Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Tyranid Terrain: Carnivorous Plants Conclusion

In my last article, I left off with the basic egg-shaped pod with the tyranid ribbing drying with a mixture of white glue and super glue. Since then I have painted up the pods, added jungle foliage, and flocked the bases. As I did this process over a series of 10 days, I was not able to take pictures of each step but I've included the final images for you to review.









Here are the paints I used for the spore pods:

Pods
Americana Paints - Avocado
Americana Paints - Buttermilk
GW Agrax Earthshade wash

Ribbing
Folk Art Paints- Coffee Bean
Americana Paints - Fawn
Americana Paints - Buttermilk
Americana Paints - White

Soil
Folk Art Paints - Coffee Bean
Americana Paints - Persimmon

Painting the pods:
I painted a base coat of pure Avocado. When that dried I added a little bit of buttermilk paint to the avocado and then dry brushed the raised areas with the mixture. When that dried I gave the painted areas 2 good washes with the Agrax Earthshade.


Painting the ribbing:
After I painted the initial coats on the pod, I turned to painting the ribbing. First I gave the ribbing a base coat of the Coffee brown, followed by Fawn. I covered almost all of the coffee bean with fawn except for the deepest recesses. Then I made a mixture of 75% Buttermilk to 25% Fawn. I dry brushed this over most of the previous coats, except that I kept out of the recesses. When that dried I gave the ribbing a good wash with the Agrax Earthshade.


Blending the pod and the ribbing:
Once all of the washes have dried it was time to blend the green pod with the ribbing. First, I took a small brush and carefully highlighted the upper areas of the pod surface with pure avocado. I mainly concentrated in the upper half and worked on the large, open patches. Once that dried, I added some buttermilk to the avocado again and lightly brushed the raised surfaces. Next I took pure buttermilk and just dry brushed the raised edges of the ribbing. When that was dry I created a very weak wash with the Lich Purple and water. With this I painted over the ribbing and the areas where the ribbing and pod meet. This helps to give it an impression that the ribbing is made of some flesh like substance. Once that dried I added some pure white to the buttermilk and lightly brushed the extreme edges and raised areas of the ribbing. I then worked my way out into the pod from the ribbing to create "veins" to give the impression that the ribbing is taking over the plant.

Using Tau for scale


Painting the soil:
For the earth, I base coated the soil and rocks with coffee bean. Then I added a bit of Persimmon to give it a Carolina clay look. After that dried I added a little more of the persimmon and lightly dry brushed the raised areas to add contrast.




Once all the painting was done I added in the plastic leaves like I did for the digestion pool.

Once the foliage was in place I added clumped flock around the clay and shale bases. Then I added in grass flock.





Next week I will start working on my Ripper Spawning Pads but it will probably be a good couple of weeks before I start showing the work due to the fact that I have a couple of games planned for this weekend and then the following weekend is ParkHammer.

So bear with me a bit as I get by the next two weeks and then I will be back in full terrain mode. Next week I will talk about my thoughts on the new Eldar codex and what I plan to run with them at ParkHammer.

7 comments:

  1. They look fantastic! Thanks for sharing your process.

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  2. Looks really nice! Appreciate the extra work you're putting in to make it seem more organic. What happened to the "pitcher" plants though? Did you end up putting the unfortunate victim in one?

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    1. Haha, the pitcher plants will be showcased in my next article. They are taking a little bit longer to complete and yes, there is an unfortunate victim being ingested in one of the pods. ;)

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  3. All they need is mist on the ground! THey look awesome, sir!

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  4. This is very cool. I can't wait to play on it!

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