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Welcome, one and all, to another edition of the great, the glorious, the undeniable…Miniatures of the Month (que epic music and roars of applause). Wow, that was quite an intro, but now you’re thinking, surely the miniatures can’t live up to the hype. Never fear, for I assure you they can and they do. As always our dedicated miniatures bloggers have been hard at work, so let's see what they have in store for us.
Tyranid Swarm (Warhammer 40k) by Paul Blyth
Why choose one miniature when you can choose a swarm?! Plus, all Tyranids are under the control of a hivemind, so on a technical level, they’re just one entity anyway.
I’ve been away from Warhammer 40K for quite some time. But, having some free time on my hands, I started watching YouTube videos on the lore, then I started listening to Audiobooks. Finally I went into my local Warhammer store “just to look”. Long story short - me and my fiancée are almost through the 10th Edition Starter Set. She is painting the Ultramarines and I took on the Tyranids.
Of course I got carried away and, rather than stick to a lovely relaxing paint scheme, like the traditional purple of the Leviathan, I discovered the “Coconut Crab” on YouTube and thought it was a good idea to have a crack at that - it wasn’t. The Tyranid portion of the starter set is only five Barbgaunts short of a full Combat Patrol. Meaning I painted 27 miniatures in this frankly ridiculous pattern.
There’s an average of 75 dots on each of the 20 Termagants, the two Ripper Swarms have 20 each, the Von Ryan’s Leapers (there are three of those) and the Winged Tyranid Prime have roughly 150 each and I lost count at 300 on the Psychophage. So yeah, about 2,500 spots are on this swarm and it drove me dotty. Still, they look good charging into battle, and the sheer number of them hides all of the mistakes I made.
Tyranid Deathleaper (Warhammer 40k) by Emma Grave
When I finished painting my Warhammer: Leviathan box set, I’d planned to move on to something completely different. Then this awesome new Deathleaper model was released and I found myself painting my 48th Tyranid of the year! Sneaky and stylish, the Hive Fleet’s paramount weapon of terror features an eye-catching biological tailcoat. He’s so fancy!
I chose to paint my Deathleaper like the box art, in the colour scheme of Hive Fleet Leviathan. This includes lots of purple tones, which I don’t use very often, so it was a useful experience. For the deepest shadows of the chitin, I went all the way down to black. Then I worked my way through Naggaroth Night, Xereus Purple, and finally Dechala Lilac.
The areas of skin were basecoated with Wraithbone and then washed with the Contrast paint Magos Purple. I blended Khorne Red and Mephiston Red onto the ends of the tentacles, and brought out the fleshy joints with Genestealer Purple. The black claws and hooves were painted using Abaddon Black, then highlighted with Mechanicus Standard Grey and Dawnstone.
For the metallic parts on the scenic base, I tried out some of Darkstar’s Molten Metals. I’m really impressed with this range of paints - they have nice coverage and a variety of tints to add interest to metallic parts. I used Stirland Mud Technical paint around the edge of the platform, adding some flock to imitate patches of grass. Maybe I’ll paint something that isn’t a Tyranid next…
Beta Ray Bill (Marvel Crisis Protocol) by Lee Underwood
Beta Ray Bill is my second favourite superhero. In the Marvel comics he is basically Thor's understudy, so it seems appropriate for him to be playing second fiddle to Spider-man in my affections.
But to be honest that isn’t doing him justice. I have always loved Bill since I read about him as a kid. There was something both weirdly compelling and strangely familiar about the story of a monster, hideous and shunned by even his own people, yet at his heart noble and selfless. Oh and he kicked Thor’s butt when they first met, the big dumb blond goon.
Anyway, I really wanted to do Bill justice, so I decided to try something out of my comfort zone and have a go at some non-metallic metal effects. While it is fair to say the results are… mixed, I am nevertheless quite proud of it and think it’s come out well. The rougher effects lend a bit of a more comic book art feel, I think. Which is totally what I was intending, honest. I used a mixture of paints but for the gold effects went for a few of the scale 75 paints as these are thinner and a little easier to glaze and layer. I also used a thinned down version of the Bad Moon Yellow contract from Citadel as a glaze and that worked quite well in the areas where I wanted a shinier less weathered look.
Anyway, I love this sculpt and have wanted to get some paint on it for ages. The Marvel Crisis Protocol models seem to get better all the time. I’ve no idea what he is like to play in the game but he’s got pride of place on my shelf for a while anyway.
Beholder (Dungeons & Dragons) by Neil Parker
The Beholder miniature from the Nolzur range (wave 4) is an impressive one. I bought mine just before the pandemic and it was never used, but finally I decided to paint it.
I used a variety of paints including inkwashes from Citadel – namely, Nuln Oil, Druchii Violet and Drakenhof Nightshade, plus I used Ushabti Bone and Screaming Skull for the teeth.
The mini was already primed so after deciding on a ‘cold’ paint scheme of blues and purples, I started adding a thin layer of aquamarine to the body, followed by a lighter shade of blue to add contrast. Then I added the blue inkwash. At this stage I felt the beholder spring to life as it became more than an unpainted model and this helped with understanding how I wanted to paint the rest of it, because I was still thinking of a variety of options.
I then worked on the mouth and teeth, adding purple shades and black for inside before adding the purple inkwash. For the teeth I used two shades of off-white with a little Nuln Oil. I had contemplated using silvers for the teeth, but I felt the ‘natural’ off-whites seemed better.
For the eye stalks I wanted a gradual transition from blue to purple and to highlight the ridges and lines in a similar way to the scales on the body. For the eyes I used a very pale blue and with the end of the paintbrush gently dipped in black I applied a pupil. Once dry, I then used a fingernail to etch a slight line in each pupil to add direction and bring them to life a little.
Finally, I applied a pale blue dry brush highlight to the bulk of the body to further add contrast and depth.
Fellowship (Journeys In Middle Earth) by Peter Bartlam
I’m heavily into the Lord of the Rings – Journeys in Middle Earth app driven RPG from Fantasy Flight games at the moment. Whilst the 31 miniatures you get with the game are already great looking sculpts, in biege for the Fellowship and grey for the bad guys, they cry out to be painted. I have now painted them all with possibly a bit more effort going into the individual good adventurers. I’ll show some of their adverseries another time.
After washing them in soapy water they were primed with white primer. This helps the final colours look more bright. The forces of evil figures would be primed black with a top spray of white for highlights. The paints I used were nearly all Army Painter. I was using these figures to try out my newly acquired Speed Painter 2.0 set. I was pleased with the results, best on large spaces and clothing. You need just one coat and no washes over the top. I found if I did need to do a second coat the results could be mixed. Sometimes the paint seemed to react badly to other paint.
I used standard Army painter paints for solid colours straps, hafts, buckles etc. I use a wet palette for the standard paints but you have to use a non-porous palette for the Speed paints or else the flowing medium disappears. I found the Speed paints tricky at first particularly with the lighter shades because the darker medium in them makes it hard to see what the final colour would be like.
The basing materials were railroad scenery or natural bits and pieces from my house and garden. The rougher coastal weather recently has done a wonderful job in displacing all sorts of moss and lichen from my roof!