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I feel your pain on the 'Gaunts. Dont any horde army can be annoying. Heck, even doing a full squad of marines can be tedious.

Got them all done up quite nice, though came to an odd realization while I was working on them. Just a couple weeks ago at the FLGS I commented that the one downside to the dip thing I do on my `Nids is that it makes it harder to distinguish the white from the bone. After working on these last night, they did not come out as dark as my old stuff, and the white is still very notably white. I got worried I was using the wrong color stuff again, and much double checking and resource digging found that yes, it was the correct color. So I dug back thru the thread to find pictures of my old stuff when it was fresh nearly a year ago. The whites in those pictures are not as dark as they are now. This leads me to the belief the wood stain darkens over time, which is rather disconcerting. I'm wondering if there's anything I can do to stop it from darkening, if it's an environmental thing, or an unfortunately unavoidable side effect. I'm also bothered because I've advocated the dip to many people as a good method and don't want to find out I was giving bad advice all this time.

Here's all the new stuff;

And some shots of the color changes. First is an old picture from page five of this thread, dated January, followed by a side by side of new white stuff next to old darkened stuff.

The spores look fantastic! I've also seen custom builds for them out of pine cones that look amazing....if you're looking to one off a few more. The younger green pine cones don't have the big gaps and stuff like the old dry ones, but they take paint/ink very nicely.

Wish I had your GS detail skills.

The Spores aren't green stuffed at all. Well, OK, there's a small bead of green stuff inside the seam that joins the two halves of the pod. They're parts of a Mega Bloks toy kit that you can see earlier in the thread. Need to see about getting my hands on a couple more, but the price on them has doubled since I got these...

The newer gaunts look way better than the older ones.

Also, I can't find any info as to the stain getting darker as it gets older on the web. Is it possible that you used to shake the container with the stain, and this time you didn't? That way maybe the pigments stayed on the bottom of the container and the stain was lighter?

Just a thought.

-Sweord

Nope, shook it quite thoroughly. Have to to mix in the cap full of mineral spirits used to thin the stuff down a tad. Same can of mineral spirits with the same cap I used last time, so same amount of thinner.

Huh. Well, that's all I had. IDK, maybe the formula changed or the new stain has a better quality than the old one.

Got a couple new things put together. In true `Nid fashion I rendered down some previous things that I don't think I need and spat out more refined and evolved creatures, as is evidenced but the multiple colors of parts on these guys.

First is my Venomthrope pair. I never liked the idea of them floating, as seen before when I put legs on them. However I didn't really like the way they ended up looking before either. I removed their lower half, and replaced it with a Warrior lower half and legs. Makes them look a lot more hunched over, and about a half an inch shorter, but I don't think they're so terribly smaller as to really effect their play. I really liked the way the Hormagaunt Scytals looked when trimmed short into little claws that don't really do anything on the Doom of Malantai, so I did that again here. Four Lash Whips is a bit overkill and crowded on the model, plus I want to keep the extras for other things, since GW has Still not wizened up and sold the Venomthrope arms as a Bitz Pack. I really like how these guys came out now, much more than the version I had of them before. Nice and hunched and skulking in appearance, which perfectly suits their role on the table.

Next up is me arriving late to the party such as it were and finally getting my first pair of Hive Guard. While I like their model, I dislike that it's a singular posed metal fig. I've seen a bunch of plastic conversions for the Hive Guard that I don't think look bad, but I've not yet seen a plastic gun for them I liked. They always just look like some other gun with Flesh Hooks sticking out the barrel. I decided since I don't plan on getting too many of these I could do some minor changed to the figs to make them a bit more varied. Easiest way to give a fig a more dynamic and difference appearance is to change the direction their head it looking in. Carved out their old heads, and replaced them with Gaunts heads. They're a bit smaller, but not comically so, and they make the same shape and general appearance of the originals. The middle arms and back leg on the left side of the model are not nearly so heavily fused to one another as they are on the right side, so I popped those apart reposed them for more variety between the two.

Green stuff the gaps in these and give the Hive Guard new necks and I should be able to get to painting these tomorrow/Monday and have them ready to go again before Tuesday 40k night.

