"Starship Tyranids" - Hive Fleet Klendathu - Test Model

This is for all you new people. 

I have only one rule. 

Everybody fights, no one quits. 

If you don't do your job, I'll kill you myself! 

Welcome to the Roughnecks!

- Starship Troopers

Welcome back, one and all, to The Art of Caesura!

I hope you are all holding in there. Work has been heavy of late and with 3 young kids (hard to believe Isla is almost 10 months old!) it can be a tiring time of life. But for those of you with kids, when we are locking horns, I try to draw on some of the ideas from 5 Times More Love. It's great to have this hobby to help find stress-relief and a creative outlet!

Last week we high-lighted the disturbing yet awesome Kickstarter (from the minds behind Mordheim) Trench Crusade. At time of writing the Kickstarter is in its final 24 hours and has raised over 3 million dollars!

But TWO weeks ago we were looking at my mood board for Hive Fleet Klendathu - my plan for a Starship Troopers inspired Tyranid Hive Fleet. 

Today we shall look at my first test model using the colour scheme of the Arachnids from Starship Troopers.

I will say, that to reach this scheme, I adapted the process that Duncan laid out in his video:

I watched his video, and adapted the process to a different model using paints that were as similar as I could get within the paints I already own. 

From a Chaos Black undercoat, I drybrushed  a mix of Scavenblight Dinge and Abaddon Black focusing mostly on the "skin" parts. 

Next I drybrushed Vallejo's Dark Fleshtone on the same areas (I know this is an Air paint, but it was all I had and it worked fine). 

Next I did a similar process with Steel Legion Drab. 

Then it was on to the Red. My normal red recipe (Mephiston Red coated in Fleshtearers red, highlighted with Evil Sunz Scarlet) is far too saturated for this scheme. Duncan used Khorne Red and the closest I could get is Mephiston Red mixed with Doombull Brown. 

It took me ages to find a yellow that I was happy with. None of the yellows that I have with this "mustardy" hue, have great coverage - especially over very dark brown. I tried Kimera's Warm Yellow, Scalecolour's Warfront Golden Brown and Averland Sunset (which, perplexingly I only have the "Air" preparation of) and the Scalecolour had the best coverage, so I went with that. 

In the pic above, left is Kimera, top is Scalecolour and bottom is Averland Sunset.

Daamn, I must say, it was already looking pretty good! To give some depth to the yellow I coated all of the striations in Nazdreg Yellow and then moved on to other areas while they were drying, before highlighting them. 

With the yellow deepened down, I did the same to the red, also trying to de-saturate it further using Nuln Oil. 

With the shades in, I re-established the base colours on the edges for the initial highlight. 

For the second layer of highlights on the yellow and red areas, I used Kimera's Warm Yellow and Evil Sunz Scarlet respectively. 

I used a very bright yellow (Vallejo's Moon Yellow) for a final pop on the stripes. 

The model was about 85% complete at this stage, so I moved on to the details, starting with the fleshy bits. I painted them with Bugman's Glow, coated with Guilliman Flesh and then highlighted with Cadian Fleshtone. 

After the flesh came the "teeth" within its praying mantis arms. I undercoated them Steel Legion Drab then highlighted them with Ushabti Bone. 

This miniature has a really busy face! It's got claws and tentacles bursting out of its face and vents and scutes adding detail as well. For this reason I was tempted to paint they eyes a bright colour (Ice Yellow, for example) to make them stand out and make the face more readable. But I do like the very alien eyes of the arachnids in Starship Troops which just have black eyes. So instead I coated the eyes in gloss varnish to give a bit of surface variation. 

And with the eyes in, the Von Ryan's Leaper (and my first model for Hive Fleet Klendathu) was complete!

I'm still trying to settle on how to paint their bases. I'm really tempted to do snow bases for the first time. I think the cold white would contrast nicely against the warm dark colours in the model. And the snow levels as the Zerg in Star Craft 1 were always my favourite. But Klendathu is a desert planet, so I may just go with the deserty bases that I was originally doing for my Black Templars which would also work well with this scheme. 

As a test model, I think it was a huge success! Not only am I happy with the result, but I have learned some valuable lessons for when I plan to bring this scheme to scale. When army painting, mixing paints is not your friend (brings in in consistencies across the army and slows you down), so I will go out and buy Khorne Red and the Base paint version of Averland Sunset. 

Two last fun things before I leave you today: 

1) did you notice my new logo gracing these photos? These are the first pics on the blog to showcase it and, if I do say so myself, I think it looks great!

2) Today's model is only the SECOND EVER Tyranid model that I have ever painted...the first being the first Warhammer model that I ever painted almost 25 years ago!

I will definitely have to get some of the new Genestealers and replicate that Behemoth colour scheme on at lease one of them!

Thank you for joining me for this first look at the Hive Fleet Klendathu colour scheme in action. Join me again next week, won't you, on The Art of Caesura!

Reading: Parable of the Talents - Octavia Butler

Watching: Veep - Season 3

Next Week:

Birthday boy...