Tyranid Termagants - Gooey Organic Colour Scheme

For the Overmind!... oh wait, wrong franchise...

Just for a fun little side project, I painted up a few Termagants recently. I actually got them for free from my brother, so I can't complain, but they were a bit of a sorry band of rejects when I first clapped eyes on them. Especially two of them that I stripped; having had ugly old paint jobs given to them some years earlier by some unknown eBayer.

For the scheme, I wanted to get a decent amount of colour in there, and make it relatively fast to paint. I used the airbrush to lay down some flesh-tones and then worked over that. I also used a decent amount of both Blood for the Blood God and Gloss Varnish on them to get a nice sticky wet look, which I like on my alien bugs from beyond the stars.

Probably the most interesting thing was building their biomass looking bases. I like to think they're inside the bowels of a hive ship or something. As this was a cheap project, I wasn't going to buy anything fancy, so I sculpted the bases myself using milliput. The style does vary across the unit a bit as it took me a while to find my footing. Basically, after a bit of experimentation, I found that creating a wave like texture a bit like a ploughed field worked well, and then pushing the rounded end of a paintbrush into the divots to create ribs made quite a nice looking base.

This was just a little side project, so at the moment, I'm not planning a full army or anything. I would like to try the scheme out on a larger monster, but maybe a bit later, I guess we'll see.

Everchosen - I'm a Winner!

Just a quick update post to say that my Battle Sister made it through, and that I came first in my local competition! Next up, I'll be going on to represent the store in the online vote.

Just for fun, I also entered the open category, and snagged 2nd place with my 40k Skaven Dragoon conversion. All in all it was good fun, and I think I'll probably enjoy going into the online vote too. I'm not expecting much as I'm sure the serious golden demon guys are going to be out in force, but It's just nice to get a little bit of recognition, and it is a very big global stage, so it should be interesting.

I had a bit of a look around the internet, and I think quite a few people entered Sister Amalia into Everchosen, so I'm sure I'll be up against some very directly comparable models in the next round! (I've seen a few that made it through), so at least I can see how I do compared to them!

Winning was quite fun too, as I was presented with a mysterious golden envelope. Unfortunately, it just continued instructions on how to enter the second stage of the competition, and wasn't stuffed full of gift vouchers!

Sister Amalia Novena - Everchosen Painting Competition

I'm entering the Everchosen painting competition today, so I thought I should post my work on the blog too. It's been a while since I last posted on here, but I have been working on some miniatures, so with any luck, more posts should be coming soon.

This was a cool model to work on. I wanted to do something for the competition, but was undecided about which model to use. I've always liked sisters of battle (and have an old army of the metal ones at home too), so I knew I was going to pick up the first ever plastic one when she came out. Given the timing, I figured that she would make a good entry for the competition too. I also often end up painting female models for competitions. I think it's because I spend so much time painting burly dudes that by the time I get to picking something "just for fun" I'm in the mood to switch it up a bit.

Build-wise, I made a few changes. I took away her bolter and added a sword from a Mechanicus infiltrator. Mostly to make her look more interesting for the competition, but it is a cool part and it wasn't that hard to do. Other than that, I added the archway. After painting, I added some "broken glass" to the arch too (seen at the bottom from the back). There are a few bits scattered on the floor too, but they aren't that obvious and don't really jump out in photos. Nevertheless, I think of it as a bit of an "Easter egg" for anyone who bothers to look at her long enough. The arch is the side struts from one of the citadel building kits, just cut to shape and re-joined at the top and bottom.

As far as paint is concerned, I went full NMM. I'm honestly not the best at non-metallic metals, but that's pretty much why I did it. I always try to push myself with competition entries, so it was an obvious choice. I laid down the base colours and blends on her armour and sword with the airbrush, but after that it was all good old-fashioned brush work. I also added some fairly subtle OSL in the form of the candle and lamp. I'm quite happy with the candle, but I feel like I could've brought the effect through to the actual model better. It doesn't really matter though as I'm happy enough with it as a bit of throw-away wow-factor.

That probably just about rounds it up. Everchosen is decided by public vote, so who knows how this thing could swing. I'm sure I'm  not in with a look-in for the grand prize as the really serious painters are sure to be out in force. A local victory would be cool, so I could at least make it to the online voting stage, but I guess we'll see.