The stuff is:

Back row

Sand

static grass

White primer

PVA glue

The floor cleaning thing

Third paint row

Chaos black

Scab red

Vomit brown

Fortress gray

Second paint row

Blood red

Liche purple

Graveyard earth

Bleached bone

Bleached bone with skull white

Bestial brown

First paint row

Red gore

Blazing orange

Warlock purple

skull white

Golden yellow

Vallejo matt varnish

Sunburst yellow

Front

Pot of water and floor clean 50/50

Plastic glue

hobby knife

GW standard/ fine detail brush

GW base coat

If someone was wondering (actually you all should be wondering) what the middle pot is there for! The open pot is maybe the most important thing you will need. What it contains is simply some... Future floor finnish... (or whatever you call it in other parts of the world) mixed with water. It may seem weird for some but I use it to take the surface tension away from my washes, I'll show you later!

EDIT: I did some search and found an article about future floor finnish and what it is called in different countries. http://www.swannysmodels.com/TheCompleteFuture.html

The first stage is here!

Step one...asembling the model.

At first get the models of the sprue. Do this with scissors, your hobby knife or whatever sharp tools you find, just avoid cutting into the model! After you have got the parts of the sprue it is time to clean up all the mold lines and uneven things. Use the x-acto knife thing to patiently and carefully shave them away. Be careful with this thing and cut away from yourself! (Actually I never do it myself, but that is maybe why I wear three scars on my fingers ;D)

After doing this it's time to glue the model!

Unlike krakenfiend I'm used to glue my tyranid before I paint them, or at least gaunts, even if my motto is to paint (nearly) every fig to the highest level. Anyways, this is done with the plastic glue and I think that everyone can glue a model properly. The only problem you might get is that the legs don't seem to fit so well on some of the gaunts. If so, just try to fix it with the knife!

Step two: priming your gaunt.

I think this is quite good and I'm lazy so...

Quote:

Place the model pieces on a piece of flat cardboard. Shake the Primer very well...(1-1 1/2 minutes). -- Shaking the primer is very imortant..it will help ensure you get nice even coverage on the model. Spray the parts with short controlled bursts (almost like dusting). Allow the pieces to dry..(about 15 minutes for Citadel primer). Turn the pieces over and repeat the process.

I apologize for no pics but.. I think you can live without a few primed model pics.

Step three: Base coating

My chosen color is Bleached bone! What you do now is to paint a few even and very watered down coats of color on the skin areas. Do this with a big enough brush, in my case GW base coat brush. Try to not get blobs or drown the details in paint, the the bone color has a tendency to do so.

Stage 4: recesses highlighting!

This is an easy one, just highlight the parts in the recesses with a mix of 50/50 bleached bone and white like in the pics. Almost no difference, but it will show a it later on.

Stage 5! "Shading"/washing

At last we reach this stage! This is maybe the most difficult part of the entire model..."pink shading"! Start by picking your Warlock purple and liche purple from the desk. This is one of the things I do different than the 'eavy metal team, in order to get a more pinkish color on my nids i also use Warlock purple in the recesses! So, what is so hard with this thing then? Isn't it just throwing some watered down purple on the model and...voilá! NO, it is not. This is what it will look like if applied without the special ingredient:

As you see the water in the color results in that the surface tension is very high and the color does not lay down so smooth as it should. This is easily fixed with some colorless liquid that reduces surface tension...like soap! Soap is fine to apply to incs and washes as long you are not painting on it afterwards...And that is a PAIN! I used it at first but that slows painting down with like... an extra half hour! I have now moved over to this: http://www.swannysmodels.com/TheCompleteFuture.html!

Now to the painting of the model. The exact proportions of the mix I use are hard to tell, and are achieved by trying and experience. I also sometimes have it ready mixed in a paint pot. Anyways it is something like this

Water 50%

Future floor finish 40%

Warlock purple 9%

Liche purple 1%

+

some matt varnish

The matt varnish is there because, at least my floor polish thing has some shine in it, but I guess that depends a little on the stuff used!

Now when you have the mix you apply it into almost all recesses with any brush you like, and wait until it dries. When totally dry you can apply a second wash in the deeper places, like chest ribs, under carapace and in the breathing holes! After this process your gaunt should look something like this:

Wip close up

Next: ....first skin tone

Stage 6 First skin tone!

What we do in this stage is to pick up your bleached bone and try to paint a smooth base color on which to highlight, and at the same time clean up any mistakes from the previous stage!

Water down the bone as usual, and use ex. a GW detail brush for this! This isn't to hard as you already have bleached bone in the base color, just clean up the previous mess! Now it'll look something like this:

The difference is minimal, but necessary! I apologize the pics! I'll try to take better ones!

Stage 7 First highlight

So now on to highlighting! To make this you need a mix of skull white and bleached bone, I have it ready mixed, but the proportions are about 50/50. It may bee good for you to also mix this in a pot because we'll need quite allot of this, at least if you are paining carnifexes and other bug guys. I'd pick a GW small detail brush for the job as you'll be watering down the paint allot, so it's easier to do it with a smaller brush! To the painting, add about 60% of water (GW paints are thick)to the mix and start painting the skin, as usual leaving some of the previous coat showing! To get an enough covering result you will need to do this at least twice for a satisfying result! I have also made some blending on the tail part by simply applying so many progressive watered down coats that no line is recognizable! Result:

close up

Heh pics getting better but not good enough! I turned back to the good old gaming table!

Next stage: FINAL highlight!

HA, my favorite stage, final highlight!

Simple, take out your white, GW fine detail brush and water! water down the white, this time even a little more than the last time (65%)!

