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Hi all,

This is my interpretation of the harpy, mostly scratch built. The fluff and art don't give us much to hold on to I feel, and are also a bit contradictive and 'flawed', if you follow me. For example the description includes several pairs of scything talons, of which there is one mentioned as weapon and none in the art. When I started this project I wanted one exactly as the picture, but I simply had to revise that idea along the way. Personally, I also feel that a long, sinuous, hollow bodied creature doesn't do well with bloated cysts. I 'solved' that by deciding that during a battle, it collects three spore mines from the air, already on their way down towards the surface, to drop somewhere. Like it or not? Well, it's my chosen truth anyway. Three is what it can handle, so I did some 'tyranid manicure' to stretch the grip, representing that it is carrying all the mines it can. Scale is, as all already know, a bit of a problem too. I used the nearby gargoyles to guess its size, which ended up somewhere between a hive tyrant and a trygon.

That said, it sort of turned out as I imagined, except for a few details which will be improved in my next model. The body, for instance, is a bit non-sinuous due to a bit too thick body. It was ok until I started to add limbs and such things.. I guess I could argue that the body is similar to a bird's and that lots of muscles (i.e. thick body..) are needed to wield all those limbs... but anyway, I'll improve that detail on my next model.

I have only converted the shrikes and ymgarl stealers before this one, so as a beginner I am quite satisfied with the result.

Comments are very welcome!


Front

Front view.




Side




Head

Took the three eyed carnifex head, cut the 'horns', put one of them in the middle on carved out warrior head scales and added some greenstuff. Mouth talons are made of genestealer talons. I removed the middle bit of the arms and added a spike on the back side.






Other side

Weapons. Front sockets are magnetized. The melded forearms are made of the scything talons from the monstrous sprue. You can see where I cut the arms to meld them with the barrels of the stranglethorn and heavy venom cannons.




Back

My guess of what the back looks like. I didn't want vented back plates like other MCs have, and since it's supposed to be agile in the air I thought I could make it look more like a dragon. The scales are made from some pine cones and greenstuff.




Tail

Some spiky bits.



Tailspikes




Spore mine cluster

Rending claws from the monstrous sprue, with 'manicured' fingers and nails, trying to make it look like it's struggling a bit carrying all three spore mines and also make it look believable (the original hands didn't look like they could hold three mines like that).








Base

I'll add an odd rock or two, and sand/rock-ish texture to cover up the broken Chaos marine and the flat base a bit. I don't think I want gore, so I will make it look like it was killed a long time ago. The base is a paper clip box lid. The diameter is about 4 inches. The circles that you can see through the base are just there to make the base heavy and stable. The rocks are pine bark.

Looks amazing, can't wait to see it painted!

In my mind, a brilliant interpretation... Great work

Looks great cant wait to see it painted

Great use of the scything talons!

That's a great converting Job you've done sir!

Monster monster!!

Lovely work.

the slight sting of guilt in my neck for definatly stealing your tremendous idea to use pineparts for scales will fade away in the end. especially when i will build something similar in the futur when i plan to commit myself to my one hive work^^

super work, dont want to rush you but pleaaase let us see that beast paintet. i know this will knock off my socks^^

Love the convertion! The pine cone bits made me LOL a bit, but are a really good idea!
Nice one!

It looks very good. But...
Why can i see mould lines? Especially on the base with CSM head? Should they be there

Thanks everyone!

Heretyk wrote:It looks very good. But...
Why can i see mould lines? Especially on the base with CSM head? Should they be there

Hehe.. well, I am a beginner, what can I say? In my dim hobby light I can't see much in the evenings. At least not everything that a closeup camera lens will..

Fortunately it can still be fixed. I won't bother with the CSM head though, since the base will be complemented with sand, dirt and whatnot. The general idea is that is was not killed by the harpy, but something else (a tyranid of course, what else??), a long time ago. Think sand storm and how that could cover up the base a bit. And, my army is mostly black. If it was light and washed with sepia for instance, I would be toast I guess.. but many of my beginner mistakes will be covered up by the theme.

I will paint it soon, like the shrikes, but hopefully better.

Very nice. You are swaying me towards building a harpy rather than a flyrant for my next nid project.

Why are there no forums that encourage self control rather than constant distracting lures away from what I am supposed to be doing?!

