Some feedback on scheme I'm working on

[visual bobcat]

So I've been spending the evening on a scheme based on the felfire green lava base and the green fluo color. I'm thinking these bugs are sent out to annihilate worlds from the inside and out, and in the process they themselves are consumed.

The process on this 3d printed test bug has gone following the sequence of the photos, and I'm looking for your thoughts and feedback!

I'm not sure what to do with the bone parts - hooves, claws, swords, teeth etc. That pale blue isn't working. Also imagine the tyranid brains and their psychics, what color could that be in?

This is the first time I really go through with an idea and create a scheme like this, from scratch, with color theory and a clear idea to work from. It is so fun!

[timid mist]

Those vivid green to purple blends and the base glow look fantastic. I agree the pale blue isn't looking right. I normally try something like a split complimentary or triad so that'd suggest orange accents. Having a main color and accent(s) usually looks good. I'd try orange on the scythes and hooves. I think the green recess into purple is my favorite part and I'd maybe push the glow effect harder like you did with the base. The body I'm not really sure about. The dark blue is low contrast with the purple shell and kind of looks indistinct to me. I don't have advice there and I'd browse nid pallets a while

Sorry if any of that was incoherent or mistyped 🙂

[visual bobcat]

Thanks a lot for the feedback! I spent yesterdays painting session with experimenting further on some models (no pictures, can show later today). I'll try most different combinations of complementary colors, and orange is in there to be tested. But that is in the RGB color wheel, currently I'm basing off of the cmyk wheel, where magenta is the third color in the triad.

I agree with the plum and blue doesn't contrast enough. On the chitin i don't want to go too high in value else the effect of the recess green gets lost. So I need to lower the value of the skin tone to achieve contrast between chitin and skin.

I'll keep trying around for a bit to see what I can come up with. I really like the green effects I managed so those will be the basis of it all. Also I think ill keep the purple as the main color.

[timid mist]

Cmy is the way to go once you've internalized it. Strong agree the purple should stay dark. Good luck 🙂 feel free to ping me

[visual bobcat]

Will do, thanks! 😃

[timid mist]

Try medium value orange skin and using the chitin color on hooves and claws as well maybe

[elder owl]

The green and purple look amazing together!

[visual bobcat]

I sure will! Project for my session tonight 😊

[visual bobcat]

Right! It will be the foundation of the scheme going forward.

[verbal slate]

I'll add that a white/fluor pink brain and psychic might work, I imagine the white would offset the similarities with the carapace fuchsia

[visual bobcat]

Ooh yeah, that would be great! I have some neurogrunta printed I can make in the scheme later to establish that part of the scheme before I start on bigger models. Thanks for your input!

[verbal slate]

awesome, you can find some references for that pretty easily, I'm sure, pink brain tyranids aren't rare

[visual bobcat]

Yes, that I have seen before, for sure. But I hadn't really gotten there yet for my own scheme.

[verbal slate]

I was thinking something along the lines of this, maybe a bit more white

[visual bobcat]

Yeah, perhaps switch them, white, slight pink brain cells and pink glow perhaps

So this is the second iteration, switching the blue and the plum chitin. The plum chitin is more harmonious in terms of color harmony while the dark blue brings contrast. What are your thoughts?

I terms of color choices and the 60-30-10 rule, would you consider the 10% be the green (even though it's the highlight effect I'm going for), skin 60 and chitin 30? This might switch around the color wheel a bit, and Ill make some swatches to keep track of my thoughts.
@verbal slate @elder owl @timid mist

[timid mist]

The pink looks cool, though I assumed neon green was the highest value and it'd compete for that

[visual bobcat]

Yeah I agree, I will not go as high pink if I went with that route. It's mostly me testing around.

[timid mist]

I prefer blue skin and plum chitin though I'm not sure why

[visual bobcat]

Swatch #1 (Triadic)

Swatch #2 (Reversed Split)

Swatch #3 (Split)

[timid mist]

The blackblue skin looks better here than in previous versions I think

[visual bobcat]

That is much because I added highlights to it. I might go one contrast color higher value for the skin case of blue skin

[timid mist]

Glance readability will probably be easier on a lighter terrain

[verbal slate]

Honestly both look great, I'd still consider the green the 10%
Also, my personal advice is to highlight the body a bit lighter, a pet peeve of mine is to see the great amount of detail of tyranid bodies getting muddled by dark colours with low readibility

[timid mist]

Nice job 🙂

[visual bobcat]

I agree! I will surely highlight skin higher, might even go higher value in basecoat, especially in the case of blue chitin/purple skin, for more contrast.

