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A little background: I bought this model about a year or so ago when the UK pound was at it's low. I figured hey, why not, and prompty forgot about it. About 3 weeks later it arrived. I opened the box, saw the biggest forgeworld bag ever and cracked it open.

Then.. i got scared. Maybe not scared, but certainly intimidated.

There sat the largest bug I'd ever seen. Made of two different types of resin, this thing truely is HUGE. It's got serious heft to it, you could do some serious damage swinging it around. I thought I'd done pretty well on previous models that I'd have considered fairly complex, in 40k and regular modeling. This thing was a class to itself.

I started cutting off the pour channels, the huge chunks of resin attached to various parts. It was as I was doing this that I started to realize just how much work this was going to be. And not the kind of work that I was good at. GREENSTUFF. Lots and lots of greenstuff. This model really doesn't fit well. It's like there's a vague suggestion of where things go but really, the actual fitting is left as a sculpting exercise to the reader.

So, it got put aside, only temporarily, so that I could get my 'Nids ready for this years' tournaments. Then I got some new eldar, and they cut in front of the 'Phant. Eventually, it sat in a box on my shelf.

after finishing my tourney list i decided: Enough! Time to get this thing

So here's the first picture, i've started attaching the vents to the main body


What a pain. The front vent especially is going to need a lot more greenstuff down the road. After greenstuffing the vents, I figured I'd get all the major bits on the body first, then do a big round of greenstuffing over everything that needed it, so I started on the spikes instead. Following Garreth's excellent guide I quickly saw there was wisdom in pinning all the little spikes. But there's limits to what I have available in terms of pin sizes!
I've pinned about 80% of the spikes. Here's an example:


That's about as small as i can get with my big fat hands and relatively large drill bits (i think thats about a 0.8mm if not smaller)

Pinning and gluing all 60 of the 64 spikes on has taken me approximately 6 hours of work. Why only 59 you ask? Well, there's a lot of this going on:



Yes, that's me trying to find a 1 mm resin spike on a grey mottled carpet.

In the end i've lost 3 (i've since resculpted where they should have been so it's hopefully not too noticeable). What of the last one? Well, as i was putting the pin in the final spike that goes on the left side of the neck, i managed to shove most of the pin through my thumb instead. Went in about 7-10 mm. So i'm taking a little break.

This weekend I decided I would be mounting it on an oval base. Drawing an ellipse is actually fairly easy and kinda cool.

found this great animation that explains it:
http://www.mathopenref.com/flash/constellipse.swf

So i figured out the relative size of the model (approx 28cm square) drew the square in visio, made an ellipse to fit and got the basic dimensions from there:



essentially take two nails or screws, attach them to where the circle intersects the long median and put your pencil there, then draw. Watch the animation, makes life easier to understand.



So I ended up with a VERY large 12mm thick oval piece of MDF. Here it is with some well known models for size:



And that's where I'm at tonight.

Current steps:

put a 30deg. bevel on the base, seal it and start working on it.
complete the conversions of all the tau fire warriors running out of the devil fish that will be under the heirophant
start working on the crashed 'fish.
finish the spikes and attach the head to the 'phant
GREENSTUFF

i have a huge list of things to do, but let's start small shall we!

Good - even though painful - start.
I look forward to see more.
(pierced) tumbs up
Cheers
Klaus

Looks like this could be an interesting thread, I've not seen one that covers the more intricate parts of making one of these. It is an amazing model, would love one myself but that's a bit more than I can afford as a poor student!

Looking forward to see how you get along with the build


Dan

thanks guys!

So today's update. Thumb is mostly healed, so I decided to attach the final spike.

because it had gone through the resin piece and into my thumb i needed to file down the piece that stuck out. Results aren't great, it'll need more work:



Here's the torso with all the spikes on it.



from a foot it looks fine in my mind, but when you start to look closer you start to see some places that'll need more greenstuff:



my pinning occasionally went a little too far, there's gaps between the spike and body. More greenstuff / filler will be required. Top left spike needs major attention. I'll need to shape a lip around the spike so it looks like it belongs.