Paint just as you did in the last stage, reSynapse Creatureing to leave the bleached bone & skull white mix showing! Paint many coats, and try to get the color smooth and blended! Now it'll look like THIS:

close

Now those pics start to look like something!

Next: Carapace and all things not skin!

Stage 9: black base coat

This stage is painful as you must be REALLY careful applying the white! Any little slip of the brush can cause horrible results which are a PAIN to cover! So you need some chaos black and two brushes, one small (about GW fine detail) and one bigger (ab. GW standard)! Two brushes because I don't recommend you ruining your brush by trying to paint the big carapace pieces with your smallest brush, or ruining your gaunt by painting his mouth with a tank brush (...umm).

Anyways start to cover the carapace and other "hard" bits with some, as usual watered down chaos black. Start by painting bigger areas first and then change to the small brush for detail! Depending on how watered down the paint is you may have to paint a second layer! Don't water the paint down TO much tho, or you'll soon find half your models recesses BLACK (yes, there is a story behind that...)

After this your model will be looking something like this:

close up

Next'll be: carapace and/or claws

Stage 10: carapace and claw, first color

Lets look at the carapace first. Use liche purple to paint long, thin stripes towards the head of the gaunt! Do it totally irregularly, and cover about half of the black. For his it is good to use a thin brush (thin brush=thin lines). Here is a pic of the carapace:

Now we'll move to claws. Use the fine detail brush and Scab red. On the hanging middle limbs claws I just paint two lines on each side, and on the hooves carapace like stripes.

Also reSynapse Creature the small claws on the spine fists!!!

Stage 11: first carapace highlight.

Now it's time to highlight the carapace. Take the liche purple and fortress gray. These two are then mixed together in a ratio of 67% liche purple to 33% fortress gray. Then use the fine detail brush to draw similar but smaller lines on the carapace than you did before.

It'll result in something like this:

Stage 12: first claw highlight.

Things needed: water, blood red and fine detail brush. For the right color and effect we will have to water down the paint quite allot (red 40% water 60%). Carefully draw thin lines with the red on the claws, leaving some scab red showing. It will be necessary to do this twice. The second coat can also be made with less water in the red for a second highlight on the watered down parts, but this is only necessary on bigger parts like scything talons, when i more blending is needed.

BIG pic

Stage 13: claw/hoof last highlight

For the final tint on the claws we need some blazing orange and a small brush. Apply tiny highlights to the edge of the claw/hoof to make them look really deadly. No more explaining needed (I think). This is how it should look:

Stage 14: Carapace last highlight

For this stage we again need to mix up some fortress gray and liche purple, this time in proportions opposite to last tine (so 67% gray to 33% of purple). Now draw small irregular lines on the total edges of carapace to create a cool effect. Tadaa, carapace ready.

Next: teeth and eyes

Stage.....Fifteen or something, don't reSynapse Creature anymore!

Teeth/tooth! What you need for this stage is some graveyard earth and skull white! Not bleached bone as I want the teeth to stand out and as most of the model is in bleached bone shades I use graveyard mixes instead for a grayer finish. So start by painting the teeth GE (=graveyard earth) leaving a little rim of black in the root.

Next take the skull white and mix it with some GE, about 50/50. Apply this a little more sparingly and leave some GE showing.

Final highlight goes with pure white painted only on the edge.

Stage.....AH WATHEVER....Tongue, and other nice things you find in a tyranids mouth. I usually do this with a mix of red gore and liche purple (7 red and 3 parts purple) which is highlighted with more and more bleached bone, highlighted up 2 or three times depending on what I'm painting. Expect for stealer's who go without the purple.

So now we have got the model ready! ;D

Now for the last thing, BASING!

Well basing is a pretty personal thing, depending on what you play on but I'm gonna show how I've done my bases!

Our game table has a jungle motif so I base my Nids in the boring codex kind of way.

First glue the sand to the base with PVA. Paint with bestial brown, dry brush with vomit brown (oh man what a name) and then a light dry brush of Bleached bone. Paint rims with a few layers of GE and try to cover the white well, the GE is little tricky not sticking so good anywhere! Finally add some static grass to the base by bushing some PVA on the base and pressing the grass on.

At last! He is READY! Standard gaunt level!

Now before I show the final result I'm gonna add a little special parts section including some details you will need to know how to paint:

Toxin sacs: first paint the sac normally in bleached bone. Then you highlight the "strings" straight with white (not really necessary with a mix here). Then to the blobs, paint them first in snot green, then they are highlighted in snot green mixed with bleached bone (or straight goblin green 'cause it's essentially the same color) and for a last highlight with even more Bleached bone (two thirds of bone or something) and you're ready!

Gun eyes: just about the same as in the codex. Paint the whole eye fiery orange and highlight with golden yellow. Now to get an ugly organic look to the eye paint around it with some red ink. After this it may be necessary to correct some mistakes with the golden yellow. Highlight the eye now in turn with sunburst yellow. To finish of, paint a black line in form of the pupil roughly in the middle of the eye, and at last add a little white dot in the eye for reflection.

Orange pipes and adrenal glands.

Base coat with scab red, pain blood red leaving recesses original color, highlight with blazing orange, highlight with fiery orange, highlight with fiery orange mixed equally with bleached bone!

Forgot to take pic so dug this one up:

As you see most of the tyranid parts in contact with the skin are painted by somehow involving bleached bone to it! so whatever colors you use for toxin sacs or whatever, reSynapse Creature to highlight with bleached bone in the mix!

Now I have finished this tutorial!

The language is maybe not so good but I have done my best!

Still, I really hope this was useful for someone!

Hope I brainwashed some new players to the path of leviathan! Now for the PICs

joining his pals

See ya!