[visual bobcat]

What do you mean?

[verbal slate]

contrast wise, I assume, if you put dark skin on a dark base most of what you'll see will be the carapace

And considering you'll add lighter highlights I'll cast my vote on blue skin, that carapace is lovely with the green

[visual bobcat]

To me the plum with light magenta highlight is more harmonious. I could, as qazzquimby mentioned, push the green effect a bit more with some ice yellow closer to the body, especially on bigger models.

This brings us to the fourth element still, which are the bone parts, which I am still not sure what to do with. I know orange was considered, but in the case of CYM wheel and the green/blue/purple Split complementary, not sure how it would work.

We could in this case, theoretically, consider a square harmony:

So doing some darker value light blue for skin, and then off color this coraly orangey pink

[verbal slate]

You could do the bones the same way as the carapace

if you want to avoid a strong orange to contrast

[visual bobcat]

I'm thinking these values in that case

As base color, edges up to coral

[verbal slate]

sounds promising

[visual bobcat]

Many cool tyranid schemes and their bones stand out, and I like that

They should be menacing weapons after all, and having it the same color as the chitin (without the green effect) might be a bit bland

[verbal slate]

mine have black>red tallons and blue carapace so I'm partial to those strong contrasts

[visual bobcat]

Perhaps doing some sort of swatch yeah

I could add in some black here as well - what if doing some sort of black to magenta - being in the magenta/plum spectrum

I'll play around with it a bit

[verbal slate]

keep us updated

[timid mist]

I meant that since most values are low value the silhouette is mostly low value, and you'll see the silhouette more clearly on a light background

[visual bobcat]

Ah yes, but the bases scheme will be a mix of dark and light as of now. Not all bases will have the lava on it, which means in general darker base. So you do have a point

Update @verbal slate

[verbal slate]

lookin' gooooood

green tongue next?

[timid mist]

Your lava in the op looked great.

[visual bobcat]

Yeah, green tounge ofc

[timid mist]

Oh what if you had an orange brown color on the rocks of the base?

Opposite the blue purple main tones

[visual bobcat]

Huh interesting. Dark magenta ish brown highlighting up to orange ish

[verbal slate]

a quick orange drybrush sounds promising

[timid mist]

Would contrast the lava nicely too

Good luck and nice work 🙂

[visual bobcat]

I am considering to buy the demonstone basing bits from Epic Basing https://epicbasing.com/products/demon-stone-digital-stl-pack

[timid mist]

Might be a good use of tree bark and simple sculpting

Green bits on the mini (not lava) might look good with gloss finish

[visual bobcat]

Orange dry brush, what say you?

[verbal slate]

better than before

[visual bobcat]

Much brighter blue skin base. Green now and gonna to test push the vibrancy of the glow

[visual bobcat]

Here we have the full iteration. Put some yellow green layering ínte the recesses.

Newest iteration. Any feedback?
@verbal slate @timid mist @elder owl

[verbal slate]

those are looking awesome

[timid mist]

Obviously looks great. Orange on the base could maybe go farther. Still curious if gloss on the green will look good. Very nice execution

Kind of toxic-cyberpunk

[visual bobcat]

I have had a synapse tyrant laying for another scheme I was copying about so I just went for it. Basecoating it all and then going for glowy bits.

Orangy eggs perhaps?

[verbal slate]

a glowing orange-red would look lovely, me says

a bit weird though, since they are presumably nid eggs, and thus should share whatever colours their entrails or energy do

[visual bobcat]

I'm thinking that the glow goes more volatile as their energy gets spent, from orange to yellow and green...? 😁 Together with the world core they attack. My idea with these nids would be that they attack and destabilise the core, making it glow green, and they themselves undergo the same process and eventually die with the world. Might call them Hive Fleet Nihilus

[verbal slate]

sounds cool

try to worldbuild with the bases then

maybe have different phases of the invasion with different units, like ungreened genestealers or something?

[visual bobcat]

Yes, that is my intent for sure. This Synapse Tyrant might not be my "the one" because of the base is intended for another scheme. But I just went for it! 😃

[visual bobcat]

End of session

[timid mist]

I'd probably do the eggs green with purple webbing since the scheme has been implying they're green on the inside

Orange basing suggestion was just meant to make the colors pop more with contrasting terrain

[visual bobcat]

Good suggestion, you are right!

