Category: painting
The Great Devourer
It’s been a long time since I had the time or motivation to paint anything. That changed recently, however, and I managed to complete a project which has sat half-finished in my cabinet for a long time. This is a Tyranid Hive Tyrant, from Citadel Miniatures mid 90s range. I much prefer the 90s minis and ruleset.
He wants to eat you
The Tyranids are nasty alien creatures who have a hive-mind and seem to exist for one purpose, namely to eat everything. Their weaponry is made from living organisms bio-engineered to serve a single purpose – whether that’s spitting gobs of venom at people or “being a sword” (yes that sword he has is actually a separate life form)
Supposedly it vibrates really fast and crackles with electrical energy
The Venom Cannon is a horrible, horrible weapon.
I wanted to give him a very organic look, so I went so far as to paint a bunch of veins on his head and on the bonesword. I used a LOT of inks and glazes to get the tones just right, and these low quality photos didn’t really pick it all out.
High blood pressure?
I’m pretty satisfied with the result, and looking forward to adding plenty of minions to the Hive Tyrant’s force. I have a pretty substantial Tyranid force which is awaiting painting, but my Dark Elves take precendence right now.
So say we all
I like to spend my time in a number of ways. One of which is modelling. And by that I don’t mean posing for glossy magazines, as nobody needs to see that. I mean building and painting models. Sometimes they’re models of actual things which exist (such as, for instance, the Cutty Sark), sometimes they are miniature soldiers (either historical, fantasy or sci-fi), and sometimes they are space ships.
Here is one such ship which I built and painted a couple of years back. It’s a Viper Mk. II from the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica series (which is one of if not the greatest sci fi TV show ever). Specifically it’s Kara “Starbuck” Thrace’s Viper.
For those of you who have never seen the show, Starbuck is an ace fighter pilot. She’s foul mouthed, smokes stoagies and can hold her own in a fight… and she has a penchant for bending the rules to effect a better outcome. She’s a superb character.
As you can imagine, Kara’s ship gets into a number of close shaves, and I have attempted to show this in the weathered paint work, showing areas where the ship has been hit with glancing shots from Cylon Raiders. Also, in the show, the Mk. II Vipers are relics from a war which happened forty or so years ago, and so I have given the paintwork a dull sheen, with peeling around the engine intake and on the wings.
This is all hand painted, I can’t afford an airbrush. For the weathering I used a flat brush and ink, gradually building up and drawing out the streaks from the gaps in the panelling (individually in some cases). Took me a long time to get the weathering to the point where I was happy with it.
Let me know what you think!
Permanent Days Unmoving 