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40k Imperial Guard and Tyranids


Trig

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Ive been reading through this forum and loving the figures and dioramas on display. So much so, i decided to have a shot at some figures myself with the aim of making a small diorama also.  Ive only built wooden boats before, no painting involved, so this is a learning process.

I always had an interest in  Warhammer 40k when younger, Imperial guards mostly but never got around to it.

 

So i bought some Imperial guards and some Tyranids along with the paints etc required. Following along to a youtube video on how to paint Imperial Guard and what colors to use.

 

Definitely not as easy as it looked in the video !

 

My first soldier. I was actually quite happy with him after the base colours and washes, untill i started on the highlights and then it got a bit messy. Still need to do some more to him.

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Started on the Sergeant next.  Started to paint over the brown uniform with light yellow, but i think the brown looks a bit better so im not sure yet whether to continue with the yellow.

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Got those 3 to that stage and some more primered.... this is gonna take me ages. I though ship building was a slow process :)

I also need to work out how to get better pictures.

Edited by Trig
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Welcome to painting really small thing!😜

 

 I'm loving my advaadvenchers into mini painting, I will be watching to see how you get on. They are looking good so far, are you going to build a boat for them?👍

 

I forgot to say the gun barrels looks loads better if you can drill them out a bit, Brian.

Edited by rockpopandchips
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6 hours ago, rockpopandchips said:

Welcome to painting really small thing!😜

 

 I'm loving my advaadvenchers into mini painting, I will be watching to see how you get on. They are looking good so far, are you going to build a boat for them?👍

  

I forgot to say the gun barrels looks loads better if you can drill them out a bit, Brian.

 

Thanks,

Think ill pass on the boat. My thinking on doing these and a diorama was as a little side project to give me a break from my current boat. I need to fit some led lighting to it before going much further, and im trying to put it off as i dont know anything about electrics either! (Other than the soldering iron gets very warm very quickly ! )  Though im beginning to reconsider, this is more  *another* project rather than a little side one ! :)

 

Yeah i actually thought about that after painting the grenade launcher, where it really stands out, so i think i will do that. Dont like the paint i used for that either, its Vallejo game color  Chainmail Silver. Has little flecks of metal (?) in it. Doesnt look good thinned or unthinned.

 

If i paint parts before assembly, does the plastic cement glue work onto/through paint?

Edited by Trig
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Very good first! And a perfect start, I would say. It's good to start with putting down even colour blocks and try to stay "within the lines". You even went further and applied some edge highlights pushing the contrast. Of course there's bits and pieces that are not perfect, but that's ok. You have to consider a few things before you critique yourself too harsh:

- You know it is not perfect, so you see it everytime you look at it. Someone else will most likely not even notice any mistake with a quick look. Most people don't spend much time looking at miniatures. The first impression counts to them. Take two steps back and look from that distance - that's what most people see when they look at your work.

- looking at digital pictures of your miniatures can push you into a deep depression. To overcome this take the real miniature to your monitor and resize the picture until it has the same size. This puts all those "errors" into the right persepective.

- Know that you'll get way better very quick by constantly painting a bit. Don't overdo your first miniatures - striving for perfection takes forever and kills any motivation. Instead aim for a fast achieved clean look.

 

Metallic colours are a special topic with miniature painters. There's those who try to imitate metallic surfaces with normal colours, a very advanced technique known as NMM - Non Metallic Metal. Then theres the classic way with "metallic" paints - Paints that look like metal right out of the bottle. These contain flakes of mika to achieve a metal looking surface. Pure they usually look very flat without shadows and highlights. What you should know on your way  - they can be highlighted like normal colours and they look way better with a dark wash applied over them.

...When you delve into the realm of washes give vallejo game color "Smokey Ink" a try (72.068). This stuff is an awesome weapon to many painting problems. I used it successfully for darklining, as a wash, as glaze, even as filter to pull whole miniatures together. It thins easily to the needed consistency.

