'nids part 333 - Tyranid Primes & Warriors - TO DONE!

Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity I've been #paintingwarhammer on these #Oldhammer Tyranid Warriors, which I kitbashed into Tyranid Primes and refreshing my Tyranid Warriors. For some reason I didn't feel much need for my usual red pics, so I thought I'd combine them altogether.

There was a small drama with the varnishing at the end, which almost derailed my satisfaction of completing them. If I'm honest though it was a batch too far in some respects and I'd already felt it was becoming tiresome.

That said, I'm really pleased with the results and the consistency across all 9, the Primes, Spore Mine and the previous 'new' Warrior from December 2020.

Plenty of rumours are flying around about improvements to Warriors, which could be timely. I had only envisaged these as paying for a Crusher Stampede Battalion but if they're more useful in their own right that's just a bonus.

I may end up regretting some of the upgrades but with 10 done, meaning with 3 broods of 3 I can drop one heavy weapon if needed to recoup some costs. Otherwise there's variety should I ever consider a Kill Team - I keep saying this but we've only ever played Kill Team once and now I'm contemplating nids as well as my Death Guard for a game we never play! 😆

The Primes came out well. I had got Vallejo Environment Moss and Lichen to add yellow splotches on the slate on the one on the right. Although it didn't quite work on it's own - it looked like spilled paint, id did help blend the yellow flock onto the stone.

I spent far too much time debating the spore mine, the little red triggers and if they should be green when in reality it didn't matter. I've loads of these and never use them so I just took the simplest solution and boxed it off.

Primes and their Warriors, I'm so glad they stand head and shoulder above the norm. 

Just imagine if they'd kept the original Warrior proportions rather than going smaller. All of our nids would be so much bigger.

Although I'm really fond of the Venom Cannon Warrior the glow on the barrel isn't quite right, rushing again with the green highlights on the edges rather than in the hollows.

Nevermind, it's an epic brood by my reckoning and will give me plenty to think about in what needs updating from my other older figures.

There's around 30 Termagants that could do with a refresh, but as I have 40+ that don't, which I use ahead of the ones I do there's no urgency.

Pretty much the only things that need refreshing are the 4 frosted Warrior to Hive Guard conversions.

In the mean time I'm going to take a bit of a hobby break. I had wanted to finish the Talonmaster alongside the Tyranids but it was a disruption that might have derailed my progress. I feel forcing myself to delay going back to it will motivate me further to completing it when I do.

Now to explain why the last minute drama - at one point I was very slightly aggrieved that my Army Painter Anti-shine pooled and cracked, like the AK Interactive Matt Varnish. I think I've become aware this can happen with the batch I have at the moment. So I was trying to make sure that any pools of varnish were dabbed clear, but must have missed this - more haste, less speed! Taking into account one of the prime reasons for repainting these was the Purity Seal frosting, to have the varnish go wrong here was somewhat infuriating. Luckily it was only in a few places and easily covered up with a few dabs of paint, as you can see in the above pics.

Here's my Great Big BLESSED VERDIGRIS Stamps of Approval! White pics to follow, which are a little more comprehensive as you get 4 profile views of each model.

#DeathGuard #KillTeam First Plague Marine TO DONE!

Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity I've been #paintingwarhammer Death Guard Kill Team. #NewYearNewArmy sort of, well I'd definitely say it's a departure for me. For sure, there are elements that you will recognise from my previous painting exploits but overall I think this is quite different.

The rust effects from my Galvanic Servo-haulers, tar bases from my Nurgle Blood Bowl Team, the sickly pale armour from my Nurgle Rotpsawn and the raw fleshy bits from my Tyranids. I'm really liking the end result.

This is as close to #Blanchitsu as I've ever got, which is an odd thing as although I can appreciate the effort and even the result of John Blanche's work and style I always found it messy. And here I am trying to emulate it is and appreciating the ability to make something as grungy and dirty as possible.

And it's not without its flaws but for that's not a problem with Nurgle - you can hide so much in filth. The key aim for these was something horrific, rusted, grimy, slimy and as quickly as possible. I may not have achieved the latter, but this was no more than a few hours, so it's not that long.

But some of that time will have been spent decision making and now some of those decisions have been made it might be more streamlined next time. Doing all the basecoats in advance to capitalise on subsequent washes and rust effects will speed things up a bit.

Rather than grey stones in the tar pit I wanted to do the red stone of Ferron Proxima, to at least tie them into my fluff. No Khorne Red base edges, that would be daft but I thought the vermilion would work... I'm not so sure. Its such a random tone that's too vibrant. 

I'd originally considered just using red weathering powder, but didn't risk it. Now I'm thinking shade it more, and coat it in Tamiya Clear Red X-27 as if it was bleeding rocks poking through the black tar. 

I'll leave as is for now, see how they all look when completed. I'm pleased with the result and very keen to do another one but despite buoyed with confidence I'm also [typically] wracked with doubts starting again.

As much as I want to paint these individually I may well do some batch painting of basecoats. Afterall, I'm not doing the bases first, which avoids the daunting feeling of starting from a blank canvas. So, having all the basecoats done might make it easier to dip into the actual fun bit of the 'painting'. 

I'll see how it goes. For now, here's the Great Big Minor Project BLESSED VERDIGRIS Stamp of Approval! As you know I don't usually go in for major/minor badges but in this instance the Kill Team will be minor badges and then a major one at the end.

