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I'm building my Slaanesh army in an unconventional way, putting stuff together as inspiration and materials come to me. This guy is just the basic patchwork of parts, I've got to do the filling and minor sculpting to get him finished off.

Ingredients so far:

Dark Eldar plastic head
Space Marine torso (some chopping about to the arms and trimming of the shoulderpads)
Dark Eldar Talos blade
Tzeentch disc
Space Marine Dreadnaught powerfist hand
Epic Chaos Titan Torment Lash (I think? I'm not hugely knowledgable on Epic stuff)

He's supposed to have a lurching gait, moving along on those spindly mechanical tentacles. Perhaps he lost his legs in a battle, or perhaps he's REALLY into amputation and/or biomechanical integration.






I need to blend the moulding of the disc into his torso, tidy up those shoulders and shoulder pads and put some interesting scenery on the base. The blade on his back also needs a bit of tidying up to make it blend in a bit more organically with the rest of him.

It seems too tall to me. I'd honestly lose the disc thing (unless that's integral to the design/fluff) and make it a little more proportionate. The tentacle legs are excellent though, I think it's a very cool idea. The head looks good too, good choice.

But yeah, right now he looks like he'd be twice as tall as a regular marine. That seems somewhat excessive!

DoW

Cool idea, would make a nice and very different chaos lord. You really do need to blend the bits in more tho - otherwise it looks a bit 'cobbled together'. Look forward to your progress.

I like the concept, but think he would look better without the disc.

DogOfWar wrote:It seems too tall to me. I'd honestly lose the disc thing (unless that's integral to the design/fluff) and make it a little more proportionate. The tentacle legs are excellent though, I think it's a very cool idea. The head looks good too, good choice.

But yeah, right now he looks like he'd be twice as tall as a regular marine. That seems somewhat excessive!

I'm keeping the disc since the idea (which I should've mentioned) is to cut up some aluminium drinks cans and copper wiring to make a sort of skirt of jellyfish-like tentacles. The top of the disc will be blending into his body a bit more naturally too and the paintjob should make the whole thing look a bit organic... if I can do what's in my head.

So planning on having more than the three tentacles ?

I agree with the majority thinking a shorter marine, LOS purposes and all that. Maybe think about having more tentacles like you said, but curling and writhing around each other on the base . . . and a few flailing out

Its a great idea with the tentacles and id be all for it . . . if making it a little bit shorter

~Toxic

First of all I must say thanks to everyone for their opinions, you all encouraged me to have another poke at this miniature and to have a go at a bit of crude modelling. I'm not great at sculpting, I must say, my strength lies in painting, so I'd appreciate any criticism of my sculpting not be too harsh since I know it's not great.





I've added a whole bunch of gold wire tentacles. I didn't attempt to make these tentacles like his walking ones for several reasons: I want them more like wires that snag about things when in combat, I want them to look inorganic, I want the to contrast with his 'legs' and I'm just not very good at sculpting tentacles. Each wire is dipped with PVA glue to round the end and I'll be painting a light onto it later on, the wires will probably be plain black. I didn't like the gun, I need to find an alternative or slim it down somehow.

Also, here's a size comparison picture. I'm happy for him to be taller, I'm a painter first and a gamer last and I suspect he won't be an ordinary marine anyway so height I'm fine with.



Oh, and I didn't have a space marine in one piece, which is why I used the nearest suitable model instead.

Well since its slaanesh... Maybe have the entire disk thing covered in like a piece of skin or something? It will definitely make it fit together more... right now definitely looks better then before... but it looks a bit nurgle imo... and the way you conected the body/disk looks more nurgle... however if you make a really flat piece of gs and made it connected kind of like skin or something I think it might look more slaanesh and look alot more together as a model rather then half a marine sitting on a disk with some ooze around it... IMO

Honestly, it just looks like a big mess of wire.

The idea is good, but he needs little more to bring it to life.

A couple of suggestions:
- use slightly thinner wire, and twist several pieces together to form a strand. That will give it a little texture, and stop it from looking just like a piece of featureless wire.
-- otherwise, layer the wire in a thin sheath of putty to give it some texture. Either give it a random, rough surface, a pulsing tentacly look, or roll a knife collet or somesuch down it to give it a regular mechanical sort of texture.

- Rip off the 25mm base. Put him on a bigger base ... if he's primarily going to be a show-off piece, put him on a 60mm base. Otherwise, go with a 40mm base. Add some interesting terrain, with assorted gubbinz sticking up out of it (shorn off lamp post, rubble, a leg or the like) and have some of the wire tentacles reaching out and grasping features on the base, as if he's grabbing things as he goes to steady himself.

