'nids part 358 - #DreadTober High Rule Dude and Screamer Killers Flesh and Talons

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity it's the 24th of #DreadTober and I've been #PaintingWarhammer on my Tyranid High Rule Dude and I've been so busy I didn't have time to post this update last week.

My focus has been on highlighting all the red fleshy bits.

Then all the black talons, claws and spikes.

I got all the adrenal glands highlighted too as well as the eyes and teeth.

The rotting strawberry of doom.

The teeth have made such a huge difference and this is literally just VGC Stonewall Grey and then white. No shades, washes or wet blends! And yet I'm convinced it's somehow tied everything together.

All the chunky brushstrokes look like some comic-book style colouring.

The spikes too, it's all coming together now and I can't wait to put some gloss varnish on all those spikes.

I did the legs, but foolishly did not consult my Tyrannofex blogpost beforehand to give me the exact recipe of how to create the angry red effect. 

It's hardly different but it would have made a bit of sense given I actually noted how I did it. And also it was DreadTober2020 which has a nice continuity to it!

And the massive talons, I've done much lighter highlights on the red than usual. 

I'm not sure if I'll live to regret that or not, but it all matches on the model, even if it's not as consistent with some of my other big bugs.

The talons too are a bit clunky with the highlights but I just wanted to get it done at this point. I'm not sure about the veins on the shoulders, if I need to do anything to blend them in a bit...?

Regardless, there's still some shading to add in places, but I'll do that when the model is fully mounted and I can decide on how I'm going to shade it.

Now the guns mostly match the Hierophant, at least I consulted the blog for this.

That said, I'm not sure what I was thinking that the underslung pipe/strut should be green like it's delivering bio-plasma to the gun, when it fact it ends in a bayonet talon! Still I'll do it green.

And to the Screamer Killers - both got their highlights.

And I now fully understand why the legs don't work. Firstly, there are 6 armoured plates on the thigh and 4 on the shin, when usually it's 5 and 3.

Those additional plates fill up the space more, rather than show bits of the fleshy joints or weaker armour. It creates a solid armoured leg.

Which I suppose for the function of the creature makes evolutionary sense but it's diverging from the Tyranid design language in a way that looks plain odd.

From the side it's not too bad, as you can see the other colours from the scheme.

But from the front, and particularly how the angle of the knee bends back in such a way as to make the armoured plates look continuous from a tabletop perspective, well they just look like trousers.

While the new Norn Emissary, as a bigger creature still holds to the 5 and 3 rule. Has a slight taper to the plates too, so you can see the weaker armour at the sides and the knee bend is in such a way as you can see the top part of the shin. 

When I get the Norn done you'll see what I mean.

Anyway, this has all worked out pretty well. Green and blue plasma to do next and then some shading.

The heads have worked really well and once again the teeth just make it so comic-book.

As much as I'd love to do something more grimdark and downright scary I love how this is straight out of Ben 10 or some other kids cartoon.

It's still cool, even if it's toy-like. As I come to terms with what I'm capable of painting nowadays I'm just grateful it has come together despite it.

I mean even all the dark blue, thanks to the washes, has somehow worked out OK when pre-chitin highlights it looked really dodgy.

Nearly done, just the glow FX, shading, some details on the bases, varnish and TO DONE!

Can't wait to see them finished.

#BloodBowl #ArmiesOnParade Mega bowl or Death Bowl pitch - TO DONE!

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been working on my #ArmiesOnParade2023 board. This year is all about showcasing 4 of my Blood Bowl teams. The 'best of the rest' category is always quite small and I wanted to showcase it doesn't have to be 40k or 30k [and not a cynical attempt to reduce the odds]. Mega bowl is way of playing Blood Bowl  with 4 teams and I wanted a 7's pitch so that it would fit in a 2'x2' square. However, 7's pitches are 21 spaces long and you may note this is one square short... Nevermind, it's not like I'm going to limit it to seven players on the pitch either. Anyway, I created the grid, the 3x3 corners will be space for reserves and the inner square is the 'no-man's' land that teams start outside of.

Next up - tile spacers to create tangible squares. Superglued in place, although the glue was a little temperamental sometimes. It was quite the challenge to make sure the crosses were all aligned neatly while 'floating' on this cushion of superglue. Using a couple of scalpels to press it in place was the easiest way to do it. 

