'nids part 262 - Biotitan Tyranid Hierophant pt.16 - Toxic plasma glow

Progress has been rather slow on this, mainly because I seem to be getting in the shed a little later than usual. All the talons have been done, but that took a double session where I actually got to start hobbying at 9pm. I'll cover the talons later but here's the greenstuff!

My Vallejo Dark Green is the first coat - making sure not to shake it up. Then I think it's the goblin Green followed by this cheap apple/acid green craft acrylic I picked up from Ryman's Stationers years ago.

It's difficult to tell at this stage whether it's working, I fear I'm dropping my standards/making mistakes in my rush to get this off my desk. I've already smudged grey paint from the talons onto the bone bits and had to fix the splodges.

The green was definitely needed to break up the colours a bit.

Claws and talons, all done with Incubi Darkness, Dark Reaper, turquoise/white, white highlights. Not sure if there's too much highlighting now but I can always work some black back into it and shade it down.

Toxic green highlights 3 and 4

I mixed some yellow and a little white into my apple green to go more toxic and then finally some white spot highlights.

I'd already put the 3rd highlights in the vent stacks so the white highlights aren't too noticeable as they wet blended together. I'll add some pure white tonight and some additional highlights in some of the recesses.

I still think I need to add a little bit of extra highlights on the red areas but I've already started varnishing the legs. They'll be completed tonight alongside the arms. The body will be varnished mostly tomorrow night and I expect it should be complete Sunday or Monday - phew! Hopefully I'll get chance to do some To Done! pics next week.

Part 1. | Part 2. | Part 3. | Part 4. | Part 5. | Part 6. | Part 7. | Part 8. | Part 9. | Part 10. | Part 11. | Part 12. | Part 13. | Part 14. | Part 15. | Part 16. | Part 17. | Part 18. |

'nids part 261 - Biotitan Tyranid Hierophant pt.15 - bone To Done!

Grinding this out now, having made the decision to go straight to the final highlight on the bone. I probably put too much of it on, which was my concern about making it too light, even if that is my standard across all my nids now.

I'll tackle that issue later in the post, but for now here are the built pictures. Black claws and talons to do next, pink bits, need to fill in the vents Khorne red before I start doing the toxic plasma glows and then...

...then what? Varnishes and Tamiya Clear Red X-27 and she's done!

And I've still got 39 days left in the Hobby Season! Which means some other tasks might get ticked off too.

I have actually had some opportunity to progress the future containers to sponging stage. Once I finish shading the the Razorback I can do that on both at the same time as a batch.

Cocked the white balance up on this one.

Close-up

So here's the other step I need to do, some additional shading, going back over the highlights with Soft Tone in areas which would be in shadow. It's really adding extra dimension to the ribs, compare that to the hips on the right.

It's not exactly a difficult task, in fact its really easy but adds so much more depth to the model. I may have one more update showing the glow effect WiPs but then it should be To Done pics!

'nids part 260 - Biotitan Tyranid Hierophant pt.14 - Flesh and bone

The Chitin highlights are all done, but rather than post another 'save point' progress shot I;ve just cracked on with a first set of Vermilion highlights on the fleshy bits.

There are still some pink bits to do on the tongue and pipework on the torso. It looks a bit garish at the moment but gloss varnish and Tamiya Clear Red X-27 will change all that.

As stated the chitin highlights got completed.

It was a hard slog in the end but the Hobby Season deadline is just 46 days away now and I'm itching to see this complete so I can tackle that last of my Big 3.

With the fleshy bits done I moved on to the bone highlights. I'd gone with Army Painter Skeleton Bone first time around and as Valejo Bonewhite is lighter I did the next set of highlights with that but honestly I'm seeing very little difference. I'm not sure if this approach is worth the effort

You can see here that the right hand side has had a Bonewhite highlight and the left hasn't. It's almost impossible to tell the difference and I think I'm just covering up a lot of what I did anyway, making the fine lines thicker.

But I also applied the 'third highlights' in places - ends of ribs and the first two striation to the front of each rib. Even that is difficult to tell, so I'm just going to continue to use this second highlight colour instead of the Bonewhite across the entire model. Hopefully the increased contrast between my highlight mix and the Skeleton Bone will help.

I'm also going to add some shading under the ribs, unsurprisingly in the shadow areas. Hopefully it'll add a bit more definition as it's looking a little one dimensional [although technically with width and height it's two dimensional]. Half the ribcage in 45 minutes though was good going. Hopefully I can be happy with that finish the body and then crack on with the legs.

'nids part 259 - Biotitan Tyranid Hierophant pt.13 - Chitin highlights 2

I'm cracking on with this beast now, made just a little bit tougher by the silly heatwave. On the plus side I added a new fly-screen to my window in the shed so I can have it open at night and not be swamped by flying bugs [wanting to meet their Hive Queen no doubt!]. Unfortunately it can still be 26°C in the evening, mainly because it's topping out 32°C during the day. That temp is really uncomfortable and the paint is drying on the palette. I'm sure Marcellis has no sympathy for me ;)

Anyway, the highlighting continues and I have finished the legs. What is pleasing is that these took about 9 sessions to highlight first time around and I managed it in 5. So my 75% time saving estimate was particularly conservative. 

I think you can just about see both sets of highlights on the striations. I honestly think there is a much finer touch on this than my recent Trygon.

