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NC_Cowboy, I'd definitely like to see those quad-devourers...especially a shot looking 'down' the barrel from the front.

But I'll start an "MC TwL-Dev conversions" topic - I feel like we're threadjacking the Tyrant blog

Ok, quick post just to resolve a few things before moving on...

The wings: They'll be going in the top socket. Seems the most balanced way to do it, with the Tyrant's generally upright-ish pose. If they got about on 4 legs, dragon-style, the centre arm socket would be the way to go.


The Devourer: I had a bit of a look at this when Drake Marcus first mentioned it, but only just got a chance to post, so just to shut the hatch after the squig has already bolted: I did a quick prototype based on gaunt arms, with the Devourer barrels slung together, thusly:



While I think this style looks pretty nasty, I'm inclined to agree with Yakface that this looks more like a 'mega-devourer' than a twin-linked weapon.

Since he's already said he would prefer the original version, that's what we'll be going with. Just thought it was worth posting this version as well, since I went to all the trouble of putting it together


On the Tendons: As Gen_eV pointed out, regardless of how the muscles actually work, it would still need tendons on both sides to have movement in both directions.


We're out and about for the weekend, with a family funeral on Monday, but I'll get the next update together as soon as possible...

I love the Drake Marcus version of the devourer!    Love love love it!

If I played nids I'd hire you to make me some of those

::slaps self::

Duh.
Sorry. It was, like 1:30 in the morning. I wasn't thinking straight.
LOL

Eric

Posted By Drake_Marcus on 10/06/2006 6:09 PM
I love the Drake Marcus version of the devourer!    Love love love it!

If I played nids I'd hire you to make me some of those

Ah yes, personal taste. What a great thing that different people enjoy different things (life would be pretty boring otherwise).

 

To me, the fused uber-devourer looks like a giant ice cream cone.

 

Posted By yakface on 10/06/2006 9:24 PM

Ah yes, personal taste. What a great thing that different people enjoy different things (life would be pretty boring otherwise).

 

To me, the fused uber-devourer looks like a giant ice cream cone.

 

Oh yeah, well.... um... err... You look like a giant ice cream cone! BURN!

3 dakkafexes with 4 cones each = CHEESE-flavoured ice cream, yo!

Yak, I am planning on putting 4 arms on my fexes/tyrants with a double-dev cone each - I was exactly thinking mega-devourer. Makes sense at the higher MC strength shots.

The putty work looks great on that one Insaniak, but I still think it would look end-heavy on anything but a crushing claw arm. Unless you fuse two arms together, but that kind of defeats the purpose when you're trying to save sockets on a winged tyrant I suppose. My winged tyrant (WIP) is based off of a Red Terror, who has no legs and three arm sockets per side, so I don't need to worry about that.

Back again...

Continued work on the Scytals this week, assembling the second arm, and adding the tendons on both sides of each. Also added magnets to the shoulders, although these still need a little filling around the sides yet...





Also continued with the Devourer arm, adding some putty on the sides to start filling in between the two weapons, and added magnets on the shoulders of both arms to match the scytal arms.



And started work on the torso.

The Tyrant Torso is shorter than the Carnifex one, with fewer ribs, plates instead of spikes down the breastbone, and flesh hooks running down the sides... so there was a bit to do here.

I started by drilling out the second arm socket and adding magnets for the weapon arms to link to. Then, I sliced off the spikes on the breastbone, and removed the bottom 2 ribs (which makes it a closer match to a regular Tyrant torso configuration, and allows a broader range of movement at the waist), and the tops spike of the collarbones (to allow a broader movement range for the head).

Finally, added some green stuff plates to the breastbone.





Next Episode:
Adding Flesh hooks, a weight on his shoulders, and  masses of people completely fail to care about 4 new Neighbours moving into Ramsey Street...

Everything's looking great. I'm very pleased with everything you've added.

Continuing right along...

One of the noticable differences between a Carnifex and Tyrant torso is the spines/stacks/breathing tubes/whatever the heck they're supposed to be on the back carapace. The Carnifex has three pairs, the Tyrant has four, with the front set armoured.

So, I hacked the front set off a Tyrant, and pinned them in place on the Carnifex's front carapace section. They'll have some GS added around the bottom to blend them into the existing carapace.

Also added the flesh hooks on the chest, which are again just waiting for some detail and filling around their stems.

So, as of this point, our little Tyrant looks like this:



Obviously, a Winged Tyrant isn't much good without wings... and now seems like a good time to make a start on them.

One of the problems with using Dragon wings for a Tyrant is that they don't look like Tyranid wings...

With that in mind, I started making a few changes. I reshaped the shoulder, so that it will fit into the Tyrant's arm socker, and shaved off all the little patches of scales.

