'nids part 255 - Biotitan Tyranid Hierophant pt.10 - Bonewhite highlights on the ribs

Having had my 'busman's holiday' with the display base I've returned to the Hierophant. That's not through want of trying to crack on with the other two parts of the 'Big 3'. I tried a of metallics on the Armigers, got as far as Balthasar gold on the carapace, then started on the legs and literally refused to carry on! What is it with my bronze that I now can't even stand painting it? So it was back to the monster.

Army painter Skeleton Bone was my weapon of choice, because it's slightly darker. When I started the nids way back when I'd have considered highlighting the ribs as a single entity. Obviously I now do it with 'pinstripes' to add more texture. Once again it makes the silhouette of the rib busier but I'm going all in on this now. I'm not sure the quality has ramped up but the effort certainly has - no shortcuts here.

Right hand side was session 2 and from a distance my pinstripe striations look pretty cool. I might have liked more variety in them rather than the three stripes per rib but the line and paint thickness isn't particularly uniform, even if the amount is.

Once again I'm not sure it stands up to close scrutiny - the brush strokes are far from tidy but I'm confident further highlights will create more definition that will justify the imperfect nature of the bioform - it'll all make sense in the end.

I think I still managed to retain some of the underlying tones from the bone and washes, maybe not as much as I'd hoped but possibly more than I would normally.

Tail and guns followed by front and back legs - roughly 3 to 4 sessions I'm guessing but it feels like it's progressing really well ☺

'nids part 254 - Biotitan Tyranid Hierophant pt.9 - First chitin highlights complete

I finally got all the spots done, so thought it was worth a 'built' shot. I'm glad I did as it's helped reconcile the busyness of the spots, although it's also highlighted the discrepancy between the turquoise denisty on the big body plates versus the leg plates.

With the leg plates being much smaller you are seeing proportionally more turquoise on a plate than the big plates, but that's always been the case so I'm not sure what my point is exactly.

This is a nice little 'save point' though. Having pushed myself through the repetitiveness and not gone mad I don't want to tempt fate by jumping into more of the same.

Granted I'll be doing bonewhite highlights next, so it will feel different I'll take the opportunity to potter on with some other things.

Although I do hope I retain some more of this bone colour created so far. Usually I cover up quite a lot of it, which is a shame as the Valejo Sepia wash has come out really rich and I want to retain some of that.

Now I have actually done a little video of me picking it up and placing it down again so you can see how it settles and the support of the legs, but I haven't uploaded it yet.

It's really coming together though so as much as I'm trying some other projects at the moment I actually can't wait to crack on with it.

Don't worry, this will be back on the painting table very soon. I'm not putting it on the back burner forever, just need to do somehting else for a few nights. Anyway, some more pics...

And my painting log so far, again most sessions are one hour, 90 minutes max with a few 'half sessions' but 30 hours as a rough estimate of painting to date.

Right, now what have I been doing in the interval...?

'nids part 253 - Biotitan Tyranid Hierophant pt.8 - "My God, it's full of stars"

Yet more 'highlights', I'm going to stop apologising for this now, it's a big model, there's only so much I can do so it's going to take a while and that means a lot of posts might not cover a huge amount of progress or highlight the same old process yet again. So lets just crack on...  I confess, although I had done some hard graft and fairly decent, consistent, highlights so far the model was a little underwhelming. Now I think Ive gone a little 'Liberace' on it. The spots and dots have been a key feature on my colour scheme since I first started.

Their primary function is as an 'interference pattern' to break up the expanse of blue on each plate. Given the amount I once again adopted my three sizes of cocktail sticks to create small medium and large dots without wrecking my brush and creating consistent circles each time. I may have gone OTT but they definitely achieve their function, as you can see below.

I'm a little dubious regarding the big circles. When you use the cocktail stick it does tend to make dots bigger than it's diammeter, thanks to the amount of paint you pick up. That siad this is as big a model as it gets and I was happy with that dot size on my Bastion/Skyshield/Defence Lines so I'm not going to worry too much about it.

I managed to do the entire body, legs and guns were limbs too far. I'm confident this is now better than it was and will look awesome but I accept it is way OTT, but as a centrepiece model it's supposed to be. I've actually seen a fair few Hierophants painted recently, very simply and I feel a bit sad folk didn't go all out on it.

I will at least know I gave it my all when it's done. Next up are its limbs, as mentioned above and then I may do an updated built photoshoot before I do the first set of bonewhite highlights. I want to do this in even stages rather than take the chitin through to finished and then play catch up elsewhere.