 

For Metallics: I dislike most of the game colour series metallics. They do not behave well, are a bit hard to thin down, do not cover well... Often Games Workshop Metallics are considered being better. I personally found a good solution in Vallejos Model Air Metallic range. Those work well for my painting style. They still do not cover well with a single coat but they flow better as they are pre-thinned for airbrush use. This makes them more easy to apply for me.

If you have questions or need help with a certain topic just ask. And just keep going

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Thanks Schwarz,

 

I know what you mean about the pictures magnifying your mistakes. Ive taken pictures of my wooden builds before, and you think it looks great, untill the picture shows up every slight splinter of wood sticking out or slightly misaligned mitres. Im usually happy enough with it anyway, so thats all that matters really in the end.

 

Thanks for the metallic info, will give it a wash on top and see how it looks.

I have Flesh wash, Sepia Shade and Black wash, but not the Smokey Ink. Will keep an eye out for it.

 

Not had much time for modelling recently, but i have managed to prime a Tyranid Hormgaunt, so will give that a go next i think. Need to decide on some colors for it.

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On 10/28/2018 at 12:34 PM, Schwarz-Brot said:

looking at digital pictures of your miniatures can push you into a deep depression. T

To true! I thought is was bad enough with massive robots but these miniature figures are hellish on screen.  

On 10/28/2018 at 12:34 PM, Schwarz-Brot said:

"Smokey Ink" a try (72.068

Not seen this recomended before so I will also have a look out for it, thanks.

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Just about done with my first Tyranid, still got the main arms to paint and attach.  Glad i forgot to attach them also, as its been a real pain to paint compared to the imperial guard. Hard to get into some of the areas, will try and paint some more of it before assembly next time.

 

Not sure what these tyranids are meant to be made from.  Fleshy bodies with bone armour/carapace, and the joints a sort of muscle/ligament?

 

Couldnt really decide what colors to go for, but was decided in the end by what colors i had.

Bonewhite for the body, and black for the carapace. Wanted to try a purple-ish colour for the carapace, but i dont have any, so black it was, with grey highlights for a battle damaged look. I did give it a flesh tone wash which gives it a sort of red tone, but it doesnt really show in the photos.

I ended up having to paint the body again as i messed up with a sepia shade wash. Wondered what it would like if the whole body was done with it.  Terrible it turns out. Sometimes a real life Undo button would be handy :)

 

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I would like to be able to paint the flesh transition into the carapace as if the bone is growing out of it, red and distressed looking around it. But not sure how to go about that yet.

 

Have also ordered some stuff for making the diorama. Thinking a sort of arid type landscape with the imperial guard holding a trench/bunker against the tyranid swarm.

 

Edited by Trig
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I think they're quite hard models to interpret apart from the carapace. I've tried doing the undersides (bony ribby looking stuff) as dry bones but I much preferred the second set I did in a glossy fleshy style. Because they're organic there's a lot of scope for transitions like you suggest.

I like the face, I think if you washed/blended around the carapace with thinned pinky-red like that, you could get a cool effect.

FWIW, the genestealers are the easiest to paint assembled as they're nice and open. The warriors are hard as they have two-handed weapons across the body :(

Cheers,

 

Will

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Thanks Will. I gave the pinky red color a shot. I think you are right that you could get a cool effect from it, but i dont think ive quite managed that :)

 

Its not too bad though, think i might have overdone the red a bit and its not really blending in that well, but i'll probably move onto the next one rather than try and redo this one till im happy with it, which could take a while.No pics of it at the moment, will post some when ive got them.

 

My diorama supplies arrived today and i got the base sculptamold layed.  Probably going to be a sandy type location, but i could always go with a snow world and its finished already 😉

 

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The white primer (MIG acrylic) on my figures keeps chipping/rubbing off very easily, am i using the wrong stuff or is this just how it is?

Edited by Trig
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That looks like bad rubbing - I haven't used that primer so I don't have personal experience, but it might be worth washing the figures before priming to remove any traces of skin oil from handling during assembly.

FWIW I use lacquer primers (Alclad, Tamiya, DIY store rattle cans) and have very little trouble with rubbing as they bond well to the plastic.

