Hive Fleet Mammoth

[nuklearangel]

Hi everyone! I've been a long time lurker here on Warseer, and finally decided to start a log on my favorite army, the Tyranids. I've been collecting this army on and off for about 5 years, and have amassed a fair amount of painted models. I still have a fair few minatures to finish up though, and gaps to fill in my lists, meaning a bit of sculpting is in order. I've been a little slack on the miniatures front lately, so a log here should give me the push to finish off my merry little bugs.

So to start off I figure I might as well show you what I have already completed. I'm sure a load of pics will not go astray!

First up, is my Tyranid Prime and some Warriors. After the latest codex came out, I had to retool my warriors, and I decided to try out magnets. I ripped the arms off of 3 of my old ones, and a crumby plastic lictor conversion I had done in ages past became the basis for the prime. I have yet to make other weapon loadouts for this squad, but that's okay, I like them as is, even if I don't use them that much at the moment.



Next up is my Tyrant. Like the warriors, his old weapon loadout of venom cannon and barbed strangler was no longer legal, so I ripped the arms off and magnetized some new ones. He can choose from lashwhip/bonesword, brainleech devourers and talons.



Ah my first conversion ever for my army. Well before 5th ed and true line of sight my massive Flyrant graced the battlefield many times, carving a swathe through all biomass opposing him! But alas, though he looks imposing, he is far too easy to pick out to snipe, even with a gargoyle screen. I might remodel him to stand on his base at some point, we'll see. I also have to fix one of his toe talons. He'll live though.



Here's some converted Hiveguard. I had extra warriors laying about, and rather then let them gather dust I decided to make myself some of the ever handy Hiveguard. I'm pretty happy with the result, I think I need to make another squad of 3 for more impaling action!



More pics coming up!

[nuklearangel]

And to continue...

Another casualty of the true line of sight rules, this massive fex certainly doesn't see that much table time these days. I had a blast converting him though, and I reckon I could use him as old one eye if I ever get the whim.



Thankfully I had magnetised his torso for ease of transportation, so with a bit of sculpting and by tearing his arms off and magnetising them, I give the big 'un a new lease on life! I'd always wanted to sculpt a trygon, but using the torso meant I only had to do half the job. Made an extra set of scytals, and he was good to go. Also a pic of him with my regular Trygon. He is a little shorter, but still huge.



And a few more of my Trygon.



Rounding out the big stuff for now are my two Tervigons. Re-engineered from my old sniperfexes, they are a fair bit larger then your standard fex. If I were to make them again, I'd bulk out the waist and back end a lot more, but for now they are serving me well.

[nuklearangel]

To round out my first set of posts here are a few shots of the smaller critters.

The ever trusty Zoanthropes. I also have two of the older skinny ones, once I rebase them from my horrid old goblin green/astroturf flock bases I'll post them.



And finally some shots of my Genestealers, Devourergaunts and Hormagaunts. I have some more 'stealers in the process of rebasing too, as well as a load of Termagants.





You might notice some small differences in paint on some of my critters. Some of them were painted way back when I started the army years ago, and some are a lot newer, the differences arn't enough to detract from the swarm as a whole though I reckon, so I'm in no rush to make them all identical. Maybe one day! That's all for now, I have several things on my work bench though, including painting my sculpted Tyrannofex. Ah, here is a quick pic of him to whet your appetites.



Hope you enjoyed the pics, and I'll be sure to post some more soon. Thanks for looking!

[TheConverter15]

You sir are a MASTER sculptor! The Tyrannofex and the upright Carnifex are my favourites, well painted too!

[nuklearangel]

Thanks for the kind words Converter15, I do enjoy greenstuffing a lot but certainly have a lot of room for improvement! Fine sharp details still are quite a challenge for me. Gotta keep at it though!

