Painting Tyranid Ripper Swarms for Warhammer 40K

As a part of my large Tyranid army purchases, I picked up 24 bases of Rippers. I planned to paint 9 stands as a part of my Finish an Army Challenge, Block 2, but decided to hit another 9 stands at the same time. These little beggers are almost as much trouble, per figure, as their larger brethren, but the number of steps is a little simpler.

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. Paint the tongue with VMC Rose.
16. Base.

Post Mortem

Had I bought these new on sprue, I would have glued these to a popsicle stick and painted them first, before basing. It would have made getting to the details much easier. As it were, already stuck 3 or 4 to a base, it was difficult getting to some of the lower claws and carapaces when they were bunched up..

Notes

Last updated	12/8/08
Author	Michael Kan
Pre-requisites	None
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