The Start of the Swarm

Ahoy fellow readers, it's good to see I'm getting a sturdy flurry of readers each day, would be nice to have some comments too....anyway I've had a productive weekend, firstly my first squad of six firewarriors have been painted and based, along with the three stealth suits. So I'm making a pretty decent start on my Tau. Next training game is on Thursday night at GW Metrocentre so I'm hoping it'll only be a short while before I'm knowing the rules quite well for 40K.

But most of all the Tyranids came out of their huge box and I got to work building some of my many Termagaunts. I basically wanted to knock up a few give them a good prime, while the weather has continued to be nice, and then get to work working on some colour schemes.

Well the first couple of steps was pretty simple, Friday I made ten of the Termagaunts using just the normal Fleshborers, think for my final models I'll be using the Devourers. The models were pretty simple to build and getting a chain going I soon had all ten built in record time. Saturday they were primed white and sorted for painting on Sunday.

This is when the trouble started I thought using these models I could test out different colour schemes but can I find one that I like? I wanted to try and stay away from the traditional Hives of the Hive Fleet Kraken and Leviathan and create my own Hive but I cannot seem to get anything that looks good. My first few attempts I tried washes on the skin which looked good and pretty simple/quick to do. But then it came to the Carapace and I couldn't get a single Tyranid looking good against the skin. Here are some examples which were very rushed and I know there are sections missing paint/bits merged in together but these are mainly samples to test out the skin and the carapace. Once a finalised version is determined I'll make sure they're all up to scratch.

Mr Bright Nid

 So Mr Bright Nid first, I do quite like him but he was such a faff to get up to this standard the thought of doing a full Swarm of these and then all the big 'uns is pretty demoralising from the off. I want something that'll look good on the tabletop while being pretty simple to get into the painting chain to churn out quantity and quality.

Ice Nid

Second Mr Ice Nid, ignore the base, it was an experiment which has obviously gone wrong. The skin was washed with a Drakenhof Nightshade shade, carapace was painted black and then used Administratum Grey and Stegadon Scale Green as the layered design on the carapace. He's ok but something just looks a little odd with him.

Beginning of Jungle Nid

Lastly the Jungle Nid. I've always been a huge fan of the Moot Green colour, I've never used it before but I just love the vibrantness of it. So I painted the skin Moot Green, shaded with Coelia Greenshade and then went back over with Moot Green. I wasn't too sure on the colour of the carapace and tried a black but after that couldn't get any other colour to go with it. I tried yellow but it just looked too odd. I was going to do Purple but after painting my Tau army in purple I don't want to be doing the same colours over again.

Kraken

Finally and annoyingly I painted the Hive Fleet Kraken paint scheme and really like it. Pretty simple task of Seraphim Sepia wash over the skin, Mephiston Red on the Carapace with Evil Sunz Scarlet brightening up the edges of the carapace. I used Moot Green for the tounge to give it a little alien-ish pop and then washed the carapace with Carroburg Crimson. I'm actually really liking this and could easily see a whole army painted up like this. I've even ordeed some Army Painter Skeleton Bone spray, and Army Painter Strong Tone to speed up the process of colouring and shading the models, so it'll be spray, red carapace, shade and then highlight.

Which do you guys think I should choose?