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"There are some places in the universe you don't go alone."


Hi all.

I began work on this project over a year ago now, but due to various calamities IRL, haven't had much time for my hobby. That's changed now, and aside from a few more conventional painting projects, I'm looking to really throw myself into Operation: [CANCERBLACK]. That is to say, convert and paint up some Alien and Predator minis to game with. I'll also be painting up a small Tyranid army as a part of this thread.

*UPDATE* (22/5/13)

New pics:

Those look great! The Genestealer looks just like a Xenomorph with what little conversion you've done. Do you plan on including any of the Xenomorph variants (like the cranium-domed original, some of the head variations and the Boilers from Aliens: Colonial Marines, etc...)?

Yeah, I'm planning on using several different styles of head, but not so much the "types" of Alien as portrayed in various games. I feel that idea winds up being tacky 90% of the time, so I'll just pick and choose a few of the more tasteful head variants floating round, and make some up myself too.

I also intend to do a few variant body shapes, which are more likely to be how I distinguish different flavours of Alien, if they prove successful.

Subscribed! I really like your Aliens, it actually took me a second to realise they were 'stealers which is very impressive. I'm really looking forward to this, might inspire me to get back to my 'Nids blog finally!

Great work on converting those 'Stealers

Thanks guys. Hopefully I'll be taking some better pictures of these models today.

Nice. Any plans for marines?

Epic! Also if you plan on making a pred alien any time using spinefist ripper mouths work well for mandibles.

Amazing!

Finally got some better pictures taken today, but it's getting late so I'll upload them tomorrow.

They look awesome! I planning something similar after my next project. So I may 'borrow' some ideas...

Actually, here's a few new ones:

New predator looks great. Where's he from?
What pulse rifle did you decide to go with?
Love how threatening the alien looks along side the marine and pred!

Some brilliant looking conversions here. Subbed for sure.

Not sure if you're aware of them but these guys do some great 28mm resin predators too.

http://www.predastore.ch/ While more true scale, they are stunning in the flesh.

Really great stuff. Have you come up for some test rules for this game?

What exactly did you make the alien with?

Can't wait to see more and I like the large bases - allows for more creativity.

Nice new pics, the scale looks good. What are you going to be building to run as 'Nids?

Zwan1One wrote:
New predator looks great. Where's he from?
What pulse rifle did you decide to go with?
Love how threatening the alien looks along side the marine and pred!

The Pulse Rifle is a modified Lasgun!

I'm not really happy with the rest of the CM/guardsman though, and the next attempt will be based on a Mantic Corporate.

 Earthbeard wrote:
Some brilliant looking conversions here. Subbed for sure.

Not sure if you're aware of them but these guys do some great 28mm resin predators too.

http://www.predastore.ch/ While more true scale, they are stunning in the flesh.

Wow, those are nice. Unfortunately, I'm very broke at the moment. Like, nasty letters from the power company broke.

Idols wrote:
Really great stuff. Have you come up for some test rules for this game?

What exactly did you make the alien with?

Can't wait to see more and I like the large bases - allows for more creativity.

I'm kinda stuck on the Table Top rules at the moment, however the lite-RPG version is coming along just fine. I'll detail my game-design-quest in another thread though. SOON.

The complete components list for the Alien (minus base, of course) is as follows:

- 1x Genestealer (leave the bigger arms and head off, remove the tail and "shoulder" armour )

- 1x Bloodletter head (remove the horns and sand all detail off except for the mouth)

- 2x Khemri bows (for the dorsal tubes)

- 1x Cronos Engine tentacle (with the "cable" cut out carefully)

- 3x cups of coffee, and a lot of Greenstuff.

 Casey's Law wrote:
Nice new pics, the scale looks good. What are you going to be building to run as 'Nids?

The 'Nids are going to be largely unconverted Genestealers and Warriors, but painted in an Aliens style. Just a 40k army really, but on-topic enough for me to lump in here rather than make a separate thread.

 Ktulhut wrote:
- 3x cups of coffee, and a lot of Greenstuff.

I like how you work, sir.

 Ktulhut wrote:

 Casey's Law wrote:
Nice new pics, the scale looks good. What are you going to be building to run as 'Nids?

The 'Nids are going to be largely unconverted Genestealers and Warriors, but painted in an Aliens style. Just a 40k army really, but on-topic enough for me to lump in here rather than make a separate thread.

Fair play, have you considered press moulding though? I bet you could set up a pretty cheap and quick system of reproducing these on army scale.

 Casey's Law wrote:

 Ktulhut wrote:
- 3x cups of coffee, and a lot of Greenstuff.

I like how you work, sir.

 Ktulhut wrote:

 Casey's Law wrote:
Nice new pics, the scale looks good. What are you going to be building to run as 'Nids?

The 'Nids are going to be largely unconverted Genestealers and Warriors, but painted in an Aliens style. Just a 40k army really, but on-topic enough for me to lump in here rather than make a separate thread.

