ZeroWolf's Painting Trials

[Dr_Ruminahui]

I think using a smaller drill bit would be quite helpful - its very difficult to correctly place the drill for the exact size of hole you want, as it leaves you with little or no margin of error.  Go with a smaller drill bit, then you can always widen the opening of the hole with a exacto type knife - also, using that technique, it doesn't matter so much if the hole is exactly centred, as you can widen any particular "side" of the hole only to the extent it needs it.

 

That said, I have plenty of my own "burst muzzles" of my own across my armies.

[ZeroWolf]

Yeah, I'll be definitely investing in smaller (and larger) drill bits of my own. If anything this has shown me that the size wouldn't do what I originally intended it for (magnetising a Hive Tyrant) as the holes wouldn't be the right fit for the magnets I bought.

 

Also, I did use a craft knife to do a guiding hole 

[Firedrake Cordova]

That's annoying with the barrel where the drill skipped out. At least you can fix it with a little greenstuff/milliput quite easily.  

 

Were you drilling a pilot hole first?

[ZeroWolf]

1 minute ago, Firedrake Cordova said:

That's annoying with the barrel where the drill skipped out. At least you can fix it with a little greenstuff/milliput quite easily.  

 

Were you drilling a pilot hole first?

Yup, which is where I think my first mistakes lie. Trying to get it central best I could but clearly in a few cases, it was off centre.

[ZeroWolf]

Been a while I know, but with the run up to a Call to Arms, I needed to get my Tyranids ready. This meant squaring up to the Hive Tyrant (in contrast, the 9 Von Ryan's Leapers i built were quite easy, and the Hormagaunts i bought were preowned so only need priming).

 

To reiterate a previous point of mine, I've never done anything with magnets to this extent. My plan is to magnetise all options for the Tyrant to freely swap between normal/winged/Swarmlord. To say I'm apprehensive about this would be an understatement.

 

This is how far I've gotten building tge tyrant so far:

 

...and getting to this point was a pain to say the least (I'm planning a blog entry talking about the whole process, will upload it when I've completely finished).

 

There was one section, where the tail joins the torso that refused to join together nicely. I may have to get some green stuff from somewhere if it annoys me too much.

 

After getting here though, I am wondering if the magnetising is going to be worth it or if im just better off choosing to arm the Winged Tyrant with a venom cannon. See how I feel later.

[Rusted Boltgun]

Sending support! I opted for a 3D printed part to assist with options. I've put it in a box now so can't remember exactly why - maybe enough bits to make each option?!

Edited June 8 by Rusted Boltgun
spellz

[ZeroWolf]

4 minutes ago, Rusted Boltgun said:

Sending support! I opted for a 3D printed part to assist with options. I've put it in a box now so can't remember exactly why - maybe enough bits two make each option?!

That was my original intention, I even found another torso on etsy for that purpose (till i discovered there's actually another piece that needs to be duplicated! I thought there was two ball joint pieces that connected the legs to the torso) but a former GW manager told me that I should just use magnets to make a completely swappable Tyrant.

 

It sounded nice in theory 

[ZeroWolf]

Taking advantage of the weather, got this mini horde primed:

 

first time using Colourforge's Wraithknight rattle can. Looks to have done a decent job though I did accidentally overload a few places, such as one of the Barbagaunts getting a face full. Still, it did what it needed to.

 

That's 25 out of 35 models primed, just the Von Ryan's Leapers and Tyrant to go!

[kabaakaba]

Gonna follow your trials) it's rare to see Tyranids(not sm to be honest) so far. Is a excessive primer dry well on face?

[ZeroWolf]

1 hour ago, kabaakaba said:

Gonna follow your trials) it's rare to see Tyranids(not sm to be honest) so far. Is a excessive primer dry well on face?

Need to check, but I don't think it'll be a problem as I can just hide it behind the others 

 

Tyranids were my first 40k army back in the day, so something I'll always come back to.

