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And as promised, Alpha is painted. Since I've been talking about how much I love dipping recently with my Daemons and now my `Nids, I thought I'd show a quick reason why with a before and after shot, plus got a shot the markings down his back.

Alpha looks great! I need to make one of my own...

I'd totally be stealing all your conversion ideas for my bugs if I hadn't made my "as few conversions as possible" decree. It's for the better... when I start converting I stop painting.

Also, thank you for making a Tyrannofex with normal legs! All the conversions I've been seeing have the thing on six spider-talons, which despite making it physically impossible for the thing to move, in the artwork in the book they both have normal, carnifex style back-jointed legs! So, kudos to you for making the model look the way it's supposed to.

-Dis.

How do you 'dip' your 'nids? is it just normal paint or something else?

Minwax Polyshade wood stain. No, seriously. I've been unable to find the original guide I used, but there's a Dakka Article Here.

A detail from the guide I first read that is missing from that one is to thin down the Minwax with a couple cap fulls of Mineral Spirits. In addition I have no milk frother, and have to settle on flicking and winging the guys around to get the excess off.

Also, you'll want to have a paint brush you don't care about handy when you're doing this, not so much for the little guys, but for the larger ones. The bigger the fig, the more medium it will pick up and hold on to, despite all the flicking. As it sits to dry, all these excess will pool down to the lower areas, and you'll want to use the brush to help move it around, or just remove if there's too much. You can see an example of what I mean on Alpha's tail, just past the armor plates. When I did my giant Great Unclean One, I had to babysit that thing for a good 30 minutes, and I expect I'll have to do the same for the T-Fex.

Your skills are ridiculous! Nicely done, man.

Looking good, Nice colour scheme. Crisp and simple. Maybe needs a little bit of a contrast colour though. White Yellow and red just seem too similar.

But you probably know better than I do.

Loving the conversions though.

The original color was just white and bone, drybrushed over camo green to give the details depth. When I decided to add the color to the backs, I chose yellow/orange to purposefully Not contrast, and create a more blended look. Plus I'm a bit of a pyro and haven't had a good flame colored army since I stopped playing my Skinks several years ago...

Anyways, got the first dozen Gaunts done. I think the ones armed with Stranglewebs do a decent enough job of standing out from the others as being different. Best one would hope for short of painting the spit sacs some super odd color to the rest of them, but I wanted them to still be `Nids, and even went back and sculpted some little carapace plates on them so they could get their orange stripe like everything else. Only 60+ Gaunts to go!

Also got the Scytals on my Venomthropes. They could have been better, but once I had them done, I realized I had forgotten to bend them to make them more curved. I'd be too much of a figurative pain to take the spikes off, and a literal pain to try and bend them with the spikes on, so they'll have to make due with straighter Scytals than the Lictors they were based off of. Now I just have to go back thru and do the gap filling, as those vents leave quite a bit of space between them and the holes they plug into in the carapace. Plus find something to weight the bases. They have a Horribly high center of gravity. The one on the right is just barely able to stand up there due to the unevenness of my display area, which I've been meaning to get around to making more sturdy for awhile now but haven't. Get them onto any kind of hill or rough terrain on a table, and they'll tip right over I bet.

Yeah, a lot of my big metal tyranid models do that. I found that it helps the tipping problem if you glue a 40mm fender washer to the bottom of the base, as it lowers the center of gravity a bit. This especially helps with hormies that are notorious for falling on their faces.

It's actually a first for me. I've never used the giant metal Zoanthrope heads, and instead make mine out of Warrior heads. Going to redo them here soonish because I can do better now, and I want to use the extra Trygon head armor bitz for even larger heads. I simply hated the old Eldarish head, and don't care for the current one much either. I do like the tiny bodies the old Eldarish ones used however. Hormagaunts are usually not too bad either. The ones that are leaning extra far forward have one talon touching the ground to brace themselves. They could have been done better however. I went into Menards today with the intention of buying some white Krylon primer as well as some washers for my Venomthropes and Gargoyles, but when I found out they only had Rustolium paint and didn't stock Krylon I left, and forgot to get the washers. I settled for twisting them on the base a little bit, moving their center of gravity further to the back.

Also, I Finally got around to making a new display stand for taking pictures of stuff. I raised it up 2" higher than the old one bringing it more level with the camera, and it's made of a few sheets of wood, which I think is far sturdier than an old bent Dreadnought box. Unfortunately, long, straight, even cuts are not my specialty, and thus it's Not Quite level, but that's easily remedied by straightening the pictures before I crop them. Now I need to see about digging up a wider piece of Repti-Carpet from around here, so I don't have to crop the group photos so close. Anyways... Random group shot of the `Nids I've gotten painted so far, just to show off how much nicer they sit now.

I only got the washers because I used to work at the hardware store, and "Fuzzy" Dave gave me a box of two-hundred 25mm fender washers for 5 bucks. I've found them useful though.

I just got my first two zoanthropes recently, and they are pretty well balanced. I am impressed with the detail of the model, but it is unnecessarily complicated, and I wish they would release these as plastic (in groups of 3 yeaaah!)

How are you currently doing your zoanthropes? I saw the one you made from what looks like a 3rd edition hive tyrant a few pages back, but I haven't seen any regular ones. I would be very interested in figuring out a way to kitbash some without having to buy the expensive metal models.

