Tutorial: How to paint Tyranids Hive Fleet Kraken

This is the second tutorial in this series. How to paint Tyranid Hive Fleet Kraken which is the current eavy metal studio Tyranid scheme. I’ve broken down their scheme and faithfully recreated here on Tale of Painters. Full guide after the jump.

This tutorial assumes you have a basic understanding of how to paint. For the beginners, I will explain the techniques as I go along. Each picture below shows four chronological steps. Underneath each picture are the corresponding instructions. Each step shows the paint I used during that step.

Paints you will need for this tutorial:

White Undercoat

Seraphim Sepia (shade)

Ushabti Bone (layer)

Ceramite White (base)

Abaddon Black (base)

Mephiston Red (base)

Evil Sunz Scarlet (layer)

Bugman’s Glow (base)

Kislev Flesh (layer)

Bloodletter (glaze)

Zandri Dust (base)

Screaming Skull (layer)

Flash Gitz Yellow (layer)

Armageddon Dust (texture)

Steel Legion Drab (base)

In case you need to expand your paint collection, head over to Wayland Games or Slave to Painting, which both stock a huge selection of paints at competitive prices.

1. Undercoat the model white. You can do this by using a white undercoat spray or use Vallejo White Surface Primer and an airbrush.

2. Wash all the skin areas with Seraphim Sepia. 

3. Highlight the skin areas using Ushabti Bone. Make sure you leave the Seraphim Sepia showing through were the recesses are as shading.

4. Create a glaze mix of Ceramite White (50%) and Lahmian Medium (50%) and apply a thin layer on the upper most rounded areas. This is to represent highlighting. Nice thin layers of this translucent mix should create soft blended highlights. 

5. Paint everything that isn’t skin with Abaddon Black. 

6. Paint 50% of each carapace plate with Mephiston Red. 

7. Highlight the carapace edge using Evil Sunz Scarlet. Small parallel lines alone the edge creates a ridged feather effect. Check out the close up above to see what I mean. 

8. Paint anything fleshy with Bugman’s Glow. This can be tongues, lash whips, feeder pipes, tendrils etc.  

9. Highlight the fleshy part with Kislev Flesh. 

10. Wash the fleshy part with Bloodletter Glaze.

11. Paint the teeth with Zandri Dust.

12. Highlight the teeth with Screaming Skull.

13. Paint the eye with Flash Gitz Yellow. Don’t forget any eyes on the weapon. 

Finally base the model in a way which fits in with your collection. I used Armageddon Dust texture paint highlighted with Screaming Skull and the base edge was painted with Steel Legion Drab.

If you missed it you can check out the Behemoth tutorial here and check back regularly for the Leviathan scheme here.

Do you like our tutorials and reviews? Here is what you can do to support us: Check out the websites of our sponsors, place your next orders at Wayland Games by clicking here or on the banner on the right. Thank you very much, we appreciate any help to keep us going.