Couple little bitz for an upcoming corpse exchange I whipped up while procrastinating painting the Venomthropes and Hive Guard.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Something that occurred to me, and I'm going to ask people's opinions on acting on it. I've been painting the soft bitz of my `Nids, such as the area behind the head inside their cowl and the fleshy end of the devourers, as a camo green. I noticed I've still been painting their tongues a stereotypical red.

Should I keep their tongues their current shade of Blood Red, or repaint them to fit the color mechanics of my `Nids and thus make them Camo Green?

I swear, I'm still working on painting the Venomthrope and Hive Guard! Still mixing in a lot of stalling and procrastination though...

A while back I picked up a Gulavhar, The Terror Of Arnor because I thought it would be a good item to make a flying Hive Tyrant out of. Turned out he was smaller than I thought he was, too small to be a Hive Tyrant. Like so many other things, the kit's languished on the shelves of shame, where my unfinished projects go to sit in limbo for ages until something sparks my interest and I come back to them, or cannibalize them into something else. It occurred to me at one time that while the demon was too small for a Tyrant, he'd probably make a nice Parasite of Mortrex. The right mindset finally hit me and I decided to give it a go.

I'm envisioning my Parasite as something more of a Alpha Winged Warrior, and cannibalized a couple Warriors trying to get the parts I wanted carved off and hollowed out just right to fit around the butt and crotch of Gulavhar to give him a look more suited to a `Nid. There's a pin running from one wing thru the thorax and into the other wing to keep those on, and a second pin running up from the abdomen into the thorax to support their weight. Even with those giant metal wings, the metal abdomen, legs and rock he's standing on really keep the fig more stable than you might think, though it does have a fair high center of gravity.

Bunch of work filling in the gaps and adding on other details to this guy, but it's getting late on a Saturday, and I want to watch my animes, and then I have to get up early to run a 40k tournament tomorrow, so no more updates tonight.

Aagh you update so fast! I say if you got the extra time then paint the tounges green also that parasite conversion is looking very promising.

This good sir, is made of extreme, unrefined and unfiltered epicsomeness!
That's right, I had to make up a word to describe it!

My updates aren't so much fast as random. Stuff will linger for awhile until I get into the right mood or interest and then I get obsessive and run thru a bunch of stuff really quickly.

Huzzah, got these four guys all painted up and ready to be washed! Get that done so these guys are dry for tomorrow, and with that benchmark out of the way, I can get back to indulging myself with my Parasite conversion!

Those are scary. In a good way.

Nice work.

All the further I got before I remembered Monday night means Gundam. I bent the wings into more of a forward curve, and hunched the body over forward a tad more as well. Wish I could tighten up the legs a bit as well, but no way do I want to try and mess with those. Going to want to weight the base now though. While not terribly so, it's a bit prone to tipping forward if you bump it.

The artwork in the book shows Scything Talons, but the rules say Rending Claws, so I gave him Rending Claws. Genestealer claws are too small, and the plastic Warrior ones are too big. Dug around and found part of one of my original Lictors, the part with the Rending Claws. Might be a touch big, but they're far more in line for what I want as far as size. Bent them up a bit to repose them, and presto.

The head is not glued on yet, nor is it finished. I carved off the last section of carapace on the head, and narrowed the two before it slightly. I'm working on replacing the last piece of carapace with a long narrow crest like what the Gargoyles have.

Hive Guard and Venomthropes fully painted, now with more picture angles!

Decided to redo the base on the Parasite based on several factors. First, I've got plans to put rocks on a bunch of my bases as part of my eventual basing scheme. These rocks will not be painted, and I wasn't sure how well I could match his rock to match the others. Second, I wanted to tighten up the angles of his legs/feet a bit to better match the hunched over upper body, and I couldn't do that while they were attached to his rock. Lastly, with said hunched over pose, his balance was starting to shift more forward than I would have liked.