I spent a good part of today slapping some paint on the Tfex. Due to his large size I figured I would give this beast a little more detail then I usually do. Making the most of the (many) imperfections in the sculpt, I left them dark and painted around a lot of them with a thin line of blazing orange. I don't usually use much orange as a final highlight, but I feel it added some interesting textures to the otherwise fairly flat model. I also added the orange spots to his tail and shoulders to break up the areas. What do you guys think?



I'm pretty much done with the red parts, next up is painting the squishie bits a fleshy purple and then claws and carapace. I think I'll do the gun the same squishie flesh colour too. But that's for tomorrow!

[Nicho]

Awesome

[Ixajin]

Most impressive! I like the color scheme, and while you say the differences between the older models and newer ones are noticeable, I didn't notice a difference. Also, a little variation is a good thing in my opinion.

[nuklearangel]

Thank you Nicho and Ixajin. I agree the small differences don't matter too much, biodiversity is the Tyranid way after all!

I spent yesterday afternoon and this morning finishing up my Tyrannofex. Pretty pleased with it, although I'm not totally sold on the gun's colour, maybe its still a bit too bright pink? I thought about maybe adding an Ogryn Flesh wash to it, but decided to finish it up first. I can always modify it a bit later. A couple of touch ups on the base need to be done too, by the beasts feet, there is a little bit of a gap since I didnt sculpt the feet perfectly flat bottomed. No worries! Anyway, enough talk, here are the pics! Enjoy.







So what now? Well I have some rebasing to do, and I have the head of a doom conversion that has been chilling out in my bits box for a looooong time, so maybe its time to finish that. And I have some plans to make a Mycetic Spore too. Until next time!

[robscott5598]

Hey there, after your comments on my PBlog about my nids I decided to follow you back here and take a look, and boy am I glad i did!

Your painting is good, but your sculpting is better. I can't sculpt worth a damn, so you may think your stuff has imperfections, but I think it rocks. That Tyrannofex is quite the accomplishment!

I'm really looking foward to seeing your take on the Doom & the spores as well. Keep up the good work.

[isotope99]

One of the best Tyrannofexes I have seen. I personally would have added some armour to the tail, but still great

[robscott5598]

Really love the painting of the head carapace on that Zoanthrope, really looks menacing and draws your eyes to that viscious tiny mouth.

Your Fly-rant is awesome. Are those the old High Elf Dragon wings I see there?
Well modeled, menacing action pose, nice paint, dynamic base. You hit all the right buttons there and I think he's just too impressive to leave unused. You should make a new pose where he is actually hiding behind that rubbel and can use it to block line of sight as he moves foward. Or worst case scenario let me take him off your hands and give him a good home

Your conversions are excellent, I like the lash whips on your warriors, ect....But I'm most impressed with the fact that you sculpted the fleshy areas under the Tyranofex's tail plates. It's the great attention to minor detail and character, and something that if I were ever foolish enough to try making one, I would totally forget.....really great.

I don't understand how both the Tervigon and Tyranofex are almost necessary to even compete nowadays with a 'Nid army and yet both have zero representation as either models by GW or Forge World, and no offical "Bitz" were ever even suggested for either model.

There is all kinds of controversy at my local Gw store any time someone uses one or tries to proxy a fex with modifications as a Tyronofex. Then there's the great base size debate.....

I mean what does GW do? They sell models, that's their deal. And yet they make a new codex with an essential listed battle force choice which has never received ANY representation?!?!?! I guess they were too busy moving on to yet another update to Space Marines and Orks that sell in the millions, 'Nid players are probably lucky we even got a newer codex in the last 5 years.

Anyways, your solution to the problem is quite inspiring I must say. Thanks for sharing! Now, lets see those spores! I'm thinking of trying my own but love to steal good ideas from likeminded fellow Hive Minds before putting scalpel to plastic!

[nuklearangel]

Thanks a lot Robbscott! I agree it is a bit of a pain having no official Tyrannofex model, but then I'd have had no reason to scratch build one!

Isotope99 - I was orginally going to fully armour the tail, the Tyrannofex has a 2+ save after all, but I ended up kind of messing up the back carapace, and it was hard to get plates to mesh correctly for the tail. So I just made it plain. One of the drawbacks of sculpting without any plan!

