Progress - Hive Tyrant

So I said that I was going to work on ten Genestealers next, but was totally distracted by my poor smashed up Hive Tyrant. A week later and I've nursed him back to health. Behold Stavros McStabberson, the Bane of Galashiels! Hmm... actually I'm still working on a name.

Next up I'm going to try and do those stealers, but I can't guarantee I won't get sidetracked onto something more fun. Sorry there was no analysis article this weekend, I'm planning to do one this week, I was pretty busy with a BBQ festival and getting this chap finished.

Let me know what you think in the comments. Thanks for reading!

Aniversary Post - Waaaagh Badstak!!!

Today is my fourth wedding anniversary and a month or so ago my wife and I began our 10th year together. To mark the occasion here are some pictures of Badstak's Funguyz, the beginning of my wifes Ork army! Amazingly these are the first models that she's painted and I think they look great.

To my wife: Thanks for putting up with my intense nerdiness for so long and here's to many more happy years.

Modelling - Tyrannid Shrike Conversion with Insect Wings - Part 1

Extra mobility on synapse creatures is super useful, you could use them to patch up holes in your synapse network or quickly allow your force to split. As a result, Tyrannid Shrikes seem like a no brainer then, but unfortunately I'm not a massive fan of some of the easier conversion methods or the forgeworld conversion kit. My main problem is that I don't like bat type wings on Tyrannids (except maybe on Gargoyles at a push) because I see them as more insect like. This is definitely due to my big brothers continuing enthusiasm to recreate Starship Trooper (the movie) on the tabletop with Guard vs Nids.

I have a few warriors around that need to be repainted so I decided to convert them into shrikes with beetle like wings. I really like the idea of have fore wings like the back of a beetle that flip up to expose the actual wings underneath like in the reference image. When you actually see beetle in flight the fore wings sit quite high up out of the path of the actual wings. To recreate this effect I opened up the back carapace of a warrior and added wings. This is how it turned out:

The wings were made by stretching greenstuff over a wire frame, they're not totally finished yet as they need a bit of sanding and carving underneath still.

I made bone swords out of some scything talons. I had a quandary with the armaments for him as I would have preferred a smaller gun, maybe a devourer. Unfortunately, the deathspitter just roundly trounces the devourer and only costs 5 pts.

I tried to make it look like it was in the process of landing, after a suggestion by my wife.

I sculpted soft fleshy parts that are normally covered by the carapace. They're half inspired by crabs gills. Also, as shrikes have a lower save than warriors this large unarmoured region could account for that.

The wings are part beetle and part moth inspired. I'll try and paint them quite elaborately.

Here you can see the opened carapace clearly.

I wanted to post some pictures before it was painted so people could see how it was put together. It's not totally finished modelling wise, I need to sand a lot of the GS down but I'm looking forward to painting him. I'm planning to convert up at least another 2, so I'll do a nice clear step-by-step at some point in the near future.

Hope you all like it and thanks for reading!