Painting Tyranid Carnifexes and Hive Tyrants for Warhammer 40K

As a part of the two lots of Tyranids I picked up on E-Bay, there were 8 Carnifexes ... well 6 Carnifexes and 2 carnifexes converted to be Hive Tyrants, so I'll lump them together. All were assembled and glued to their bases. Comments on this in the Post Mortem at the bottom.

Step-by-Step

  1. Clean and assemble the model.
  2. Prime Rustoleum High Heat Almond.

  3. Basecoat carapace with Citadel Foundation Mechrite Red.
  4. Use Citadel Red Gore to line where the carapace meets the body. I use Red Gore because it flows better than Mechrite Red and the slightly darker color gives it a nice edge.

  5. Wash entire figure with Liquitex Raw Umber mixed with some water and Vallejo Glaze Medium (you can use Liquitex too, but I think I like the results from the Vallejo more).

  6. Add a little bit of Citadel Bleached Bone to Citadel Skull White and use this to highlight/drybrush the body, being careful not to get any on the carapace.
  7. Mix up some VMC Black mixed with VMC Glaze Medium in a 2:1 ratio and paint the claws and talons. It won't cover as completely as straight black and will leave a little bit of the brown showing through.
  8. Paint the rim of the base and some of the surface in Chaos Black or whatever your preferred rim color is. If you wait until after the base has been sanded, you'll have patches of the base show through at the rims.
  9. Base the figure with sand. If you are really in a hurry to get these figures on the tabletop, then you can do this stage before right after the wash.

  10. Apply some of the same Citadel Badab Black wash to the mouth and eye sockets to give them some definition.
  11. Edge the carapace using a flat brush and some Citadel Blazing Orange.
  12. At this point, you probably want to do a QA pass and ensure the wash hit the entire figure. You'll want to mix up a bit of Raw Umber wash and apply a little where you missed and apply Bleached Bone on anything you want to cover up. You can also use the Devlan Mud wash to make some spot corrections.
  13. Pick out the teeth using Skull White.
  14. Use a fine brush and pick out the eye with Citadel Scorpion Green.
  15. Use the Leviathan Purple wash to add some color to the various organic pieces on the body.
  16. For the various biomorphs, I used the Thrakka Green wash on the venom sacs and Leviathan Purple on the andrenal glands. The almond basecoat has a bit of red in it, so a light purple wash ends up looking a little pinkish.

  17. Paint the tongue with VMC Rose.
  18. Break out your Scab Red again and lightly highlight the very tips of your scything talons, if you have them.
  19. Base.

Post Mortem

Painting assembled and based Carnifexes was a pain in the ass. I love the detail, but it's really hard getting your brushes and wash into the areas underneath the body, between the body and legs, and between the body and arms. If you can find a great deal on an assembled figure, great. Otherwise look for something unassembled or at least not glued to the base yet. I also highly encourage investigating magnetizing the arms and biomorphs. It will be more headache, time, and cost, but I think the flexibility is well worth it.

Notes

Last updated12/8/08
AuthorMichael Kan
Pre-requisites None
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