[visual bobcat]

Today's session. Those eggs are doing work! You where right!

[verbal slate]

oooooh

my advice: add a puddle of white to the center of each green egg patch and pass over with the green on top to make them look lit from the inside

those brains are looking quite luminescent too

[timid mist]

Was about to say this. More gradient

You could freehand little purple veins on them too around the edges

The pink is cool though it might compete and hurt the zoomed out view. I really don't know.

[verbal slate]

oh, another piece of advice, when you want to paint thin, packed together teeth like those do them over black to push up the contrast, works wonders

[timid mist]

My mother says your work is fabulous haha

[visual bobcat]

Haha that is one good compliment! 😃

[visual bobcat]

Yeah, good one. Didn't do them yet, but I'll do a pass over them properly with that in mind!

In regards to the gradient, this green is like the most vibrant I have, being fluo green. Do you mean I add some lower value greens to add some slight gradient?

[verbal slate]

You painted that green over what? White? Or something darker?

[visual bobcat]

Mostly white, but with some remaining dry brush over black

I could perhaps do it reverse, glaze in grey and then another pass of green fluo

[verbal slate]

Green wash around the edges, then?

[visual bobcat]

That could work, I'll try it.
@verbal slate @timid mist thanks a lot for all your feedback by the way! 😍

[visual bobcat]

I'm thinking also adding some diluted wash in the vents of the nids to emphasise their structure a bit more.

[verbal slate]

I got it done with a thin line drybrush style with a small brush to highlight, takes a bit of practice to get the right amount of paint on the brush, though

[visual bobcat]

Will try

[verbal slate]

The trick is low paint and use the brush on an almost paralel angle

[visual bobcat]

Thanks for the tip,

[verbal slate]

Here's a good example

[visual bobcat]

Oh nice scheme! Love the dots!

[verbal slate]

Tons of work but they do look fabulous

[visual bobcat]

Really like how you layered those dots!

[verbal slate]

bit of a pseudo coconut crab, inspired mostly by a guy on reddit named Qbanconquistador, jawdropping nids, that guy has

[visual bobcat]

Gonna check him out, always nice to check some good looking aliens out

[verbal slate]

hell yeah

[visual bobcat]

One of my faves is Jamiepaints on Instagram

[verbal slate]

he's pretty good, but I prefer more colorful minis

[visual bobcat]

I love the camouflaged ones from qbans 🫨
https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer40k/s/fv30LYGqef

This one I mean https://www.reddit.com/r/Tyranids/s/1WYL11Whcc

[verbal slate]

yeah, his blends are insane

[visual bobcat]

A slight drybrush with my main magenta onto the brains increased the contrast and readability of it.

[timid mist]

Since you asked about how to shade the green, for glow effects the innermost and least covered parts are brightest. Like how a rectangular lantern is darker around the edges, and a fire is lightest nearest the source

[visual bobcat]

So after some more fiddling and detailing I'm calling it quite done. Wanna move on to the next model. Being the first in the line of the Hive Fleet Nihilus I'm quite happy. Thanks for all your feedback! 😄
https://www.instagram.com/p/DJgiOnvNnlW/
@timid mist @verbal slate

tompapaints

My first model in my own Alien scheme! I'm calling it Hive Fleet Nihilus - as the aliens burrow deeper into the planet core, it starts to glow green, and toxic lava rises up to the surface. The fate of the planet is destruction and so is the fate of the invading Hive Fleet - as they are spending their energies, they slowly expire from the inside...

Instagram

[verbal slate]

looks great, loving your wraiths too

you've also deffinetly improved from your warrior

[visual bobcat]

Thanks a lot! 😃 Yeah, the warrior was very crude and I've made some good steps in quality without going slower.

Taking proper photo also helps a lot to present the mini properly

[verbal slate]

setting up a mini studio and improving my photos was a huge step for myself, yeah

[visual bobcat]

For me its the upgrade of a proper background paper and a phone tripod

[verbal slate]

hmm, I don't bother with a tripod, minis are usually too small

I preffer to take from face level or facing up to make them more menacing

[visual bobcat]

My phone is very prone to bad images if I'm shaking the slightest hence the tripod 😅 bought small one for cheap

[verbal slate]

understandable

[timid mist]

I don't have a background. Any suggestions?

[visual bobcat]

A plain black carton paper from any hobby store would do. That's what I'm doing

[verbal slate]

same, even a chinese store should have those

I got a black carton and two cheap lamps