Tervigon

Having painted just over the 1750 point mark worth of Tyranids, I decided to finally paint up my Tervigon so that I could rest easy that all my Tyranids were painted rather than just my army list.

Despite being the last of a long line Tyranids, she was actually quite fun to paint. Her distended belly gave me a chance to use a mix of green and pink washes to try and get a stretched and slightly bruised appearance. The pair of Termagants bursting out of her abdomen also gave me a chance to go crazy with blood effects and gloss varnish for that fresh, traumatically birthed alien look.

I'm very happy with how she turned out and equally happy that she is the last Tyranid model I will be painting (ignoring the possibility of having to paint extra Nids for specific lists in the future),

Lictor

The last cricket match of the summer between New Zealand and Australia meant a day in front of the television, which of course led to a day of painting. I used the time to paint my zoanthrope brood and my scratchbuilt Lictor. With these done my 2016 hobby project (1750+ point Tyranid army) was complete.

This is the second incarnation of my scratch built Lictor and he's been made out of scraps from a number of other kits. I wanted him to be a lot creepier than the GW Lictor, so went for a much taller model and also gave him a bit of a stoop.

He's been modelled with a bunch of bloated sacs on top of his carapace (unused venomthrope bits) to reflect his ability to release a pheromone trail for the rest of the swarm to follow. I've also given him whip arms (again from a venomthrope kit maybe?) to represent his flesh hooks.

When it came time to paint him I decided to try out a totally new technique and paint him emerging from hiding having used his chameleon skin ability. I'd seen a couple of examples where people had used clear plastic, I'm assuming they had 3d printed these, but went down a different path for my attempt. 

I wanted to represent him having blended into the red, rocky landscape before standing up for a kill so I painted his rear right section using Citadel Martian Ironearth just like I have done for all my Tyranid bases. Having done some very heavy edge highlighting for better definition on these sections, I then painted the rest of the model in the same scheme as the rest of my Tyranids, before driving myself halfway insane trying to blend a smooth transition between the two.

The results aren't perfect, but I've got myself a unique Lictor on both the modelling and painting fronts (as best I know) and got to try out a new painting technique, so I'm putting this one down as a success. Oh, and NZ won the cricket making the day an even bigger success. 

Second Flyrant

I bought a secondhand flying Hive Tyrant recently (despite telling myself I would never paint another one). My first task was to remodel him as he had been built as a clone of my original Flyrant. This involved cutting off and rebuilding his arms and guns, turning his legs to face forward and rebuilding a knee so that his talons pointed towards a single locus.

I needed the legs to do this as I have built him swooping in to engage an Ultramarine captain. I've used dead and dying Ultramarines as sources of spot colour throughout my Tyranid force and thought I had better model at least one of them doing something heroic.

The idea for this scene has come from the blog Chucking Monkeys (http://monkeychuka.blogspot.co.nz/). The modelling on his Tyranids is top notch and has inspired me to make at least a token effort on this front with my own Tyranids.

As shown in this shot, the Flyrant is on a standard sized base that lifts out of the display base for gameplay (if I ever get round to playing a game with these guys).

When I put my two Flyrants together, this guy definitely has the lazier paintjob, which is probabaly a symptom of being my reluctant second effort. Overall I'm happy enough though, as the better modelling effort on him makes up for the sloppy painting.

Exocrine

I recently picked up an Exocrine for my Tyranid army, with a plan to use it as a 'counts as' Leman Russ tank when I ally in some genestealer cultists.

When I built it the exocrine head just seemed too small for the model (I think GW were trying to represent how dumb this Nid variant is) so I ripped it out and replaced it with a more appropriately sized Tyrannofex head.

With this model intended for use as a Leman Russ tank substitute, I also decided to replace his spindly forearms with some "praying mantis" looking ranged weapon arms that gave him some extra bulk at the front and can represent any weapon sponsons that I equip my 'tank' with.

Genestealer Brood

Finally got around to finishing a brood of Genestealers to go with the Patriarch. Like all my Tyranid troops they're pretty low quality but look good enough to put on the table,

Having had a look at the Genestealer Cult rules, I've found out that I'm not finished with these guys as I'm going to need a brood of 20 to be able to run them as allies for my Tyranids.

Genestealer Broodlord / Patriarch Ghosar

Latest addition to my Tyranids is the Patriarch Ghosar miniature from Deathwatch:Overkill.

I'll have the option to use him as a Broodlord but will most likely be looking to ally in some Genestealer Cult troops so that I can run this model as the Patriarch himself. With his brutal statline and access to Telepathy he should add a good amount of both damage and survivability to my upcoming Genestealer brood.

The Patriarch has a Genestealer familiar as part of his wargear but I really don't like the stock miniature so have added a full sized Genestealer to the base to represent his lackey. Hopefully this will also help the Patriarch to "sit well" amongst the ten other Genestealer models of the brood.