So the morning was spent with my trust Dremel carving away the rock he was standing on. I accidentally took the talons off of one foot, so I took them off of the other, and will replace them with something more `Nid-like, but otherwise got it off without losing any detail. Got a couple good sized rocks and hot glued them together at a nice angle to make a suitable perch. I think his pose on the perch at the moment is perfect for how I envision it. Nice and hunched over and menacing. Those rocks are what I'll be basing with, that color, no paint, though the vast majority of them will be MUCH smaller, more like pebbles on the bases for decor. You might be able to spot a bit of the black sand I'll be using in the crack between the two rocks and around the base as well. As for balance, this helped it, but he's still a bit front heavy. I carved out the pegs on the bottom of the base, and I'll fill that up with some lead weights or something.

P.S. he's not glued or otherwise attached to that rock in any way yet. He just balances Really nicely atop it, with his tail curled underneath to hook him on. He won't get glued on until he's fully painted, to make sure I don't accidentally paint the rock.

o_O

Nice base. TLOS means hes gonna get shot to pieces though..

I love those wings. The curling the tail underneath is a very nice touch.

He's not Super bad for TLoS. You cant target those giant wings, and he's an IC joined to gargoyles so it's not really a problem regardless. It is I terestin though that he's be nice for Giving cover to large things behind him with those giant wings. All in all though I don make my figs with TLoS in mind too much. I just make em to look cool a d let the chips fall where they may.

Very scary man, and I thought my friends Hormaguant "Zerg Rush" list was bad...

Took a while what with the holiday family distractions, but he's all painted up and ready to get washed. With him not being attached to those rocks yet, and not wanting to wash the rocks, I'll be doing his body and wings at separate times. Wings first, so he can sit on the rock while they dry. Then do the body, and I'll have to hang him from something by the wings. Once that's done, I'll attach him to the rocks, green stuff in some talons, which were proving hard to do while he was separated from it, and then Very carefully paint those.

That is looking more and more badass. Good work. I just love that conversion.....

11 pages of tyranid goodness! Those are some great conversions you have go going on. Keep up the good work!

And here he is with his coat of wash and finally glued to the rocks. While the wash was drying I scrubbed the rocks down to make sure they were good and clean, and to get rid of some of the white paint that had scraped off on them from the repeated taking him off and putting him back on it. In doing so the hot glue came apart, apparently it doesn't like the water which was able to wick in between it and the rock. I took that opportunity to reposition the rocks a bit, to help move his center of balance back a bit closer to the center. Also got some metal washers from Menard's for a bunch of my stuff today and put one of those under the base. Probably throw some more smaller rocks onto the front edge of the base that is now more exposed. In short, I wish those wings weren't metal, but then if they weren't, I'd likely not have been able to get the good curl and posture of them that I like, so you take what you can get.

I'll give it awhile yet to let the last of the tackiness of the wash cure before I sculpt in his talons on his feet. He could easily be done for game night tomorrow, and I could probably even have a small force of Gargoyles ready to go with him, but looking at the flock of twenty of them sitting on the desk makes me nauseous so they're not likely to get many painted up tonight. I'll have to devote my free time this coming week to getting them done and ready for next week.

God you really do update fast!

First off, great miniature, the pose is truly spectacular.

Second off, the pic with him in the centre of the gargoyles looks truly amazing, makes me want to replicate the miniature now..

Thirdly, what bits did you use then? I know warrior and old lictor, but the wings and legs I'm not so sure on.

The wings and legs are from Gulavhar, The Terror Of Arnor of GW's Lord of the Rings line. Used the body and head of a Tyranid Warrior, and chopped up crotch/tail/legs to get the bits from that to layer over Gulavhar's. As you said the Rending Claw arms are from the old old metal Lictor, with a bit of reposing there. Those could easily be replaced by something else, they were just the first thing I came across on my desk of the appropriate size and though they'd make for some nice unique claws for a unique character.

Its coming along great Aduro, kept it up.

I was all psyched to get home today because the USPS tracking number said my Bone Sabers were getting delivered today. Got home and they were waiting for me. Cleaned off the flash, got some arms for them, and then remembered I used up the last of my super glue yesterday working on the terrain at the FLGS. Now I'm bummed, because I know I'm too lazy to make an extra trip out of the house to get more. I'll have to pick some up while I'm out and about tomorrow, and should use it as a sign tonight that I should paint some Gargoyles or something. Until then, here is Awesomeness, Some Assembly Required.