Space...it seems to go on forever. [BFG]

[Shortsonfire79]

Hello Warseer, I'd like to present you with my Imperial Navy fleet. I've yet to write any stories about it besides some Solar Admiral stuff, but I'll write fleet fiction in due time. Majority of the stuff I'd like to show you now is already finished, but with the 10 picture limit, I'll have to ration my first few posts. I'm trying to catch up with a three year long plog...not like I was productive all three years, but its still an old one.

I'll start off with my flagship. She was previously named The Glory and bristles with various forms of weaponry. It is a combination of a bunch of parts from a Retribution Battleship, a Space Marine Battlebarge, two Space Marine cruisers, and a bunch of little weapons from Chaos cruisers. The first few pictures are of it in the works in progress, and the final two are complete, the last being a scale shot. You'll see those three ships in the near future.








Thanks for looking, hopefully this thread will take off and I'll be able to show off all of my BFG!

[Dr Zoidberg]

And then you get to the end and a monkey starts throwing barrels at you.

That is a fantastic flagship mate. Love the size, profile, colour, the whole thing. What you expect an Imperial flagship to be like.

[GlenMorray]

And then you get to the end and it's Keyser Söze!

Really impressive man, that's a big freekin ship!

[Shortsonfire79]

And then you get to the end and a monkey starts throwing barrels at you.

That is a fantastic flagship mate. Love the size, profile, colour, the whole thing. What you expect an Imperial flagship to be like.

And thats how you play the game. You stink, loser!
Good doctor, you definitely made my day, the first to get my thread reference! And thank you for the compliments on the ship.

GlenMorray, thank you for the kind comments. Though I dont' understand your reference even after Googling it. XD

I also made a modular support ship. This will be cast once I think that all the parts are perfect. I'm not satisfied with the troop transport so that'll need work before I pour the silicone.
Size shot.

Armed Freighter

Escort Carrier

Fuel Transport

Troop Transport This one could use a bit more work. I'm still debating on it.



I think I should be able to get the rest of the fleet into one or two more posts. Thanks for looking.

[Student]

I really like your flagship and the support craft id looking good.

[Shortsonfire79]

Thank you.

A couple of Rogue Trader ships. One is a frigate one is a 'grand cruiser' that I made out of a chaos cruiser. It lacks detail but its alright for now.



An Inquisitorial Black ship.


And this is my most recent model (finished June 6th 2012). I finished the Catalyst class battleship (Yet to be named) and it is now at the same standard as the rest of the fleet. This ship for points and rules sake will be counted as an Emperor class battleship. I started this sometime before May of 2011, and it took a full year for it to be completed...


And if you remember this drifting hulk (wow, look at my old Apple G4!):
[/color]

how it'll look on a stand

I scrapped it and turned it into two Overlord class cruisers. I was tempted to make one a Tyrant class, just to mix things up (and its cheaper) but I opted against it. :P You may also notice that they don't have the traditional IN bridges... I couldn't find them. I assume that one of the bridges went to the =][= Blackship and the other is the forward command center of the Catalyst class battleship. That is okay though, I like the way that these will be slightly different than the rest, possibly coming from a different Forgeworld or something.


I'll try and get a fleet shot in once I finish the next 3 cruisers. I hope to find some spare cash to pick up a couple more and maybe even a Dauntless light cruiser or two sometime soon. Thanks for looking.

[Apothecarian]

That is an amazing flagship. Worthy of any Imperial Navy. Kudos to you and I hope you continue to make these amazing battleships!

[El_Machinae]

Wow, I really like the look of that Catalyst-class (finished June 6th). That oozes Imperial might.

[yabbadabba]

That is fantastic. Well done mate.

[Shortsonfire79]

Apothecarian, thank you so much! The short fluff I wrote says that there should be 15 of them...so I have a long road ahead of me.
El_Machinae, thank you kindly! I really like the lance batteries above the hangers, I think they add some extra bulk and height to a very slim model.
Yabbadabba, thank you sir!