Also removed the large claw at the 'wrist' joint, to be replaced with a Scytal hand. The outer edge of the wing can then be sculpted over with GS to look like a modified Scytal blade, with the wing membrane connected to it.

I'll also be adding GS over the forearm, to give it the standard Tyranid carapace look, and adding a couple other little details to mesh it in.



And that's where it's at.

Next episode: lots of filling, getting some leg, and Melinda is confronted by an angry, scary ghost that appears to be trying to kill every living creature in the town, but is actually just looking for its long lost spoon.

The changes on the wings are a pretty good idea looks great also.

Okay, here goes:


1) The Vent Stacks. Something doesn't look quite right about it, but I'm not sure its something that can be fixed. The problem is the shape of the Carnifexes back carapace is totally different from that of the HT, and so they've sculpted the vent stacks on the two creatures in slightly different shapes.

On the HT model, the big stack (that you've used) is sitting right at the top of the carapace while the top of it is parallel to the ground. If you just stuck the vent onto the Carnifex as is, I think there would be far too much space between the added stack and the next actual Carnifex stack.

So what it appears that you did was to trim the bottom of the vent stack so that it fits in line with the rest of the stacks and the top of it pretty much matches the same angle as the rest of the vent stacks. However, in order to accomplish this the added vent stack almost looks like its "falling backwards" rather than progressing forward as the rest of the stacks would lead you to believe it would.

Also, each of the stacks gets wider in progression until you get to the last one which, because its from the HT, is suddenly skinnier.

It certainly doesn't look horrible, but it just doesn't look quite "right". That said, I have no idea how you could fix it beyond completely creating a vent stack out of GS or to completely GS over the HT stack to make it have the same shape and proper width to match the rest of the natural vents.

I'd also love to see a shot from the back highlighting how the vent is going to fit into the carapace on the back.

In the end, I could most definitely live and enjoy the vent stack as you've pictured it, and as I've already said I don't know how you could reasonably fix it. If you can think of something, let me know but otherwise I'll just be happy with it.


2) The flesh hooks. They are considerably larger than the HT's, and they look much more like blades while the original model looks closer to hooks or talons. However, neither of those things necessarily bother me much as long as you putty up the base of them so they look more like little carapace arms with blades on the end (similar to the original model) rather than just blades jutting out of the HT's chest.

However, if it isn't very hard for you I do think I'd prefer it if you altered them a little to match how the actual model looks: cut the end of the blades off, GS tiny little carapace arms, and then put the blades on the end pointing much more down towards the ground. That way they look more like hooks or thumb-claws rather than just blades or spikes.


3) The wings. Looking good so far. I have a question though: Are you going to make spines that run down the length of each fold in the wing with a claw at the end of each, or were you only going to make a single spine/carapace arm on the very outer edge?

I'm just aksing because the FW style is to make each fold in the wing into a claw of sorts, or in the case of warrior wings to make each fold into a little bony carapace arm with a little claw at the end of each arm. I'm curious to know which direction you are going with the middle folds of the wing.

Also, I absolutely hate the upward swing of the Dragon wings at the very back corner. I'm very pleased to see that you've cut almost all of it off. Would it be possible (possibly by heating up the plastic?) to get rid of that outward bend at all and make the wings only bend back in towards the creature?

Again, if its not possible, or a pain I can live with the alterations you've already made (since you cut most of the upturn off anyway), but if it is I would most definitely appreciate it.


As always, great, great work and I can't wait to pain the damn thing!

After another look at the Tyrant torso, the difference in the vents seems to come largely from the fact that the Tyrant's vents have a wider angle between them, due to his more upright pose.

So, the easy fix is to rip the front one off again, replace it a little more upright, and then slice off the first two plastic ones and reattach them at more appropriate angles.

End result is something like this: (quick photoshop hackjob)



So far as the first vent being more slender... that's something I was looking to fix with GS. When I fill underneath it, I can bulk it up a little around the sides as well.


The flesh hooks: yup, carapace arms were what I was going for... That's part of the upcoming GS work. So far as the blades go, that's an easy fix. I'll just cut off the blades and reattach them to the arms facing more downwards.

The larger size was just to keep them consistent with the larger torso. I considered just hacking the hooks off the Tyrant torso, but thought they would be a little small.


The wings: I had planned to just do the blade on the edge for starters, to see how it looks. From there. we can decide whether to carry it through to the other vanes, or just leave it at that.

I'll see what I can do about the rest of the outer curve... it should pretty much disappear once the blade is in place.

I like the look of that photoshopped vent stack much better. If you make it a little "wider" with some GS I think it wil be absolutely perfect!

