Hobby update: Tyranids (Finally!)

Less sinister than this update, but just as deadly... perhaps.

Well then.  I believe it's about time for update time.  Chaosheade here with an update on my nids.  Don't worry, there will be no more repetitive redundancy in this post.  It's taken so long to get started back up with them partially because of moving and being busy as hell and partially because having trouble figuring out the paint scheme kind of put me off of working on the army.  That should be over now since I think I have a much more solid plan for a paint scheme that I like and I also decided on a name for my hive fleet.  Check out all the juicy details after the jump.

First of all I would like to introduce Hive Fleet Balor, named for Balor of the Evil Eye from Irish mythology.  Balor was the king of a race of giants called Fomorians and he had an eye in the middle of his forehead that could wipe out entire armies just by looking at them.  Full details can be found in the wiki link above or here on Answers.com. I toyed around with several different names before finally choosing one that ties in with my Irish heritage.  The preferred tactics of Hive Fleet Balor are to overwhelm their enemies victims with surprise attacks falling from the sky (spores, flying creatures), burrowing underground (trygons, raveners), and approaching by stealth (ymargl stealers, lictors, outflanking/infiltrating units) with a null deployment list.   Hive Fleet Balor can also use more conventional tactics when it is advantageous to do so with a more standard army list.  The hive fleet is able to quickly adapt to the enemy's tactics and is flexible enough to field just about any type of force (or will be able to do that once I build up my collection a bit more.)  I plan on modeling my Hive Tyrant with an eye in the middle of his forehead like Balor.  Obviously there is no ranged instant death ability in game for Hive Tyrants so I will probably have the Tyrant's psychic abilities represent the power of the evil eye.  I'm not going for strict adherence to the mythology, just a way to tie it in with the theme.

Totally bad ass artist's rendition of Balor of the Evil Eye
From www.creaturespot.com

Now, on to the paint scheme.  After getting a test mini about half way painted I decided to give up on the super colorful tetrad idea.  I would have to paint way too much yellow and going for the tetrad really restricts the colors that can be used, not to mention how difficult it was just to figure out the right colors in the first place.  The original idea was good in theory, but it's just not going to work for me.  I am still determined to use the metallic blue carapace though, dammit!  I was attempting to have sort of a color changing pearlescent type effect where the blue carapace would look green when the light hit it the right way but this was not working out at all.  Hyv3mynd makes this look really good on his Splinter Fleet Colossus with the metallic green carapaces that shine blue in the right light.  I was having a lot of trouble with the green dulling down the blue and basically just taking all the life out of it. I am going to try the same thing with purple and black to see if it's the green color that is messing things up.  If I can't get it to work, I might do the metallic blue carapace with more standard purple or black highlights or feathering.

My new plan goes something like this:

• Metallic blue carapace with purple or black pearlescence
• Bone colored skin (not the dirty, sepia washed color that I used before but a cleaner, almost white color).  The recesses in the skin will be shadowed with either brown or purple.  I'm leaning toward purple on that one.
• Purple fleshy bits
• Glossy black for scything talons, claws, and other such "hard" parts.  I might try purple or blue edge highlights as well, leaning more towards blue I think.
• Misc details like eyes and such I haven't made a decision on yet.  I can do a cyan/ice blue to keep all the colors near one end of the spectrum or go for some contrast with a yellow and/or light green.  I'm leaning towards the cyan/ice blue but I will try them both out to see what works best.  If you're not sure what I'm talking about with the color combinations and such see Sandwyrm's Color Theory Archive, especially part 3.  It's really an excellent resource.

Here are some examples that I will be using as references.

Carapace with multi-color pearlescence:

Notice the blue sheen on top of the green carapace.  That's the effect I'm going for.
http://synaps3.blogspot.com/p/splinter-fleet-colossus.html

 Bone colored skin:

This is a good example with the purple recessed areas.  Replace the black and purple carapace with metallic blue and change the red to purple and/or blue and it's not far from what I am looking for.
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?prodId=prod1050112

Slightly darker bone with brown recessed areas.
http://www.coolminiornot.com/index/whatm/GW/id/115194

Purple fleshy bits:

(see also: Hive Tyrant pictured above)

The purple details on the guns are not a bad example of what I will be aiming for.
http://www.warseer.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4694915&postcount=174

Lots of purple fleshy stuff on this Biovore.
http://www.warseer.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4897259&postcount=286

Glossy black weapons:

The closest example I could find is the Hive Tyrant pictured above (again) but instead of highlighting with red, I will most likely be using blue.

Misc Details:

For Ice Blue/Cyan, see the above Tyrant (yes, again.)  The veins on his head are a good example.

For yellow, see the eyes in the above Hive Guard and Biovore and their weapons.

I don't have any examples for green.

Well, that about sums up my revised plans for a tyranid paint scheme.  One concerns I have is that there might be too much purple.  If that is the case, I can always use more blue or add in the yellow/green on certain details. My goal is to have a couple test figures done by the end of the week if not sooner.  Any feedback or suggestions are greatly appreciated.  This is Chaosheade signing off for now.  Catch you on the flip side.