CURRENT PROJECT:

Tyranids Hive Fleet Hades

Sunday, May 31, 2015

Hive Fleet Hades: Guardian Cup 8 - The Ocho...

Guardian Cup 8 - The Ocho, took place over Memorial Day weekend up in Portland, OR and I took Hive Fleet Hades to consume to competition. Course it doesn't always go that way, and I got torched in excellent fashion. I had a great time battling against a lot of very elite armies and some great opponents. I went 1-3-1 over 5 games, and two of those games were extremely close battles that I believe I could have taken, though I made some mistakes. Live and learn eh!

 

I worked furiously over 3 weeks or so to take a fully painted army to the competition, and was pleased with the results. Normally I'm pretty picky over detail, and the short timeline forced me to concentrate on getting a good finished product, in a short time. 

 

Hive Fleet Hades...


Draugen - Hive Tyrant Warlord

Balaur - Hive Tyrant

Carnage of Hades - The Swarmlord

Phalax The Destructor - Barbed Heirodule

Plaguerax - Malanthrope

Stonetail - Carnifex

Tuskagore - Carnifex

Corroders - Mucolid Spores

Biters - Ripper Swarms


Hope you enjoyed the Nids, and hopefully there will be more to come in the near future. We have an escalation league starting up in the next month, and that might push my interest to get some more Nids done, or perhaps something Darker...

Monday, April 27, 2015

Guardian Cup 8-The Ocho......

In an effort to jump start my desire to have a painted Tyranid army, I have decided to go to Guardian Cup 8 at the end of May....and take an army with me! That means Hive Fleet Hades needs to be ready to go in roughly 4-5 weeks.

This is an enormous  undertaking, but it will force me to paint my models to a table top standard and not to crazy, unrealistic standards. I'm far to picky for my own good and this will hopefully motivate me to get those models painted nicely, but not perfectly. 

More to come as Hive Fleet Hades prepares to devour Portland in May!

 

Saturday, June 8, 2013

Hive Fleet Hades: Carnifex Incarnate......

Once again life has attacked and gotten the better of me! However, I've found time to paint, and because I'm still participating in the Independent Characters painting challenge I have some serious work to make up!

 

 So on to the Carnifex! This is the first large beast I've tackled painting wise in my Tyranids army, and I have to say it's more difficult that I imagined. Large models required several layers of base coat in order to smoothly coat and cover the surface. I quickly got frustrated, and when I tackle my Tervigon's I'm going to break out the airbrush to help speed along the process. I'm hoping to shave a few hours of basecoat time out of the mix this way. 

 

This represents about 4 layers of highlighting on the carapace, from dark brown up to Karak Stone color. I'm going to give it another coat of a dark brown wash in the recesses and then I have two more successive highlights up to Ushabti bone. Then the green skin gets highlighting, and the details picked out. I'll keep you posted, I'm hoping to have this bad boy done this weekend, work permitting!


This guy just screams "Who wants some!"




 

Monday, January 28, 2013

Hive Fleet Hades: The Incursion Begins......

 ++++ Incoming Transmission++++

 Ref: Inq/1850-01282013/A0
Author: Inquisitor Chapel
Subject: Tyranid Incursion
Name: Hive Fleet Hades
Location: Western Segmentum
Sector: Willamette Valley
Notes: ref - massive replication, incursion imminent

 Prepare to defend yourselves, The Hive comes forth!

++++End Transmission++++ 

 

So it's been a long time, and after having prepared my two sample gaunts, I got busy with this and that. No excuse! The incursion must begin, the galaxy must be devoured! No better way to do that though, than with a beautifully painted army. I've always felt it's more respectful and enjoyable to play a game of Warhammer 40K with an army that's fully painted to enhance the enjoyment from both sides of the table. It just looks frakking cool too!

