Warhammer 40,000 Tyranid Gargoyles

I've decided that just re-posting pictures I had on my previous blog of the miniatures I was painting at the time kind of defeats the purpose of starting this new blog. On the other hand, I'd like to have all the gaming related stuff in one place. So I will continue to post the old pictures, but I will also add some commentary about the paint jobs, which will hopefully be interesting or useful to others. Next up is a unit of Tyranid Gargoyles. I originally posted these pictures on Saturday, March 17, 2007.

It's a pretty basic paint job, with the same color scheme as the other Tyranid miniatures. Red and black are the colors of my hive fleet. So it's bright red base, red ink wash, and red-orange highlights. The wings were painted light pink with a pink ink wash. The carapace parts are black with dark grey highlights.

I tried to make the eyes look more animalistic, almost like reptile eyes. I also used a couple coats of varnish to protect them and also make them look a little shiny, which I think makes them look more insect-like.

It may not be obvious from the pictures, but I did paint the "weapons" in their hands noticably lighter than the gargoyles themselves. The reason is that I decided that the older my Tyranid creatures get, the darker in color them become. So they start out a very light orange color, and their skin darkens over time. By the time most creatures reach maturity and fight in a battle, they are a bright red color like these gargoyles. The symboite weapons I imagine don't need to age as long to reach maturity, and are probably replaced more often. So the wapons these gargoyles carry are younger than the gargoyles, and more orange in color.

You can see more of this a few posts back, in the pictures of the rest of my painted Tyranids. Most of the creatures are red, with their symbiote weapons being orange. Genestealers are used as scouts and placed on a planet long before the invasion. Therefore, they would have been alive much longer than the rest of a Tyranid force, which would only be created right before an invasion. So the Genestealers are a dark purple color, to represent them being much older.

The "Old One Eye" model I also made to look very dark. Since the model has a lot of wounds and scars on it, I like to think that he has taken part in previous invasions, but for whatever reason hasn't been reabsorbed as biomass to make new creatures. Perhaps he picked up some genetic defect that the hive fleet doesn't want to spread. So he's been around a long time.

So, what do you think of the color scheme for my Hive Fleet? What colors or techniques do you use for your own Tyranids? Are there any other ideas you've seen for Tyranid color schemes that you think are interesting? I'd love to hear about other people's Tyranid armies. Leave a comment and let's share some ideas.