Carnosaur93's space lizardbugs, aka Tyranids.

[carnosaur93]

The new tyranid models from the leviathan box set really inspired me when they were first shown, so i waited and made sure to pre-order the whole thing (kinda regret not getting two :I )
i've been a fan of tyranids since i first saw them, in the early days of getting into warhammer. that must have been back in like early 3rd ed i think? back when the red and beige kraken nids were the GW default look, hyve tyrants looked like xenomorph queens, and carnifexes were made of metal and walked upright.
i collcted them for a while once they got a nw wave of models for 4th ed in my early teens, eventually selling off my lizardbugs to other local warhammerers because i'd kinda stagnated on them and i needed the money... years later my collction had shifted hands a few times and multiplied in the process, and i ended up buying them and a load of extra stuff back for less than i had originally sold them for, instantly jumping the gun when the whole lot came up for sale as my husband expressed interest in tyranids. And coincidentally, i ended up buying them back for less than i'd originally been paid for my smaller version of the collction (i still insisted on paying a 50% tip to the seller though because i didn't wanna rip him off) xD

ive sorta gone to and from that collection over the past few years since, not really fully gripped by them except the occational conversion using the old salvaged secondhand models (got a couple half-done converted flying tyrants, a heavily modified crushing-claw 'fex thats almost done, and a decently heavily converted trygon, as well as a handful modified warriors, some work in progress creepy genestealers, a heavily kitbashed exocrine/tyrannofex that sort of thing)


Aaaanyway, my personal tyranid history aside. i've made new stuff now with the new box! still lots of conversions, but also just left some of them (like the gaunts and leapers, i love those models as is)
the first stuff i've focused on is try to fix a model i almost loved, the new neuro-tyrant. iam a sucker for zoanthropes, the current plastic kit of them is perhaps my favorite models GW has ever made, and it was first seeing the old metal ones from 4th that REALLY grabbed me for tyranids. the idea of ferocious beast masterfully wielding magic is such a cool concept to me, and it was back as a kid too. and the new neuro-tyrant is essentially just a souped up zoanthrope.

I didn't like its silhuette much, the chitin-armor "cowl" was too big and 'off'-looking to me for a tyranid, notably it was too wide, so i narrowed it as much as possible, recarving and grinding interesting shapes back into the plates to not just make it a weird sheer cut.

 

 

then, while cleaning it up i got a better look under that armor, and i must say, its conceptually a really interesting tyranid anatomically speaking, its essentially a compound organism, comprised of 5 (yes 5) individual tyranid organisms in symbiasis with eachother. the main "body" creature with the giant brain. A smaller almost parasitic one on the back of its neck, two smaller brain-creatures with long whipped tails forming the whips on its sides, and the "cowl" itself as a seperate creature forming a sort of "chassis" holding it all together. like a terrifying giant magical version of a portoguese man-o-war
Anyway, as i explored the details, i realized that i really don't like its weeird finger-longerer hands, so i was gunna swap them for talons...

 

 

 

 
I also learned that the main body creature was a pair of limbs short, anatomically, where the legs should be, there was just two little circles, i didn't like this, felt lazy. so i changed it by scratchbuilding some little curled up legs.

 

 

The legs ended up a little bigger than i had intended, but after some back and forth with the husbando, i was assured that it wasn't a bad thing, and the weirdness of it has some appeal in itself, so i decided to leave them as is.
And when putting it all together, i ended up with this:

I like how it came out. Its weird and creepy, and i think i managed to fix my greivences with the stock model, the silhuette and the weird hands. ending up with this wird creepy kinda arcane creature, the notable legs curled up below the armored cowl almost giving it a weird "floating-monk" like vibe (although a bigbrained xenomorph monk, of course)

so, this post already got a little long, so thats it for now, i'll make a seperate post later for the screamer-killer i've been modifying (a nostalgic projct to me, as when getting into the model, its more like an update of the 2nd/3rd ed old upright carfifex than the oldschool OG screamer killer)

Edited July 24, 2023 by carnosaur93

[Firedrake Cordova]

I really like it - it definitely has an air of malevolence to it  

[ZeroWolf]

Very nice work 

[Pearson73]

Those little legs are very freaky, I love it!

 

Cool hearing about your collection's journey, funny how these things work out sometimes!

