Warhammer 40K: Tyranid Termagants Part 1

(Trouble with blogging is that consistency is a requirement. I am actually someone who is lazy in record keeping and prefers to just go with the flow in my projects especially when the key reader is myself. Anyway, here is something that I have prepared for a very some time but delayed in posting it for lack of the proper flow.)

With plans to pimp my Space Hulk card game and the fabulous expansions that comes with it, I got myself a copy of the basic Termagants as a test subject for my painting experiments.

Starting off, I found that not all Termagants are a perfect fit. In fact, the mold is constructed that each halves are to be fit on a 1 to 1 basis. And here I was expecting for possible swap. Probably which is why 2 pieces ended up with glaring gaps when joining each other. This gives me a chance to test out the Liquid Green Stuff which I recently bought. And interestingly, my pot had actually dried up even before opening it!

Thanks to my lazy bones, I tried adding water in an attempt to activate the green stuff (forget the liquid part). The stuff does get dissolved (with plenty of water) and it is then ready to use again. I started with a small amount and found that it does not flow into the recess easily. The best method to use it at this stage, was to use it as a putty replacement (not that I have used putty before). Somehow it works and the mini is ready for priming. Make sure your brush is loaded with water if you are using Dried Green Stuff!

Dried Green Stuff doing it's work

I primed 3 of the termagants black (since the other two were undergoing repair works as seen above, they were primed white as a test)

The first termagant was a to be a purple/blue scheme based on the original genestealers from Space Hulk. Base layer of Macragge Blue followed by Genestealer Purple on some parts of the carapace based on painting technique (http://thetyranidhive.proboards.com/thread/38555). It is a very interesting technique which is not easy to pull on a smaller unit like the termagants, but possible.

 

Somehow, after painting this, I realised I screwed the blue/purple scheme up. Time to take a step back and see what needs to be done.

In the mean time, I had a little accident with my 2 repaired termagants where the spray from the Bosny White spray turns out to be a little too thick for the model that the details of the teeth disappeared. I attempted to use nail polish remover (acetone) to remove whatever excess build up from the spray.

 

So comes the big question: How to fix? The first answer was obvious. Hive Fleet Kraken!

 

Body plate is painted with Mephiston Red while the main body is done with Ushbati Bone. Both is then washed with Agrax Earthshade. I actually liked the tone for this model despite the poor priming. In fact, I find the poor priming adds some improvement in the texture of the model.

 

The second piece was made to emulate Hive Fleet Leviathan's purple/white combo. The result, as seen above. Plates painted with Genestealer Purple/Macragge Blue while the whites are Ceramite White (until time of writing, I still have no luck getting White Scar). The shading of the plates is done by layering with Macragge Blue then a wet layer of Genestealer Purple coating the edges and dragged to the top., in the same manner as the first termagant above.

At the end of the day, 2 units complete, 1 unit prototyping partially done and 2 more to go.

Nest Step: 
- 2 remaining Termagants