So I have been working on a couple of things the last few days, first of which is the Doom of Malantai. The head had been bobbing around my bitz box forever, so I had to do something with it. I ended up taking off the lower jaw and adding a lot of tentacles, and sticking it onto a ravener body, which seemed to be a good size. I wasn't sure what to do about the arms, at first I was going to just give it a bunch of little scytalons, but after a though I used the psychic focussy bits from the mawlock. Even more vestigal then little talons, after all the Doom doesnt need to hit things at all! What do you guys think? There is still a little work to be done, it still needs a neck and some more detail on the head, and the arms integrated a little better, and of course a base.



The other thing I've been working on is a Broodlord. Here is a teaser of my progress thus far. Cut up a regular stealer and let the supersizing commence! He'll eventually have a leaping pose, but since the preliminary greenstuff is still soft hes in bits at the moment.



Enjoy and thanks for looking!

[nuklearangel]

So I was a busy beaver last night, working on my Broodlord. He isn't quite finished, but getting pretty close. I have some smoothing to do on the legs, and have to model in a waist, attach the head and fix a couple of small spots here and there. I very lightly glued the arms to show the final posing. Some shots with a stealer for scale. I reckon he certainly looks big enough! He's not quite as buff as the metal Broodlord, but still easily recognizable as more then your average Stealer. I wonder if I should add the extra armour shoulder pieces, and am also thinking of enlarging the bulbous back of the head, just to differ it a little more from the normal head.



Hope ya like!

[nuklearangel]

Hello fellow Warseerers! I got around to slapping some paint on ol' broody, probably took about 5 hours or so total, maybe a little quicker. I'm quite happy with him, I reckon I might even make another one. I have the metal one as well, with a couple of coats of red on him so far, plus another crazy old conversion that is kind of subpar, so I can definitely start overloading on the stealershock. Anyway, enough waffle, here's the eye candy! Enjoy!



I'll finish painting the metal broodlord and the Doom next.

[the damned artificer]

Just stumbled over your thread, and I love it Nids really doesn't get my attention very often, only when I stumble on one with some sweet as hell conversions which yours have ;D
I love the giant carnifex, it is so cool!! And even though he is a pain in regards of true line of sight, he just might pull the attention away from some of your other units as your opponent focus way too much firepower on the bigashell carnifex, which gives you the chance to get in close This is actually a real tactic deployed by some players, especially peeps with true scale sm armies as they just looks terrifyingly big compared to ordinary sm models

[AtmanAbecedarian]

I haven't liked Nids this much since I first saw Navarro's Biodiversity project. Excellent greenstuffing and painting all around. I like everything, especially the Doom. He reminds me of Cthulhu in all the right ways. I also have to say that your scratch built Broodlord is much better than GWs. He screams big nasty Genestealer all over.
My hat is off to you

[Nicho]

Dude nice broodlord

[harlekin]

Really cool conversions and painting in here!

The Broodlord looks fine, I'm espescially amazed by the tentaclehead (not just sausages, but reduced tips!) and it's pose, cuz the whole stealer model is a bit flimsy to handle, imho. I at least have some difficulties.

Another thing I really like is the unique look of the tyrannofex. I know kit bashing can look really nice, but I rather like the feeling like "ah, I don't know this thing, but it has a big gun - that must be tyrannofex!" and not "well it's obviously a mix of trygon and carnifex parts with many Nid-guns - a tyrannofex for sure!"

Many words for a short message: +1 fors selfsculpted! (Though my version will fall into the second category^^).

[Dantanian Bune]

Really good painting especially love the way you`ve done the carapace on the models, great conversions and amazing sculpting with the Tyrannofex. The broodlord looks great it has that stalker-ish vibe.

[Morthai]

I love your tyrannofex. Wonderful sculpt. Somehow it reminds me of shark (the head area and shape of back carapace "fins").
I also like the old school "screamer" type fex conversion. Cheers