Also good to hear the flesh hooks will be an easy fix. One thing: On the HT body, the flesh hook army progress naturally out of the carapace joints (look at the side of the original HT model), while on your HT model the hooks (so far) are coming out of between the carapace.

Obviously on the Carni torso there are a whole lot more carapace veins, but I think I'd prefer if the flesh hook arms attached to a carapace joint rather than come out from in between them.

Let me know if that doesn't make sense.

I see what you're saying yakface, but I like the way insaniak has done these better than the normal fleshhooks. it's like they grew out of the body when the HT decided she needed them. consider this idea stolen.

I was looking at adding a joint where the flesh hooks go into the ribs. Putting them in between was really just a way to space them out a little with the extra ribs, but it also allows (after a little GS work) them to have their own joint, whereas the corner of a rib, like the Tyrant model has them, just seems like a weird place for a movable joint.

What I would suggest is that I GS one of the claws up so you can see how they will look once they're properly detailed, and you can have another look and decide if you still want them moved...

Posted By insaniak on 10/24/2006 2:06 PM


What I would suggest is that I GS one of the claws up so you can see how they will look once they're properly detailed, and you can have another look and decide if you still want them moved...

Sounds good.

A bit of a grab bag of updates this time around.

First up, the reshaped torso, complete with one puttied Flesh Hook. Also started adding the veins to the back of the head.



The gaps under the vents are only rough filled at the moment. They'll be smoothed down and filled properly next.

Here's a comparison shot with the vents before and after moving them:




The flesh hooks are still a little 'bladey' rather than 'hookey' so I'll shave down the insides of the blades a little to make them a little more curved.

Also started work on the base:



I'll be adding in some rocks, and a nice skid-trail where the dreadnought arm has slid along the grounb for a bit after being torn off.

And finally, started the putty work on the wing.



I had originally intended to just do the outermost vane as a scyth blade at first, to see how that looked before deciding if the others should be done the same. But once I got the forearm puttied up, the existing wing vanes just looked wrong.
So I started on the scyth-vanes as well. Still need to do the outer one, and fill in where they meet the hand.


Next episode: Feeling vane, waisting away, and the Turtles discover the true meaning of teamwork when Raphael's temper gets them in a bit of a jam...

Man, I *love* it all; especially the wing arms so far.

I also like what you did with the vents, and the flesh hooks look great: I don't see any need to file down the "blade" on the flesh hook anymore unless you feel like it should be. As is, having the blade tipped downward has made all the difference to me.


Great work!

I'm loving those wing conversions; wish I could GS like that.

You've done a great job of matching the look of the wings on the Forgeworld flying megabeasties.

Well, after a bit of an enforced delay for health reasons, I've finally got another update here... Warning: This one's a little picture intensive

Lots of little bits and pieces this time, as parts are beginning to be finished off.

For starters, I put the finishing touches on the weapon arms, which included filling in the rest of the spaces on the devourers, and puttying around the shoulders where the magnets join on. I also repositioned one of the scytal arms at the shoulder, as with both scytal arms pointing directly forwards, it looked like he was blowing a raspberry...






Next up, I finished repositioning and puttying up the fleshhooks, and finished filling and smoothing the lower back vanes (Still need to bulk out the frontmost vanes) . I also drilled a couple of 2mm holes under the second arm socket, glued in a small magnet, and then puttied over the hole...



Then, I grabbed a couple of monstrous creature Toxin Sacs, drilled a 1mm hole in the underside, and glued a small piece of steel wire in there, cutting it off flush with the plastic and adding a little putty to neaten it up...

Clicky image link

So, when you place the Toxin Sacs against the sides of the torso, the steel inside the sacs is grabbed by the magnets, and you have a set of Toxin Sacs that can be added or removed as needed, for use with whichever arms the Tyrant is currently wearing.




To fit onto the Tyrant legs, the torso needed a pin. So, as well as filling on the bottom of the ribcage, I drilled a hole in the Tyrant waist, and added a pin on the bottom of the torso. This will be filled in and detailed to match the texture around the waist.

Clicky image link

So now, he goes together looking like this:



Click here for another shot




Click here for another shot



And finally, did a little more on the wing, smoothing down the outside vane, and adding some detail to the 'hand':



The outside vane still needs to be smoothed down a little more, and then I can start on the underside.

Still debating whether to add armour plates along the outer edge to match the monstrous creature scyths, or leave the edge smooth like the Gaunt ones. Any thoughts?



And that's about it for now. Still to be done: attaching the head and puttying some detail in around the base of the neck, the underside of the wing, filling and smoothing the foremost back vane, attaching the body to the legs, finishing off the base, and coming up with something sexy (and removable) for Adrenal Glands and an Implant Attack.

