"Come on you apes! You want to live forever?!"

Right, time for another project me thinks!

I haven't got a great track record of actually getting projects finished I have to say but I'm going to take this one slow. I'm going to be building, over the next few months a Tyranid Horde. I've wanted to start playing 40k again for some time now and I figure that I have to start out with an army right? I wanted something that I could paint relatively quickly and easily but that would also have an impact on the table. It's all well and good painting something easy but you've got to have fun with it too! Tyranids just seemed to fit the bill in every regard. I suppose the only difference is that I chose a horde army.....lot's of models......they'll look cool though, right?!

The first thing I had to decide on was a paint scheme. My first inkling was to go for a corrupted look. Almost as if the hive world had been infected by a Nurgle plague. This would have given me the opportunity to right some interesting fluff too. However I did away with this idea once I saw these guys...

I loved the way this guy used inks to get a very 'raw' look to the exposed areas and the mouths. As well as his use of nature inspired camo schemes for the carapace. As luck had it he also posted up a tutorial. I didn't have the same colours so I used his tutorial as a basis and this is what I came up with...

I wanted a darker, contrasting carapace than the Necro Tales Nids. I used the age old 3 highlight feather which actually turned out OK. It;s a little less convincing up close but as a unit it looks wicked.

I added some subtle variation to the tan skin tone using Carroburg Crimson, severely watered down. Multiple layers allowed me to blend this in with the main skin tone pretty effectively.

I decided to use a really bright spot colour for them as well. bright green will allow me to do some quite cool OSL effects down the line and also adds a little more of an 'alien' feel to a paint scheme that is quite grounded in nature for the most part.

I used Agrax Earthshade to add dots on the skin to make it a little more interesting. It also helped mask any areas where the red shading didn't properly blend. I love little tricks that hide the fact that I can't  actually paint that neatly!

Allin all these guys probably took about 8 hours or so. Which for me is super fast for 12 models. If I could keep up that pace for the entire army I would be happy!

So how did I do. Is this paint scheme a keeper? I suppose I'll have to do some of the bigger models in the same vein to get a proper representation but if I'm honest, I'm really happy with how the y turned out. Some Genestealers next I think....

Cheers!

Phil