Metal body from the previous Zoanthrope, Warrior head, with Extended Carapace bit to make the crest larger, and Green Stuff for a bigger brain cranium.



I'm liking the look of the Trygon's crest, and the kit comes with two more than you need to make a single monster, so I'm going to use a Warrior face, the Trygon crest, and Green Stuff in the rest of the head, larger than my current ones.

Nice! I think yours look fantastic. The only problem for me would be getting the old zoanthrope models.

That is an issue. Thankfully I used the Eldarish heads from the old one for another purpose, and thus ended up purchasing six of the thropes despite only being able to field three at the time.

wow! your army is going from strength to strength.

I really hate your venomthropes though >.>

dont get me wrong i LOVE the conversions, but i got one i rodered today, and it was a cock up blister.

I have 4 arms, but only 2 varieties, for only one side (if that makes sense) but that wouldnt be terrible, cos you can bend the tenticles and makes do.

But it only came with one set of chimneys, and as i dont have the heart to send it back, im ending up with a ver. odd looking venomthrope. Which is why i hate your perfect happy go lucky ones.

Ghosty, give GW a ring - they used to be pretty good about sending out replacements if you had a mis-pack.

Yes, if you got a mispackaged Venomthrope, then you're Lucky, not unfortunate.

I, however, am unfortunate. The FLGS gets their GW stuff in on Fridays, and since I was going to be there today to run a tournament, I figured I'd pick up a Trygon, because surely they wouldn't sell out before then, as game night isn't until Tuesday. Well apparently people are hard up for the new `Nids, as they sold out of the Trygons the same Friday they came in. The first week I understand, but the second week? We don't (or didn't) even have that many `Nid players! I don't know who's buying the things!

On the plus side, the other branch still had one, so I had them hold it for me and I'll drive down tomorrow and get it. The bummer is the other store's further away, be about an hour and a half round trip. Get that done early afternoon, and I should have pictures of my first Tervigon in Progress by tomorrow night. I guess tonight I just work on maintaining my dozen Gaunts a day painting quota.

Grabbed up 12 Gaunts, took `em into the kitchen, and got their coat of primer on. Figured while they were drying, I'd just go ahead and get the full white coat on the T-Fex. Well... Long story short, my dozen Gaunts a day painting quota is shot, and it was only day three.

Yeah, that happens to me. But I can see why you got carried away on the Tyrannafex. Looks awesome!

Agreed, the Tyrannofex looks great Aduro.

Out of interest, what sort of basing do you have in mind?

It's rather unlikely I'd ever base them really. I tend to be of the opinion that you can get a fig's base all decorated up, and it looks pretty sitting on your desk or in photos, and then you put it on a game table and it looks really odd or out of place surrounded by terrain that doesn't match it's personal decor. The only Army I've ever based was done because a tournament I was going to required it, and even then they were simply based with black sand.

So I braved the blizzard and white out conditions to go pick up my Trygon today, and am jumping right in on making this thing into a Tervigon. Now I'm hungry and some glue needs to set so I'm going to go eat some Nachos and watch The Daily Show, but I figured I'd leave with you with first, super WIP teaser shot.

Starting to take shape...

And another...

thats awesome...

prehaps a tutorial is in order i know alot of people who would love that.

I'd probably wait until I do the second one later to do a tutorial, as other than the general idea of my end goal, I'm pretty much making this up as I go along. I already realized I screwed up when I glued it to the base, as I wanted to do the GS work on his future pot belly without the base getting in the way. Now I'm going to have to reinforce the shoulder/hip joints nice and solid so they stay in place when I cut him back free from the base.

Im liking how that is starting to look. I do have on recommendation. Move the front "legs" to the second arm joint and use some scything talons in the forward arm joints. I think that would look superb, and a little more like the illustration.

I do not care for the Scytals as legs look of the Tervigon in the book. In fact I don't really care for much of either the picture for the Tervigon or T-Fex, and thus have chosen to more or less ignore them. The middle set of arms will be helping hold up his gut.

I think I'm done with him for today for the most part. I don't really have any more pieces to glue on, I can only find one of the Crushing Claws for the pair so he's only got three legs for the moment. However, I'm getting some more from a guy at the FLGS tomorrow. As he is currently glued to the base despite my intended desire to not do so yet, I can't do the Green Stuff work I want to, but I'm going to leave it for now as I want to get in my first pair of games with the new book and try out a tourny list for this coming weekend, and this guy is a featured participant in my army. Plus it will make it MUCH easier to get that fourth leg put in place level with the rest.

Question. What do people think about his tail at the moment?

Aduro wrote:Question. What do people think about his tail at the moment?

If the tail is meant to be able to stab something , its upside down.

If its meant to be able to hang off a tree , then its fine!

slightly too long imo, but it does look fine the way it is. i guess more bulking is in need, because it looks slightly too thin to support the big mofo itself. maybe some inspiration from mother nature & my favorite lizzard (which looks very similar!)



if you dont want the image, please let me know

I think it looks pretty good so far, except;
-It needs to be bulked up, but I don't know how its going to look with the "gut" you're planning.
-The tip of the tail needs to turn 180
-The tail joint seems a little rough