Thursday 6 January 2011

'nids part 10. The Tervigon Tutorial part 6.

 Here we go, part 6. This is the first set of highlights complete on both the bonewhite and chitin parts. Again the curious properties of that craft acrylic turquoise, both opaque and transparent depending on how you apply it really lends a natural, organic feel to the beasties.

When I first painted genestealers in my youth I hated all the limbs I thought they were a night mare to paint. With washes and the understanding that mistakes can be explained because nature is not perfect then I truly believe Tyranids may be the easiest models to paint. I mean when you paint a Space Marine that man-made power armour screams out any imperfections. Of course if you go the distressed battle scarred armour you can disguise a multitude of sins but still it requires a certain amount of skill to get decent results.


You can see how the dotted pattern works as well here. This was first employed on my Son's Trygon. The stripes weren't quite as significant so there was much more dark blue which needed something to break up the space. I put a few dots on, suggesting that older/bigger beasts develop more patination over time. It allowed me to spend a bit more time on these showcase models and lift them above the rest of the horde. Saying that though I did apply some dots to a few Gargoyles. [Damn that mold line still looks ugly!].

The dots are easy to do just a small brush and dab, dab, dab. Of course you could use a cut cocktail stick for perfect uniform circles.


Bone white highlights were also applied. Bonewhite isn't a particularly opaque colour but in this situation it doesn't matter. Once again levels of opacity help all the colours blend so you never get flat colour you get depth, mottling and imperfections, just like nature .


Next up - more highlights, talons, teeth and base.

Meanwhile, here's the previous parts:

8 comments:

  1. That Tervigon is beautiful!

    Can we get more pictures of the egg sacks. They look really detailed.

    Nice work.

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  2. Thanks for the praise Luckless, I'm more than happy to oblige. This little lady has since been finished, there's two more parts of the painting tutorial to come with some gratuitous shots of her 'gravid rage'!

    You won't be disappointed.

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  3. He's really coming along nicely: the spots add a lot of character... though 8 posts on a single paint job might be stretching things a wee bit...

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  4. You may be right but the first few parts were the conversion bit your honour and it's the only model in the Hive Fleet that I completely documented the painting process so you won't be having to put up with a 12 part treatise on our Spore Mines ;)

    Please remember though, 'he' is a 'she'! She's mighty sensitive about how masculine she may be perceived.

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  5. AHH! Buddy! How have I been missing these!

    I swear, if you let family and career interfere with your 40k, you'll just look back one day and wish you'd drawn the line somewhere :)

    Absolutely gorgeous model, I was thinking of the same thing for my tervies with the all-scytal arms to make it look more like a spider, I absolutely cannot wait to see her finished and based up.

    Also don't listen to WH39.9repeatingK, I did like 4 post on my lazy Prime conversion and 4 on my hack Trygon paintjob, and they don't look half as good. He's just proving that haters gonna hate :).

    By the way, there was an Official Debate Response to you asking about toxin sacs vs adren glands on stealers that you never chimed back in on at http://mwts.blogspot.com/2010/12/quest-for-1500-point-tyranid-list.html.

    And you haven't chimed in on my final league list at all!

    Cheers,

    Trey

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  6. Hey there's no worries here about any comments, we're all one big happy addicted family. I'm just glad folks are still interested enough to comment and I know what you mean about missing something real.

    The Epic stuff is history but I've got loads of history and there's tales to tell which is part of my addiction. I appreciate the current modelling [the driving force behind the blog] and painting isn't as thick on the ground as I'd hoped but Winters a fallow period for that sort of thing, what with difficulties priming and stuff.

    Anyway I'm prepping some more building templates so they should make up for the more mundane posts. I'll get back with your toxin sac debate etc.

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  7. Sorry didn't mean to come across as mean there, I was just poking fun at 39k :)

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  8. You guys are silly. Much love to you both... :)

    P.S. Really looking to your "slimmed down" 11 part tutorial on spore mines!

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