Terry the test termagant

As you might notice by the dates on posts so far, I’ve been mainly putting things up from a backlog of content. I’ve mostly been doing this in chronological order of what I painted, but sometimes something “new” will break through - in this case a test model for red tyranid creatures.

I ended up ordering a few 1st/2nd edition tyranid models over the Christmas break, but wanted to have a think about how I was going to paint the red before starting them. While very good for the more mainstream 40K races (at least, mainstream when 2nd edition was launched), the ‘Eavy Metal Painting Guide only has a few pages on tyranids - understandable as when it was written, the range was pretty much warriors, hunter-slayers, carnifexes and various genestealer adjacent stuff (and zoats!).

I didn’t have any of my old 2nd ed termagants to hand, so a much more recent (10th?) edition model would suit as a test model - sprayed red.

One of the advantages of blogging is you can use it as a reminder to how you paint things…

The main red body was painted with a few coats of Army Painter Fanatic Resplendent Red, then over brushed with Angelic red. I then thinned Baal Red contrast (c. 1:2) with contrast medium, and coated the entire model. Citadel Wild Rider Red was used for the main skin colour, leaving the previous colour in the recesses and amongst muscles, etc. I needed up going back and thinning a bit of coat d’arms vampire red down mixing it with Baal Red and adding that to areas I thought would have deep shadow, and a final highlight of Fanatic Burning Ore was added around the highest points - quite complicated, but it looks nice enough in the end. I wasn’t really sure on where I wanted to go with this for a lot of the time, so it probably could have been less steps overall.

The bone colour is a base of Fanatic Wasteland Clay, a citadel Reikland Fleshshade wash, then progressive highlights through Morghast Bone, Ushabti Bone and Screaming Skull. The dark blue bits are Fanatic Deep Ocean Blue, highlighted with Abyssal Blue, then mixing a bit of Arctic Gem in.

The green took a bit of figuring out as well. I started with a base of Fanatic Emerald Forest, a wash of Citadel Kroak Green, then tidied with Emerald Forest again. Highlights were made by mixing Emerald Forest with Citadel Skarsnik Green, the adding some screaming skull to this mix for final highlights.

The purple bits were a base of screamer pink, then highlights of Fanatic Wicked Pink and then Pixie Pink. Eyes were painted with Fanatic Deamonic Yellow, then Space Dust.