[carnosaur93]

So i didn't get around to posting more of the nids as fast as i thought i would, but oh well, better late than never...
So for the leviathan box stuff, i also modified the Screamer-killer!.. now i know some are gunna find that as heresy to the hivemind, but thats just what i do. even if i really like models, i'll ususally fix details iam not too happy with, and on this guy there was a lot such details
Besides, i was never a fan of the original oldschool screamer killer, and it was from a little before my time, so no nostalgia either xD
However, interstingly, as i worked on the leviathan screamer' i noticed that it has a lot more in common with the old 3rd ed metal carnifex than the original screamer killer, its really only the head and claws that are taken from the screamer killer, the rest of the entire body of the thing is more in line with the 3rd ed metal carnifex, just upscaled and updated.

Anyway, onwards the actual model!

 

 

 

 

So, for this guy, i as said changed quite a few things. one of the most noteworthy being the tail...
There was abit of back and forth on this, originally i just inverted the normal tail, but after some back and forth with the husbando, we decided that big bois need big tails
what tipped me over was remembering that the original plan for our tyranids was to have a bit of an exentuated "lizard" theme (this will come through in the colors, too).
Additionally, i had the thought that a big long tail would help stabalize the balance of a big creature like this when he has tto run and move, not to mention swinging wildly with all four massive claws... both criteria fit giving him a bigger tail, and i think was the right call, as it really does help with both those things, it makes him look much more "wieldable" and nimble, which in turn makes him scarier.

The tail was made by rolling out a big tapered sausage of old crusty practically disposable greenstuff, that i curved while soft and left to cure overnight.
I then cut it down to the right length, glued it in place, and sculpted additional details along it and at the base to blend it into the body, starting with two ridges running along the sides match the base of the tail from the orginal model and give it a more interesting shape than just a cone, then added the muscular "blobs" at the groin area, again to blend it with the original tailbase on the model, and finally i sculpted the armor plates running down along the back, trying to match the style and shape already present on his butt.

 

 

I also cut down the "chimneys" on his back, something i have done on a couple other tyranid creatures as well, to give a more clean silhuette, as this helps the model look more chunky and "armored", with more of a sense of big smooth areas helping acheive that feel, visually speaking.

his was done in the scariest way possible. i literally just marked the desired length on the chimneys, and then sawed them off to make them shorter, followed by drilling some holes down into them, carving out the full opening from those holes with a knife, and then softening up the shapes of the inside with some plastic glue







because iam a sucker for xenomorphs, and have always pushed my tyranid aesthethic a little towards that, i covered up his eyes by extending and embiggening th frontal armor plate on his head. This was also because i was never that big a fan of this model's face, and i narrowed down the reason to be that i didn't like his eyes... so perfect oppertunity to make a creepy eyeless face that also helps sell that "massive armored berserker" vibe.
no trick to this one, just had to sculpt a detaild armor plate from greystuff, i made it extend forwards a little extra as well, not just sideways, to create a bit of an upper "Lip", which helps eexcentuate the toothy mouth and soft gums.




Another thing that i don't have standalone pictures of changing is his arms and stance. (you'll just have to scroll back up, sorry xD)
These wer changed pretty damn drastically, i lowered his right foot and raised his left, to give him a more solid "flat" stance, again to help with the "big armored berserker" vibe, making him look like he has his weight more solidly planted on the ground, there was no asy way or trick to doing this, just lots of careful attention to building up the base to support the feet at the new elevation.

now the arms however, that was a big one, i really didn't like the default "one claw up in the air" pose. so i lowered all four claws to a more solid and low "sweeping" sort of stance, trying to continue the curves of the armored carapace on his upper back to acheive that.
this was done by lots of careful filing and cutting on the contact surfaces of the arms to change their orintation, and making sure every arm has a secondary contact point on the body to make the whole thing less fragile... notably, part of acheiving this also involved swapping the upper and lower arms around as it suited my pose better (the two pairs are subtly diffrent, and slightly different sizes)

The last big things for the arms, which was abit of a last minute change, was to shorten them, as by default they looked a little out of place with the chunky armored body. Shortening them makes them look stronger and thicker proportionally, and the lessened length makes the look more balanced and wieldable, too!
this was super nerve-wracking, as i basically had to saw out a thick slice of each forearm. i then glued the arms back together without that chunk taken out of the middle, and spent quite a while resculpting a lot of details on them to hide the seam.


So yeah, thats the screamer-killer and what i did to changee it, described in way too much detail xD
Hope y'all enjoy.

