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Intentions
Hello, and welcome to my new blog. I am an avid Warhammer 40k player, and modeler/painter. In my free time I attend dental school. This blog is to chronicle my attempt at creating a showpiece model that I can hopefully make a play at some competitions with.

After a long drive home from Da Boyz GT, I talked with my traveling companions and we threw ideas back and forth about this. Originally I wanted a Space Marine riding a Dragon, but we settled on something pretty close: Space Wolf Lord riding a Leviathan

I will attempt to describe my vision for this monstrosity. Wolf Lord Hagar the Horrible has bent a mighty leviathan to his will. When it is time for battle, he rides atop the leviathan setting upon the enemy by bursting from below through the ice of a frozen lake.

Now this project is really made of three parts:
Part one: The Wolf Lord. This guy needs to look more bad ass than the other marines. I intend to make him true scale like the other Space Wolf characters I have completed. He will have custom made armor. Since the model is going to be bursting from the ice, he needs some apparent way to have been breathing underwater. I could use a helmet, but I think I am more likely to have him bare headed with some sort of apparent rebreather.

Part two: The Leviathan. The fluff describes these creatures of the deep as beings of an ancient tyranid hive fleet. Little more description is given. I plan on combining dragon and trygon kits to create the beast. He needs to be apparently of tyranid origin, so that means 3 sets of legs and a carapace.

Part three: The ice base. This is the part where I am having the hardest time figuring out. I want to make the beast seem as though he has just bursted forth from the ice lake. This means there needs to be (from bottom up) a water effect for about half an inch, then an ice effect for a little ways, and then some way to make a splash with the water and ice effect as it shatters and blows out. I really have to idea how to do this. I have clear two part resin that people often use for water effects that I think will help.

Pics on the next post!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here's the first shots of what I have so far. I bought a trygon kit and a Malekith on Black Dragon kit. The Black Dragon kit was missing a bottom jaw, so I called customer service and they said they would rectify it.




So at this point I am deciding on weather or not I should put some crushing claws from the Old One Eye kit in one of the arm slots.
I also tried boiling parts of the dragons neck and tail to bend it. I read on the internet that it would work. It doesn't All I got were some warped parts and a terrible smell in the apartment. I did it really slowly and everything. I think I can fix it with green stuff, but I learned my lesson: there is no easy way out

What I ended up doing for the tail as a result was use some copper wire and greenstuff to make it into the general shape of a tail. Ill sculpt on detail later.

Hello again, New update: Customer service didn't send me just the missing jaw piece of my kit, they sent me a whole new model! I got two Black Dragons for the price of one. This solves one of the problems I had since I really wanted two sets of webbed feet, and now I have them. I just need to do a little sculpting at the transitions, and I can make those hands into feet. Also this has the added advantage of giving me another set of necks and tails since the earlier ones are all bent and warped on account of my mishaps last time.

I have done some serious sculpting here too. I extended the carapace down the tail, and made scales over the neck transition where I expect the rider to be placed. I also tried making a barnacle on the carapace. I intend to make several more, and near the end have some sort of lamprey attached to his body so you know he is a sea beast.







I still need to figure out a way to thicken the neck out the bottom and smooth the transition between the tyranid neck and the lizardlike one. I also need to figure out how to make gills. I think I might use mawloc jaws and bits to make the gill webbing. The great thing about this is that it doesn't have to look exactly like terrestrial gills, but just be reminiscent of them.

The next thing to do is get webbing on those fins I made. I bought a bunch of harpy wings as well that I can use as small fins along the sides where those little holes are on his body which are normally used for spines on the trygon model

The rider is also coming along. I'll try getting a picture of him in next post.

I'm not sure exactly how well the dragon and Tyranid aesthetics really mesh. Maybe if you tried cutting off the horns from the head it would look a little less disparate.

Yeah, I don't like the dragon head. It looks out of place.

Maybe you could Greenstuff over the eyes. You don't need sight in the murky depths, and it would add to the alien look.

Deeper down the rabbit hole I go. Today I put on some more greenstuff to texture the tail of the beast. I'm not entirely happy with it, but I think after I take some sand paper to it I will be more satisfied. Here are the pictures of it. I tried to continue the texture of the Trygon abdomen as it moves down the tail. I added some ridge like things in the center. I may add some scales to it to further reinforce the dragonlike/fishlike theme.



Here are some pictures of the rider as he comes along. I try to make my heroes larger by making them true scale. This allows them to stand above their peers and be easily picked out. I saw some shin greaves on Scibor Minis and a guide on how to make them. I practiced on making Celtic knots, and got really frustrated. I gave it a shot and you can see the results below.





As you can see, they are a little bit too big, even for true scale. The design I chose to make is a Triskelion which I think is a Celtic design, which I think is good for Space Wolves. I need to figure out how to model the rest of the legs. I still may just use Terminator shin pads and just glue my homemade pads on top, but that will make the foot look to small. Also I would have to deal with the cables that are on the calf area of terminator pads.

Tomorrow I will have both of the fish fins on the beast. Then I will need to blend them onto the beast so they look natural, but I have a good plan for this....Sneak Peek!




@Brother SRM: I Think a big issue is that the transition is pretty stark. The neck is far from done. I was kind of thinking that I could replace the horns with a sort of angler fish light thingy? Pic below

@Grimm : Like I said, a big part of this is the neck transition. I think the Dragonhead needs to stay otherwise it will just look like the guy is riding a Trygon.

Alright, so I'm not going to say that I am a wise hobby zen kung fu sort of fellow, but here is something I learned this past week or so:

If something isnt looking the way you like, start over.