The head's going to need a lot of filling attention as well:



So yeah, if you're going to take one of these on, make sure you stock up on greenstuff. As i'm almost completely rubbish at sculpting, gap filling and the like with GS, this is going to be a major learning experience.

Finally got a few shots of the Tau that'll be left from the devil fish. No GS to fill the gaps yet, but the basic positions are there.





At the very least, I'm hoping that this will encourage average joes to buy the kits you lust after. It's not that hard, just need to invest the time into getting it right.

Good to see someone tackling one of the big kits. I'm always wary of larger FW models because of resin warp and all the crud, but this looks most encouraging. Also, I really like the thoroughness of your approach to this blog - great stuff!

nice, ever consider making a Hydraphant just for kicks?

hydraphant? /confused.

More updates coming tonight. It'll be the breaking out of the greenstuff to fill all those annoying little gaps and get the tau to where I want them to be.

Not sure what I'm going to do for the Tau paint schemes though, I want something that works well with my Red and Bone and Blue 'nid scheme, but doesn't overpower the whole thing...

Maybe green tau? If I was a brave man I'd do a while based scheme...

edit: Re warpage on this particular kit: to be honest I don't think it's much of a problem as most of it is organic in nature. The hind legs are a bit off, but I'll only know that once I get them on the body. The front legs look pretty even. The guns look mint as is, I'm terrified of mucking with them too much as they are quite detailed and fragile.

I think warpage on some of the tau and of course the titans would be a much bigger deal.

White for the Tau would keep the focus on the Tyranid. Looks ace so far though!

really impresive like the amount of time you are putting into the base, often FW things are ruined on crappy bases, this almost inspires me to get some forge world stuff. but anyway keep up the good work.

king88mob wrote:hydraphant? /confused.

More updates coming tonight. It'll be the breaking out of the greenstuff to fill all those annoying little gaps and get the tau to where I want them to be.

Not sure what I'm going to do for the Tau paint schemes though, I want something that works well with my Red and Bone and Blue 'nid scheme, but doesn't overpower the whole thing...

Maybe green tau? If I was a brave man I'd do a while based scheme...

edit: Re warpage on this particular kit: to be honest I don't think it's much of a problem as most of it is organic in nature. The hind legs are a bit off, but I'll only know that once I get them on the body. The front legs look pretty even. The guns look mint as is, I'm terrified of mucking with them too much as they are quite detailed and fragile.

I think warpage on some of the tau and of course the titans would be a much bigger deal.

it is a beast that is four times the little one you are working on, and it is exactly why i suggested it

Subbed. I wanna see how this turns out!

How about White tau with green recesses - kind of like Tron in negative?

been taking an evening woodworking class and convinced the prof to pick up a 30 deg bevel router bit. Result: 1 beveled giant oval base:



Now,cut MDF sucks in paint like a mofo, so you've got to seal it. so I need to seal all the edges with PVA glue, sand and then it'll be ready for paint. That's a job for another day.

Also, since I got a devilfish for the base, I decided to try and clean up the edges and seams as I've never been impressed with how this kit goes together. So out comes the modeling putty and I've been trying to get a nice smooth finish on the engines:



This is after 2 applications of putty (well, putty, primer, putty) I'll be spraying these guys black again tomorrow to see if I've got the finish I want on it. Incidentally, Tamiya modeling putty is waaaay better than the squadron stuff I've used to date. Much smoother.


The big news of the day: I started greenstuffing ! <gulp>

First off, I tried to fill the gaps between the spikes I'd glued in to the body. This didn't work well:



I'm really not happy with how this turned out so I'll be trying something else. Right now I'm thinking of just filing the gaps with the tamiya stuff I have and seeing where that gets me.

But I decided to work on the tail instead, getting it nice and smoothly together. Here's the first coat of gs:



Sorry for the crappy lighting, for some reason my camera decided a flash was something *other* cameras used.

