Ben Hodges’ Tyranids – Part Two

Earlier we took a look at some of the swarm-scale shots of Ben's Tyranid army, but now it's time to prepare ourselves for the big monsters and close-ups. He sent us loads (and we really mean loads) of great images, so we've used as many as we can in the gallery slider - and there's even more to come later! Over to Ben to tell you a little more about his Tyranids, some of his conversions, and how he went about painting them:

Ben: I initially used Liche Purple for the skin tones, with Tentacle Pink as the highlight colour. But as time went on, the Tentacle Pink (now substituted for Warlock Purple mixed with Skull White) became increasingly predominant, and it has got to the point where my models are now disturbingly pink. The carapace is painted using a good old layering technique of 50/50 Bleached Bone and Scorched Brown, which is blended up to pure Bleached Bone on the edges. The black line-edging was achieved by leaving the undercoat of Chaos Black visible.

A running theme in my army is to create a purple swamp on the base of each model, which I achieved by painting the base before adding Water Effect. The swamp effect really works well on the bases of some of my larger creatures such as the Carnifexes, Hierodual and Trygons.

I've made a number of conversions across my army to give me new and wonderful creations, mainly using Green Stuff to make tentacles and other fitting Tyranid mutations. My favourite model to date has to be a creature I dubbed the 'Maw Fiend'. It's basically a conversion of the Mawloc kit; I exchanged the arms for tentacle growths, and swapped the existing mouth for feeder tentacles.