The Hive

[AtlasTelamon]

 

Hello B&C, I've started a Tyranid army. 

 

There are a couple of goals I have while creating this army.

 

My Heretics Astartes army is a project that has spanned over a decade and has always been rife with experimentation between making models and choosing color schemes. The result of this, perhaps fittingly, is a chaotic army with no focus, a multicolored warband from across all time and place. It sounds pretty cool when I put it that way  but the army has always trailed a huge pile of shame, half finished ideas, and mental turmoil. 

 

So with these Tyranids I plan on avoiding this. I spent some time dialing in a simple, but effective, scheme that focuses on balancing creation speed with both eye candy situations (up close under a white light, and on the table top with some less intense lighting). 

 

These warriors take me less than an hour each from sprue to painted, and the plan is to finish each box before I purchase another, leaving no nid behind. 

 

I figured I would whip up a quick blog so others can watch this hive grow from a little spore lost in hyperspace. The goal is creation speed, and hopefully through sharing I can learn from the B&C community to make this hive something better then I could do on my own. 

Edited April 7, 2021 by AtlasTelamon

[WarriorFish]

Welcome to the Hive Mind :tu: Nids are great for a unified scheme, plus with all the washes and Contrast paints etc it has never been easier to produce good looking critters with less work :) I presume the picture is of your scheme, what kind of help are you looking for?

[AtlasTelamon]

Thanks for the warm welcome Fish, The picture is indeed my first go at a scheme. I've never painted really organic models before and I'm always looking for tips and tricks that can improve efficiency, reducing the workload while achieving better results. Right now the process is to airbrush the brown, followed by airbrushed the red in a targeted fashion, then a sepia wash. I then brush on the carapace followed by a wash. Simple, effective, could probably be better. 

[WarriorFish]

Any new scheme needs some refining, not just to make sure you're happy with it but also to find improvements and efficiencies For organic models you can approach them in a few ways as there are lots of opportunities depending on how much work you're interested in. The main difference is the obvious in the carapace/body divide. As the body is "soft" organic creature I find that avoiding highlights looks more right for it, but is also conveniently less work to just slap a wash on

 

The carapace with hard edges and being more prominent is where you can do some edge highlighting if you like, thanks to the structure of them it's pretty easy too I think it'll be worth thinking about thinning the washes down to give them a milder impact as well as help reduce risk of pooling. The body's colour might look a bit better with a lighter look, though it looks more green to me?

 

I think it will also be worth looking at a different colour for the scythes/claws and hooves, they are a bit different to the carapace and it's a good opportunity to add a bit of contrasting and complementary colour I'm not sure what this colour could be, perhaps because I am slightly "pre-indisposed" against teal so take my suggestions with appropriate salt

[Xenith]

Welcome to the Fleets, and I look forward to seeing your swarm grow.

 

Cutting down on paint time for nids is a great idea, and one I've been pursuing, Contrast paints have been a lifesaver in this and I've got painting a unit of gaunts down from a month (lack of motivation) to an evening. Maybe test out a model with the brown or sepia contrasts over a wraithbone base. with green on the carapace?

[Hiroitchi]

Looking amazing man...love the use of contrast paints. If you want a glossy wet appearance I’m a full advocate of using microscale gloss varnish. Makes it shiny and wet look.

[AtlasTelamon]

First box of Termagaunts assembled. I am happy I was able to crush them out in an afternoon including the green stuff bases. I don't have much experience with the stuff so I am a little hesitant with how much time I have to work with the material. I'm flirting with the idea of buying the Alien Invasion bases from Secretweaponminiautes, yet, I feel like I could accomplish similar results with more practice and a better understanding of sculpting.

 

 

Then indecision struck! I get a ton of inspiration from playing Zerg in StarCraft two, so when I logged on today, I saw this beautiful color palate for one of the new seasonal maps, Romandicide LE, and wondered if I would be able to implement the this scheme on my Tyranids with same vibrancy and lushness.

 

Edited April 7, 2021 by AtlasTelamon

[WarriorFish]

Nice work, the gaunt kits are getting long in the tooth but the design is still great especially when you start getting them together in number. I'd stick to the GS too as you'll get the hang of it and improve as you work Plus it looks like you need to focus on assembly right now as you're not settled on your colour scheme

 

I think these colours make for a good palette for a scheme, though some form of contrast feels like it'd be a good addition? Have you thought about what colours could go where? Maybe the darker purple on the carapace with a pinker purple flesh? Alternatively as a more different idea what about using some of these colours instead on the carapace as some kind of pattern?

 

Appropriate thought would be needed on the pattern itself so it's not too much work, but I think it's worth exploring

[AtlasTelamon]

 

Two days of work have spawned 11 Hormagaunts to the Hive. I'm glad that I've discovered this somewhat messy and quick scheme to accomplish these numbers. Usually a single model will take me that amount of time. Despite being somewhat unsatisfied with the overall scheme,  I think the overall goal of having a decent looking tyranid army ready for the tabletop is over-riding my desire to sink my teeth in endless proto-typing.

 

Why 11? I did make a quick go at the purple and pink scheme, but I couldn't setting into anything fast enough. 

[Xenith]

Great work for two days! What is it about the scheme that you're not happy with? Better to make changes earlier rather than later and want to repaint. 

[WarriorFish]

Nice work again, your productivity is great. As Xen says if you're not quite happy with the scheme I'd recommend you focus on that first. Repainting models is not the best of times, and it gets worse the more you need to repaint (I have repainted my Marines and Guard... bad enough but I also did both at the same time :lol:). In my (unfortunately) extensive experience time spent perfecting your scheme so you're happy with it is never wasted.

 

With your scheme on some models of different type and size you should have a better feel for them though, so put them all together and let it sink in over a few days. This should let you discover how you really feel about the scheme and hopefully direct you to what you wish to change :) For example you've confirmed that you didn't want to change to a purple/pink scheme - all progress is good progress even if that's finding what you don't want ;)

[AtlasTelamon]

Thanks for the encouragement guys. It could be that I'm aiming for too much and pulling inspiration from too many sources. The primary issue I have with my painting style is it turns up dark on the table under normal lighting conditions. The light green was an attempt to pull off a stark appearance, but comes up as no seeum green.

 

Alas, A box of warriors is enroute to the door (I need a tiny break from the hormagaunts) and a dark but half decent paintjob is better then the grey tide of death.

[WarriorFish]

That depends, I'd say a tide of grey death is better if you've not finalised your paint scheme yet :P It sounds like the carapace might be what needs changing? Maybe a different colour or giving it some extra attention might help, like some edge work of some kind?

[Xenith]

If we can get some close up images of single models, and say what your ideal effect/appearance is, we might be able to suggest ways to achieve - but also nids are naturally always changing, slight tweaks ad changes to paint schemes wont look out of place. I switched from traditional to contrast paints after the first 1000pts or so of my models and you'd never notice it on the table.