It's interesting that all the claws and spikes that have been painted black are already showing signs of wear due to all the handling this model takes to get it painted - that piece of foam comes in handy for resting it up and support. The rubber gloves help a bit too, but then they get snagged on a spike. Anyway, see you next week and I may have those 'built' pictures ready.

'nids part 252 - Biotitan Tyranid Hierophant pt.7 - Chitin highlights on the tail and 2nd half of the body

I managed to get really focused to complete the final 19 chitin plates on the tail of the Hierophant. I honestly didn't think I'd do it but perseverance will out! It also helps they get progressively smaller as they go down the tail ;)

Vents also got done, well this side at least.

The striations still bother me as they're pretty chunky, especially on the smaller plates but then I remember these are first highlights and [even] if I could do them finer they'll be most likely covered up by second highlights anyway!

This is two nights on. Session 1 I did the left side of the head, mandible and two neck plates. Given how disappointed I was when I did this first time around I was quite chuffed as I felt I was 'to schedule'. What I seemed to ignore was I possibly did the 4th bigger shoulder plate too in that session, so I was actually behind schedule :( However, I didn't realise it at the time and so cracked on during session 2. So I was already a plate down and only managed half a big dorsal vent but I did do three plates and all the cysts. So a little behind still but it's still progressing.

And then last night's session - three of the biggest plates on the model and a few of the vents. I'm obviously still behind, this may end up taking a couple more sessions to finish up but I'll no doubt throw in the spots onto that second session and then first pass of highlights will be done.

Of course when I do the spots I'll also have to do the legs as well which might end up longer than 2 sessions, who knows. There's a bit of tediousness about this at the moment but thankfully I'm relaly motivated, at least getting these highlights complete before I flit off to do something else...

... which is lies! Because I've actually been multi-tasking this with another project at the same time. No, not the Armigers... nor the Razorback... even the Fire Firs haven't been touched. No what I have been doing is building my Sanctum Imperialis from the Renegade box set. Yeah! What the flip is that all about?! Anyway, I'll have some Big Build To Done! pics from that soon.

'nids part 249 - Biotitan Tyranid Hierophant pt.6 - Chitin highlights on the body

You're all going to have to bear with me at the moment, chitin highlights seems to be a theme to these posts but unfortunately there's no getting away form it. As a record of progress it's helpful but I appreciate it's not a captivating update. However, these four carapace plates took over an hour to do, I was utterly spent and demotivated at the end of it as I envisaged the remaining plates taking forever.

But it would appear I was just trying to be really neat and tidy as my next session managed to do three of the biggest plates, with cysts and one side of the big vent and the side vent too. Again, this will be helpful in estimating time to do the other half of the Hierophant and then repeating it with second highlights.

There are still the spots to do, which will help bring it all together as it currently looks a little spartan at the moment. The irony is that despite the tedium and 10-20 sessions I envisage remaining on the chitin once it's done the Hierophant is almost complete. After the turquoise and bone there's not a great deal left to do [there is but I'm going to stick with my perception because it's optimistic].

I followed up the 3 big plates with two more, the right sides of the dorsal vents along the spine and then both ventral [?] vents on the sides.

I think I got quite busy with the striations on the dorsal vents, not much room for spots, c'est la vie. Which leaves me 5 or 6 significant carapace plates on the back with 7 dorsal vents and then quite a few little plates down the tail. 2 to 3 more sessions to complete this half of the beast and then I get to repeat the process on the other side!

I might do a bit more shading on the Razorback before that, just to stave of the tedium. I've already done some, but foolishly stopped about 75% through. But the Biotitan is definitely a slog, it's not beating me though and I'm not disliking the process but currently the reward is the progress I've achieved not act of doing it.

'nids part 248 - Biotitan Tyranid Hierophant pt.5 - Chitin highlights again

Apologies but this is going to appear a little tedious for a while as I fill in all these chitin bits. The top leg is complete [as may have already been said in the last post, it's all a blur]. But the bottom leg has one side done.

The other side has just been outlined, in my fit of 'misdirection'. Completing this leg will be one more session.

Back leg is also complete for the first set of highlights.

Both sides too.

The other leg has it's shin plat complete and just the edges and ridge highlights done.

And with the other side that's another two sessions then comes choosing what to do next...

... do I chitin highlight the body - then everything is at the same point, or do I 2nd highlight the legs [beware my OCD] or first highlight the Bonewhite?

'nids part 247 - Biotitan Tyranid Hierophant pt.4 - Chitin highlights

If you recall in the last Armiger post I reached a hurdle with the metallics and promptly shifted to the Hierophant. Alongside my Razorback [shading] these three projects all have elements that are far from unpleasant but they always retard my progress somewhat. The Hierophant is at the highlight stage and I figured the aspect preventing progress is just the scale of the task ahead. Really it's just a lot of striations on the Chitin and the only way to resolve that is just getting it done.