My last post showed a picture of the green stuff fins that I made for the Leviathan. One side was thicker than the other. The ridges from one side to another didn't match up. They looked bulky, and un-hydrodynamic. I thought long and hard about how to fix them. I sanded and sculpted, but nothing really fixed the problems mentioned. Finally I decided enough was enough. I needed to try a new method.

What I ended up doing was drilling more wires into the tyranid arm, spaced at even intervals. These would act as support and as the ridges of the fins. Then I took regular printer paper that had been dunked in water and then used wood glue to affix it to the wire frame work. Afterwards, I painted on several coats of wood glue to make a smooth transition from the paper to the copper wire. Im very happy with the result in comparison to before. You can see the results below



Also there has been a lot of work on the rider. Hagar the Horrible is what I have named him. I have worked on the legs, and just as I feared they are clearly too large. The feet are almost twice as large as a normal marines. I plan on sanding them down quite a lot in order to make it look like he doesn't do weekend as a clown at childrens parties. The thigh armor looks good and is the correct size. I think I will need to bulk out the chest laterally somehow in order to keep him from looking crazy. I also want to try putting on his left arm before I decide exactly how much he needs to bulk out.




I also finished converting some chaos warhounds into Fenrisian Wolves. They are pretty simple. I just green stuff over the ear holes, and then put a wire up their butt, and then put on green stuff tails.

Nice GS work!

So I just realized that my deadline for this monster is approaching faster than I wanted. I need to get crackin!

I worked on this recently:




The rider has had his left foot finished. I'm really pleased with it in general. Also his torso has been bulked out laterally. Once the arms are in place I think he will look just about right as far as scale goes. Tonight I want to finish the other foot, and maybe do the calf on the left leg.

I also worked on the leviathan's head and neck. I eased the transition on the neck. It looks pretty solid, but now I need to figure out some way to make gills for this guy. The things I have on there at the moment I am not really happy with at all. Here's a picture:

sweet

Any updates? Looks sweet!

The wolves and the fins are outstanding. I'm going to try the fin technique at some point. I fear the greaves are a loss however - just too large. Maybe they could work on a truescale terminator or the like, but unless you are going to bulk out the arms and torso hugely, I fear it might be better to swap them out.

@kestral: yes I agree, they are too big. I did indeed do what you suggested and bulk out the rest of him so now they are looking much more reasonable.

So I have been swamped with school work, however I have managed to put some time into Hagar the Horrible. I made a tread on the left foot, and Ill soon have a matching one on the right. I'm pretty pleased with it. I also added a strap on to the back of the leg in the calf region.

Below you can see some of the thigh armor detailing I did. It is supposed to look sort of like the rims on the grey hunter legs. I plan to do similar work on the opposing leg.



Next I need to finish work on the gill apparatus for the leviathan, and sort out the other leg. From there I just glue him together, and its pretty much good to go. I want to finish building by the end of the month to give me a month to paint this guy.

The best news is that I figured out how to make the pictures smaller so it isnt a pain in the ass to read this post.

Alright. Big updates. Now that this guy is beginning to really take shape, I am getting really excited about it which means more motivation which means more work on him and more posts for your amusement. Watch this spot.
Below you can see what I have done to created an underwater breathing apparatus for the beast.


Here is a picture from a different view. You can see that I've left a hole down there at the anterior (look at me using anatomy words I learned in dental school!!!111!). The idea is that from each of the three protrusions that compose the gill, will be a gill like frilly thing which will connect the rod to the neck. I will probably use fake eyelashes for this. I will be purchasing them incognito. The idea is that water can enter the gill through the hole I left as the beast swims along. It will then pass the frills and oxygen exchange will occur, just the way nature (or the hive mind) intended.


Also Hagar is moving right along. He is essentially finished. I need to glue him together, add a rebreather of sorts, and finish the shield. Unfortunately the shield is somewhat of an embarrassment currently. Ill probably scrap it and start over. I want a Scottish Inspired Targe which should fit in nicely with the designs on the shins as well as the viking theme of these guys.



So what is left to do?
Hagar:
1. Glue him together
2. Sculpt rebreather
3. Make Shield
4. Removably pin him to the Leviathan

Leviathan
1. Glue the head on
2. Fix the nicks in the gills
3. Add fake eyelash frills
4. Affix him to a base
5. Add chains to connect him to Hagar
6. Add Space Wolfy decorations and battle damage.

Like I promised, I am working on this guy at a rapid pace. Today he finally comes together. Hagar has bent a mighty leviathan to his will, and rides him into battle. Enough jibber jabber. Here he is!





Yes that is a valkyrie base. I think the truscaling came out pretty well on the marine. It was good that I worried about it as much as I did, because it was essential to get him to look right. I still have to finish his rebreather, make a sheild, add the chains, and decorations, but overall I am very pleased.

WOW you got some greenstuff skills mate, but i think the legs are too far apart ( i hope you can understand that i don't have a verry good english ):

Writter, thanks for your kind words!

The legs are that far apart because if they weren't, he wouldn't fit over the monster. He will probably walk funny after he dismounts though.

It'd be perfect if you gave him a saddle of some kind. Plus, it'd explain the wide stance

S_P

Hagar the Horrible is ready for priming, pretty much right on schedule. I am pretty pleased with how he has come along. Below you can see the harpy wings I added to the flanks as smaller flippers. These fit into the hole which spines usually occupy on a trygon.


Check out those barnacles on the back next to his leg!

I also put a lamprey of some sort attached to him here. It covers up a wonky spot on the sculpting of the tail.

This is a good shot of the rebreather I made. I am pretty pleased with it.

I might hit him with some sandpaper to smooth out some of the greenstuff transitions, but that will happen right before priming.

Awesome conversion, your gs skills are fantastic. Can't wait to see this bad boy painted