Edited July 16, 2023 by carnosaur93

[Firedrake Cordova]

Starting with the disclaimer that I'm not really familiar with the model, if it weren't for the fact that the tail was green, I'd be hard-pressed to say any of it was a conversion  (to me, this is an indicator of a good conversion - if it looks like it could be a stock/official model at first glance)

 

The write-up of what you've done is an interested read, and appreciated!  

Edited July 16, 2023 by Firedrake Cordova

[Naryn]

Absolutely glorious. I just sent this thread to a buddy who plays Tyranids. Amazing work.

[Master Toddius]

Its rare to see a full wip blog of tyranids, for some reason. Looking forward to the completed posted models. Looks like you have a good handle on the style you're going for.

 

[carnosaur93]

Thank you everyone!
Firedrake, i totally agree, and its what i strive to do all the time, having conversions blend in and look like they belong and could be part of the original model, something that can be easier to do on tyranids than many other factions because of all the organic shapes (chaos too if you go for fleshy mutated looks)... of course iam also a fan of crazy kitbashes though, which is a whole other thing xD

And Naryn, i'd be glad if you do, i love sharing my stuff and having people see it^^

And yeah i Agree Toddius, its wirdly rare, i guess tyranids are just a little niche of an army to collect and focus on? i don't know, but you're right... and as for finishd models, well, thats very related to what iam about to share today! xP


So, i did some test-painting yesterday, practicing on some old gaunts to get my colors down before i start painting the new swanky leviathan-box models.
The color scheme iam going for is quite an old one for me, dating back to before i sold my nids back in the day, one of my old paint jobs even showing up in the batch when i bought them back many years later! xP
i was originally inspired by the olive green heirophant titan on forgeworld's website from waaaaay back in the day, and something along thone lines stuck with me ever since, going through multiple revisions and versions over the years.
However, now that iam back at tyranids, i had this really crazy idea for what direction to take the olive-green nids. the short version is "what if i painted them like historical tank models?", and as a result i did some tinkering and experimentation before arriving at a look i like based on that idea.

so first i messed around with blobs of color, trying a few things before even taking paint to models, to establish a pallette

 

there is some good stuff here, and after my first test-batch of old gaunts for different approaches i learned that my green was too "cold" toned, thanks to using calliban green as a dark shade and carapace color, and i also learned that less beige and more black looks better in terms of color composition, and that adding in some warm grey and red (as seen by the swirls on the right) can fit in very well with these colors.
I also learned how to incorporrate red (for fleshy body-horror grossness) into my scheme from those tests models, and mixed a whole bottle of custom paint for the job






so then yesterday i finished testbatch number 2 with those lessons learned, swapping calliban green for Castellan green (newly purchased for this exact purpose), and refining my process and approach... of the second test batch, my favorite was this guy




(Its very worth mentioning that the greens are quite a bit warmer in real life, i quite a lot of cool blue light coming in from my windows when i took these two photos.... also he's a little rough around the edges. old crusty test-model, and i was going for speed and experimentation, not prettyness and presicion xD)
This was the test model where i followed th steps i wrote down from my initial testing of the previous batch to the letter, and it worked almost perfectly, some of the other test models yielded some insight however into what i can and can't do more effeciently, and how to make the black gun look better

So i made those adjustments to my written instructions and now have a concreate recipe, and now iam armed and ready to make the actual models, who should look a step better than that guy above



(also i think its a testament to the strength of the color scheme itself that it looks okay and like it would fly on the tabletop with just the two main greens in place over grey primer and literally nothing else done)

Edited July 19, 2023 by carnosaur93

[Firedrake Cordova]

For some reason, my first reaction was "they remind me a little bit of Duncan's Hive Fleet Hadley's Hope".  

 

I think painting them in the same manner as historical/realistic models is an interesting idea - given GW's house style (and others), I kind of want to say that a bit more contrast between the colours of the body parts and adding a spot colour (like Sam Lenz's gribblies), but then that's contrary to your goal/style, and probably just visual "muscle memory".  

 

It'll be good to see the first completed models.  

Edited July 19, 2023 by Firedrake Cordova

[carnosaur93]

1 hour ago, Firedrake Cordova said:

For some reason, my first reaction was "they remind me a little bit of Duncan's Hive Fleet Hadley's Hope".  

 

I think painting them in the same manner as historical/realistic models is an interesting idea - given GW's house style (and others), I kind of want to say that a bit more contrast between the colours of the body parts and adding a spot colour (like Sam Lenz's gribblies), but then that's contrary to your goal/style, and probably just visual "muscle memory".  