March 2nd is #OldStuffDay

Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity, just a heads up March 2nd is Old Stuff Day. More than a decade ago now warhammer39999 wanted to join a movement to rediscover lost gems from the world of hobby blogs and it's still going strong today. The aim is to choose one or more of your own blogposts that you're most proud of, or may not have got the attention it deserved, or any thing that may warrant some necromantic blogpost bothering. On top of that you share blogposts from other bloggers which you think deserves the same spotlight of attention, before they're returned to their dark nightmare infested slumbers.

However, 2022 is going to shake things up a bit. I know a lot of hobbyists don't have blogs, maybe they Twitter or Insta, in which case go back to one of your old tweets and retweet or share one of your oldest figures or the first miniature you ever painted. If you feel inclined to check out the old fuddy-duddy blogosphere for cool posts that's cool too. And don't forget to add #OldStuffDay

So, if you have a blog don't forget to root through your old posts and rediscover those hidden gems. Feel free to use the Old Stuff Day poster by Firstkeeper from DeviantArt. Celebrate Old Stuff Day with the rest of us. 

#DeathGuard #KillTeam First Plague Marine

Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity I've been #paintingwarhammer Death Guard Kill Team. Technically my #NewYearNewArmy I was hoping to do something #Blanchitsu, very grimdark, the opposite of my usual high contrast saturated style. My Blood Bowl Nurgle Rotspawn is the inspiration. So I did due diligence and actually went back to my WiP post to follow how it was done. Now I didn't quite follow it, but at least I looked at it. Rather than go straight to MP Cream, I added VGC Heavy Red to the fleshy bits. With hindsight I'll do more basecoat colours in future.

But I hadn't decided on the colour of his skin or horny bits at this stage so the benefits of the red wash on his face weren't capitalised on, next time though. I picked up Vallejo Game Effect Dry Rust for the armour banding.

It's a slightly browner Typhus Corrosion, which I think works really well. Originally I'd wanted to do the Death Guard armour as if it was stained concrete. There were some pillars in Manchester going into a canal that started black, at the base, and went through this green to tobacco yellow, that would have been cool. But I liked the idea their armour was some mottled bleached skin, that was somehow tough.

I decided on Death Guard green for his face and added more sepia washes and picked out the yellow buboes on any tentacles.

Purple and green washes in places, I was just trying add more grime and tones.

And yet MOAR washes, with Heavy Red in places and then AP  Strong and Dark Tones.

There was a little debate with myself about the plasma coils, it couldn't be blue - too pure. Orange is my Dark Angels colour and turned off it would just look like rust. Red, would be OK, but there was already red on the model and I didn't want to confuse things. I was left with two options - purple or green, I;d eventually choose green. 

Finally, MP Cream highlights come in and in some respects the increased contrast suddenly felt like a backward step. It certainly looks more 'painted' now but I think perhaps the previous step was closer to Blanchitsu style. 

Some rust and weathering powders to add and finish off the base but this is almost complete at this stage.

I had hoped this would be a quick process and aside from the red bits in the first pic was probably a couple of hours work, maybe less. That is quick for me, but it still feels longer than it should. Hopefully, it'll get quicker as I go along, I was decision making which is always time consuming. I think I will be painting these one at a time going forward. A little palette cleanser between jobs, but knowing me I'll end up batching them in some way. I've a TO DONE! post next for this, so perhaps more in depth observations on something very different for me.

'nids part 332 - Tyranid Warriors - chitin 2

Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity I've been #paintingwarhammer on my #Tyranid Warriors. I'm up to 20 painting sessions to get to this stage, which I'm sure you're aware of because these posts appear endless, sorry. 

In my defence, I'm a slow painter, this is a significant batch job [for me] and some folk like the nid content - so enjoy it while you can, there isn't too much xenos on the To Do List lined up after this.

Once again reminded of how I could do really fine striations on my Trygon but not here. I'm using an Army Painter Insane Detail brush for this. Now I know brush size isn't always an indicator of the ability to do a fine stroke.

As Henry South covered in his blog [yes this will be part of Old Stuff Day], a size 1 brush with a fine tip can do just as fine lines as one with four hairs. But for some reason I just can't get that working either way. At the risk of sounding like a bad workman blaming his tools I think it might be the paint itself. 

The DecoArt Crafters Acrylic is awesome, but it doesn't thin well. It dries quickly and has a slightly rubbery intermediate drying stage. This means I possibly press harder than I should, which splays the bristles more. Thinning with water doesn't give me the coverage I want.

So, I'll look at alternatives and play around with some things in the future. Maybe I need to invest in a new quality brush or two as well? It's funny though, because I've done really fine lines with the cheapest of Taklon brushes.

They just lose their point eventually and then there's no hope for them. I have the Master's Brush Soap and Vallejo brush restorer liquid, but even so I never feel I'm doing a decent enough job of cleaning them, or cleaning them too much!

I'm convinced my continuous cleaning is probably doing more harm than good...

Oh, the Spore Mine too, yeah those individual plates look proper chonky with their highlights.

Not entirely sure how happy I am with this, it feel like there should be some of the dark blue on the plates, rather than just in the cracks. Honestly, what difference does it make though? It's one Spore Mine!

I didn't even want to paint it, I never use them, it was just hanging around getting in the way. As long as it's 'good enough' it'll do.