I love painting monstrous creatures almost as much as I love painting tanks, there is just so much character, and presence in the larger models. This Tyranid Carnifex is from the Shield of Baal box – the first of the big bugs and my second Carnifex.

I painted him to be part of my brother-in-law’s Hive Fleet Behemoth so used deep reds for the skin and black-to-blue for the carapace.

Since I armed the other Tyranid Carnifex with a venom cannon and scything talons, I gave this guy the barbed strangler and tank crushing claws – in part because they look bad ass.

I decided to take the base up a notch using some of the techniques I practiced on my Ork Warboss. Using cork, I added some height. But also left bare patches in the sand to allow for water puddles.

This was also the first model I’ve bought with the new oval bases and I love it.

It gives a larger canvas for this guy to walk on without sticking out to the sides too much. If you are interested, I wrote up a tutorial on how I painted the base including how I made the water-like effects.

As I painted this guy, I took a ton of pictures along the way. I used them to create a step-by-step tutorial. You can see how I painted the Carnifex here. I use the same technique for the whole Hive Fleet Behemoth.

To get a sense of how the background affects the overall look here is the Carnifex in my regular white lightbox. Some colors like the red stand out a bit more. But the tips of the blue and blacks disappear into the background.

Let me know what you think of the Carnifex and don’t forget to check out the painting tutorial and basing tutorials for him.