[ZeroWolf]

Sat down last night to get things magnetised and the title of this thread has never been more apt:

 

Started by putting a small dab of paint in each hole, then pushed each limb in to try and find the right drilling point...A mistake was made here, but I wouldn't discover to a bit later.

 

Also, I want to point out that the Tyrant model is in one piece here, as thats something that didn't last very long after this photo was taken. Even though I was applying no pressure, the figure came unstuck where the tail meets the torso. Should have seen that as an omen really.

 

Regardless, I pressed on, and started drilling into the torso, in order to sink the magnets in. This is where the second problem arose in that the drill bit I was using wasn't actually big enough. Cursing myself, I dug around in the darkest recesses of my tool box and produced the right size, and was able to do this:

 

which in turn led to this:

or this, if you prefer:

 

With some success under my belt, I turned my attention to the arms and got one scything talon sorted before I wanted to attempt the wing...which is where everything fell apart.

 

Remember how I said earlier about the black paint? Well, apparently  I hadn't fandangled the wing into its proper place when doing it, which meant my drilling point was nowhere near where it should have been. Undeterred I still had enough room to try again, so I did...and that was too far out the other way, and during this process, I lost two magnets inside the Tyrants body! There wasn't enough space left for a third attempt (not without completely redoing the joint).

 

This leaves me with a decision. Push ahead with the project as is but lose flying capacity completely due to my inexperienced skill set, or just glue what I want in and be done with it. I'm heavily leaning towards the latter right now. Still end of the day it's been a learning experience.

[kabaakaba]

Take my support mate. As a guy who build 4th IG army, without magnets this time I recommend just glue all variants separately. Magnets is a good thing, I can suggest to took magnets half size a joint diameter. Also try to use kind of marker like put blu tack disk on wing joint for example. Then put some white/black paint in middle. Fit the wing into right position. Remove and you have drilling point. But. BUT without second magnetes or kind of pin, magnetized wings would be wobbling like heretic in the fire. So you need 2 magnetes or magnetes + pin.

 

So after all that words above I can suggest just glue few variants. 

The Emperor Protects!

Edited Thursday at 08:09 PM by kabaakaba

[Rusted Boltgun]

If you have Milliput, can you fill the holes back in and re-drill once set?

[ZeroWolf]

33 minutes ago, Rusted Boltgun said:

If you have Milliput, can you fill the holes back in and re-drill once set?

Don't have milliput I'm afraid.

 

35 minutes ago, kabaakaba said:

Take my support mate. As a guy who build 4th IG army, without magnets this time I recommend just glue all variants separately. Magnets is a good thing, I can suggest to took magnets half size a joint diameter. Also try to use kind of marker like put blu tack disk on wing joint for example. Then put some white/black paint in middle. Fit the wing into right position. Remove and you have drilling point. But. BUT without second magnetes or kind of pin, magnetized wings would be wobbling like heretic in the fire. So you need 2 magnetes or magnetes + pin.

 

So after all that words above I can suggest just glue few variants. 

The Emperor Protects!

That's the other thing I was worried about, and something I'll need to think about in the future.

[kabaakaba]

Just glue them) it's not a baneblade or big knight to hesitate. IMHO

[Rusted Boltgun]

I would recommend getting some Milliput for your materials stash if you're going magnetising. It is really useful for filling body cavities like this, I had similar issues with some Inceptors recently

 

It is also handy for leaky pipes, broken toys, using with blue stuff for casting bits and mixing with greenstuff for sculpting work

[ZeroWolf]

I'll have to get some in before the next project.

 

Definitely want to get better with magnetising, so even if this time didn't pan out, it was still a helpful learning experience.

 

The Tyrant is 100% built now, but i don't have any pictures yet as I didn't want to move it around too much, as that tail-torso connection proved to be an even more painful job then I could have thought as it simply refused to stick. I'm hoping it's held this time, otherwise I'll need to get even stronger super glue.