 

 

Unfortunately, just believing in something....doesn't make it happen. So to bolster my resolve and encourage good form, I've joined in on the Independent Characters Hobby Challenge 2013. The Independent Characters have a most excellent podcast highlighting all the great facets of this fine hobby. While many podcast's focus on new army books, the best choices for this army or that, or why one army is better than another, The Independent Characters focus on improving the enjoyable sides of the hobby. The painting, the story, the growing of the community and sportsmanship. Basically getting the most out of the hobby in general.

 

Hats off to Geoff and Karl!

If you'd like to check them out, see the link below.

http://theindependentcharacters.com/blog/

 

For my January commitment, I took it upon myself to finish up 12 of my Termagaunts using the paint scheme that I hashed out many months ago. It was a tight schedule as I joined late, but once I got rolling....the tide of snarling Gaunts just came forth in droves!

 

Here are the final pictures of the finished squad of Guants. One of my quandaries while completing the Gaunts, was how to differentiate the squads. With 2 Tervigons in the making, I'm planning on having to create and set up at least 3 spare squads of 12 Gaunts to supplement their ability to birth the creatures mid game. While finishing the bases and adding the tufts of grass, I hit upon a clever way to differentiate the squads....

One squad will have the tufts of grass on the left of the model, one squad on the right. Originally I started out with some rocks on the bases. I'm going to do a third squad with rocks on the right, and one with rocks on the left. If I need more, which I probably will,  I can do a fifth squad with grass on the right and rocks on the left, and a 6th with grass on the left and rocks on the right. Past that, Emperor protect whomever stands in the way of the oncoming swarm that is Hive Fleet Hades!

 







Sunday, May 6, 2012

Final Completion of Test Termagaunts:

I finished up painting the test Termagaunts last night, with the exception of the eyes. I might go back and add a little bit of orange and yellow to the eyes to make them more beady eyed and vicious looking. On to the sweetness!

Here we have the finished Gaunts, and I used a variety of paints on the final touches, including some of the new texture paint and dry brush paints.

For the tongue's I used a base of 'Pink Horror' and highlighted with  'Emperors Children'
The purple on the gaunt's fleshborers was based with 'Xereus Purple' and highlighted with 'Genestealer Purple'. The eyes I based with 'Wazdakka Red' and highlighted with 'Evil Sunz Scarlet'.
Finally on the base I used a coat of the new texture paint, 'Stirland Mud' and drybrushed on a coat of 'Tyrant Skull'.

The dry brush paint went on very easy and was quite pleasant to use. The texture paint was a bit messier and it was more difficult to get exactly where I wanted it, especially around the hooves and claws dangling down near the base. For the finishing touch I glued on a bit of grass to make it look like they're in a dry, arid environment. I'm not sure if I'm impressed with the base or if I'd like to go for something more urban. However for now this looks spectacular.

The only change I might mess with in the future, is using a glaze of 'Waywatcher Green' to go over the bodies of the Termagaunts.





Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Stage 3: Carapace Shading

Shading of the Carapace on my Termagaunt test subjects is complete. This was more time consuming that I thought it might be, and could very well boil down to skill. I'm kinda picky on how things look and wanted to get the look just right.

I layered over the base coats with Gorthor Brown, Karak Stone, and Ushabti Bone. These were done in successive layers using a feathering technique gradually advancing the lighter colors as I went. After which I used an Agrax Earthshade to tone it back and blend in all the colors. This came out quite striking and better than I thought it would.

Once the shades are dry, I plan to highlight two more successive highlights, and touch up the eyes and any recesses and black lines. I'm also contemplating highlighting the body color to a brighter green, but I don't want to get to bright.




More to follow! I'm really enjoying the color on these test bugs, and can't wait to start painting some bigger creatures!

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Painting Continues:

Worked a little bit more on my test Gaunts for Hive Fleet Hades. I covered the bodies with the new Games Workshop "Moot Green" and decided that it was a little bright. So I toned it back with "Nuln Oil". It was a little dark after that but ok. I need to highlight it a bit more.

Additionally I painted the carapace with "Gorthor Brown"
More pics to come!