DreadTober 2025: Tervigon Birthing Sac

 

Hi folks,

Term 4 of school started this week, so my hobby time has been compressed to a tiny singularity on Friday night. Still, I managed to paint my main goal for this week, the Tervigon's birthing sac. It was a bit of a process, which I will record here for posterity.

1) Base colour

For the basecoat I made a 1:1 mixture of Xerius Purple and Sotek Green. It took a couple of coats as coverage wasn't great over the black.

2) Blue wash

To add a bit of interest I added a Sotek wash in all of the recesses. I like the contrast between cold and warm tones when I do his, instead of using a darker purple wash. I also added some more Xerius Purple to the raised surfaces to help blend it all together.

3) First Highlights

I built up the highlights gradually with progressively lighter mixes of Model Colour Purple and Xereus Purple. Model Colour Purple is my "go to" for Tyranids these days; excellent for vintage genestealers.

4) Final Highlights

I dry-brushed neat Model Colour Purple to the raised surfaces, particularly focusing on the sacs where the Termagant heads can be seen poking through. Later on I even added a small amount of Jokaero Orange and Ushabti Bone to the mix to really bring those edges out.

5) Base coating the germ sacs

Early on I noticed that some of the sacs look smaller and rounder than the others. I thought maybe they could be the earliest stages of Termagant growth, just sacks of toxin and stem cells, which I could conceivably pick out in another colour. I undercoated these in a mixture of Xerius Purple and Warpstone Green.

6) Green Highlights

I highlighted the germ sacs with increasingly light mixes of Moot Green and Yriel Yellow. It is a similar look to how I do the eyes of each of my Tyranids. 

7) Blood!

The final step was to add some Tamiya Clear Red to the entrance of the birthing sac. Clear Red is my secret weapon for doing blood, though it is a bit of a pain to clean up, and pretty unforgiving if you mess up. Less is usually more when it comes to blood, so I only added a bit to the edges and the internal surfaces, which you can't see well in this shot. There is one thing that I have not painted; the armour on the top of the Devourer, as this will be colour shift. I'll bet tackling that part of the project next week!

See you across the table,

Marc

2nd Edition Army Challenge IV: Termagants TO-DONE!!!

 

Hi folks,

I have been enjoying a short break from blogging, following a really difficult year on the homefront. In January, Dr The Viking's Cowabunga 2nd Edition 40K army challenge started again for a 4th season. Many veterans have joined the challenge again this year, as well as a bunch of rookies. I have decided to paint Tyranids this season and have gone a step further to take on the "Gamers" challenge. That means I will be painting large numbers of models every month to try and create a large army by the end. For the first month, I chose what I think will be my greatest challenge, a brood of 32 termagants! My first challenge was creating a paint scheme that would pay homage to early 90's 40K. I wanted the scheme to be a genuine alternative to the Codex scheme, bright but cohesive. Here is the breakdown:

Over the course of the month, I sat down for a large number of short, but sharp, painting sessions. I really had to push myself for quantity, as my default setting is to take excruciatingly long amounts of time to stress over details. Here are some progress shots taken during the month:

My "Blue" stage...

Blocking in the Jokaero orange

Greens, pinks and starting on the washes

Ready for basing!

The finished product was everything I hoped it would be and even managed to score me some Terminator honours for the first month. I have to say I was a little emotional when I saw what some people had said about them. I love painting these figures with fellow enthusiasts of old school 40k, so creating something that resonates with them is fantastic.

This month I am working on a large brood of Tyranid Warriors, which I have been ferreting away for a couple of years through ebay purchases. The Trooper also gave me a box full of old school Tyranids to include in the challenge, which included even more of them. I really love these sculpts in particular, even though they are kind of rubbish in-game. Hopefully, I'll have some more progress shots this weekend, as I get back into the swing of recording my hobby adventures. Here they are all primed and ready to go:

See you across the table,

Marc