Fair play, have you considered press moulding though? I bet you could set up a pretty cheap and quick system of reproducing these on army scale.

I had considered it, but due to the nature of the 'Stealer models, the only part I could reasonably cast would be the head. Possibly the tail, but after my last press-moulding experiments, I'm unsure, especially with the weird angles a few of the Cronos pieces follow. That would leave me still doing massive amounts of work on the torso of each creature, almost defeating the point.

So in the end, I decided to do at most 15 of these guys, while the predominantly unmodified Tyranids are in truth a separate project.

Have you got a how-to for the pulse rifle by any chance?

No, but I can possibly make one and post it. I think I need to get better at using my camera first though.


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New shot of the second Predator too:




And Zwan1One, He's another Heroclix figure with some basic conversions done. A Beastman hand/trophy, some brass rod and Chaos spikes for the spear, and a cut down 3e Dark Eldar pistol on his leg as a net-launcher.

 Ktulhut wrote:

 Casey's Law wrote:

 Ktulhut wrote:

 Casey's Law wrote:
Nice new pics, the scale looks good. What are you going to be building to run as 'Nids?

The 'Nids are going to be largely unconverted Genestealers and Warriors, but painted in an Aliens style. Just a 40k army really, but on-topic enough for me to lump in here rather than make a separate thread.

Fair play, have you considered press moulding though? I bet you could set up a pretty cheap and quick system of reproducing these on army scale.

I had considered it, but due to the nature of the 'Stealer models, the only part I could reasonably cast would be the head. Possibly the tail, but after my last press-moulding experiments, I'm unsure, especially with the weird angles a few of the Cronos pieces follow. That would leave me still doing massive amounts of work on the torso of each creature, almost defeating the point.
So in the end, I decided to do at most 15 of these guys, while the predominantly unmodified Tyranids are in truth a separate project.

I can't say for sure from the pictures but I really think you could pressmould the details. What did you use when you tried it before? Oyumaru is great and what most people use, I've even made three part moulds with it. I wouldn't suggest you cast anything though, buy the bits you need, make pressmoulds and you should be able to churn out copies pretty quickly. The Warriors in my 'Nids blog(link in my sig), although still WIP, are an example of some more complex shapes you can produce. I had to cast my bits so the results aren't as good as pressmoulding but then again I'll be reskinning at a lot of it anyway.

 Ktulhut wrote:
"There are some places in the universe you don't go alone."

This can't be happening man!

Great stuff, lovin it!

I've got some unmodified Genestealers looking pretty Alien-ish. Hopefully I'll get some pics up tonight.

In the mean time, have some concept work I've been doing for the PnP end of this project. Some of these ideas will make it into three dimensions and become models, but probably not exactly as you see them here.












Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Casey's Law wrote:
I can't say for sure from the pictures but I really think you could pressmould the details. What did you use when you tried it before? Oyumaru is great and what most people use, I've even made three part moulds with it. I wouldn't suggest you cast anything though, buy the bits you need, make pressmoulds and you should be able to churn out copies pretty quickly. The Warriors in my 'Nids blog(link in my sig), although still WIP, are an example of some more complex shapes you can produce. I had to cast my bits so the results aren't as good as pressmoulding but then again I'll be reskinning at a lot of it anyway.

I've used FEMO, greenstuff and wax in the past, on various projects. I'll have to try out this Oyumaru stuff once I get my bills under control.

Looks interesting, man. Ravener plans, yeh?

When you are in a position to look into press moulding and stuff I'd be happy to give you some tips and advice.

Awesome blog love all your aliens.

Subbed. Just because I didn't even realize that the Aliens model in the OP was a 'stealer.

Awesomesauce.I am so subbed.

Those look fantastic, I love the predator though, theres so much detail on it, great paint job as well. look froward to seeing more.

Since this thread has over one thousand views, I feel like I owe you all an update. My phone camera just isn't cutting it tonight, so I'll make a special effort to take some pictures of the unmodified Tyranids I've been working on as the "close enough" side of this project. Check back tomorrow, ladies and gents. If I get time to go through my boxes of WIP stuff, I'll take a pic of a pre-epoxy Alien, too.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Casey's Law wrote:
Looks interesting, man. Ravener plans, yeh?

When you are in a position to look into press moulding and stuff I'd be happy to give you some tips and advice.

Huh, I only just noticed your post. My bad. The sketches of serpentine Aliens are for the RPG I'm working on, but yes, the Raveners in my Tyranid swarm will basically be Genestealers with Khemri constuct tails.

And go ahead and post/PM anything to do with moulding you think would be of use to me. I might as well read up on it now.

Ktulhut, the tablet game AvP Evolution has a variety of xenomorph head/body shapes that look "true to source" rather than, as you say, tacky (and here I'm thinking Kenner's "[insert animal name here] alien" toys from the 90s). If you have a tablet, it's really a must-buy for any aliens fan anyway.