The brush strokes are a bit bolder on the shins for instance but I think overall I'm achieving the best I can. I still wish the striations could be finer but I see an improvement and subtlety in places so at least I'm doing my best and not rushing it.

Bio-cannons also got done which meant I was on to the back carapace.

When I did the head and carapace sections last time I got really despondent afterwards. There was something that made it feel like an enormous task ahead but this time round I felt great. Also interesting was the fact I am highlighting the spots as I go, whereas I think I did them all in one or two sessions first time round.

That means I'll save time at the end too. I've two big plates to do next and their vents. The vents can be quite tedious, I did consider doing them separately and just focusing on the plates. However, like the spots its just something I can do as I go along.  

The dots in particular are handy as with all the fine control of the striations and the paint becoming sticky in the heat it's always easy to blob in a dot. I don't get hand cramps but it's much harder to do those lines than dots, it breaks up the monotony. Again that's important because despite the good feeling I had after the last session I was once again wracked by doubts before doing these plates, but feel much better now they're done.

Here's a close up of my highlights so you can really see the detail in the brush strokes. It amplifies everything so you can see they're much chunkier than I would like but c'est la vie.

And the head itself, you may have spotted earlier I've painted the eye orange, you can't see it here. That's the base for the rest of the yellow, it'll be pretty cool to get that done. I'm also looking forward to highlighting the fleshy bits eventually.

I have three big plates to do next and then it's just lots of progressively smaller/easier tail plates. I'm really anxious to see this done, there's actually still a lot left do though. All the second bone highlights [and maybe third!] fleshy bits and green glows on the vents, not to mention the claws/talons. But my hobby season is drawing to a close and I'm thinking about next year's To Do List already visualising those projects boxed off and complete. First things first though...

'nids part 258 - Biotitan Tyranid Hierophant pt.12 - Bonewhite complete

Oops, spoiler. Obviously this is the pic that gets into the blog feeds so it helps if it looks good.

Which is obviously better than this WiP of the legs.

Which I finally got through and what a relief.

So I got a full built photo shoot so we can see how she is progressing.

And despite the hardship of getting to this stage it tipped me over the edge - the good edge and I can foresee how this is going to play out. Having recorded my efforts [show at the end of the post] I can see the second Chitin highlights will take possibly another 18 days.

Then the second Bonewhite highlights another 10. So I have 28 days worth of work, and I will be doing some additional 3rd highlight on both and not including the red fleshy bits, claws and talons all the glow effects and varnishing.

It's 62 days until the Hobby Season ends [when I wrote this]. I want this done and so it'll be my priority and if I crack on then the Razorback might just sneak in at the end. Shadespire Fireslayers and future containers seem a stretch at this point but who knows. Regardless this is big prize, and getting this out of the way in a timely fashion will provide opportunity for the others.

With at least 28 days worth of work it seems like a big slog but I'm up for the challenge and think now with a more positive attitude I might struggle less. With the first highlights done it's slightly quicker tracing over them with a second highlight. There's less to think about, which speeds things up but I have to take a bit of care that I don't obliterate all the first highlight - else what was the point. So I'd estimate it's 75% quicker to do.

But I have a deadline now and an overall guide of how long things take that I aim to beat, so although there's a lot and it'll take a significant amount of effort I'm raring to get it done.

Here's my updated log, which has been marked up so I can track the different parts to do again.

And finishing up the first set of highlights.

And there we go, almost a 'What's on my palette'!

'nids part 256 - Biotitan Tyranid Hierophant pt.11 - Bonewhite highlights on the legs

Dear readers, you will recall how well the Bonewhite highlights were progressing and how pleased I was with myself. Now they say 'pride comes before a fall', this might be evidence of that. I estimated I'd be able to get through this big leg in one sitting, I was clearly very wrong. I managed to do most of the edge highlights but when it came to the pinstripes I could only manage the lower third and even then I wasn't overly happy with the result.

This pretty much felt like my momentum was killed dead. I know going forward to approach the other legs in the same way - edge highlight and then fill in. That's why the ribs were so easy to do, each element was conatined, whereas here there's just so much space that I need to section so I can deal with on a smaller basis. Funnily enough the original plan was to paint the legs first, I don't know why I didn't but I'm extremely grateful for deciding to paint the ribs first. Without that under my belt I may well have felt even more disheartened.

With the legs giving me grief I thought I'd flip everything on its head and think smaller again - focussing on the bio- cannon arms.

Despite them being the smallest of it's limbs with the least bone it was a full hour to do all this and a surprising amonut of Skeleton Bone paint that I now worry is running out. 

I used what was left on my palette to do this bit on the right arm. For a variety of reasons [that I'll list below] I'll put this on hold at this point. As the Skeleton Bone is running out I don't expect to replace it until Double Trouble 3, when I can nip into Element Games directly. I've probably got far more than I think but this gives me an opportunity to try and tackle something else in my Big 3.

Despite my utter aversion to the bronze on the Armigers I took the opportunity to force myself to overcome the issue. The Manchester GW is holding an Imperial Knight World Record attempt - the most Knights in a store, and Armigers are included. Unfortunately the event is on 'the day of release of the new Imperial Knight Codex', which I estimate could be between 2-4 weeks maximum. I honestly don't think that's achievable, certainly not the two week deadline. I can but try and even if I miss the deadline I should have progressed sufficiently that I'll feel happy about their state, they may even be good enough to join in unfinished... Regardless, expect Armigers next on the blog.