Looking very awesome.

I'd give the wings plates if you can, but they look fine without.

Sorry Insaniak... I thought the whole thing looked awesome as hell until I saw the near-complete images of him standing up. Even with the repositioning of the forward stack, he still looks like a giant turtle to me. I think it's because the new tyrant and carni models have kind of a shelf that shelters the back of their head... Without that look it just looks like a galapagos to me :/

Still love the arms and wings though--Top notch.

I'm curious as to how "thin" that wing blade is (when viewed horizontally). Perhaps its just because it hasn't been fully smoothed down, but right now it looks a bit big and bulky for a wing blade.

As for the armor plates, I think having like 3 near the top would be pretty cool. I certainly don't think you need them running halfway down the blade like with the scything talons. But even if you left the blades without any plates it looks pretty good right now.


I'm really curious to see what it looks like with the wings on, especially because you have the uper torso standing much more upright than I thought you were going to.

I thought you were going to keep a bit more of the Carnifex's body tilt in there to give the impression of a flying beast, rather than the more upright walking Tyrant. Isn't that why we went with the Carnifex body in the first place? Because I know the head isn't in place yet, but if you keep the body angle as you have it now, the torso is going to run right up into his chin like a turtleneck sweater, which is kind of what the mock-up here looks like, or you're going to have to putty up inside the head socket and really make his head 'stick out' to clear the torso.

Either of those solutions don't sound very appealing to me, although perhaps you have something grand in mind?

I guess I had envisioned more of a body tilt where the top of the final chimney stack on his back (the one closest to his head) was essentially parallel to the ground, pretty much like the WIP shots you have of just the upper torso on its own.

What do you think? Is it too late to do that? Is are the legs/lower torso of the Tyrant model incompatible with this tilt? Will it look lame? What say you?


Besides those points, I like everything I see. The toxin sacs looks good and the arms look great.


Edit: I think Mosg may be onto something, perhaps that's what is looking a bit wierd to me. The armor plates on the back are stopping short, leaving the head sticking out (as he puts it) like a Turtle.  I think that's one of the reasons I was suggesting the body tilted back more down, because then the head would be able to sit in the recess a bit more naturally.

While I'm quite impressed with the conversion as a whole, I'm gonna have to agree with the turtle-comments.

In fact, first thought that sprung up in my mind were "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle". I'm pretty sure it's due to tilt of the body in the mock-up pic and the general curvature of the carnifex back - the carnifex's back is just relatively too flat (with respect to the rest of the torso) compared to the Tyrant model.

Still, everything else looks great (and makes me seriously want to borrow some of these ideas for a conversion of my own). I especially like the idea of the modular toxin sacs. Can't wait to see this thing finished.

Totally rad. I have to say that is some serious modelling work there..hehe.

Capt K

Posted By yakface on 11/20/2006 6:39 AM
I'm curious as to how "thin" that wing blade is (when viewed horizontally). Perhaps its just because it hasn't been fully smoothed down, but right now it looks a bit big and bulky for a wing blade.

Yup, it's a little chunky at the moment, but will slim down once I finish filling the other side and can sand it down properly.

What do you think? Is it too late to do that? Is are the legs/lower torso of the Tyrant model incompatible with this tilt? Will it look lame? What say you?

Nope, more of a tilt should still be doable... I had written off the more upright pose to just being from the front foot being raised, tipping him back a little. But now that you mention it, he does seem a little too upright for what we originally discussed. I'll have a tinker...

Looking good! I love how the devourers came out, and the scytals too. Your gs work on the wings is amazing.
I agree with the consensus on the tilt.

I've got a question about magneting up Fex bodies. I'm about to magnet up some pre-assembled Fexes I bought - I've never actually assembled one. I'm wondering how deep you can drill into the arm sockets to seat the magnets? I don't want to punch through into the center body cavity.

It kind of looks like you didn't do any drilling at all, but just seated the magnets (presumably with putty behind for strength) in the sockets...is that right? Is the plastic so thin that any drilling would punch through? Is it considerably thicker down where you drilled out the hole for the toxin sac magnet? (great idea BTW)

Thanks for any help!

There was a bit of drilling involved, as I wanted the magnets to sit completely inside the sockets.

I used 6mmx2mm magnets. To get these to sit right, I drilled right through the socket, glued the magnet in place, and then filled over the back with putty.

The body where the Toxin Sac magnets are sitting is a little thicker, so could be just drilled out to the required depth.

insert obligatory Tyranid Mutant Ninja Turtle joke here:

but seriously, I think the pose looks fine.

(must resist sudden urge to build turtle-themed nid army...)