Tyranids have some impressive psychic powers at their disposal and some pretty big brains to use them. The question is, how to paint them? I’m going to do a few painting tests and see which ones have the punch to stand out against my colour scheme.
Punchy colours.
I’m wanting this colour to stand out and contrast the red in the army, once again I have turned to blue as the answer. Unlike my bases I want it to be a little bit more organic, moving into the purple / royal blue spectrum maybe. This darker base will allow any “psychic” colour effects to stand out nicely.
To begin a lighter base of Grey seer was used over the black, this required two coats. I did this step after the the model had had its base layers done and wash applied, (Follow the link for my step by step for ladybug nids. https://harryshobby.com/how-to-paint-tyranids/
I then applied two coats of Drakenhof Nightshade allowing the first to fully dry before applying the second. I like this stage a lot and if I wanted this to be even faster I would stop here. I like how the slightly blue to deep blue transition gives it a real sickly brain look.
Corax white was mixed 2 parts water to one part paint. this allowed for a much thinner consistency that ran into the recesses of the brain. I wanted to focus this into the deepest recesses of the brain and mainly towards the top centre. This is the area I imagined the power coming from.
A watered down Nihilakh oxide was was then ran into the same areas which allowed it to keep a bright appearance.
Finally a thin line of corax white was painted into the recesses leaving some of the Nihilakh oxide showing. This gives the impression of a glowing power at the core of the brain.
What next?
Moving on from this I’m going to play around with gloss varnish to see if it can be used to give a wet look to the brain. Body horror and tyranids seem to go hand in hand so why not make it look moist? I feel like a more pink tone my help drive exposed brain theme home as that’s how we interoperate out own internals, but maybe that wont suit the tyranids quite as well. I may also return to a look close to that of step two as I do enjoy that pallid blue look for the tissue.
This is the joy of starting a new army, the chance to play around and see what works.