- Painting hive-fleet Leviathan -

this guide shows you how to paint hive fleet Leviathan. the scheme chosen are the old leviathan scheme from the 3rd edition Tyranid codex, which i prefer over the new leviathan scheme. and since my swarm is a Splinter fleet i thought a Variant scheme was a good choice. this guide shows how to paint a hormagaunt, but theres stated more about detailing on larger beasts bellow.

What do you need?
-a good detail brush
-a brush for Drybrushing
-chaos black spray
-chaos black
-Skull white
-Codex Grey
-Foretress Grey
-Scab red
-Red gore
-blood red
-blazing orange
-Liche Purple
-Warlock Purple

Base Coat and Grey Highlights

after spraying the gaunt Black, lightly drybrush it with codex grey to highlight the black. also while your at it, paint all carapaces codex grey.

Carapaces

after base coating the carapace in codex grey, layer it with foretress grey by making stripes from the edge and innwards. then mix 50/50 of foretress grey and skull white and do the same but a tad shorter stripes. next step is to mix another 20% white to the mix. then make final edge highlights with skull white.

Teeth

while your at highlighting the carapaces white, also paint the teeth in white.

Carapace Markings

next thing to do is the red markings on the carapace. i chosed to keep less markings on smaller creatures compared to larger ones (see detailing bellow). start of by making them in chaos black. then layer scab red on them but leave a thin edge of black around the red. next layer red gore and blood red to blend the red to get brighter towards the edge of the carapace. final highlights are made by blazing orange at the edge.

Eyes

eyes are simply blood red highlighted with blazing orange. but i make them three layers on large creatures, using red gore first.

Tongue

the tongue are painted in liche purple and highlighted with warlock purple. i didn't paint the vents and joinds on the gaunts, but on larger creatures they are painted in Purple the same way (see detailing bellow)

Finishing

there you have a Leviathan gaunt. now all that's left is to base it and varnish it.

Adding extra detail

you can add this extra detailing to the gaunts if desired, but i chosed to keep the gaunts more simple. examples of extra detailing are for example the Vents on legs and arms, the joints too. those are painted in purple as described on how to paint the tongue. weapon tubes are also picked out in purple. also i did paint more markings on the large creatures, much because they have larger carapaces. they also have red markings on their scything talons which the gaunts don't.