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.
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Garfy
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Thanks for sharing your tutorial, Garfy!!! Can't wait seeing your last scheme. Great work. Have a nice weekend! 🙂
Greetings – David
Nice work, the only problem is the first part "Undercoat the model black. You can do this by using a white undercoat spray or use Vallejo White Surface Primer and an airbrush."
I have no idea how to undercoat black using white 😉
This is the problem with being tired, overworked and writing these late at night. Thanks for pointing it out though. I've fixed it 🙂
Have a test model ready to go for Leviathan. Well done as always.
What a tease leaving Leviathan to last. Can't wait.
Very nice paint job! With all these Tyranids, I'm going to want to start collecting them…
Love the tutorials, what alternative colour could you use to paint the weapons and claws that would well with this colour scheme?
Im looking to paint wings with a similar scheme for a Crone. You think Kislev Flesh with Bloodletter Glaze
…… For the wings would work?
I would use the steps 8,9 and 10. But because they're larger areas you might want to mix your colours together for more intermediate steps and better blending.
For wings I use a base cost of steel legion, a dry brush of flayed one flesh and then a highlight of Zardari dust and a classic light shade of nulin oil