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I wanted to try something a little bit different for once, rather than just painting a 'stock' model, I wanted to try and re-pose it and also have my first bash at some sculpting.
Firstly, let me apologise for the rubbish photo quality - the lens on my camera doesn't lend itself too well to macro photographs and I can't afford the macro lens I want at the moment. Also, please excuse the rather poor painting.
Apologies out of the way, now onto the discussions.
What I wanted to do was to repose a gaunt in such a way that it looked like it was either leaping or just about to come crashing down on some unsuspecting marine and rip into it.

Starting from the bottom of the model:
* His right leg has had the foot chopped off and faced forward, meaning that I had to fill in at the ankle.
* His left leg was cut at the second joint and positioned further back. The leg was separated from the smaller 'hook' arm and positioned with the knee higher than normal.
* His left 'hook' arm was splayed out to the side more.
* His right 'hook' arm was cut at the first joint. I then used a dremel to grind away the remaining arm from the main body of the model. I then used a wire armature to position the arm out from the body and then had to sculpt the two sections of the arm nearest the body.
* The tail was removed. I then made a wire armature and resculpted the bottom 2/3 of the tail, in a curved position.
* The lower abdomen was filled in as there was a large gap made by repositioning the legs.
* The 'scythe' arms were positioned in a more agressive and wider position than usual
* The head was positioned facing lower than usual on the model and I removed his tongue as it just looked wrong for the position I wanted.

Overall, I'm quite pleased with the model, having always shied away from repositioning and sculpting. I feel that I have managed to achieve my original intentions quite well, although I would appreciate some constructive criticism.

The base is made from a plastic fake diamond that was on my table at a friend's wedding! I picked six or seven of these up at the wedding, figuring that they could come in handy for bases. I have liberally hacked at it with the dremel to create a rock suited to the posing I wanted.

Anyway, enough blithering, here's the gaunt. Please be gentle....

I'm getting broken links...

Yep, I've uploaded the images to the gallery, but I can't seem to work out how to get them into this thread. Any help?

Weirdly, these are the first images I've uploaded.....

I use Photobucket for my direct links. That way I don't have to upload the same images to mulitple sites if I want to post them. The account is free and it has a simple editing program so you can get the right size.

On the Gaunts.

Very dramatic, I like them very much. I think the color scheme is great too.

Thanks for the comments! I was trying to go for a more subtle colour than you sometimes see as I figure that tyranids should be able to camouflage themselves! Now just to get the images up here. If possible, I'd prefer to just have my images in once place and it seems sensible to have them on dakka.

Managed to add the pictures now....

Looking good to me! I think those are close to the colors my wife is thinking for painting some guants.

I think it looks great! The pose looks very natural- as it's been pointed out, I can see the tail's a bit scuplted; looking at it cold, I'm sure I'd tell no difference. Love the color scheme, too- earthy, natural tones, but still bold and striking. I look forward to seeing more!

Looks good! That's a lot of work for one gaunt, so maybe you can see what was worth converting from this experience, and what you want to leave stock (if you're doing more of them).

It is a nice pose and if this is your first attempt, I'm sure any more you do will look even more dynamic! Great

LuigiX wrote:I think it looks great! The pose looks very natural- as it's been pointed out, I can see the tail's a bit scuplted; looking at it cold, I'm sure I'd tell no difference. Love the color scheme, too- earthy, natural tones, but still bold and striking. I look forward to seeing more!

Thanks! I did find the tail to be very difficult to sculpt, but that's probably because this is my first attempt. I kept on finding I had too much GS on there. Still, I guess no-one would really focus on the tail as the eye is more drawn to the other parts of the model. I may just do some more when I get the time as I really enjoyed the work on this one.

RiTides Nids wrote:Looks good! That's a lot of work for one gaunt, so maybe you can see what was worth converting from this experience, and what you want to leave stock (if you're doing more of them).

It is a nice pose and if this is your first attempt, I'm sure any more you do will look even more dynamic! Great

Thanks! I know it's a lot of work for one gaunt, but this isn't meant to be one of an army, or even a unit. I simply had the model lying around and wanted to push myself to try something new and this seemed the perfect first attempt style of model - quite simple and definitely posed in one position, so requiring a lot of work to get another position. I certainly won't be doing another 50 of these, however it has taught me a lot and I really look forward to doing more proper converting work.

To be fair, even if it were a gaunt for a swarm, you only have to convert a couple of figures like that to give the whole group a bit of a 'look'

Hmmm....now you've got me thinking.... Damn You! I'm having enough trouble finishing my ork army due to very rarely getting the time to do any painting without you tempting me to start a nid army. Grrr...