Monday 12 April 2010

Tyrannofex conversion - Part 3

So that's him actually done now, and undercoated. The base arrived from Games Workshop this morning and he just fits on. So here is the last part of the process. Just a note: I know it's quite difficult to see some of the detail on the undercoated model so sorry, but I'll do a step-by-step series of the painting too.





11. I added a lot more grubs localised around his abdomen, but even crawling on his back and arms. I added a few more after these photos were taken, just to make it look like he was hoaching.









12. Legs on! It was a bit of a pain to get them secure, but after a tonne of pinning they're really solid. Even more surprising they can take the full weight of the model really well; I thought I might have to use a pin to take most of the weight but I'm glad I didn't. This is the finished amount of grubs too, I added a fair few more.







And that's that. Finished and undercoated for his mug shots. He stands around 20cm tall. I know a lot of people think that a T-fex should be bigger, but it's comparable in size to a trygon, which has the same number of wounds. I'm dead pleased with how he has turned out anyways, and it was a lot of fun to make. Not bad for a bunch of scrap and about £9 extra. Stay posted for paint job photos.

Tyrannofex conversion - Part 2

So I had the basic shape, now I wanted to add some detail. I use an epoxy resin putty called "green stuff" to sculpt with. Usually I only sculpt small sections on models, this is the only larger model I've done, so fingers crossed.



5. I used tubes of green stuff and made these tendony/intestine style soft parts.



6. I filled the gap between the abdomen and thorax with a sinew type effect. I used Deirdre Barlow's (from coronation street) neck as a reference for this. ._.





7. I made tubes with emerging larvae to represent another weapon it uses: electroshock grubs. The plan is to add more larvae later on.





8. Next I set aboot making the main weapon which comes in 3 distinct flavours: rupture cannon, acid spray and fleshborer hive. I've been running some numbers and acid spray seems to be my favorite choice right now, but the rupture cannon is excellent too. Luckily as I'm making it, it could represent either. I used an old and a new crushing claw for the arm and 4 old barbed stranglers for the "barrel". I also pinned on the head at this point (extra strong styley, my mate Stu broke the head off this model twice in its last incarnation, just by picking it up).



9. I used wire coat hanger to make tubing going between the tyrannofex and the gun, to supply it with whatever gunk it fires.









10. I connected up the tubes and filled all the gaps basically. I tried to copy some of the sculpting on the venom cannon around the tubes. It half worked.

Not much left to do now, just a little more filling, and then time to get the legs on. I'm looking forward to undercoating him; it won't be so obvious where everything fits together after that.

Sunday 11 April 2010

Tyrannofex conversion - Part 1

So the wife suggested I show the conversion in steps rather than one big post when it's done, which I think is probably more sensible.

I wanted to make my Tyrannofex fit the description in the codex at least partially, but I didn't want to just convert from a carnifex kit. Whilst looking through my assorted bits boxes, I came across a bunch of old nids that I still though looked good, namely the "Alien Queen" style hive tyrant and some parts of the old carnifex. I decided that these models would make up the bulk of the conversion. The description in the codex goes: "Clad in a dozen layers of ablative chitinous armour and supported by three pairs of massive legs", and then "...its body houses several breeding chambers." These were the main draw of inspiration for my conversion.





1. I took 2 old carnifex carapaces and stuck them together. I filled them with hot-glue from a glue gun. It dries rock solid and can be carved after it's dry. I ran out of green stuff so filled smaller gaps with 8 year old milliput, which never really dried... mind you it did look a bit foosty.





2. I pinned the underside of the carnifex chest to the abdomen section using really solid wire from a wire coat hanger. I needed to use pretty hefty pliers to cut it though, but it's great for large heavy models like this.





3. I pinned the body of the old hive tyrant to the lower chest section of the fex. I used more hot glue as a filler.



4. I glued on 2 spare plastic carapace sections from the newest carnifex kit. The one of the front has spines on it, representing one of the three weapons the tyrannofex has: the stinger salvo.

This made up the bulk of the structural work, and left me with a solid base to work on. I'll be doing on some sculpting next.

Friday 9 April 2010

Tyrannofex - work in progress.

The tyrannofex is a new unit for the Tyranid Warhammer 40000 army. I say new, the new codex came out a few months ago now but it was new then. Over the past few days I've been converting/scratch building one, and I'm quite pleased with the results so far.

A full post about the project will follow when he's done, along with a shed load of pictures.

Ready, steady, blog.

Hello anyone who reads this, I just thought I'd start off by mention what kind of thing I'm likely to bang on about here. Its going to be videogames, wargames, painting, modeling, sciencey bits, some techy stuff and probably a bunch of ranting.

More than anything I'm making this to share what I'm doing and thinking with my friends and family. If anyone else manages to glean any useful information from the blog, power to them and thanks.