Looking forwards to seeing this painted up.

I will paint it soon, like the shrikes, but hopefully better.

Better???? *Ludd promptly feints.

Cadet_Commissar_Ludd wrote:

I will paint it soon, like the shrikes, but hopefully better.

Better???? *Ludd promptly feints.

Haha. Thanks, I suppose. I hope I will paint it better since the shrikes paintjob was my first serious attempt to paint. I have painted some standard models after that, so if I'm not better now it's a disaster LOL! But who knows? I might be an untrainable, experience averting, utter noob.

Great work! Cant wait to see it painted!

Holy f*** dude, that's impressive right there. The spore mine thing is brilliant, my nid buddy will laugh his ass off at that...

MasterDRD wrote:Holy f*** dude, that's impressive right there. The spore mine thing is brilliant, my nid buddy will laugh his ass off at that...

Hehe. Brilliant is one way to put it. My fiance's first comment was: "it looks like it's holding its balls!". Didn't really give it the extra monstrous, scary touch.. hehe

Sick man, seriously impressive.

3 words " I bricks" lol

The tail looks like it gets smaller really quick in that second picture -- maybe smooth the transition between the two body parts a little more?

The pine scales look awesome. I bet the texture will look really good when painted.

Overall -- very nice model. I like it a lot.

Viktor von Domm wrote:the slight sting of guilt in my neck for definatly stealing your tremendous idea to use pineparts for scales will fade away in the end. especially when i will build something similar in the futur when i plan to commit myself to my one hive work^^

super work, dont want to rush you but pleaaase let us see that beast paintet. i know this will knock off my socks^^

Guilt? Guilt? Ah, that feeling that you might have appropriated this idea from someone else and somehow feel bad about it.

Just do what one of my lecturers told me.

"Plagiarise, plagiarise, plagiarise - but note it all down in the bibliography and call it 'research'."

Nice sculpt.
I dobut any of the cloned tryhard-anid players around me would be ballsy enough to try this.

Many thanks!

@ SpacePanzee: I agree, that's the non-sinuousity I meant about the body (even though the tail is twisted away in that picture, which makes it look even thinner in comparison). In order to fix it on this model it will require some major remaking, but this is something I will be careful about when I make my second harpy.

@ chromedog: Agree completely! And I'm first in line to see improvements of any stolen ideas!

@ chromedog:

one of my prof once said, as we live in the post modern days it is not possible to create something new, cause everything is beeing made and done already. so anything goes^^

but sometimes i feel like reproducing something i havent done the research for or the initial inspiration... ah what the heck at least when it looks good, who really cares then^^

keep up the good work Lars

Thanks again, Viktor von Domm. And please do reproduce and steal yourself green! It would be great to get new inspiration from others who has tried the same thing.

thats a bloody great idea pinecones for scales...well dont cant wait for pain XD

Thanks

I have started to paint it. Will post new pictures when it's done.

Hey, on the whole Im a big fan of this build, especially the way you did the head/cowl type part and the use of pine cone flaky bits. My only problem is that it looks a bit too chubby to go swooping and jinking around the infested skies of some poor species' planet. maybe I see this due to the colour difference between the cable of the tail and the gs and it will look more graceful when primed and painted.
Great work though and looking forward to some lovely colour!

Thank you Trilobite. What you say is very true. That's my top disappointment too. My inspiration and eager to convert is a lot greater than my skill. At the point when I realized that it's chubbier than I wanted, it was too late. Scrape off everything and adjust the core...? Remake the body-tail 'connection' for a smoother transition, and with that probably a longer tail.. etc, etc... well, it all ended up letting it be and keep it mind for the next model instead.

It does look a little smoother now when it's primed, but not perfect. We'll see what you all think when it's finished.

Man, that looks great.
Can't wait to see it painted.
You think it looks a bit off?, well then finish it and make another, it can only end better!

Great work! I love how true to the art in the codex you've kept this, and the pinecone pieces are a brilliant touch. Two thumbs up. Makes me think I should finally finish my harpy, who just languishes on my shelf all day ATM.

Thanks for your comments poipo32 and Ktulhut!

A bit off, well, it's hard sometimes to be a perfectionist. I am however satisfied with the result. I haven't converted much, and learned much during this try.