[Brother Christopher]

I don't like magnets, partially for the reasons you've experienced. After many years in the hobby, I figured that I'd rather not bother with them in the future, unless inexplicably I'll start playing the game regularly. I don't appreciate how fiddly the magnets are, as well as how annoying magnetised bits can be to paint. Conversely, its nice to be able to switch weapons instead of buying multiples of expensive models but at what cost. And getting magnets right is very satisfying - the way bits click into place can be fun in a nerdy way. 

 

I'd also chime in and recommend Milliput. It's a bit annoying to work with (I don't like it's consistency and smell) but it's indispensable when it comes to fixing mistakes or strengthening connections.

 

Good luck!

[ZeroWolf]

Got the last of the priming done, though the Tyrants wings may need going over again. They looked good in person, but looking back on the photos, they definitely don't.

 

 

closer look at the Tyrant:

 

I'm being really cautious in handling him as that joint still looks like it may go again.

 

Still, feels good to have them all primed. 

 

I'll post a few more pictures later showing the full vow that I'll be doing and a full swarm picture.

[kabaakaba]

I'd checking through phone camera every time I prime or paint. It's always show issues. Nice guys!

[Brother Christopher]

I can't see much wrong with the primer but that just might be the compression. Regardless, you're moving on to the fun part. 

 

What colour scheme are you going with these? The same as with the Tyranid remains on your Primaris?

[ZeroWolf]

26 minutes ago, Brother Christopher said:

I can't see much wrong with the primer but that just might be the compression. Regardless, you're moving on to the fun part. 

 

What colour scheme are you going with these? The same as with the Tyranid remains on your Primaris?

Yup, green skin with purple bone/armour. It was the scheme I used on my 3rd edition nids when I first properly stepped into the hobby many, many, many moons ago. My dad helped me come up with the scheme as I was overwhelmed with choice back then  

 

In terms of paints, I'll be using ork flesh contrast and leviathan purple contrast (at least I think thats what that one is called). Then I'll dry brush with moot green and Genestealer purple before mixing a bit of white into each. The weapons will get dark angels green instead.

[ZeroWolf]

Here's my vow all set for tomorrow!

 

My plan at the moment is to go storage box by storage box as this lot is currently split between three due to their sizes.

 

This means up first is the Hormagaunts and Barbagaunts, then I'll move on to the 9x Von Ryan's Leapers before finishing with the Tyrant.

 

Depending on how long that takes me,  and the state of my finances, I might be able to squeeze in another Vow. I know my closest GW is having it's store anniversary in late August and I want to get that Genestealer (don't know if I'd go my colours or classic colours for it). Or maybe I'll get that Tyrannofex I keep looking at.

 

Should be fun either way!

 

[Brother Christopher]

On 6/14/2025 at 12:46 AM, ZeroWolf said:

Yup, green skin with purple bone/armour. It was the scheme I used on my 3rd edition nids when I first properly stepped into the hobby many, many, many moons ago. My dad helped me come up with the scheme as I was overwhelmed with choice back then  

 

In terms of paints, I'll be using ork flesh contrast and leviathan purple contrast (at least I think thats what that one is called). Then I'll dry brush with moot green and Genestealer purple before mixing a bit of white into each. The weapons will get dark angels green instead.

 

The colours will work great! And given your plans for the paints, it seems like painting these will be a breeze. From my limited experience, contrast-like paints on organic/natural/biological parts of models (or put differently, parts that aren’t' flat) work like a charm.

 

Have fun painting your bugs!

[ZeroWolf]

I intend to 

Just finished a little session and I dry brushed 20x Hormagaunts and the 5x Barbagaunts, as well as getting some green skin going on for five Hormagaunts. I toyed with pushing further, but decided to leave it there in case my tiredness caused a problem.

 

 

 

Hopefully it'll be the armour/bone next for these 5, then more dry brushing and detailing!