'nids part 352 - Tyranid Leviathan - Psychophage white pics

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer on my Psychophage. And the pictures on a white background.

Not a huge amount to add, although I will concede it looks a lot better on the white background than the red one.

You can pick out the creature a lot more.

And the feeder tentacles in particular look more impressive.

As does the abdomen and it looks much more disturbing for it!

I've also spotted some elements I didn't end up painting, like the rebar on rubble on the right as well as the pipe in it's tentacles.

I may add some Dirty Down Rust to these at some point, seeing as the rest of the model is varnished and sealed.

You might be able to pick out on some of these close-ups that the matt varnish has slightly 'frosted' in the recesses. It's not really noticeable, but zoomed in you can just see it.

Gloss up of its glossy abdominal sack.

It's unfortunate that applying the matt varnish, particularly on the basing sand just makes the varnish foam a bit.

This in turn dries with those bubbles trapped in the creases, creating the slight frosting. Annoyingly, that's the least important place for varnish to be - you don't need protection in the creases.

However, it is where the dust will settle, so inevitably it will always end up like this eventually.

Still, the varnish really makes the chitin plates  look great.

It's not quite a matt finish, maybe satin, but it balances out all the washes on the blue somehow and makes them much deeper.

My Screamer Killers are much more patchy with their washes on the chitin so I am fascinated to discover how those will turn out in comparison - we'll just have to wait for #DreadTober.

'nids part 351 - Tyranid Leviathan - Psychophage TO DONE!

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer on my Psychophage. Well this escalated quickly, although realistically the bulk of the work had been done.

Once the bone and turquoise is done there doesn't feel like there's lots left, although I'd say there's still 20-25% of the model, with all the fleshy bits and black talons, not to mention the varnishes.

It felt like I was burning out on it though but I had a couple of nights where I was able to push on with it and focus.

Deciding on yellow smoke also helped - decision making always has the potential to stymie progress. Making that decision to go yellow just meant I could crack on.

Fluff wise I can tie it into the yellow sulphurous clouds that are above Ferron Proxima, so now we know why! The Tyranids have been surreptitiously xeno-forming the planet!

It's not perfect by any stretch but I like it and the yellow will fit in with the flock on the base and all the bits of yellow scenery I have too.

It's cool to add more of these accent colours back it, rather than go for the lime green or plasma blue again.

More highlights got added to the abdomen and I even put in some faint veins with watered down reds and purples.

The gloss varnish gives it an unearthly feel.

The question remains if a red sack would have been better.

Should I have inverted it so the tentacles were pink, and stand out a bit more against the Red Planet BASE! 🔴?

It still looks pretty gruesome and I'm really pleased with the results and the finished marvel. I will say that it felt a lot less like painting Tyranids than usual. There are subtle differences with the sculpting and the chitin plates which made things more uncertain than I'm used to.

It's hard to explain but the design language meant I'm usually quite confident about how to do certain bits but this just had extra stuff and much densely packed armour plates.

So I was slightly uncertain, which meant indecision and slowing down. That said, it only took about 12 days of intermittent effort to achieve this - something I'm immensely proud of.

So is this the last GREAT Big RUSTY Stamp of Approval?

'nids part 350 - Tyranid Leviathan - Psychophage first and second highlights

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer on my Psychophage. When I realised the Deathwing were not achievable there was genuine comfort in not having to fit all the WiP posts before the end of the hobby season.

Now I do the Psychophage and suddenly I'm going to miss that deadline.

Anyway, all bone highlights are done and more Bloodletter Glaze on the abdomen, with some additional definition.

Still no idea about the smoke plume.

First set of chitin highlights.

Suddenly I remember how tedious this is.

It's such a strange set of emotions - satisfaction for the progress but genuine boredom.

It does help to do it in sections though, to identify edge striations, middle ones, then the middle between those and then fill in all the other 'tweens'. It makes it easier as the first set of middle tend to be longer and so deciding on sizes becomes easier the more you go through it.

Then the second set of highlights is easier still, because you only have to match what's there.

Naturally you try to be smaller, inside the previous mark but I probably cover far too much of the previous stroke than I should.

Not that I mind - it's all looking pretty standard for my nids nowadays.

So, although I feel a little exhausted with all the turquoise the results are exactly on point. Black talons next, tentacles and the smoke plume...

And the decision is going to be yellow! Didn't see that one coming did you?!