Painting Tyranids Hive Fleet Gengar + Army Scheme Methodology

[@TheSpectralFX]

Man, this army is STUNNING I am looking to get an Hive fleet Hydra

[@Ghostkeel17]

The background music creeps me out on a supernatural level 😂

[@jacobgale4792]

Hive Fleet Garchomp is something I wanna try now lol

[@grotwurksmekshop6607]

I am tempted to do Hive Fleet Tyranatar

[@giantorres3352]

I am a zoologist and was looking for a natural looking color scheme. Yours is great.

[@geoffreyprecht2410]

I've seen your posts on Reddit a bit lately, and I'm so excited to stumble across the video for how to paint them! I'm always looking for new methods of painting bugs, and these are such a great inspiration! Thanks for all your work!

[@grotwurksmekshop6607]

Thank you for this. My 9 year old wants a black skin green stripped carapace so this video is QUITE valuable

[@WhatThe40k]

Happy to hear its useful 😊

[@jimothytohns]

Love the style and using a Pokémon as inspiration is really cool

[@D1gital-ZER0]

Super cool, man! Now I want to see/do a Hive Fleet Tyranitar or Gyarados lol.

[@WhatThe40k]

Not a bad idea

[@benCANNIBAL]

I absolutely love this style, i've just started Tyranids after 17 years away from it and i've been trying to learn this scheme! Only question I have is, if you weren't restricted by this looking like Gengar, what colours would you consider using to contrast the violet carapace?

[@Kamikaze_Senpai]

How would you go about painting the Genestealer Cults with this color scheme? I was thinking using the pale blue for the skin and black for the armor and purple for the cloth bits. Would you consider showing us how you'd paint unit and how you'd go about it? I've been playing Space Marine 2 and it makes me want to start collecting Tyranids. haha.

[@benschneider9534]

Love the scheme! Certainly haven't started painting my own bugs using these exact steps. Any suggestions for wing membrane colors?

[@WhatThe40k]

That is awesome to hear ✊ Excellent question on the wing membranes. Like with most other components I would not want to add further noise by making it a contrasting element. So I'd go for either a grey skin tone or a violet muscle strips tone. In either case I would try to paint the wings to sell the effect of translucency, increasing the value and decreasing one saturation where the skin is stretched the thinnest. Sorta going for that ghostly effect😉 ( also, Sorry for the late reply😅).

[@mozeswasserl8005]

ill be using this scheme, thanks so much for sharing! just to be clear, since i didnt quite understand it in the video, if you talked about it: how do you do the skin? after the priming i didnt seem to hear anything regarding giving the skin more depth (highlight, shading...) only the carapace... i hope you can help me out there :) thx!

[@charlesv5h975]

Awesome colors and inspiration!

[@Oirarana]

I'm trying to paint my tyranids in this scheme because I really love it, but I was wondered how do you do the wings on those who have them? I can't quite figure out the correct steps and colours.

[@WhatThe40k]

Firstly, I'm humbled you've chosen to do so😊. As for your question there are actually very few wings in my army, sort of a coincidence honestly. Ive envisioned hive fleet Gengars wing membranes to be like a translucent membrane cause ghosts, but it's a tough look to nail. The 2 winged models I've painted which come to mind came out almost glowy white rather than translucent. So I'd say feel free to experiment with a translucent effect. But if you want here's what I've done on the warrior prime and mortrex. the paints used were Army painter, alien purple, mixed with game color off white. Then progressively brighter layers of more off-white were applied. It was then recessed washed with GWs druchhi violet.

[@Oirarana]

@@WhatThe40k Thank you for such a quick response ^^ I thought that might have been what I saw on your one winged model I could see, does it sort of get added in smaller and smaller panels to build a progression to pure off white? Or is it just the druchii violet that adds the more obvious purple colouration to the wings near the 'fingers'? My only winged model is the Warrior prime as well, but he's my larger test model for getting the scheme right since the gaunts are a bit small to really play with the coconut crab paint style, so I was stuck on what to do with that part. I was also wondering how you would suggest painting the 'smoke' on the psychophage? I would love to replicate your Tyrannogear Rex model eventually, because it's beautiful.

[@dragonofdragons1720]

So can we please get chaos space marine thematic lists from the new 9th codex for them please

[@WhatThe40k]

TLBs are voted on for the month. I believe this one coming up will be for Alpha Legion.

[@dragonofdragons1720]

@@WhatThe40k nice thank you

[@TheWarpForge]

Awesome vid!!!

[@timbrown4928]

New to 40k. What tyranid models are these? I don't see them in the GW shop. Thanks and awesome vid!

[@WhatThe40k]

I've not quite a bit of conversion work on my nids. But I believe the base models you are referencing Zoanthropes and the Maleceptor

[@adam5406]

Awesome scheme how would you paint the wing membrane

[@KillerOrca]

Is there any lore to the hive fleet? Or did you just decide "I like Gengar colors, lets go with that?"

[@WhatThe40k]

Nothing crazy, essentially just enough to characterize the Hive Fleet. Chain of logic was something like: I like Kronos anti warp themes>eldritch concept of eating souls>remembered haunter(pkmn) had a move called dream eater> chose Gengar cause stronger color scheme for nids and sounded more like a traditional Hive Fleet name.

[@KillerOrca]

@@WhatThe40k It works.

[@TheTotalCatfish]

What colours did you use for your red/orange on the more powerful bio weapons?

[@WhatThe40k]

I used a 'pale red base' using a flesh tone, like kislev flesh, then contrast over with blood angels red. Then to bright up the centre, I mix some blood angels red with an off white. For orange I used to mix the contrast yellow and Blood Angels red, but with the new contrast colors available I will start using the newer contrast orange, Magmadroth Flame. In fact I think I would use the newer contrast red (Baal Red) over the older Blood Angels Red as well. Seems to be a bit more vibrant.

[@TheTotalCatfish]

@@WhatThe40k perfect, thanks.

[@holdenusherwood4305]

I haven't started painting my mini's yet, but I love this paint scheme and logic! Quick question though, what do you do for membrane type parts such as wings?

[@marbo3128]

Did you prime the figures at all or is that the off black color?

[@WhatThe40k]

Yes. I would always recommend priming miniatures before painting.

[@marbo3128]

@@WhatThe40k what color did you prime them?

[@WhatThe40k]

IIRC, Vallejo black primer.

[@marbo3128]

@@WhatThe40k thank you!

[@hobobeard]

You’re always quick to reinstate how this was inspired by and refers back to Gengar’s colour palette, but in that case why are they all black? At no point has it ever been coloured black except to mimic the effect of shading transparency on hardware incapable of either and never again since overcoming this limitation.

[@WhatThe40k]

To your first point, they are black because I want to push the sinister element of the aesthetic. While I could've gone with a purple base, and then speckle pattern to lavender and potentially brighter I desired a limit to the body's maximum value. As for your second point... I don't quite understand what you're trying to say. 😅

[@hobobeard]

@@WhatThe40k The second point was to avoid someone “umm actually-ing”me. Gengar did have black in it’s original JP red/green sprite as the game wasn’t yet Super Gameboy compatible, though the intention was to evoke a deeper shade of the same base colour.🤷‍♂️

[@WhatThe40k]

@@hobobeard haha is that right, TIL 😂 thanks for the comment and response.