Army colour themes

I'm collecting a few armies simultaneously, some deliberately as viable forces (like Tyranids, Imperial Guard, Space Marines and Necrons) and some just because I like the models (Tau and Orks), and I think it would be great if each army had its own "colour", so that they would look distinct both on the shelf and on the battlefield.

The first few are easy:

Tyranids = Kraken Red
Necrons = Silver/Black
Imperial Guard = Cadian Green

I'm not quite decided on the others yet. If I model my Space Marines as Ultramarines, then blue is the obvious choice, but I am leaning towards making my own Chapter, and am very tempted to go purple (not Hawk Lords, but something similar). Orks, I think I can get away with a mix of salvaged bits, rust and dirt. That should go well with their green skin. Tau, on the other hand, should look clean and striking - heavy weathering and battle damage just doesn't suit them. A maroon or burgundy, perhaps. There's a beautiful burgundy in the Tau Codex, but I can't find a guide on how to paint it. Then again, if I'm not doing Ultramarines, blue becomes free all of a sudden.

Of course, as a Lazy Painter, I would prefer to just use an unmixed GW paint, but I think that if I'm using enough paint, it's working cooking up a unique batch.

So for the rest of my armies:

Space Marines - Purple?
Orks - Rusty Dirty Brown?
Tau - Burgundy? Or Blue?

This will be a work in progress - I plan to finish my Tyranids first, then hopefully there will be a new Necron Codex, and I can work on them for a while. In the meantime, someone may come up with a good scheme that can inspire me, or maybe I'll have a brainspasm of original thought, you never know.

Spinegaunts

A blog is boring without pictures, so here's a few shots of the 30 Spinegaunts I recently finished...

As you can probably tell, I like to batch paint...

And I like to use washes...

The swarm so far...

My dream is to have a true Tyranid swarm. You know, Starship Troopers style. So here is a list of what I've got painted so far. Most of them are completely finished, but I reserve the right to tweak a few when I see an opportunity to improve them.

2 x Tyranid Primes DS
2 x Tyrant Guard

3 x Lictors
1 x Death Leaper
3 x Zoanthropes
10 x Ymgarl Genestealers

3 x Warriors DS
1 x Warrior VC
48 x Hormagaunts TS
25 x Termagants
20 x Devilgaunts
30 x Spinegaunts
4 x SpineRippers (tunnelling)
17 x Rippers (tunnelling)
44 x Genestealers ST/TS
1 x Broodlord ST/TS

30 x Gargoyles
6 x Raveners (Rend/DS)
8 x Spore mines

1 x Trygon (AG/TS)
1 x Old One Eye

Total: 4257 points

I'll be posting pictures of them all in due course. I'd like to do a group shot, but I don't think I have a table big enough.

The truly scary thing is, this is only 59% of the total Tyranid models I have. This blog is called Fight The Grey Tide for a reason.

Credit where credit is due

My first ever 40K model was a Cadian Shock Trooper, that I bought back when you got 20 to a box, and the cost per model was less than a pound. I figured that I would ruin the first few models with my terrible painting, so I didn't want to waste that much money. In the end, by following the Citadel Painting Guide and the back of the box, I managed a passable result. But it was very slow, and I realised that to get a big army would take ages unless I learned to paint faster.

So I decided to switch to Tyranids, because they were organic and therefore messy, which meant I didn't have to be quite so exact. I also liked the idea of swarms. I had the Battle For Macragge set, which contained Genestealers, Spore Mines and Termagants, so I had a go at those. It also helped that you can get Termagants in a box set of 5, to make it easy to try stuff out.

But what scheme to use? If you follow the Games Workshop recommendations for painting their main Hive Fleets, you're making 'Eavy Metal quality and you'll still be painting when the sun finally goes out. I needed a quick and easy scheme.

Then I found Mike Kan Paint - and I was sold instantly. Kraken it was. But his techniques were still a bit too complex for me. For a start, he was using non-standard (i.e. non-GW) paints, and he was mixing them together for a better result. Now, having mixed paints for my first Cadian, I didn't want to do that again, not unless I absolutely had to. So I made my own version of his scheme.

In future posts, I will show step-by-step how I have corrupted his methods to fit my work ethic (lazy) and lifestyle (hardly ever at home).

But the credit has to go to Mike, I would never have got to where I am today without his hard work and willingness to share. So thanks, Mike.

Welcome

This is a blog about modelling and painting, and possibly a little bit of gaming as well. I'm going to focus on the Games Workshop range, but may branch out in the future.

The main purpose of this blog is to document my efforts in painting my Warhammer and 40K armies, but I also want to show just how easy it is to paint models to tabletop standards. Before I started, I was terrified about painting a model - they cost a lot, and I didn't want to ruin a perfectly good model with a bad paint job. And there was a real lack of beginner's tutorials available that actually spoke to someone like me - they were all about painting high quality models, and I just wanted something quick and easy that you could look at without flinching.

But then one day I sat down and actually tried it, and you know what? It was easy, and it looked pretty good. Sure, there's a lot of little tricks you pick up along the way, but most of it is common sense. I hope to share some of these ideas, and inspire you to get your armies painted, because it IS worth it. The sight of a fully painted army is a wonder to behold, and unlike completing a computer game, the sense of achievement is real and tangible, and actual physical models can sit on your shelf for decades to show that you made something cool with your own hands.

So if you don't have a lot of time to devote to painting, or are just plain lazy, then this will be the blog for you.

Fight the grey tide!