Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi peeps..

Time for another tut..

Ever since I began crafting stuff I've been thinking about ways to build a mycetic spore... yet I've never come around to actually starting one.. so here:

Ingredients:

-plastic soda bottle
-cotton swab sticks
-metal wire
-hot glue
-hot glue
-hot glue

So yea.. it's mostly hot glue, which I find extremely suitable for sculpting organic, alien-like goop cause of it;s stringyness.

Step 1:

BASIC STRUCTURE

Find yourself a suitably shaped bottle... probably something roundish, slighly resembling an egg or cocoon shape..
I used a bottle similar to this

Now cut off the upper part... or just cut it in half and toss the lower half..

Glue it on top of your base using hotglue. I like to put a crap load of glue around the base, pulling strings from the base to the bottle until I run of out glue.. This produces a nice, slimey mesh-like structure.

To make it more vivid I choose a slightly tilted pose for the bottle




Step 2:

SPIKES

Once I finished sculpting a hotglue rim around the bottle I carefully heated the bottle to get rid of the symmetric, factory look of the bottle, This could also be done as a first step I guess.

I then added spikes to the surface of the bottle, This is best done after heating of the bottle since the deformation that follows upon heating can cause the spikes to come off.


The spikes were made like this:

I think the hollowness of the spikes conveys a more organic, pipe-like feeling than solid spiked would.. If you prefer solid ones you can always choose to use toothpicks instead of cotton swab..



Step 3:

ORIFICES

Spores hatch to release tyranids, leaving gaps and orifices in the spore wall.. these were recreated by heating a knife and simply slicing through the plastic of the bottle. Since this leaves quite an ugly, sharp edged gap I drew hotglue strings from side to side to give these gaps a more slimey vibe.





Step 4:

TOP CILIA

To get rid of the ''egg'' vibe that most spores I've encoutered have I decided to top the spore using bend metal wires to represent cilia..

They were made from garbage bag closing things.. no idea how to translate.



Step 5:

TEXTURING


For his I used wood glue. Just smack it on.. let dry for 10 mins and then 'dab' a brush over the glue to add texture.


Crafting time: 2 hours

Hotglue tends to get very stringy... leaving a million tried strings all over the model.. removing these is easy but takes quite some time.

Hope you enjoyed..

I'll post a pic of the finished product soon.

gr,

Nice work. It looks realy nice and organic and alien. Can't wait to see it fully painted.

FYI the metal things are called twist ties, but most people probably call them "those metal thingamys". Florests wire would probably work better. It is very simelar wire, comes in longer lengths and dose not need the plastic stripping.

thanks for clearing that out!

I'm just using whatever I have around the house This really was a zero-cost project.

A close up of the woodglue texture:


It's not a very strong texture.. but it beats the perfect smoothness of the bottle itself.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Post-priming (Tamiya surface primer grey)

I think the texture came out quite nicely.. I see i missed some glue strings in the cleaning process...but what the heck. Thats the beauty of doing nids. You can be messy and get away with it.

That's horrifyingly beautiful, I love how fleshy the whole thing looks.

So.. I threw on some paint..

Some of the details need a bit more work.. then I'll throw on some sand and knock it on the shelve.

The paintng was done mostly using various purple/brown/red mixes.. The skin surrounding the rows of spikes received a more pronounced purple..



Disgusting looking gap in the top of the spore, covered in a mix of fleshy tones..


I didnt expect the lack of detail on the inside of the spore to be this conspicuous.. Ill probably first create interior details the next time I do a spore.. which im probably going to to right after finishing this one, although the second one will be significantly smaller and of a completely different design.

I'm pleased with how it turned out.. beats waiting for GW to release a 60 bucks model.

Just wanted to say fantastic job! =)

Awesome , totally Awesome !

Awesome, but it looks rather large for a spore.

this is more like scenery then like a dropship kind of spore right? i like it a lot has a nice and creepy feel to it!

That is truly disgusting...Well done!

DijnsK wrote:this is more like scenery then like a dropship kind of spore right? i like it a lot has a nice and creepy feel to it!

I guess so.. I don't play the game so have no idea if it fits game rules. The stuff I make just sits around the house.. annoying my gf.

I don't even play Tyranids and I might make one. Beautiful!

Great Idea. I tried this myself and loved the end result. I used leftover POMWonderful bottles that my wife drinks. Each bottle costs 12 bucks so I'm glad I'm getting some other use out of them. Hot glued it to a cd, cut open the top into quarters then applied hot air from a hair dryer to warp the plastic around the mouth. It's a good size too.Next one I might quarter the whole thing then warp it.

Thanks for the guide.

Fantastic! I'm going to try building myself one this weekend! Brilliant work!

awesome spores..

Very nice

Those things are gross. Great job!

Try doing one splitting open! These are fantastic!

Very digusting... Just how it should be! keep up the good work

Very nicely done!

I use the large spore vent from the Macrage set. I base it in a crater (Dow 1/2 inch MDF board) having the diameter of the large blast template.

Tentacles are formed from plastic model sprue - heated and twisted, with a gaunt or steeler claw on the end.