Nidrick and Friends

'Nids on the run.

Look at how they move, just like a flock of birds.

It took a bit of an effort, but the whole set of termagants is now done. To tabletop standard anyway. There is a lot more I could do to individual models, and there are mistakes that I'm ignoring, but it's a learning experience in batch painting.

Since the last time, I've tweaked a few things to either speed up the process, or because it just looks better:

• No drilling out "barrel holes"! They were often off-centre anyway, and on these models a small black dot looks just about the same.
• Wraithbone spray directly over black, no Corax White spray at all. It's better to make the first spray a bit thin and then do another later. Also, really shake a new spray can, otherwise the paint can be very thick on the model, and will ruin detail most effectively. Mostly recovered with some clever painting, but ideally I should have stripped the paint and started again.
• Pre-mixed Volupus Pink and Contrast Medium. This was done by putting each into a dropper bottle, and then measuring it out back into the original Volupus Pink bottle. This ended up as a 1:8 (pink to medium) ratio, which is much lighter than the original test, but also allows the drybrush of Wraithbone to be skipped entirely.
• Barak-Nar Burgundy for the tongues. For more important models I'll also highlight this with something, but in this case it was covering up some red tests anyway.
• Stormfang drybrush on the base. It was too dark previously, and so just a light drybrush to raise some detail makes all the difference.
• Rhinox Hide around the rim of each base. I debated leaving it as black, but after a test it was determined that a dark brown just looked that much better.

As far as lessons learned go, if I were to paint these models again (a strong possibility if I want to build and sell a tyranid army), then I would batch paint the arms separately. It makes getting into certain areas that much easier. Fortunately the left/right pairs can be grouped and put onto any model, so there's no need to track which pair of arms belongs to which particular body.

I would possibly do some initial contrast coats without the base attached, which does make holding the model more difficult, but if that's solved then it again makes accessing various areas that much easier. Easier access to areas of the model improves both speed of painting and the quality of the finished model, so it's well worth planning such things in advance, especially for large batches of models.

With batched painting I do find it easier to not actually do all the same area of every model all at once. I might do four models at a time with, say, assembly and priming. Then I'll do some initial step. Then I'll go back and assemble another four and prime them. Then I'll do the next step on the original batch of four models, followed by the first step on the next batch of four, and so on. By switching steps often, it prevents boredom from setting in too quickly. This was really the key to getting twelve termagants finished in just over a week (a very fast pace for me).

-- silly painter.