Tyranids
Termagaunts and Zoanthropes, old and new
Painted up six devourer termagants and the remaining two zoanthropes, but pictured alongside the already painted ones to contrast the oldest models painted in this general style and what it has come to. The older models were painted close to a decade ago (I'm not quite that slow of a painter, but there was a 6 year or so break from 40k), but were the first tyranid models I painted when I came up for the concept for the color scheme.
I wanted to go for dark green armor that got brighter at its edges and an earth tone brown flesh, picking brighter colors for guns and other details. The idea was to make an alien-looking creature (the models certainly help), that's camouflaged to blend into a bright, lush jungle - armor with foliage, skin with the ground and debris, and bright bits with the blooms. I made quite a few tweaks (as seen) to the initial idea, focusing mostly on brightening highlights to beyond "natural" to get detail and color to stick out at a distance and extending those highlights over everything instead of just the brightest spots to bring out the detail of the models. While I don't think the zoanthropes are perfectly done (and I don't think the older model fits the paint style as well), and there are some things that still need tweaking (like the devourers), but I really like what has come out of that original idea, and I'm glad that the swarm is starting to look like a proper swarm.
Next for painting is probably some plain fleshborer termagants, as I haven't finished any of those yet, and probably venomthropes, since they see so much playtime on the table and I think will work well with this paint style. Maybe before that, though, I'll make another piece of terrain or two, as much for just having cool terrain as it is tabletop survivability in the form of cover and LoS blocking.
August 24, 2015
Tyranid Tervigon
The newest painted addition to the army is a tervigon, the second monstrous creature I've got completed, a successful testing ground for some changes in my painting technique, and a great looking model. This one actually was one of my faster completion times at just about a month (yikes), but there was more than a week of no progress made during that month, and plenty of days spent just sitting on my desk.
I'm starting to take advantage of drybrushing in my painting, and the start is the top stage highlight for the skin and the first highlight of the armor plates. Drybrushing the skin highlight came first, before painting the termagant gun or any armor plates, and both was faster and showed more detail than my previous highlighting layer done towards the end of the process previously. I think the layer is a little heavy (too bright), but after a wash and against the bright armor highlights, I think it worked out pretty well anyways. A little drybrushing on the chimneys and the top armor plates helped bring out the contours of the model better and blend the highlights of the those areas more smoothly. I don't think this one is as universal - I didn't drybrush the leg armor plates and don't expect to do it a lot on future models, but for plates with more elaborate inner texturing, it helps a lot.
Next up is some termagants, which are already several days in when this page goes up. I'm working on some with devourers so that I can do a direct comparison of the very first models painted from when I came up with this style (a decade ago, there was a long no-40k break during college), and now, when it's been refined a few times and has become pretty consistent in look.
July 7, 2015
Tyranid Hive Guard
It took months, but I finally finished three hive guard to join the swarm. I'm generally happy with the way they look alongside the other nids, but I especially like the shading on the purple impaler cannons - the colors were closer to each other than the armor, so even though it's the same technique, it looks a lot more organic up close. I know it would be an easy thing to blend the main armor with a couple of intermediate tones, but honestly, it would take far too long to put down the extra layers, so I'm settling for looking great from afar and alright up close. Next model to be painted is a tervigon and though my usual painting pace says it's months away, I've already made decent progress, so maybe sooner!
Up close with the new additions to the swarm!
June 17, 2015
Trygon Prime
The biggest model I've painted for my army and a nice centerpiece, the Trygon prime. I've had it assembled for more than 6 months now and since building it, I was blown away by the detail and size of the model. That size and detail meant an equally large paint job, but after a couple months of sporadic work and a couple weeks of more focused work, I'm happy with the result.
The other pictured models were done previously, they are just a good indicator of size, the Trygon stands almost 6 inches tall!
August 21, 2014
More Hormagaunts
Another dozen hormagaunts are complete - I've finished all of the hormagaunts I own! That said, it's still a tiny fraction of the models I have. While there's 20 gargoyles and a zoanthrope that are only undercoated, everything else (which is probably 80+ models...) have been airbrushed in brown with two layers of highlights, my standard before painting the armor.
There's finally starting to be enough models to look like a proper swarm, and I'm liking the way this paint scheme looks en masse.
April 16, 2014
Ripper Swarms
Continuing the gradual painting of the army, I've completed 5 bases of ripper swarms!
To give you an idea of how long it takes me (a relatively inexperienced amateur painter) to paint these: the green armor plates are done with a base dark green and 3 layers of highlights. The top layer, the bright green highlights on the edges of the plates, took me around 5 minutes per ripper for that single color. There are 27 rippers in total across these 3 bases.
January 11, 2014
Tyranid Army
The painted portion of my Tyranid army:
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3 Warriors
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12 Hormagaunts
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6 Termagants (older paint scheme)
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1 Zoanthrope (older paint scheme)
Soon to come: a swarm of little guys (hormagaunts, termagants, rippers) which have been basecoated and begun, but need some armor color, among other things.
December 15, 2013
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The Eye Robot
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Liquid Level Sensor
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Bassoon Overhaul
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The Tyranid Swarm