The whole thing got a PVA and sand covering, then primed with Halfords Red Oxide car primer, then I think matt black car spray. Lots of Burnt Umber brown, but the bottom quarter will be my Nurgle tar pit, so I mixed talcum powder with PVA to create an effect similar to my Gloss Black 3d Texture paint. The tile spacers were still a little too plasticky, so I added some Valejo Red Oxid texture paste on all of them. 

I started mixing in some Latte [cream] art acrylic into the Burnt Umber for highlights in each player square.

And yet more highlights, creating a much paler board than I had expected.

I added a bit of shading around each tile spacer and then picked each one out in white so they're clearly defined.

I then added the rest of the pitch markings, so now we can begin to understand the layout a bit more. Now, we know where Nurgle is going, but the Humans and Halflings are on grass, while the Orcs are barren earth, which is what we currently have. So who else goes where?

This is a Photoshop mock-up as I had always envisaged the grass splitting the pitch.

Halflings opposite the Humans.

But I suddenly wondered if dividing it diagonally might make more sense.

With 'good' on one side and bad encroaching from the other.

So I used the mock-ups to poll on a Blood Bowl group and they all suggested splitting the pitch was the better option. I'm not sure why but this is where we got to with the flocking, some small flowers in the Halfling reserve area [I swapped the human halfling sides] and gloss varnished the tar pit. The grass was much less green than my renderings but other than that it came out OK.

So, next was picking out the endzones, which was pretty straight forward and fun to do.

And lastly the BB double skull logo in the centre. In 7's 2 balls fit in 2 of the 4 centre squares [so actually if it had have been 21x21 squares it wouldn't have worked]. So the skull is a nice touch to help show where that is and harks back to the Astrogranite™ original. I printed an outline stencil, cut it out and stippled white. The a second stencil for the black outline, which I then tidied up freehand.

So that pretty much TO DONE! and as it was done quite a few months back now it actually gets the last GREAT Big RUSTY Stamp of Approval. 

So, as far as I'm concerned my AoP is now ready. The only thing I feel I could add is a backdrop, but I'm not sure I have the wherewithal at the moment to fit that in alongside my other hobby projects. We'll see after #DreadTober as our in-store parade is earmarked for 18th November... 

'nids part 357 - #DreadTober High Rule Dude and Screamer Killers chitin highlights 2

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity it's the 16th of #DreadTober and I've been #PaintingWarhammer on my Tyranid High Rule Dude and the second set of chitin highlights are complete.

Much brighter but still I think I covered up far more of the previous Teal highlight than I would have liked.

Here's some close-ups to see the quality of the line work.

Some good ones but also some scruffy ones.

I also decided to fill the dots with brush work, rather than pins, tooth picks or paper-clip dots. It's less uniform and in some places goes wrong too but it was just easier to do in one sitting.

Those vents are disappointing. I will be doing green glow from them like the Hierophant and on the sides. Hopefully the additional colour will break things up and be more interesting to look at than the dodgy striations. 

The guns

which look like weird little star fields now.

Talons

The look OK, ther'll be lots to do with the black highlights when I get round to them.

Not just the massive talons themselves, but the hand claws.

The elbow and the three little spikes underneath the forearm. This may break me next week.

Both Screamer Killers are now highlighted.

It's bizarre who the legs offend me again. I get why they're stocky, but the Norn Emissary is bigger and his legs and chitin plates are more tapered.

But it's not just the shape, its the numbers. The Emissary has five plates on the thigh and the three on the shin.

This has six plates on the thigh and four on the shin.

I'm convinced if they'd stuck to that the proportions would have made more sense.

But again, this thing needs more armour so they through on more plates. Lore-wise, bio-morph wise it makes sense. I just think visually it falls down.

Although I do love the back, these vents will need a green glow too.

And the other SK, I just think it looks like it's wearing tartan pants.

I put some tertiary highlights on the High Rule Dude, but haven't done so here, which I might have to rectify now I've spotted it.

There are just a few places where both of them would benefit from just a little extra definition,

Reds next and there's a fair bit to do on all these models for that.

So, that's the vast bulk of the model done just reds, blacks, greens, blue [for the SC plasma] and teeth and eyes.

Back to the spreadsheet to track my progress, unfortunately I keep adding to it, to help identify different elements, as I tick things off 124 elements now. However, I've only 25% left to do, so at least progress is outperforming the setbacks. Although I'm not sure having 50% of my time left is actually sufficient to do that 25%! So many details left...