Days Out and Tidying

I've been painting a lot of space marines for WH40k and Terran Alliance ships for Firestorm Armada over last few weeks.  The techniques and styles used are very similar, painting hard ceramic and metallic surfaces with strong contrast and highlighting, the only real difference being scale.

The Next project I'd like to focus on different surfaces and techniques.  Something I find useful is looking at colour schemes and patterns out and about and trying to work out how to reproduce it or produce it on a model.  Its spring at the moment and the flowers are starting to appear so what better inspiration for vibrant colour schemes.

 An Escher Gang is still sat on my painting desk, a great chance to use vibrant and clashing colours on a more organic surface.  I also used to field Tyranids and have a soft spot for the codex and love the idea of fielding an enormous swarm of claws and chitin. Tyranids with strong and contrasting colours running through the carapace such as on these great Zoanthropes found here give a threatening appearance that looks amazing when massed up in the middle of a swarm.

This Tyranid Warrior alternatively uses the colours alternating between the 'flesh' and carapace, undoubtedly quicker to paint and intimidating (found here).the highlighting is similar to the rising colours of the flower, deep reds at the base giving way to lighter, more vibrant colours at the edge rising to orange.

For my Tyranids (painted about 2 years ago now) I used stippling of progressively lighter shades of red (up to pink) to give an asymmetric look to the carapace with bone coloured chips on the edge.  A coat of varnish gives the carapace a sheen and protects it from the inevitable ships (the zoanthroapes is an amazingly top heavy model).  The flesh was painted codex grey and given a very heavy wash of Chaos Black (a technique chosen for speed more than anything).

I'm always tempted to revisit my Tyranids but struggle for inspiration on paint schemes, especially schemes I'd like to repeat on over 200 hundred models.  The chance to paint using a more vibrant and organic pallet might be too tempting to pass up however.