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For Hive Fleet Tiamat we’re going to use a lot of contrast paints, so I recommend airbrushing or drybrushing white paint over white primer. You can do a zenithal style undercoat, but I don’t think it’s necessary with how light the final scheme is.
We will start with the skin. Dilute Terradon Turquoise to a 50:50 mix with contrast medium, and hit all of the skin areas. Be careful around the gun, but it doesn’t matter as much if you hit the armor plates a little. Take it slow and do 2-3 coats, making sure the recesses are darker. I also did a few extra coats at the end of the tail to match the GW scheme.
After the Terradon Turquoise has completely dried, drybrush the skin with Deepkin Flesh. Be sure to keep the tail tip dark.
Finally, drybrush the skin with White Scar. If you still have some of the Terradon Turquoise on your palette, use it to define some striation lines on the tail.
In the spiracles (those little fleshy vent things) and the various holes on Tyranid flesh, put in some Coelia Greenshade. You can use this as well along the separation between the carapace and flesh. Use Black Templar in the deepest recesses to completely define the two halves of the Nid. Clean up any major ovespill with White Scar.
We’ll basecoat the rest of the parts next. The gun symbiote and tubing should be basecoated with Magos Purple contrast paint, the carpace will get 2-3 thin coats of Lupercal Green, and the hooves and claws will be based with Mechanicus Standard Grey.
The Grey and Green parts will then be contrasted down with thinned Black Templar, which I did a great job of facing towards the camera.
To finalize the carapace, do increasingly thin line highlights of Sons of Horus Green, Sybarite Green, and a sparing use of Gauss Blaster Green. Do a little freehand work making striation lines near the ‘top’ of the plates to add a little visual interest, especially if you’re working with these older models.
Next for the gun, shade it with a targeted application of Vulpus Pink in the recesses, then do a thin edge highlight with Screaming Skull. Along the gun’s ammo feed, eye, and other assorted greebles, wash it with Cassandora Yellow, then edge highlight with Phalanx and Dorn yellows. Give the gun a feisty cat eye with the black of your choice.
For the final details, the teeth should be basecoated with Tallarn Sand, then picked out with Ushabti Bone and Screaming Skull. The black hooves and claws will get and edge highlight with Dark Reaper and Thunderhawk Blue. The red eyes are done with the classic color ramp of Mephiston Red, Wild Rider Red, and Troll Slayer Orange. Finally, the tongue is Screamer Pink, highlisted with Pink Horror and Kislev Flesh.
This article is part of a larger series on How to Paint Tyranids. To return to that series, click here.
