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Welcome to the Hydra and Swarm project Blog.

Hello everyone. Puddi here.
I am a longtime 40k player but in the years i have been with the hobby
i have finished a disturbingly low amount of models and if i did i would soo after
strip them again because i woudl deem them unworthy of keeping.
Now however i am trying to break with that tradition and finally get some presentable armys on the table.
The unit i am plannign on building will mostly be whatever appeals to me visually at the time but i try to keep
it playable as a force.

I will have two armys beign built side by side here.
For one i actually started a new army which is Space Marines. More specifically Alpha Legion.
They will count as both as loyalist space marines and with the later addition of some Chaos specific models also as Chaos Space Marines.
I will bot be going purely with the usual portrayal of the Alpha Legion but work in some other themes that i enjoy which are also used buy other Chapters.
Namely robes and cloaks whch i do think go very well with the stealth theme of the Alpha Legion.
The Color Scheme will also be slightly adapted which is apperently a thing the Alpha Legion fequently does to show alligence to a certain harrowmaster.
They will employ the use of white marking and armor parts to indicate ranking much in the way the ultramarines do.

Secondly we have my long time favourite army which is the Tyranid Swarm.
I played these ever since i started Warhammer and stuck with them trough all the codex Incarnations.
My own Hivefleet has gone trough many incarnations on their own but i think i finally found a color scheme i can stick with.
The army withh have an urban theme i will try to implement into the basework as good as i can.

Let's be honest noone actualyl read trough all that wall of text anyway so let's get to some pictures.


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Right now most of the models for my Alphas are being transported or still need to be ordered here so i don't have much to show for.
I do however have a slightly used Rhino Primaris / Land Raider Excelsior Kit i am working on.
I want to convert them to fit more with a pre heresy theme. Right now i am trying my hand at vehicle covnersion which for a lognterm nid player is a first.

Here you can see my first attempt at modifying the front to a style similar to the pre heresy rhino depictions.
There is only one window since this is a Primaris and i want half of the frotn to be taken up by some giant Alpha Legion Icon.
Somekstacks have been shaved off to be relaced by the iconic round ones later.
I also started on a custom dozer blade since i didn't liek the available options too much.



Another Pciture with the Dozer Blade complete. The Mechanarius Cog is not glued on. It's just to get an idea of what it looks like with some Icon on it.
It came out pretty nice in my opinion and fits the general for of the tank better than the oen that comes with the kit or the giant vindicator shovelblade.
I am not that happy witht he frontplate though and am thinking of redoing one from scratch.
Not only because it doesent appeal viasually but also because i would rather have the mounting plate for the dozer blade be seperate from the frotnplate so that
the blade could also be used by an unmodified GW rhino kit.

The To-Do List looks somewhat like this:

1) find a way to do really tiny rivets.
2) find something round in the right size to make doors from.
3) find tubes in the right size to make smokestacks from.
4) rebuild the side armor with smokestacks and build a footboard for the sides.
5) build a set of pre heresy style searchlight mounts and find transperent parts for the lamps.
6) build a new set of extension rings for the stormbolter mounts since the two you get do not fit on at the same time.
7) think about redoing the front plate from scratch again.

I really do hope this will work out an i dont have to repurpose the rhino kit as terrain in the end after it has been destroyed by too much converting (abuse).
I already effed up by magnetizing the backhatch in a way that makes it near impossible to opent he door when it's closed.
What also might be a challange is that i want to replace the Tracks with pre heresy versions which are already on the way but the original tracks were already glued in when i got this thing.
Thankfully the Primaris parts arent glued on so i can just replace the chassis if worse comes to worse.



Here on the left we got the brave color scheme tester of my reborn Hive Fleet Tiamat.
To the right is a by now ancient Mawloc head i painted years ago which is my only surviving model with the desired scheme.
The zoantrope kit is amazing for colortesting in my opinion. It has everything you mgiht want to try out. larger skin areas as well as spaceous
carapce plates accompanied by the brain secion that can be used to test the compatibility of your biomorph color. The only thing it doesn't come with is eyes and possibly
a bioweapon in case your army uses a different color for weapons as well.
I have been experimenting and repaintign the skin numerous times to get the effect right and learn hwo to do it efficiently and reliabely.
Not trying to win any awards here but i want my bugs to look good.

The skin on that zoanthrope head is lovely!

Hey there.

i haven't been able to work much on model related things recently but now i plan on getting back to my project.
Namely i have decided to build a 30k alpha Legion List first. As an added bonus and challange i will however forgo the usualmarine models and instead using exclusively ture scale models for my Legion.
Now my initial list needs 37 marines total which is quite a lot and i am also planning on expanding the force later for use in 40k games as both loyalists and heretics. So how would one go about this endeavor?
The plan is simple:

Step 1) Learn how to scupt.
Step 2) Sculpt a generic Marine armor to mold and replicate.
Step 3) Adapt the sculpt to all 7 used marks of power armor.
Step 4) Cast 37 marine conversions sets.

Later on i might or might not takle terminator armor depending on how this will work out.
Now let's get into it.



This is what i would call my proof of concept. The model measures exactly 40mm from the groudn to the top of the head.
I sacrificed anold tactical squad box to create this guy.



Comparison to a standard marine form the tactical squad.
Considering this is my first attempt at sculpting anything other than emblems and insignia i think it turned out pretty decent actually.



After refinign the sculpt I made some rubber molds for the first time most turned out ok only the leg Mold had to be canned sadly.
At this point i am still working on a Backpack and a more to scale Bolter sculpt. I would prefer to not have any GW parts used but I am not sure if i will get it to work in the end.



Here is a sample of how the finished product might look like. Onbviously the details are absent for now. i will add those only once i adapt this master to the other types for armor.
Before i go on to do that there are still some quirks to work out though. The whole thign needs some adaptions for better proportioning. The legs need some bulking while the shoulder pads coudl use a better fit to the torso and the trim on the pads will probably get a redo as well.
If you have any suggestions for changes i am open to ideas.

Progress on the truescale space marien kit.
Coming along pretty decently in my opinion.
I bulked out the legs a bit wich i think gives it a more heavy feel and makes the marine look more like the plated behemoth he's supposed to be.
The Legs are also more re-poseable now since Feet, legs and the pelvis are now all seperate parts.
Next i will be redoing the Shoulder pads with a bit more of a subtle trim since it does look pretty chunky. After that i just gotta rebuild the plastic parts showing on the backpack.
Then i will be moving on to the details and adapt the generic armor into the mark2-8 versions.