 

It'll be good to see the first completed models.  

its probably the dark monochromatic look, and the rather extreme highlights for why it reminds a bit of that? xP
and i mean, thats not a bad thing "green xenomorphs" is another way to describe what iam kinda going for.

as for contrast and spot colors, i do have abit of plans for working some of that in, just not for rank and file gaunts and as part of the core scheme. these tests are more about getting the basics down, and then i can start branching out from this as a framwork, painting different creatures in different ways rather than a "one recipe fits all" way that tyranids often fall into, where every creature in an army is painted exactly the same way.
For example, i plan for my brain-bugs to be much more pale and almost semi-albino, leaning more heavily on grey and red, and less on the olive greens, while at this point my plan for the screamer-killer is to go darker than the gaunts. probably with a lighter, brighter face and chest to really channel attention towards the center of the model when contrasting against the overall darker look.
that said, yeah i probably won't go super crazy on colors and contrast even then, as you said its contrary to the style iam going for, i want drab, earthy, and "natural", as i think that is a look that really suits tyranids a lot, and in my mind just goes with the aesthethic of warhammer as it looks in my mind (i grew up with the sketchy black and white images of early 3rd edition codexes, and still think thats when warhammer looks its best^^), i imagine them as adapted to camoflage in dusty concreate rubble, or deep dark forests, like fuzzy clawed shadows stalking or swarming their advesaries
thats why historical tank models stood out to me as an inspiration, as that look and those colors really fit that, plus, its a fun silly idea to "paint my tyranids like WW2 tanks" xD


+++EDIT+++
i forgot to mention, as a result of that whole explanation above (the stuff about 3rd ed artwork in particular), what i chose to do was focus on conrast in terms of light and dark, rather than color and tone, to end up with almost a bit of a "Green sepia"-look, or like a tinted black and white photo
Here's a black and white edit i did real fast to show what i mean, the lack of color helps for visualizing the light/dark contrast

Edited July 19, 2023 by carnosaur93

[Firedrake Cordova]

That sounds like a good plan! Making sure the model being readable in black-and-white is definitely a good idea.  

 

It'll be interesting to see your army as the various units and biomorphs are added.  

 

3 hours ago, carnosaur93 said:

(i grew up with the sketchy black and white images of early 3rd edition codexes, and still think thats when warhammer looks its best^^), 

I dimly remember the illustrations from that period, although I do remember some of the short stories in WD (particularly one with Lamenters dealing with the early stages of a Tyranid infestation). My formative years were during "The Red Years" so Tyranids were, unsurprisingly, quite red.

 

3 hours ago, carnosaur93 said:

i imagine them as adapted to camoflage in dusty concreate rubble, or deep dark forests, like fuzzy clawed shadows stalking or swarming their advesaries

That's how I imagine them in my mind when reading (well listening to) the Ciaphas Cain books.  

Edited July 19, 2023 by Firedrake Cordova

[carnosaur93]

I finished the Screamer-killer!

so it took a week or so of on/off sessions but i finally finished the screamer-killer, varnish and all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My camera sucks, but pretty proud of how it turned out!
i feel like i may have over-highlighted it a little, so thats somthing i need to balance out more on the next few guys... its been a fun change of pace from painting lamenters though, to just paint a big creature, deliberately trying to avoid defined material lines and focus on blurs and blends instead, kinda freeing to not have to worry about accidentally poking a micro-dot of black or gold onto my yellow, or yellow onto my dark metallics or whatever, and using random organic dots instead of trying to paint neat checkers xD

Speaking of, throughout the process i took some pictures as well (camera makes them look abit darker because my camera has a mind of its own and that mind is stupid)...
click the spoiler below for pictures! :D
 

Spoiler

First session: Flat base colors:







Second session: Drybrushing, dots, details, and a single crappy coat of bootleg agrax earthshade wash











Third and forth sessions:  Washes, glazes, tinkering and abit more drybrushes











And the last couple sessions is the finished dude up above the spoiler, which was more glazes, a few manual little wash-shadows, and lots and lots of highlighting and such

 

 

 

Edited July 26, 2023 by carnosaur93

[ZeroWolf]

Fantastic work, the paint job is phenomenal.

[Firedrake Cordova]

Looks absolutely great to me!

[Wormwoods]

Gorgeous. I really like the covered eyes.