So, both sides of the rear shin of one leg took half an hour to do. This is a metric I can begin to use to my advantage - if I create a task list for it's completion. Having a timeline for these sorts of big jobs can be really helpful, particularly as I don't have a deadline or target for it to be completed for. Knowing how long something takes reduces uncertainty and can help demistify the task at hand, making it less scary and easier to approach. Given I have to do this again on the other leg and yet again with the second highlight on both knowing that's 90 minutes work.

I can then decide how that's split between sessions. It's certainly achievable in one concerted effort but also two or three depending on when I get into the shed and how focussed/relentless I am in getting it done. As you can see from my record below a session is usually an hour, so I've been at this for at least 10 hours so far [couple of half sessions in there]

It's also worth noting that those were just the shin piece of six plates, both sides; lets not forget there is still the thigh plates, this is what I achieved last night in almost one session. despite the muscle memory after a bit those striations get a bit more wobbly/chunky so more than an hour at a time can be counter-productive. But I had momentum at this stage and decided a little misdirection would be helpful. Having only revisited that post for Old Stuff Day it was a handy trick, although I'm not so sure its technically misdirection in this instance. I painted the central line, edges and any raised 'thorns' on the reverse of this thigh, the other thigh and both forelegs

Now it doesn't feel like much but if that took me 15 minutes to do that was 15 minutes that it was always going to take, even if it was absorbed among completing a whole plate or leg. Everything about painting this Hierophant currently is 'bread and butter' things that have to be done and there are no shortcuts or tricks, just creative labour. That's not to say it's unpleasant, it is what it is and a project of this scale ends up being a monumental task, thankfully it's not a chore.

'nids part 246 - Biotitan Tyranid Hierophant pt.3 - washes done

I'm sure I had a pet name for this at one stage but I can't remember what it was, it might have been Brenda, for reasons but I felt in the world of binary genders it was actually he-titan. I don't know so much now.

I don't want to be taking too many of these full body shots but the completion of the washes felt like a significant milestone to warrant the effort. I've even painted the [our] left front talons/spikes and [our] back right talons/spikes black but I'll save doing that for the other parts until after highlights.

I'll probably end up flitting between stages next - doing a chitin highlight here a bone highlight there, anything to prevent it becoming monotonous. Luckily I have three exciting project on the go so I can easily shift focus should it become a chore.

I know it's not colour accurate as I added a filter to my pics but I love nids at this stage, especially the bone colours. At some point I think I need to try and paint just with washes and basecoats - maybe one day if I ever decide to do an inquisitorial band or some other small grimdark unit.

I need to get some Army Painter Skeleton Bone paint for the next highlights. I'm not a particular fan of it, but it's darker/yellower than my Valejo Bonewhite and I thinkk in this instance it could be effective in settign up a three way highlight which might make him [see I called it him] look darker and more aged in appearance.

Not sure the raw red flesh bits inside the rib cages will be as visible as I'd hoped but maybe some careful application of Tamiya Clear red X-27 might solve that.

The Forgebane Warglaives have jumped the queue on this now it's at a 'savepoint' but they've been built and based, just need to prime and then I'll start on the highlights and potentially find out hiw daunting the task is ahead.

Fingers crossed it won't be too bad but I'm well aware of the pitfalls and finally ready to tackle it :)


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'nids part 245 - Biotitan Tyranid Hierophant pt.2 - washes

I think I may have been a little optimistic about this as even the simple things seem to be taking a bit longer than I imagined. The washes in particular are time consuming as I need to allow certain parts to dry before I paint the remainder. The last thing I want is massive pools of wash in the wrong place or dripping on my already messy workspace! So the torso is done, the tail needs finishing.

Front legs and bio-plasma cannons.

Back legs, now you should be able to see the lower leg has both Soft and Strong Tone washes on the Chitin plates [sepia and Agrax]. The upper leg only has Soft tone. This gives extra depth to the underlying blue, but it does mean I've gone through at least one bottle of each wash!

This is the carapace after just the Soft tone wash, you can see how messy it is but that's nto a problem as it only serves as an 'interference pattern' behind the eventual turquoise highlights. I'll probably be doing green toxic plasma glow on all the vents.

I've kept the log of my efforts so far but haven't typed it up/photographed it but I will as it's reasonably interesting. I often get asked how long things take to do so its nice to have a major benchmark to record, even if it's an extreme project.

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