I like the eyeline of the diorama already :)

 

Will

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19 hours ago, Will Vale said:

That looks like bad rubbing - I haven't used that primer so I don't have personal experience, but it might be worth washing the figures before priming to remove any traces of skin oil from handling during assembly.

FWIW I use lacquer primers (Alclad, Tamiya, DIY store rattle cans) and have very little trouble with rubbing as they bond well to the plastic.

I like the eyeline of the diorama already :)

 

Will

 

Thanks, i'll give that a try.

The one pictured is quite bad as its been lying about my desk rather than stored, but the others sometimes get rubbed off just by touch when painting. Not as bad once another coat or 2 of color is on.

 

Forgot to post these pictures at the weekend, but im still at the same stage.Still need to paint and attach the arms. The red skin didnt turn out great,i need more practice before i can make that look good i think. But rather than repaint over this one i think ill leave it be and move on to the next and try again from fresh.

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As for the diorama, ive decided to downsize it a bit. The one pictured  is about 250x450, but i made a few mistakes. I let the sculptamold dry for over 24 hours thinking that was more than enough and then painted it, but it still felt damp and still does so i think ive sealed the moisture in it. So realising that i dont actually know much about making dioramas, ive decided to use the figures i have to make a few diffrent small dioramas, about 160x120 or so. Will let me try out various different types of landscape without getting bogged down in a bigger one. Plus at the rate im painting, id never get a bigger one finished :)

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So i finally got one tyranid figure finished, and started on a few more guardsmen.  And started on my first small diorama base for maybe 6-8 figures.

 

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The seam line down the nose/muzzle/mouth doesnt actually look as obvious in person, but you can still see it slightly.  Would you use filler on this? The head is 2 parts stuck together.

 

And ive learned something new, something which should have occurred to me before.  Write down what colours, washes and highlight colours you used if you want the next figures to look the same. Bit of trial and error to find out what colours i used before :)

 

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Not sure its worth posting a thread for this small diorama, so ill probably keep it in here. My intention is several small diorama bases of diffrent environment types for practise, rather than one big one which i would likely make (more) mistakes on. So im starting off with a desert/arid landscape type, my next will likely be jungle or swamp.  Quite small scale, so not alot of things i can add.

 

Intending maybe 3 or 4 imperial guard surrounded on a rocky outcrop, figures will be attached directly into the diorama rather than on bases. Base is an old bit of shelfing with 10mm styrofoam on top, covered with Sculptamold. I let it dry this time, takes a surprisingly long time, and have painted it with some base colours to hide the white, which will be mostly hidden apart from the black rocks.  Still trying to get a hang of drybrushing the rocks. Either not enough paint, or too much.

I have various types of sand collected and dried from work, handy thing about working on a building site. Was annoyed that i couldnt find any styrofoam and had to buy it despite the amount of it ive layed in floors and foundations!

 

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Alright, making dioramas is a lot of fun !

Glad i went for a small scale version first though,means i can move onto the next one sooner. :)

 

Still very much a wip. Intending to have flames coming from the flamethrower, not sure how it will turn out though.

 

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This is looking great! 

I like to use Kingspan as a  base material and if you can get offcuts it's cheap/free. It's a lot easier to cut and shape, in fact I use it for all sorts, making rocks, a tool rack, paint brush holder, parts stand for painting when using crock clips on a stick. The rocks are looking good, something to try later is very thin washes on different areas of the rocks. To give them a bit more interest try greens or yellows or even reds. 

 

looking forward to see more. 

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Thanks Rock. Didnt think about using washes on the rocks, ill need to give it a try as they do look a bit bland at the moment. I tried to paint the shadows in, but maybe a darker color would have worked better.

 

I did a job earlier this year laying 2000m2 of kingspan flooring insulation, and previous to that one a bit bigger raft foundation with harder foam which was good stuff.  But as per usual, when looking for some there is none about ! Hence why i was annoyed at having to buy some :)

Gonna need to start stockpiling stuff.

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  • 11 months later...

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