I was lieing in bed Wednesday reading Lexicanum and the BFGwiki and stumbled upon this blurb of text:

These [battleship] ships are superseded by the even larger pre-Age of Strife advanced superships that are reserved for larger combat or exterminatus missions. Such ships are similar to the huge space forts, planetary sized battle-hulks, and doomsday bastions yet are far more mobile and capable of fighting like standard battlefleets. They are mustered in far greater numbers and utilize battleship sized escorts as part of far more powerful Devastation Blockades and Sentinal Forces, which routinely crush Hive fleets or Chaos daemonworlds, or guard dangerous powers on quarantined worlds. The most powerful ships are kept totally in secret shipyard-crypts such as the Caelan Class Sunderer vessel (rumored to be able to fire and anhilatate any target in any time or location, far too powerful to used except by the Emperor Himself) and other powerful doomsday-class voidships.

I really liked the idea of my fleet with its OP battleships being docked at an unlisted Imperial fortress-world ready to defend some segmentae from another massed Tyranid invasion. I figured I could write some fluff for this that one or two people would read, or I could make a model depicting what my fleet has done, and how they lost one of their battleships. (I had been wanting to make a decrepit hulk anyways) This also gave me the opportunity to make a Nid ship or two as well...

So I started the June competition after an hour nap on Thursday... (this is 2AM when I woke up...)


And two hours later I had finished the main battleship hull assembly.

After talking with Raxxus and Sachiel in the Skype chat I got the second part of the competition piece 'fleshed out'. The armature is tinfoil that was dipped in resin. Initially it looked a little like a bent space-poop, so I gave it a bulbous butt to give it more of a hive ship/breeding sack kind of feel.

The idea is to have the Nid ship smashing into the Retribution and snapping it in half like the first picture above, from the Battlefleet_Bakka.pdf with clusters of tendrils breaching the hull and ripping panels off the ship. I definitely want some tendrils breaking the figurehead off.


I've also been taking the time to make as many tentacles as I could. I figured that it'd be well fitting to my heritage. I've also started making fangs to replicate the Kraken mouth from Pirates of the Carribbean. This picture also shows the direction I want to go with the sculpting on the resin body. I took a lot of ideas from the Forgeworld Meiotic spore sacks. I really liked the brain look to the models so I plan on going with a lot of the veins and exhaust things. I also like the idea of the matter sacks and feeder tendrils so those will go in there. I'm going to add 5 chitin plates on top and 3 brain-holes on the side to replicate the 40k models. I'm also contemplating adding 6 legs, wings, or appendages to also follow the theme though they may not fit quite well, in space. The 3 large tentacles will have chitin plates as well replicating those on the lictor. I'll also be using Digit's tutorial on explosions for where the hull breaches are.



While digging for any Tyranid bits I had, any at all, I found a single untouched metal lictor and a built warrior... whoopee. But while digging in my bitz box, I did manage to find four full Imperial cruisers and two full Chaos cruisers!! Sweet! I also started work on the Armageddon cruiser (the one without the prow) and I made a Tie Interceptor and Tie Defender. The wings were ridiculously difficult to work with and I'm not 100% pleased. It'll do for now though.


On the yellow sheet of paper, you can see a six classes of Imperial cruisers listed. I'll be using the four cruisers I found to make those (already have a Armageddon and a Gothic) and I'll only need another pack of Sword frigates and I'll have a 1450 fleet. I am pretty certain that this fleet is legal since I found it on Warseer and made by Vaaish, an avid BFGer.

Let me know of what you think of the Nid ship! Thanks all.

[eutambem]

looking good. the snaping cruiser is an awsome idea. we all seen it in the books, but i think you are actually the first modelling it.
about all the ideas of semblance to the actual tyranid land organisms, i believe you are taking a wrong turn. a ship (or rather a space organism) should have very different features from infantry. I remember seeing a image of a tyranid ship that resembled a nautilus ( a deep ocean animal) i think it was from the boardgame 'tyranid attack' rulebook.
Anyway, search the net for weird ocean creatures and draw some inspiration. i hope i helped. keep it up.

[Shortsonfire79]

Thank you Eutambem. I guess you mean these two pictures? These were used in my general ship design. I wasn't really a fan of the round shape of the ammonite shell so I went with a slug-like shape with a spider's thorax. You're probably right in saying that space ships probably wouldn't resemble the infantry, but I really wanted people to feel the Tyranid theme with the armor plates, six legs, and three head holes. Without them, one might think that it was a Slaanesh model, with the tentacles and all.



So I've been doing a lot of work for the competition, but I figured I should quickly paint up the two cruisers that I had presented last time. So I just spent some time finishing them up. I learned that the bases don't accept hand paint too well, so when I spray the comp I'll do the bases too.


