Lava Nids

[Animachina]

So I've starting working on a Tyranid project using a splinter from Hive Fleet Behemoth as inspiration. I'm going to be working on these buggers for a while, mainly cause I really enjoy painting the things with this scheme, though far down the road I might actually play with them...

Anyway, here are the first shots of the Lava Nids, more to come:

(Couple in progress Orks snuck in this one, ignore them, they're sneakier then normal Orks...)

Thoughts?

 

[PegaZus]

[singsong voice]You shop at Target [/singsong voice]

Anyway, pretty clean minis. I think that the the transitions on the lava base could use some smoothing out. The colors seem to switch a little fast.

Also, on the first couple of pictures, the gun seems to have highlights on the front? The gray is what I'm looking at. It's an odd direction, so a little distracting. But, if that's what you're going with, the tube going from the gun to the tyranid could stand getting the same level of gray.

So there's my thoughts.

 

[Animachina]

Anyway, pretty clean minis. I think that the the transitions on the lava base could use some smoothing out. The colors seem to switch a little fast...

Thank you for the C&C, I agree with all your points. This is the first time I've attempted to paint lava so the transitions are a bit rough, I'm also not the most skilled blender on the planet so there's a bit of a learning curve, expect improvement! Small based models in the army are getting an ashy look without lava while med and larger bases will get the full volcanic experience. What would you suggest as a technique to smooth the transitions in the lava? Red/Yellow washes? I'm also likely to add a gloss finish to the lava to make it look more wet and "real" but haven't experimented with it yet...

I also agree on the gray for the guns, I've extended it as a highlight for all the purple sections for the minies, with an eye towards possibly mixing it with the lighter purple to make it a little smoother of a highlight then the current gant pictures would suggest. What would make a better highlight color/range for the nid guns with the purple effect they currently have?

 

[Animachina]

Just a small update since I got the second warrior "finished." Still refining the lava and I'm probably going to add some more highlighting to the left lower arm and the venom tubes.

Next mini will be the first Zoanthrope.

 

[Animachina]

As promised, the next entry for the Lava Nids is a Zoanthrope. Did a little modeling on the base to make it kind of look like the second tail was coming through the flow and did some other slight tweaks. Painting took the better part of a day from primer to completion. All in all it's a pretty easy model to paint, kind of a pain to assemble, should be able to get the other two done a bit faster with what I've learned on this beast.