Browsing Tag

big gun

Tyranid Hive Guard 3

Posted on June 3, 2010

Last post on this guy, since I’m calling him done.

Since the last post I added:

A 1:3 mixture of Hawk Turqoise and Scaly Green to the top edges of his skin, and every opening.
Goblin Green base rim, and some flock on top of the grey gravel.

It’s funny…looking at the photos, the pink and the green highlight are really stark. But sitting at my desk, while I’m painting them, they are relatively calm.

I’m wondering if next time I should paint the HT+SG highlight directly over the original SG base, and then wash over that. I worry that the highlight will get muted by the wash, and also that the skin will be ridiculously shiny (it will be – just a question of whether it’s bad or good ridiculous).

Looking at it now, I’m pretty happy with the green rim. When I was painting it I was thinking “Oh god…goblin green rims…how old is this army anyway?” It’s been years since I painted with the goblin green. But I think it’s a nice colour to go with the yellow and green of the model itself.

I’m really happy with how his armour turned out. More of that in the future.

Links to the other two posts, for ease of reference:

My next 40k project is to finish the Deff Koptas! That will be another project where I start writing when I’m already 3/4s of the way through, but there’s still some work to be done.

Work-in-progress

Tyranid Hive Guard 2

Posted on June 2, 2010

I worked on the Hive Guard weapon a little bit. I’m not 100% on it right now. It looks pretty good…but it’s too much…bone. Too plain. Probably good, but not my usual style :P.

Bleached Bone base coat.
Devlan Mud all over.
Bleached Bone effectively dry-brushed over raised areas. Protrusions on the left, all of the holes on the shaft of the gun. This is a really light coat, subtle is the name of the game.
Solid Bleached Bone on the “spears” that it shoots, followed by a very watery coat of Skull White. Watery mostly because my White is almost dry…but also so it’s more subtle. Looking at this photo…maybe to subtle.
Dwarf Flesh on the cables, followed by a light touch of Tentacle Pink. Interestingly, it’s a lot more of a “light touch” in reality than it is in this photo :P.

I also (not photographed) brought the Bubonic Brown further up on the top-most ridge of his back armour. I realized that it was silly to have a highlight that didn’t start at both ends of the scale. Looks a lot better now.

The skin is next and then it’s done! (oh, and a little work on the base…)

Featured Images

Ork Flash Git

Posted on May 29, 2010

I didn’t paint this one, but I wanted to share it and it’s tale anyway.

There was an auction at my local Games Workshop a couple weeks ago, along with some mini-games for prizes. They had as prizes some mail-order only models, and I knew there were about three things I wanted as prizes so I went down to see if I couldn’t make it happen.

I lost every single game. Poop.

Towards the end of the day, one of the local kids won a game and upon looking through the box of prizes realized that there was nothing he wanted. I was standing around and he asked if there was anything I wanted, and I sort of sputtered out “Oh yes!” and picked out the Ork Flash Git. I’m amazed – I’ve been known to give prizes that I don’t care about to kids, but that’s because I have a job and I can really afford to buy just about any model I happen to desire. Good kid.

At the auction, the last three things put up for auction were staff paint jobs, as they usually do, and there was one particular staffer who’s work I admire. I bid $10 on him up from $1 and won his work without a fight. As I paid my $10, I tossed the Flash Git at him, saying “I play Deathskulls”.

(At the end of the day I also purchased the Animosity Orks, so look for them in a painting/modelling project soon!)

Paint Scheme

I really have no idea, but I wanted to point out a couple awesome things he did.
The squig is my favourite part. Tiger squig! It also has a targeting reticule for an eye. Awesome.
The skin is incredibly well highlighted, I can’t even begin to figure out how many layers and what colours he used.
All of the metal has been painted it’s primary colour, and then has a little splotch of some metallic colour painted in random locations, where the paint has chipped.
He used a similar highlight scheme as the skin (with different colours) to paint the gun-barrel wood grain.

Work-in-progress

Tyranid Hive Guard 1

Posted on May 27, 2010

For my first post of this blog, I choose a model that I spent most of Sunday working on – sorry I can’t start with a blank slate!

This hive guard has been sitting on my desk for a couple months, assembled and beautiful. We played some Apocalypse on Saturday, and it got me really hyped up to paint some models. Unfortunately, I left my Orks (my current priority project) at my friends place, so I had to suffice with what was on my desk – a lot of random things.

Paint Scheme

Right now he (it?) has 3 colours:

Bubonic brown, washed with Devlan Mud. Highlight with Bubonic Brown, followed by Sunburst Yellow. I think this layer is done.
Scaly Green, washed with Badab Black. I think this colour went out of print some years ago. This guy belongs to a larger Tyranid army that I started maaaaany years ago, and I made sure to purchase the colours before they were discontinued. Thankfully it’s still liquid. My favourite part about this combination: he looks disgusting. Shiny dark green. Gross. I may end up highlighting to a combination of Hawk Turqoise (another OOP colour?) plus the Scaly Green. But not to much – I like the darkness.
Bleached Bone, washed with Devlan Mud. This combination went on his gun and every spike. I’m not certain what I’m going to do from here, but the gun definitely needs some attention to stop it from looking plain.
Base is a simple gravel/sand mix, with Codex Gray and Fortress Gray dry-brushed. Goes with the rest of the army. It’ll have some greenery on it at the end.

A few thoughts

I have no idea how I painted without washes before. It’s ridiculous how awesome they are. Like that gun – better looking after two sloppy coats of paint than a lot of models that I see regularly. This kind of tool can only make people feel good about their painting (thus they paint more?)
Hive guard == badass. All armoured and awesome. I need more of them.
In hindsight, another layer of a mix of Bubonic and Devlan would have been a better idea before heading straight to the Bubonic again. It’s a fairly stark transition.

Thanks for reading!