Tyranids!

Tyranids was my first (and only) fully painted army for 40K when playing regulary a few editions and quite some years ago. I loved the lore of them, the models, the rules and I still do today!

I got the 8th edition codex at the start of the year and read it from cover to cover several times. With the codex I also got the Hive Tyrant box, but I waited quite some time before building the model. Not quite sure how I would want to field it on the tabletop. In the end I could not choose a configuration so I just starting building the model the way I liked the look of it. And let me tell you: it was a really fun build!

Ending up with a flying Hive Tyrant wielding a heavy venom cannon because I found those wings and huge weapon way too cool not to use. 

For the colourscheme I wanted something to go with my "at home gaming table" which is mainly urban and industrial themed (or at least it is planned like that). So I opted for a greenish grey for it's main skin tone, matt black for the carapace plating and some green and pink touches on the model. Green for the little exposed parts on the venom cannon and pink for the exposed muscle under the skin and the tongue. The claws and talons I painted a bone colour with some beige/brown shading.

The skin took the most work: starting from a grey base I shaded and drybrushed several layers of greys and greens with washes of nuln oil and sepia in between them.

Basing I kept simple with mainly rocks and some sand/gravel with "alien plants" for some variation.

I'm really quite pleased with the result! I also kept all the paints I used on the model separate, so hopefully I can reproduce that look on some Genestealers I got lying around here and eventually create a 1500pts army in a uniform look.