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.

Ok, after a quick spinal adjustment (ie, drilled a new hole in the waist for the torso pin) our Tyrant is now wearing a spiffy new hunch.

At this point, to try to give a bit of an idea of how he's going to look, I have pinned the wings in place and tacked the tail on. The tail has also been re-bent to curl around to the front, rather than sticking out to the side. I'm looking at drilling into the end of the tail and adding a magnet, so I can do up some sort of spike that can be added to the end as an Implant Attack.



Other angles, linked to avoid freaking out people on lower bandwidth:

I am Spartacus!
No, I am Spartacus!
No, I am Spartacus, and so's my wife!


And a size comparison shot:




And, finally, a quick shot without the arms, for a better look at how the body goes together:




So that's where it's standing right now...

Oo...suitably hunchier...and the wings look very nice.

 

Okay, I'm not just saying this because this is going to be my model, but that looks freakin' AMAZING!

Can I paint it yet?

The re-posing of the body makes all the difference in the world. I still can't get a clear view of what the bladed wing edge looks like from an outside horizontal (not top-down) view, but it doesn't really matter as I am officially very, very, very pleased with this model.

 

Edit: Okay, I found the pic where I can see the outside of the wing blade, and I'm going to stick with what I said before: like 3 (or so) armoed plates at the top of the wing blade would look cool, but I would also be okay without them if you don't want to bother.

 

I agree with Yak, it looks much much better like that. Get it painted

I want one... *drool*

Thanks for the magneting tips! And I agree with the others, the hunch looks much better.

Very, very, cool.... although I can't help but think the wings still look too much like they're from the dragon model... maybe altering the actual profile would help? I'd also like to see the finger claws a bit thinner so they don't seem as heavy...

Drake,

If you're looking at the left wing (the one facing the camera in the above pics) then you're looking at the wing that hasn't been altered much at all yet.

Take a look at the clicky pictures or some of the previous ones for the alterations he's going to eventually do on both wings.

I personally think that they look quite Tyranid-y when all is said and done.

Well, we're entering the downhill run now... right into the 'finishing off the little details' stage.

I finished off a bit of gap filling around the hips, and then made a start on the tail.

I wanted a different way of showing the Implant Attack to the Genestealer tongue version, as it needed to be removable... Yakface wanted the Toxin Sacs, Implant Attack, Flesh Hooks and Adrenal Glands to be optional  if possible for different configurations. The Flesh Hooks became permanent, because they're such a prominent feature of the normal Tyrant model and helped to add detail to the Fex's bland chestplate... but I wanted to keep the others removable if at all possible.

So, here's what I came up with:

I took a small piece of plastic (the bottom of a Marine standard pole, actually) cut it into an organic spike sort of shape, with an angled and hollow end, like a syringe. I drilled a 1mm hole in the other end, and then a countersink hole with a 1.5mm drill bit.

Then I cut the pointy end off a pin, and glued it in the hole so that the pin head sits flush with the bottom of the spike:




Next, I grabbed the Tyrant's tail, drilled a hole in the tip, glued a small magnet in there, and puttied over it. The end result being a normal looking tail to which the spike can be attached. So now, he has a nice pointy bit that can be rammed into his target, with the claws on either side to hold it in place while he injects whatever unpleasantness he has stored up in there.




On the model, looks rather a lot like this:
underthecouch.net/images/couch/comm/tyrant/wipimplant3.jpg


Then, onto the Adrenal Glands. Yakface didn't like the standard humongous Monstrous Creature Adrenal Gland. I've also always disliked the idea of just slapping it onto the back carapace... it seemed like it should be somewhere a little more functional.

So, I took a couple of standard Gaunt Adrenal Glands, sliced off the connecting tubes on the sides and flattened down the bottoms. Then, I added a couple of pins in the same way as I did on the Implant Attack spike:




Then I took the Tyrant's head, and inserted a magnet on either side of the neck, puttied over in the usual fashion. This allows the glands to be attached on both sides, and removed when not in use. It's not as huge and silly looking as the normal MC version, but should still be enough to show that they're there.




Next up, the vent/vanes on the torso needed bulking up a little. I smoothed a layer of putty on around the back of the vent, and then when set, added a second ring off putty around the top to add a little height and extra bulk where it was needed.

The left side is finished, the right is still awaiting the ring around the top...



And finally, I added more putty on the wings. One more internal vane to go on the underside of one wing, and then it's just the outer vanes and the wrist detail to go.

underthecouch.net/images/couch/comm/tyrant/wipwings4.jpg
underthecouch.net/images/couch/comm/tyrant/wipwings5.jpg



So, still to come: Finish off the second back vane, glue on the head and putty some detail in behind it, finish off the wings, and add some sand to the base.

Almost there...

Looking great. I'm geting very anxious.

Love the glands, love the vent work; the implant attack isn't what I'm used to thinking of for an implant attack, but I think the idea is growing on me.

As for the wings, is the one on the right effectively "finished"? Because it looks to me like the green-stuffed outer "blade" is still very ripply looking. Is that just the picture and when I actually paint it it'll be fine?

No, the blade still needs a little smoothing and shaping. The underside in particular is still quite rough.

Back again finally, now that Christmas and whatnot is all out of the way...


The outer scythe blades on the wings just weren't working out... with them sitting in place, it was too hard to work on them without damaging the wing membranes as well. So, I sliced them off, and started from scratch.

This time, I rolled out a layer of GS and sliced the shape of the scythe blades out while it was still soft, let it set, and then (after a little smoothing and filling where needed) simply glued them in place on the outer edge of the wing and filled in any gaps between blade and membrane.



While the blades as is worked out fine on the top sides, where they're partially buried in the folds of the membrane, on the underside they were looking a little 'tacked-on'... so I thought I'd try adding some connecting tissue both to integrate the blades into the wing better, and to move them one step further from looking like modified dragin wings.

End result on the first wing looks like this:






Assuming Yakface likes it, I just need to add the connecting tissue on the other wing, finishing puttying up the wrists and upper arm on the left wing, and texture the base, and that'll be the job about done...

phat. very, very sexy. when can you work for me again?

I like the membrane tissue a lot.

The outer blades look much, much better now.

In short: finish the other wing up and let's see how it all looks together!!!

Ok, here we go...

Finished off the second wing, and a few minor bits and pieces here and there. The finished wing undersides look like this:




So, with all the icky finishing bits out of the way, he's all done... Time for some all-together pics




underthecouch.net/images/couch/comm/tyrant/finished/scytals1.jpg
underthecouch.net/images/couch/comm/tyrant/finished/scytals2.jpg
underthecouch.net/images/couch/comm/tyrant/finished/scytals3.jpg
underthecouch.net/images/couch/comm/tyrant/finished/scytals5.jpg




underthecouch.net/images/couch/comm/tyrant/finished/devourer1.jpg
underthecouch.net/images/couch/comm/tyrant/finished/devourer2.jpg


The removable biomorphs:





And that's about it. At this point, the wings and waist are just held in place with pins, to make shipping a little easier. They can just be glued in place when they arrive. The wings might need a little gap-filling around the shoulder when they are glued in...

All up, it breaks down like this:
underthecouch.net/images/couch/comm/tyrant/finished/bits.jpg


So, Yak, if there's anything you're not quite happy with, let me know and we'll get it ironed out. Otherwise, we can get the postage sorted out and you can get painting

Sweet. I prefer the Devourer arms, and personally I think it'd look better without the head spike, but it still rocks. I like the way it looks as though its legs have atrophied because it uses its wings instead. Unintentional maybe, but still good.

Posted By fourganger88 on 01/15/2007 5:07 PM
 I like the way it looks as though its legs have atrophied because it uses its wings instead. Unintentional maybe, but still good.

No, that was precisely what we were going for

Totally rad. Can't wait to see it painted, Yak.

Capt K

Everything looks spectacular. I'm completely pleased and I can't wait to get ahold of it.

Wow, that is some lovely work. Yak, I don't know how much you had to pay for that monster but it must have been worth it. Absolutely magnificent.

ender502

Thank you very much for this lovely blog!!! It's been very nice and rewarding to follow how you have planned and converted the tyrant. It has given me some new things to figure out on how to go about converting stuff.

Hopefully we get an even as good blog for the painting process!

So I finally got mr. hive tyrant today in the mail and he looks very tempting to paint, let me tell you. Here's a quick shot of him posing with the bugs I've painted so far:




I have a little dilemma moving forward with painting him: how the heck do I paint the wing membranes?

If you want some more shots of fleet's color scheme, check out this thread:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/Forums/tabid/56/forumid/8/postid/123678/view/topic/Default.aspx


Basically, my scheme is this:

Skin:  blue
Carapace:  red/orange
Inner squishy bits:  purple/pink
Claws/spikes:  bleached bone
Teeth:  white
Tongue:  red/pink
Eyes:  yellow

Now, my first inclination would be to paint the wing membranes a light 'tan' type of color, bu the membranes are anchored to very 'bladed' looking talons (see the pics at the top of this page for a good shot of the wings).

I was going to paint these wing 'claws' with my typical bleached bone scheme (for claws), but if I do that a tan membrane would look way too monochromatic against the bone colored blade.


So what should I do? Purple/pink (that I do for the squishy bits and the Spore mine tendrils) seems to bright for such a big surface.

Should I just paint the membranes the same blue skin tone?

Some new color entirely?  I need everyone's help!

He fits in well. I'd say for the wings, go with pink, but maybe darken it up or add a little blue highlight to it.

I initially thought pink, but it would possibly look a bit wishy-washy with the bone wing talons.

I would think that the membranes are just extruded skin, so would probably go for the blue.

He's going to have a lot more red/orange than the rest of the army, due to having a lot more carapacy-bits, so I think going with a colour outside your regular scheme would be overkill... would probably just make him not fit with the rest of the army as well.


He looks quite imposing at the back there Looking forward to seeing some paint on him.

I'd go for a darkershade of the same blue

I would go for a lighter shade of blue as its thinner membranous skin, some bat wings can be almost transluscent. You might add a tint of the purple/pink you use for exposed 'muscle'

Are you the same Clang from CBT?

Just trying to picture it in my head, I'd say go with a pinkish-purple color... Mostly blue in the cracks and crevices, getting a little more pinkish with the highlights.

Maybe the best way to go about it would be for you to paint the parts that you know the colors for, and see if that gives you any idea of what color would look best alongside everything else.

Best of luck. I look forward to seeing it finished.

Well, just getting started here, but I thought I'd post updates in blog style as the Tyrant gets painted. If anyone is interested as to how I paint my minis the way I do, this will give you the whole scoop.

I decided to paint the body of the Tyrant seperately from the rest of the components as there are just too many limbs covering too much of the body to attempt to paint the whole thing assembled.

I'm not going to bother showing you pics of the wings and weapon arms until they are complete (or near completion).

FYI, I use GW paints. Anyway, here goes:


(posted 1/31/07)

Step 1: whole model: black undercoat (not pictured)

Step 2: skin: regal blue basecoat



Step 3: skin: blue ink over all the skintone



Step 4: squishy interior bits: liche purple (not pictured)


Step 5: squishy interior bits: purple ink


Step 6: skin: regal blue highlight over all the skintone except for the crevices



Step 7: skin: highlight skin with 50/50 regal blue & ultramarine blue




Much more to come!

Looking good so far!

Very nice.  Painting is coming along and I look forward to seeing this bad boy finished.

As far as the wing dilemna, I like the look of your tentacles and think that'd be the way to go. Use a darker tone near where it connects to the blades (almost bluish-purple to better match the main body color) faiding to the purple-pink near the center. If you also shade the texture in a similar manner (ie. darkish colored in the textured line of the wing membrane) the overall look of the wing will be darker then the tentacles.

So essetially what Davian said.  Although a lighter blue would be ok too.

Hope that helps and makes sense.