Painting your termagants
We’ll be looking at painting termagants today! Old or new, it doesn’t matter if they are from the Leviathan box set or some old ones. The one I am painting is from my copy of Warhammer 40k Leviathan, although they have since been released in their own box set. I did a blog post on the building of the termagants here!
There is something to bear in mind on these. Termagants are horde animals, so you may very well be painting quite a lot of these. If that is the case, you may want to optimise how you paint them so you can batch-paint them easily. Whilst I like the result, I think I could have optimised things here and there. I shall mention what I might change when I get to a suitable part.
Now, what is the paint scheme, you may ask? It is based on Hive Fleet Leviathan, although it could be a splinter fleet if you wish. The colour scheme is purple for the skin and dark blue for the carapace parts. I wanted to push those a bit and go up to a fluorescent magenta and down to a black-blue! We can write the required paints down below
Right, first thing is first, in the video, I do not paint the bases for these termagants as I still haven’t entirely made my mind up there. Secondly, I completely forgot to paint the teeth, but with that being said, the video is okay! As always, I prime with black spray primer – something I have been doing since about 1996.
Termagant's Skin
This is one of those parts where you might want to drybrush the carapace first (if you want to drybrush!) However, we are going to paint the termagant’s skin first! This means we will get a couple of nice even coats of Royal Purple down.
Following that, I apply the magenta towards the elbows, the hands, lower legs, etc. I leave the dark purple toward the upper parts of each limb, which you could highlight if you have time, but not something I shall be doing here. As always, apply the paint to where you wish, but get a nice even coat.
We will start by applying Intense pink in a chunky highlight within that previous magenta area. I painted that colour on the raised parts, tighter toward the elbow joints, hands, etc. Next, I added some Dorn yellow to brighten that pink, ready for our final stage. I would suggest that up to here, you could drybrush the paint on. It’s not something I do much of, so I’d definitely want a few brushes and a test model or two to practice on! It is certainly possible to go up to pure Dorn yellow, but this is a horde miniature, so I won’t.
The last step for the skin is taking some Fluorescent Magenta and Lahmian medium in roughly a 1:1 (or higher) ratio. We are going for more of a glaze than a wash, however. I definitely don’t want it as wash, but either a glaze or just a thinned-down paint will be what I want to aim for. Start at the darker part of the skin, drag it to the highlighted area and at that point, you take the brush off the miniature. I wait for this layer of paint to dry and then repeat the paint application.
I prefer to use a thin glaze, which requires many coats. Whilst it takes longer, it does mean I have more control.
Flesh weapons
Alright, cracking on, I will paint the weapon, tongue and what other bits I would like in some skin tone. Funnily enough, I’m going to finally use a wash! So, I use a base coat of Barbarian brawn from the Two Thin Coats range of paints. Strangely, you will need to use a couple of coats to get a nice even coat – also, make sure you thoroughly shake the paint!
This is when we break out the wash, which is surprisingly called Flesh wash, also from Two Thin Coats. One thing to consider is that it DEFINITELY needs thinning down, at least 1:1, with water or a medium. I have yet to figure out a perfect ratio to thin it down, but you could potentially go higher with the medium. The colour looks right, but I suggest you test it somewhere before you go to town! If it has pooled anywhere, wick away any excess with a brush. Once that has dried, you can re-paint the midtone with the Barbarian brawn.
Move onto Dwarven Flesh, and paint the edges, raised parts or parts that might be considered bony. Once I’ve painted in the general highlight, I can finally use our final detail colour for the skin, Elven skin.
For the last step, I’m going to glaze in some magenta – this step could be dropped, though! Break out the Laser magenta and some Lahmian medium and mix it in a ratio of around 1:2, paint to medium. You might need to test it before and add more medium to get a good glaze. So I then put the brush on the flesh, move it toward the magenta of the skin, and then remove it. The point where you lift it is where most of the paint shall be deposited. You may need to do a few more coats to achieve a suitable tint on skin tone. I will usually do this when I’m trying to add some warmth to the skin or some fat.
The final bit is the round thing in the gun and the eyes. So, break out the White Star, or whatever white paint you like, thin it and then carefully paint the eyes and that part of the weapon. Once I have a nice coat of white down, I’m going to thin the Fluorescent green paint and paint it on. Make sure each layer dries before putting the next coat down.
Termagant Carapace
Let us work on the termagant’s carapace now! If you want to cut some corners, you can skip this step. That first step is putting on a nice coat of one of my favourite paints, Deep Blue Sea.
I then use Stegadon scale green as a wide midtone or a dry brush and apply the paint toward the edges of the carapace.
You can then use Sotek green as a chunky edge highlight. Rather than running the side of the brush along the edge, I do lots of parallel scratchy lines. Once I have it how I want it, we can move on.
On the big Tyranids, I will definitely do more scratchy lines of Temple Guard blue on its own. Instead of that step, I am adding white paint to that paint and doing some rough lines across the edges. You will probably need to do a few passes of this to get the look you want!
I then do the final edge highlights and scratches with a pure white pain. When painting these termagants, I didn’t go too overboard with it. I think when it comes to painting large Tyranids, I do spend a bit more time doing this. As always, personal preference rules supreme! To make this work, we can glaze in as many layers of Doom Death black as we like! I start pushing this paint on before the chunky Sotek green highlight and direct it towards the crack and crevices on the carapace
Final words on painting termagants!
Obviously, we have not painted the base on this miniature! Once I figure out how to base them, I will do a full-length video on it and a write-up here. As for painting termagants, I think the carapace comes together once the black glaze is painted on.
I don’t think I will ever run a Tyranid horde army, but if I did, it would be a monster mash style! As a result of that, I didn’t mind spending extra time on painting the termagants. I think there are definitely some parts that could be refined if needed to speed-paint more of them. In the future, I could attempt a speed painting of some Termagants and see how close we can get them?!
That’s all we have, folks! Check out the video above for a slightly better visual representation! Consider signing up for the Newsletter below so that you can be notified of when that basing video appears on my YouTube channel!
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