And heres how the competition piece is sitting so far. Waiting for the current batch of greenstuff to harden so I can move on. The brain-veins will have smaller veins branching off once I figure out how to sculpt them, they'll also extend into the carapace to add a look of continuity. The remaining three carapace pieces require greenstuff, and the main head piece will post likely be fully sculpted so that I can make it overhang the mouth part. I'm really not too pleased with the PotC Kraken mouth as of yet, and I may rip it off and resculpt it like the Leviathan from the Avengers. Currently though, I'm not too worried since it'll be mostly covered in explosions anyways. The 3 main tentacles will be added after the 4th plate is done. Where I had planned to have one of the main tentacles to go has ended up being in the place where the 4th/5th carapace plates meet, so I may either have them split or have some sort of joining piece there. The 3 face-vents will be sculpted after the main tentacles are added.




Thanks for looking.

[eutambem]

yes, thats the pictures i refered to. seeing them again made me realize they are realy far from the current GW tyranid ship design. but i still think there must be a realy good excuse for a ship to have legs or ears. anyway i can see what you are aiming to achieve and i like it very much. your green stuff work is great.

[Promethius]

I just want to say that I love bfg and this log is pure win. Please have a win certificate.

[Ghaust Mortium]

Am I the only person that noticed on the yellow sketch, you wrote space dick tenticle monster?

[New Cult King]

I love BFG plogs, and I love, love, love this one. Amazing work!

*continues to drool*

[constant_ones]

I always wanted to get into bfg, a bunch of friends bought it in high school but it was towards the end so other activities took priority, your modeling looks really great, especially working at such a small scale. Really love the movement you captured in the crushed ship and the maw of the big bug. If I could offer a suggestion? Maybe throw some of the claws from the new bugs into the maw, just so you get some really sharp looking teeth in there as well

[AlexCrute]

Woooooooooooow

[Shortsonfire79]

Eutabem: Thanks, I do agree that the legs are a bit off. I initially wanted wings (indicating maybe that the ship used them to propel themselves with solar winds or something like that) but they wouldn't have fit the size or design.
Promethius, New Cult King, and Alex Crute, thank you kindly!
Ghaust Mortem: Indeed you were. I laughed for quite a while off your comment!!!
Constant_Ones: Thank you very much! Too bad your mates never got into the game, I myself have never played it either. The claws you speak of, do you mean pieces like the teeth of the Trygon or something? I've actually yet to see any of those newer models, though I really wouldn't mind having a few. And its cool to see you're from/in Davis! I'm down in Concord (east of SF) and I hope to transfer to UCD within the year.

Finally finished the first Lunar class cruiser. Took a while to sort out the prow since I some time ago snipped it off...I guess... I also assembled the four discovered cruisers as well. Two Armageddons and two Dictators. I'm one Lunar and three Sword frigates away from a playable 1500 fleet list.



This was a post from Warseer that I couldn't get enough laughs out of. I'm sure Lewis will get the same enjoyment.


I also worked on the tentacle plates. I'm not entirely too pleased with them but they were really difficult to do near the tips so I just left them as is.


And I'm almost done with the most difficult part of the sculpt: The head chitin plate. I had no idea of how I wanted to work it and I think the way it finally turned out is suitable enough for what I wanted. Once this third layer of greenstuff (for that single plate) hardens, I'll sculpt some stuff around the third tentacle similar to that of the Barbed Hierodule. I will also add 1-2 longer plates on the tentacles near the body as well. The 3 exhaust points near the head will probably be sculpted last. I'm dryfitting the rest of the tentacles as well, thats an interesting situation, I may need to make another 30+ tendrils for what I want to execute.


What I'm also really pleased with is the fact that the body of this thing is about the length of an IN cruiser, so not oversized (in my opinion) at all! It does seem to have more mass (fat butt) but I don't think its overly large.


My sister and I also bought my father an air compressor and nailgun, so I'm tempted to purchase an airbrush to give these black bases a bit of a theme, maybe some nebulae or something.
Thanks for looking guys.

[eutambem]

wings would be better than legs, i think. wait, what about fins? folded fins since the creature is attacking, it would retract his 'sails' but you could keep the tyranid feel sculpting a crossbreed of legs/fins/wings. give it a thought. with your sculpting skills i pretty sure you can pull it off.
the tentacles are awsome. i wish GW could have made them like so. way better than the bony look of the BFG tyranid cruiser.
this log is really warming up! all ahead full!!!!