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Hey everybody, Chaosheade back again with another tutorial. This time I will show you an easy way to make Tyranid Mycetic Spores on the cheap, and by cheap I mean <$5 each if you have a hot glue gun compared to ~$20-$50 for commercially available models or alternatives. So go ahead and check out the teaser pics below or just click the link and dig right in.

We will begin with a few basic supplies...


And end up with something like this...


The bottom one is the first one I did while I was experimenting with the method and the top one is the second which is shown in the tutorial. I will try to get them painted up soon so you can see the finished product. In any case, thanks for stopping by and checking out the tutorial. I hope you find it useful, or at least interesting.

Awesome, but i don't like the fact that i can see the Yellow dimpledness of it under the glue...


Still, nice concept ^^!

I'd like to see this painted before casting any judgement. If it works well, I may try this. May even try to split the ball into sections, to show that it is opening or has opened, leaving room for more hot glue gooey nastiness...

Great idea!Please post more pics asap.

Thanks for the feedback. I thought about waiting to post until they were painted and it probably would have been a good idea

I definitely need to get these things painted although it's going to be completely experimental for me. I have an idea of how I want to paint them but I have never painted anything like this and have no idea if it is going to work out or not. We'll just have to wait and see.

If you want to split the ball into sections I would probably use a different ball than I did since mine are solid rubber. Brain storming on some alternatives you could try... tennis balls could work but they will be much smaller. Whiffle balls might work especially if you can find some larger ones, softball size or so. When I get them painted I'll throw a couple models in the picture for a size comparison.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

palehorse wrote:Great idea!Please post more pics asap.

Whoops, your post slipped in there while I was writing mine

Thanks and I'm glad you like the idea. I was going to try to paint them today but Murphy's Law and RL happened. I will try very hard to get them painted tomorrow morning and take pictures of each step in the painting. It is quite a bit of work putting together the full tutorial but I'll be sure to throw up some teaser pics ASAP.

The painting was delayed by technical difficulties with my airbrush but I was finally able to complete the base colors. I used a zenithal lighting technique to go from VGC Bonewhite to VMC Ivory with VGC Dead White as the final highlight. The skin on the rest of my army will also be done using this same technique. I have been experimenting with different ways to paint the tentacles but I haven't been able to work out anything that I like. The fleshy bits on the rest of my army are purple, so obviously I want the tentacles to be purple, I just need to figure out how to go about it. I have been experimenting with a purple wash and a couple different shades of purple paint so I'll keep trying different combinations and techniques until I get something I like. I'm open to any suggestions so please feel free to share any ideas you might have. Until then, I will share the picture of the first pod with the base colors done. It's not the finished model and unfortunately I only painted the first model with too much glue but it does give you a better idea of what it might look like painted and you can see the details better. The second one with less glue really looks much better than this one.

I did something similar for a friend using a small foam foot ball. Just cut it in half at an angle and ripped out the end to look like a burst cyst. costed 5 bucks for 4 of them and the only issue was hiding the fake lacing on the side.

White Ninja wrote:I did something similar for a friend using a small foam foot ball. Just cut it in half at an angle and ripped out the end to look like a burst cyst. costed 5 bucks for 4 of them and the only issue was hiding the fake lacing on the side.

Foam footballs are also a good idea. Did you use the hot glue method?

While I'm at it, a quick update on the status of the painting: I experimented a little bit with the first pod and tried about half a dozen methods before I decided on what color to use for the tentacles and now it's a patchwork of different colors. I'll get to work on the second pod today and will hopefully be able to have it ready to show in the next couple days.

That looks very interesting. Using lots of varnishes will make this pop.