out a lot of the small details, especially on the swarmord's torso and joints and the heirophant's pincers.

Other than that it looks like you're using black as one of your base colors. Black is very difficult to work with and have it look good. I usually discourage people from using it as a base color, but if you must use black then you need to go overboard on the highlights and blends to make it look good.

When I look at your black carapace the best looking bit in the pictures you've provided are on the swarmlord's legs. It's red on the edge and blends all the way to the back. Great effect. Look at your phant, the body carapace is okay. About half of it is red, which is good, the blend could be better but it's a big model so I understand. Now look at the phant's legs. It's just a red line on each plate. It's literally just one step up from edge highlighting. There's not enough red and no blending. Does not look good in my opinion. Then again, it could be the picture, so take it with a grain of salt. Then there is your tervigon. In the picture that body carapace is flat black with no color. It needs some kind of highlight or color otherwise it's just going to look flat and dull with no detail.

Anyway, that's my two cents, I hope it helps.

[shadowblade4444]

Apr 16, 2022 22:21:08 GMT yoritomo said:

It doesn't look bad, just kind of flat.

You've been doing three different kinds of highlighting, but what shading have you been doing? If I had to guess I'd say that you've primed the models black and then left bare undercoat exposed where you want shadows on your model. If this is the case I disagree with the decision. You either take the time to blend it properly or evenly apply the basecoat and throw a wash on the model. I think a wash of agrax earthshade would do wonders for your models. Throw it on after your basecoat but before your highlights and it should bring out a lot of the small details, especially on the swarmord's torso and joints and the heirophant's pincers.

Other than that it looks like you're using black as one of your base colors. Black is very difficult to work with and have it look good. I usually discourage people from using it as a base color, but if you must use black then you need to go overboard on the highlights and blends to make it look good.

When I look at your black carapace the best looking bit in the pictures you've provided are on the swarmlord's legs. It's red on the edge and blends all the way to the back. Great effect. Look at your phant, the body carapace is okay. About half of it is red, which is good, the blend could be better but it's a big model so I understand. Now look at the phant's legs. It's just a red line on each plate. It's literally just one step up from edge highlighting. There's not enough red and no blending. Does not look good in my opinion. Then again, it could be the picture, so take it with a grain of salt. Then there is your tervigon. In the picture that body carapace is flat black with no color. It needs some kind of highlight or color otherwise it's just going to look flat and dull with no detail.

Anyway, that's my two cents, I hope it helps.

Yeah I was doing like red streaks by just brushing backwards with Mephistion Red. I haven't done a whole lot of shading as thats something I struggle with as well, should I just coat the entire model in in Agax Earthshade? Or only certain bits?

And its very hard to tell in the photo but the Phant's legs aren't just a solid red line on the edge, there are red streaks that go up from that red line that are very hard to see in the photo. Thanks for the tips as well! I haven't thought of using Earthshade

[yoritomo]

Normally I’d wash the whole model with earthshade. In this case however, you have things like highlighting you may not want to go over. Going forward I’d go over the whole model with earthshade, but I’d selectively apply it to your painted models. I’d go over the purple like on the torso, arms, and legs as well as the red in the joints and vents. I’d even wash the black to purple transitions on the arms to the weapons on the swarmlord. I’d try to avoid washing anything you’ve put a bunch of highlights on. You don’t want them picking up a brown hew from the earthshade. You probably don’t need to wash the black carapace either.

You still need to do something about that black. You can’t shade black. I’d look to see if you can find a charcoal or very dark blue paint. That would let you use a black wash to solve your shading problem. If that’s not what you want then I’d work on blending.

For the record, highlights and drybrushing are both forms of blending. You’ve been doing it without even realizing it. If you’re not ready for something complicated then keep it simple. Just do a drybrush fade on the carapace. Heavy on the edge of a plate and draw it to the next plate. Practice on some gaunts if you need to. The best way to learn it is to just do it.

[scriptum]

I agree with yoritomo, you are in the right way, but more contrast is needed. I recommend you to have a look at this:
youtu.be/G9r_O0ZFmyQ
I hope it helps you!

[shadowblade4444]

Tried to use Agarax Earthshade on the susk and guns, I think they turned out alright? Its hard to tell.

[yoritomo]

It looks good. The flash is putting an artificial highlight on the tusk. The far tusk looks much more like it should. If you think it needs more you can always put a red drybrush over it to bring back some of the red on the high spots.