The joint wasn't great so in a few places I needed to sculpt in some detail. for example the armor plate here:



Now, it's only after working with greenstuff for an hour and a half tonight that i've finally started to understand what people are talking about when they say it's tacky when it first is mixed but gets easier after about 20 - 30 minutes. When I first started, no amount of wetness on the tools would stop it from sticking. As I continued to work though it started to get easier and easier.

I got bold and started working on the neck to body joint as well. Here's the side I'm pretty happy with:



and the one I'm not. The head went on at a bit o an angle. I thought at first it would look ok, but I'm not pleased. Not sure what to do though, Suggestions?



I kinda feel like i need to either build up the head or file down the body armor panel so it looks more natural. Right now they don't "interlock" and i'm not sure what to do about it.



Got some infantry conversions done for the tau as well:







Nothing too exciting so far, just guys running and falling. My photography is struggling pretty badly here, but we'll see how it turns out once I get them on the base.


So that's it so far. Progress has slowed somewhat as my parents have come to New Zealand for the first time and I'll be doing a fair amount of traveling. My goal is to get the greenstuff on the main body done and figure out the details of where the devil fish will go on the base. I Was hoping to somewhat hide the supporting wire for the 'phant in the fish but I'm not 100% sure that will work for now.

Also, I got a tau commander with binoculars and I've got to find a funny place to put him so that he looks completely clueless to his surroundings.

A quick Update: My internet got throttled down to almost nothing and thus haven't had any chance to put up new photos. I'll be working on it all tonight and hopefully getting some new content on here.

However, Easter will be dodgy as it's holiday time so no updates after that until May.

Thats so bizarre, your flag went from good ol' NZ to Japan....

That aside, very intimidating project but great to see another Kiwi blogger on here showing what your worth. I'll subscribe to this for the future

for some reason my work's internet is sourced through Japan, so when I post from home, NZ, from work, JP.

This is not dead! Just got back from the south island roaring to do some modeling, and the big guy is top of the list.

updates soon i promise.

Awsome I wish I had money to buy stuff!! But I'm 15 with no job = no forge world stuff

Interesting, A nid and tau project log Cool! I'd love to see the heirophant's progress, keep it up!

king88mob wrote:Now, it's only after working with greenstuff for an hour and a half tonight that i've finally started to understand what people are talking about when they say it's tacky when it first is mixed but gets easier after about 20 - 30 minutes. When I first started, no amount of wetness on the tools would stop it from sticking. As I continued to work though it started to get easier and easier.

I would suggest using Coulor Shapers instead of metal tools. http://www.dickblick.com/products/colour-shapers-tools/ . I would purchase the "firm" set.

I seldom use metal sculpting tools now as the green stuff won't stick to these shapers. If I do have a specific need for a metal tool, then I will dip it in some vegitable oil.

I didn't realize GS would stay off colour shapers! awesome. Dickblick charges ridiculous amounts to ship to NZ but I'll go hunting for them at lunch tomorrow. Thanks for the tip!


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bugger, didn't realize they came in different sizes as well. What size do you recommend?

This is so cool! I can hardly wait for it to be done!

Colour shapers are great. Try art stores or similar maybe? Also Tau with binoculars should be standing in front of the beast, looking ahead, with the maw right behind him. Go for comedy gold!

Right, So i've got a no-comp tournament coming up in three weeks and i really want to run 2 tervigons instead of the one. So I need to build another, which has put this on hold for a few weeks.

Link to my Tervigon build log.

king88mob wrote:I didn't realize GS would stay off colour shapers! awesome. Dickblick charges ridiculous amounts to ship to NZ but I'll go hunting for them at lunch tomorrow. Thanks for the tip!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
bugger, didn't realize they came in different sizes as well. What size do you recommend?

The mini line is size 0. I would purchase 2 sets: The Firm set and the Extra Firm Set. The Extra Firm set is new and very rigid for quick work and basics. The Firm set is more pliable and allows for more subtle work and finishes.

this is starting to look good

Don't play bugs, but any titan is a good 'un!

Subscribed!

Looking good so far, can't wait to see how you deal with the weight/bendy legs issue ^_^

Bugger me sideways! I shall be watching this.

/subbed