How I paint Hive Fleet Behemoth

After watching Infernal Brush’s video on his 3rd Edition Behemoth scheme (link at the bottom of the page), I fell in love with it and decided I wanted to try. I highly recommend, especially for centre pieces, that you watch his video. The below is a version of the scheme heavily inspired by Infernal Brush’s scheme, but done quick -ish and dirty for army painting, and with what I had in hand.

Remember: it doesn’t matter which paint/brand you use. Any dark red will do, any black will do, any orange will do, so on and so forth.

Step 1: Priming and base layer

I started by priming the tyranids black. Any black primer will work for this step.

Depending on the finish of your primer, you can apply a thin layer of black paint on the most visible parts of the miniature to change it. In my case, Hycote black primer dries glossy; I didn’t mind it for the carapace so I left it, but I wanted the body more matte, so I did glaze some AK Black on it.

Step 2: Dark red transitions (torso, tail, joints, claws)

I then picked a dark red (Used: AK Burnt Red, other random suggestion: Khorne Red) and covered the torso and claws, avoiding the feet.

Then I glazed the tail and joints I wanted to look red.

Tip: to glaze, mix your paint with a higher amount of water until your paint looks like coloured water, wipe your brush of excess, then apply the brush on the model starting where you want the transition to fade. It’s important to wipe the excess liquid on your brush or it will be hard to control.
For example, the tail: apply the paint closer to the back of the tyranid, and lift your brush when your reach the tip of the tail; this will leave slightly more paint at the tip, and less paint towards the back. Let every layer dry fully; if done right, your layer should dry in 1-10 seconds (or if you’re like me, let it dry for longer because not every pass will perfect). Once this is done, start at an ever so slightly different place, and go all the way to the tip again. Repeat until you are satisfied with the transition.

I did not go overboard with the smoothness of the transition, because I wanted to paint an army, not a display model; this should go without saying, but: it is more than okay for you to spend extra time on this step, do the same I did, or to decide not to blend the layers at all. I just picked a middle ground that was satisfying enough for me.

Step 3: Highlight with bright red and add orange as final point of light (torso, tail, joints, claws)

I then picked a lighter red (Used: Evil Sunz Scarlet, other random suggestion: Army Painter Pure Red) and covered the torso partially, making sure to leave recesses dark red.

Then I edge highlighted the joints where I wanted them to be brightest with the same red.

I added a quick couple of glazes to smooth the transition between the darker red and the newer one; the transition won’t be absolutely perfect after only a few passes, but this is what I opted to do to keep things quick (-ish) for army painting.

As a very last step for the body, I just placed a dot of orange and/or a very thin edge highlight without covering all of the bright red.

I repeated all of the above steps to the main front claws as well.

Step 4: Carapace

I started by mixing AK Neutral Grey with black and painted some dark grey lines at the outer facing edges of every chitin plate. If you own a dark grey paint (suggestion: Eshin Grey), you can use that for the first lines.

I then repeated this process by painting shorter lines of pure grey (used: AK Neutral Grey, random suggestion: Dawnstone, Grey Seer).

I very sparsely edge highlighted the plates with the same paint.

Step 5: Improving the carapace

At this stage, I started by glazing the carapace with some thinned down black paint, to pull everything together.

Next, I glazed Incubi Darkness all over the plates, pushing them slightly towards a cold black or very dark blue/green tint. Once this was done, I picked my previous red and orange paints, and added a small spot of red gradient on every plate. This was done with glazing, same as with the tail and joints, starting with the darker red all the way to the final dot of orange.

At this point, the majority of the model is done, the only things left are the head, and the weapon.

Step 6: Head and markings

The first base coat for the white head was a neutral grey (used: AK Neutral Grey, random suggestion: Grey Seer), which I then highlighted with a lighter one (used: Ulthuan Grey, random suggestion: Vallejo MC Pale Grey Blue).

For the red markings, I took the same red/orange paints as before, and drew them to cover the top half of the head with the darker red before highlighting them with the other two, making sure to cover less of the area with each new layer. You can use the tip of your brush to help you draw the thin pointy markings. If you make any mistakes, let it dry, switch back to your grey paints and cover the mistake or adjust the width of the markings as you fancy. It might take 1-3 passes to cover it.

Step 7: Weapons and final details

I painted the gun with Steel Legion Drab, highlighted it with Baneblade Brown and edge highlighted it with Vallejo MC Pale Sand (suggestion: Wraithbone).

The eyes, vents and other very small details were covered with Averland Sunset and highlighted with AK Yellow (suggestion: Yriel Yellow).

That’s basically it for my quick-ish version of this scheme. :)

Thank you to Infernal Brush for sharing his process and hard work, as this really motivated me in painting an army of Tyranids. I’m not affiliated with Infernal Brush in any way, but here’s the video; please consider subbing and liking it to support him!

Link: https://youtu.be/hRxsa28PJiY

Embedded video: