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Yep! Gargoyles!

Ah.... and the Tyranid air force is born! You going to make those flying warrior guys too?

Shrikes?


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Gitsplitta wrote:Ah.... and the Tyranid air force is born! You going to make those flying warrior guys too?

Squigsquasher wrote:Shrikes?

Though I have enough wings to assemble 5 shrikes (what 5th edition calls warriors with wings), I really don't think they are very competitive given thier 5+ armour save and high point cost. For now, my warriors are gathering table dust.

OK. Completed the Swarm Lord Conversion!

Following up on my assembly guide:

Step 11: On the upper arms, filled in the rough shape of the elbow and sculpted the wrist with green stuff.

Step 12: On the lower arms, sculpted the wrist with greenstuff.

Step 13: Sculpted the shoulder and shoulder socket as well as expanded the carapace of the forearms around the elbow

Step 14: Sculpted the fleshy folds at the joint above the elbow (after the previous steps have cured) and glued elbow spikes into place (small spikes come from the tervigon/T-fex kit that run along the stoumach)

Step 15: Green stuffed the gaps around the elbow spikes, further enlarged and sculpted the wrists, and glued 2 overlapping carapace pieces from the Tyranid Warrior frame onto the shoulder and greenstuffed some connecting issues.

The finished product is pictured below.

Looks great!

May I ask, why is the Tyrant plastic? I thought the 3rd Edition Hive Tyrant was metal?

Anyway, long live Stygian!

I thougt the Swarm Lord had wings... or am mistaken?

Looks fantastic though!

 Squigsquasher wrote:
Looks great!

May I ask, why is the Tyrant plastic? I thought the 3rd Edition Hive Tyrant was metal?

Anyway, long live Stygian!

Thanks Squigs . To answer your question: the 3rd edition Hive Tyrant was a combi kit that included a metal body and plastic biomorphs and plastic arms with weapons. The body of my Hive Tyrant is indeed metal (though the torso was extended by the model's previous owner); it is just that the body has been painted with a grey primer followed by a black wash. The grey primer is probably throwing you off.


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 Gitsplitta wrote:
I thougt the Swarm Lord had wings... or am mistaken?

Looks fantastic though!

Nope the Swarm Lord is flightless and is armed with 4 bone sabres. Thanks for looking !

My pleasure, always fun to see you work on your nids!

It was a fun project, I haven't had an extensive experience in green stuffing, so this was a significant trial for me. Still, it is mostly a kit-bash -- though one that required alot of cutting, filing and gap filling. I am also really happy about the pose. If I remember correctly, the idea of reversing the holding stance of the lower limbs was yours .

Ah, That makes sense. Thank you!

 Squigsquasher wrote:
Ah, That makes sense. Thank you!

No problem. I am pretty much in denial that thier even exists a plastic hive tyrant due to what I see as a grossly bulbous design more akin to a ponderous carnifex than a sleek agile preditor that the hive tyrant is suppose to be. Fortunately, I own 4 metal HT and a FW flying one.

So a bit of fluff on my Tyranid Fleet in preparation of Dakka's worldwide 40K campaign!

Splinter Fleet Stygian was first encountered in 744 M41 upon the Desert World of Masali in the Ultima Segmentum during the First Tyrannic War. The organisms that assaulted the Agri World proved to be extremely adaptive, camouflaging their chitinous plates to blend into the surroundings and readapting their organs to withstand the hot arid environment within hours of making landfall. Unlike the fleet core that assaulted Ultramar, the organisms of Stygian did not launch a war of attrition. To evade the debilitating day time temperatures and artillery bombardments, the tyranids burrowed into the desert surface, emerging from underneath the Hab-Dome settlements to attack at night. Such hyper adaptability is likely due to a second Swarm Lord operating in the system that was labeled the Moor Stalker by the local Masali population it terrorized.

After the annihilation of Behemoth at the hands of the Dominus Astra, the splinter fleet fled its occupation of Masali and escaped into the empty regions of the Ultima Segmentum. In doing so, it narrowly avoided the wrath of the surviving ships of the Tempustus Imperial Fleet that otherwise cleansed the worlds surrounding Ultramar of any remaining xenos threat.

Having lost all contact with its host fleet Behemoth over a quarter of a century ago, the splinter fleet has since wandered from the Ultima Segmentum, preying upon isolated agri worlds in route. Uncannily, it has been without exception that Stygian’ s prey worlds have been left poorly defended whether due to environmental disasters, viral outbreaks, or warfare in other parts of the sector that have drawn its defender’s away. In this way, Stygian has been able to steadily grow with little expenditures of resources or biomass, evidence that the Moor Stalker of Masali is very much alive and an ever growing threat to the galaxy.

To date, rogue traders whisper of a looming threat that gathers on the outskirts of the Ventis Majoris subsector -- for the ravaging wars of the 13th Black Crusade and the resulting devastation have drawn the attention of the opportunistic predations of Splinter Fleet Stygian.

Nice wyfox. Sneaky nids... just what the galaxy needs...

Regarding Shrikes, I never take a list without them. Deep Striking synapse on demand is awesome. just give a squad of 5 death spitters and watch the carnage begin. 5+ is kinda bad, but they have 3 wounds each and a fearsome assault line. If nothing else, its great for attention. The trygon on the other side of the table isnt as scary when there are 15 ws5 s4 attacks suddenly coming from right next to you. AND they get to reroll 1's

I fully agree about Shrikes being an awesome but I usually run them with Whips and Boneswords, whatever they pounce on typically does not survive too long. And you said 15 wounds is not too easy to put down either.

So finally completed painting the test Ygmarl




Photo Shoot #2

That's looking really good wyfox! Nicely done.

Yeah, I am having a hard time with my current lightbox.

I think it is just way to large to get enough light on the model.

Well, you need to have lights that match the box... true.

I think it is just way to large to get enough light on the model.

If your camera is on a tripod, you will always have enough light as long as it's even light. The trick is to lower your shutter speed until it's low enough to get enough light for the shot, say, 1/50th or even a whole second if your len's aperture is stopped down to something like f16 so you can a really wide depth of field.

Also, if you have the option on your camera, you might try bracketing the shot so you can then combine 3 photos in photoshop to get good highlights and shadows.

Barring the above options, you might also consider getting stronger bulbs for your softbox.

That is some great advise Dark Gear!

Actually I don't have a Tri-pod. Guess I can put that on the wish list .

And shutter speed over apiture plays a larger role?

What do you mean by bracketing?

Otherwise, what type of bulbs would you suggest?

You're welcome.

If you don't have a tripod, try setting up some kind of platform for the camera so it remains steady when you're shooting.

Shutter speed doesn't necessarily play a larger role than aperture, they work together to control how much light comes into the camera.

[technical session warning]

While shutter speed only controls 1 facet of photographic exposure, time, aperture controls 2 facets, amount of light and depth of field, a.k.a. how much of an image will be in sharp focus.

To get as much of a model in focus as possible you need a wide depth of field which means that you should close the aperture down to a higher number, such as from f2.8 to f11.

While this reduces the amount of light coming in through the lens, it also reduces the amount of light that will bounce around inside the camera, meaning you get a sharper image.

Each full stop of aperture either doubles or halves the amount of light going through the lens depending on whether you open or close the aperture, respectively. This relates directly to your exposure time because you would have to double or half your shutter speed to maintain the same exposure, depending on how you change your aperture.

How does bracketing fit in all this? Bracketing is a technique whereby you'll take the same shot 3 times but with 3 different aperture setting, one being your base and the other 2 shots being 1 stop higher and lower. This basically gives you a wider range of light values that you can then combine in photoshop by blending the layers together. In the days of film cameras it was a way to increase the chances of getting a successful shot when you weren't sure of the exposure, whereas nowadays, thanks to software, you can easily combine all the shots into a high dynamic range image, more commonly known as an HDR image.

[/technical session warning]

So in plain english, this means that if you're not getting enough light for your photos, you can either use a smaller aperture number (opening up the lens and reducing your depth of field) or decrease your shutter speed so you get a longer exposure, thus maintaining full depth of field. The reason you need a tripod for a longer is that unless you have really steady hands, holding an exposure of 1/100th sec with a macro lens, or 1/30th sec with a 50mm lens is not easy. Camera shake equals blurry photo.

So before I can give you solutions, I have 2 questions:

1. How is your lightbox setup? Please take a picture and post it here or to my email: darkgearphoto@gmail.com.
2. What's your camera?

From there i'll be able to see how we can tweak you setup. It might as easy as pushing it further on the desk, and putting a stack of books for your camera to rest on so you can take longer exposures and not have to worry about camera shake.

Don't worry, we'll have you taking crazy good shots in no time.

Dark Gear that is amazing and actually easy to understand. Thanks. I will get the info to you tonight when I am back home. Thanks again!

Looking forward to it.

 Dark_Gear wrote:

How does bracketing fit in all this? Bracketing is a technique whereby you'll take the same shot 3 times but with 3 different aperture setting, one being your base and the other 2 shots being 1 stop higher and lower. This basically gives you a wider range of light values that you can then combine in photoshop by blending the layers together. In the days of film cameras it was a way to increase the chances of getting a successful shot when you weren't sure of the exposure, whereas nowadays, thanks to software, you can easily combine all the shots into a high dynamic range image, more commonly known as an HDR image.

How on earth do you "blend" shots in photoshop?? Inquiring minds want to know. (Well, one inquiring mind anyway...)

That's a really good question. Due to the amount of steps involved, I have a feeling I should do a step-by-step tutorial with images.

I'll exalt that idea .

Ditto.

Then gentlemen, tie your hats down with duct tape, you're getting yourselves a tut!

p.s.: Might take a few days to produce but I'll post the link in here when it's up.