Just some thoughts.

insaniak wrote:I like the concept, but think he would look better without the disc.

I agree .

Without the disc he would look like he is part of the tentacles.

With the disc , it looks like its half a torso riding on a mechanic jellyfish.

Another update. After trying a few different ways of doing the tentacles I managed to figure out how to twist the wire together in a way I like. Didn't have any large bases, but did have a glut of cavalry bases which suits the model well I think. Making the wire the right shapes was easier than I expected, but still a bit of a nightmare.

I've changed both of his arms, the left being a Fiend of Slaanesh claw arm with the smoothed shoulder pad and a spikey thing (maybe from a Talos?) put on top. The other arm is a plastic lizardman one with an unmodified space marine shoulder pad. The gun is the same as before, but I've chopped it about a fair bit to make it look smarter. Dark Eldar spikes are on the front of the disc. I also bent the main walking tentacles lower, spreading them out on the new base and bringing him more visually into proportion.

Although many commenters don't like the disc I'm quite fond of it. While I know it looks weird, when painted the disc should blend into his suit. If you've ever seen the Borg Queen, that's pretty much how this works in my head only he has most of his upper torso still intact rather than being a head on a wiggly spine.

I really am finding the feedback I'm getting useful, it's encouraged me to test what I think I can do and to do something new, which can be no bad thing. Here's some pictures:

Disc still isnt working for me. Side note i have those first mechtentacles and was wondering what they were from aswell.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Maybe you need more tentacles. I say fill the bottom of the disc with them. Because the seam where the marine is on the disc looks nice.

fire4effekt wrote:
Maybe you need more tentacles. I say fill the bottom of the disc with them. Because the seam where the marine is on the disc looks nice.

More you say? http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh242/Blackjack13pUnK/40K%20Humour/Slaanesh1.jpg I can do more.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I've decided, no more changes. I think we have to rely on my ability as a painter to really make a lot of this model make sense now. I'm dreading working around those wirey tentacles, but looking forward to the end result. I shan't be swapping out the disc, but I can understand why so many people aren't keen on it, at the moment it does look very separate to the other elements, but it won't if all goes according to plan. I'm hoping to do some fancy freehand work on this too, so watch this space.

could you maybe describe the model and your idea of it a little more. I dont know why and I seldom ever say this but I just dont get it honestly. I think its the shield drone at the waste that I think just doesnt fit but overall I just dont get the feel of the model.

MOAR!!!!!

Empchild wrote:could you maybe describe the model and your idea of it a little more. I dont know why and I seldom ever say this but I just dont get it honestly. I think its the shield drone at the waste that I think just doesnt fit but overall I just dont get the feel of the model.

I'll give it my best shot. The trouble with the model as it stands is that he's not aesthetically conventional, I've not chosen to mimic a normal humanoid shape nor a shape that would normally be found in nature, so I think this is the first thing that causes confusion. Originally, the silhouette I had in mind was of an 18th Century French dress with the massive hoops and panniers that some took to the extreme, making the body seem too small. In this instance, the 'skirts' of that dress are made up of the tentacles which, unfortunately, are not as good on the model as in my head. It should be a spindly ever-moving mass of limbs that writhe and grasp, serving as a good grappling aid in motion and in combat. The disc, tentacles and torso of the powersuit are all one piece (this will be more evident with paint), the marine within being little more than head, arms and chest, connected directly to the suit itself.

He may well make more sense in context with the rest of the army I'm building. Each element will play with the conventions of what is and is not pleasing to the eye. There will be customised bikes and cars, marines of all shapes and sizes and characters that defy what one might consider 'normal'. The key to the aesthetic of the force is exaggeration of form, and it will be a theme I repeat with other elements. This is, after all, a Chaos force and I don't want it to appear too normal, it must be freakish. I suspect this model at least will continue to be a sticking point for most because of his wide hips and strange proportions.

Hopefully, that lengthy explanation makes more sense of it to you.

I like it but it almost looks like he is half a jellyfish. :S

Great Work!
But you might want to work on the disk in some way to make it less eldar-ish and more slaneesh

The new tentacles are a definite improvement. Interested in seeing how he paints up.

Ok I see where yourheading makes the model have a lot more sense to it. I think if you almost remove the disk it will drastically improve the model just my take.

Smooth the top of the disc and give it some veins to make it look more jellyfish like, the drone look it has just doesn't fit in with the rest of the model.