Carnifex

Just finished this Carnifex for my ever expanding Tyranid side project. As mentioned in an earlier WIP post, I've built him out of a second hand custom tervigon and a few parts from bitsandkits.co.uk.

I've also added three termagants to help it look like he is stomping through the middle of my tyranid swarm, rather than just standing around by himself

.  I imagined that the termagants would think nothing of climbing onto and over the carnifex lumbering through their midst, so chose to put them onto the carnifex himself rather than just onto his base.

Termagants

 Termagant unit for my second pledge in the Tale of X Gamers project. 

 As a unit containing large numbers of models they've had less highlight layers than my other Tyranids, but still look pretty good at tabletop distance. A spraycan mishap during the base coating has left half of them with a powdery surface on one side that was hell to paint but doesn't look TOO bad.

Carnifex WIP

For my first effort in the second stage of the Tale of 40k Gamers I picked up a secondhand Carnifex that had been converted to a custom Tervigon. I've butchered their conversion and turned it back into a Carnifex. I've also added a few little Termagant accomplices/stowaways and am now just waiting for his head and guns to arrive from England (bitsandkits.co.uk)

Flyrant finished.

Finally it's finished and fully based. Painted using the same scheme and techniques employed on my gargoyles and warriors, except for the use of Nurgle's Rot on his twin-linked devourers (going for an oozy mucus look on them).

Getting the balance of black and brown streaks right on his carapace was a struggle at first but I think it came out about right.

 Basing was fun. I've added a number of mini tyranid bugs made out of random bits from the tyranid sprues and built a Hormagaunt fighting an ultramarine out of spare parts. Having already added the minibugs to my other tyranid bases, I have now gone back and added dismembered parts of Ultramarines to a few bases to give the army a unified look and also to add a little bit of story.

Family Painting Sunday!

Stuck at home on a rainy Sunday, I was stoked when the girls decided we should do some painting.

I pinched one of Nana's orks and gave him a quick paint up. I really enjoyed painting it and will be grabbing a box at some point to replace my old Gorkamorka models with.

Nana painted her first Ork. She found the green skin VERY difficult and got a bit upset a couple of times but the whole event was saved when I busted out my 'blood paint' for her to use on his chainsword. She will be painting up his base in the next day or so and then he'll be appearing on her blog.

Meds started base coating her second tyranid (first one features in its own post) before doing a disappearing trick. She paints in patches all over the model (as you can see) which frustrates the sh!t out of me but she gets a good coverage by the end of it.

WIP Hive Tyrant #2

I spent most of Easter working on the new geek room so did almost no model painting over the 5 day break. I've got back on the wagon now though and have made good progress on the Flyrant over the last two nights.

With his carapace, torso/tail and one wing completed I just have one more wing, some detailing and the base left to do (although I may still go back and darken the under side of his right wing, as it is looking way too light for some reason).

WIP Hive Tyrant

I've started work on my Flyrant for the Tale of X Gamers. So far he has his base coats on and has had a wash with Agrax Earthshade.

 I've also put together a fight scene to go on his base, with an Ultramarine getting a last second bolt pistol shot into a Hormagaunt.

It's built out of scrap and spare pieces (the marine has legs from two different models and one of the gaunt's legs is actually an arm) but I'm happy with how it looks and the mismatched bits shouldn't be noticeable once it's in place. 

Meddy's First Model (Age 4)

Our four year old, Meds, has been watching her sister learn to paint and recently decided she wanted to "paint some aliens like Dad". While she likes my Tyranid models, she clearly thinks I got the colours all wrong.

She has painted base colours, had a go at dry brushing the teeth, and then given the whole model a wash with Agrax Earthshade. The base was painted for her.

 Meddy has now decided her next alien will have a grey "shell" (like the gun on this one) and is going to look strangely similar to the colour scheme for Hive Fleet Behemoth, leaving me wondering if someone at GW asked their four year old what colours to use for Behemoth.

Tyranids!

As part of the "Tale of X Gamers" (see Wrythsprimarchs.blogspot.co.nz for more), I've grabbed the Start Painting Tyranids box and am painting my way through it.

I've decided to go with a natural look for my Nids, opting for a bone colour with glossy black/brown carapace. The idea for the carapace actually came from a monstrous cockroach that infiltrated our house one night.

 

There were a ton of extra parts on the sprues, and with just a few more bits from Glen's Workshop, I was able to build an extra Warrior, and extra Hive Tyrant (on foot). I was already happy with the extra value of the 'Start Collecting' box, now these Nids are turning into an incredibly cheap army.

With my Warriors and Gargoyles painted, I just have my flying Hive Tyrant left to go to complete my initial pledge.