Tonight's Project: Old School Tyranid Terror

I've been considering starting a new Warhammer 40k army for quite a while now. Chaos Space Marines are awesome, but I've been playing them literally since I got into the game way back in third edition. My traitors will always have a special place in my heart, but I think it's time for a change.

Enter the Genestealer Cults.

Xenos heresy is still heresy...

I'll go over my reasons for choosing the Genestealer Cults in a future post. Suffice to say I have a very specific plan in mind for the Genestealers. Specifically I've got an idea to paint up a white and gold paint scheme. Rather than slapping paint haphazardly on a few brand-new models, however, I've decided to do a bit of practice before I get down into the meat of things.

To that end, I've managed to dig this happy little fellow out of the bottom of one of my many bits boxes.

Aww, so cute!

Yes, that's an old school Tyranid termagant with a fleshborer. I've got several of these guys laying around, and damned if I remember just where the hell I got them. I've had these old school Tyranids almost since I started playing Warhammer 40k. I'm sure I had some plan in mind when I bought them, but they've languished in my bin for over a decade.

Until now.

This little guy right here is going to be the guinea pig for a new Tyranid paint scheme. Essentially the plan is to do white flesh and gold armor plating. I've already painted Apothecary White over a Wraithbone base coat. Next step is going to be a dry brush of Army Painter Matt White. Then I'll probably hit it with strong tone for some more shading, then another dry brush of white. After that I'll move on to the gold.

Honestly,  I have absolutely no clue how this is going to look. I used a similar technique to great effect painting Rippa's Snarlfangs from Warhammer Underworld.

Will my planned paint scheme pop on this old school Tyranid? Or will it end up being a complete dud better off consigned to the trash bin of the Warp?

We shall see...

I'll see you later...

Finished: Old School Tyranid Terror

Job's a good one!

Last night I showed you the old school Tyranid termagant that I was going to experiment on.

Remember me?

My purpose, of course, was to test a possible paint scheme for an upcoming Genestealer Cults army I was going to be working on. Specifically, the Tyranid termagant's scheme was going to be applied to any purestrain genestealers I would have in my army.

I spent much of tonight finishing up this old school Tyranid, and I have to admit I like the look of what I came up with.

The first step was to undercoat the termagant with some Citadel Wraithbone spray. After that I applied a generous layer of Apothecary White contrast paint as you can see in the picture above. I know the prevailing school of thought with contrast paints is "two thin coats" rather than the "one thick coat" that Games Workshop initially advertised. However, I've found one thick coat to work better on the lighter colors like Apothecary White. The only thing you need to watch out for is some odd pooling that you might get.

Step two was a heavy dry brushing of Army Painter Matt White.

Now, I could have just left this termie as is. There's enough shading on him that the detail pops pretty well. I wanted to take it a step further, however, and get some more defined shading on this bad boy. I don't have any Nuln Oil handy, however I do have Army Painter Strong Tone. Step three saw me hitting the termagant with the Strong Tone like the fist of an angry god.

Now we have a bit more shading and some more definition. I couldn't just leave him that ugly light brown/black color, however. Step four (or five...whatever) saw me slapping another heavy dry brush of Matt White down.

The final steps in this process involved a base coat of Retributor Armor on the carapace plates on the back and the head, followed by another wash of Strong Tone to give it a bit of a bronzed look. Last, but not least, I did some edge highlighting with Auric Armour Gold, and just for giggles I hit the fleshy tubing of the gun with some Blood Angels Red contrast.

At this point I decided to call it quits. I may finish off the rest of this model at some point. Who knows, maybe it'll make a characterful addition to a future Tyranid swarm. The point of this project, however, was proof of concept. I wanted to see if what I had in mind would work. I think the results show that white skin with gold armor plating would work pretty well for Tyranid beasties.

Now I just need to figure out a Genestealer Cult army list that makes generous use of Genestealers.