Thursday 24 January 2013

Building mecgarachnids!

Now that Wayland have finally delivered my Tyranids and Will has allowed me to decimate his bitz box I have finally been able to begin my Megarachnid force... and slice straight in to my thumb!

Ever cut your thumb and thought 'Hmm, that felt deep'? I did.
Even with this minor set back (I had taken a slice out of my other hand the day before making a roast dinner so felt like a right burke) I soldiered to produce my Truanid Prime.
Having only a vague idea of how I would construct my models I have had to rely heavily on Will's generosity to ensure I have enough bits to make my Megarachnids actually look arachnid-y (it was a very sharp bitz box with all those talons floating around). This meant I lucked into a few sets of Scything Talons from some of the larger monsters (think they were fomr the Trygon/Mawloc kit) to use for the four walking legs. I won't be using these for the Warrior unit to help differentiate the Prime from the Warriors and demonstrate that he/she/it has a better save. I also used some of the left overs from my Arachnarok kit I'm using for my Tyranofex (it's not finished converting yet so no point showing it off) to add some extra height to the model. I really liked the idea of linkinhg the model to the Horus Rising story through the use of the tree base to represent the stalk trees on Murder. 

I Really struggled to get a decent photo as the pose is cool when you can hold the model but doesn't photo well.
I had a dilema over what to do with the arms as I wanted the model to have a lash whip but the story only really has the Megarachnids armed with sword like weapons and thought it would spoil the aesthetic if I broke up the silhouette with the whip shape. Once again Will's bitz came to the rescue (stop giggling you juveniles!). The tongue from the Trygon seemed to work as a type of snare like weapon to catch it's prey and pull it in and I can always use it as flesh hooks/no upgarde if need be in the future.  

All that is left to do now is the rest the green stuffing all the other units! 
My final dilemma was how to make boneswords that I liled the look of. There were two main reasons I decided to not use the GW ones. Firstly they are £12 for three sets and I need six which to me just seemed like a lot of money for an upgrade that should have come in the box! Secondly (and more importantly) I really don't like the look of them for the Megarachnids. I think they are functional for the Tyranid army but they look too much like someone has just glued a Chaos Warrior sword to a Tyranid arm to feel like they have grown organically. So I decided to use the smaller scything talons in the bitz box for the lower weapons and reverse the angle of the upper set and shave the square edges off of the blades to give them more of a sword like feel.

Over all I'm really pleased with the way the Prime has come out. The Warriors won't be as visually impressive but that is intentional. Somehow I now need to take the legs form the Goblin spiders and fix them to the Gargoyles with it looking ridiculous, whilst also converting the guns to be part of the mouth and keep with the visual theme of the Warriors. Oh and the colour scheme mentioned in the novel was grey bodies with a bone armour plating, that is going to be a tricky one to pull off. I'll keep you updated!

2 comments:

  1. ouch, made me wince just thinking about that :P

    shame theres not a bigger pic of that prime, looks sweet so far.
    what are you thinking for the army colours?

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  2. Tried getting a closer shot but yhe flash killed the detail. I was planning on using the Grey/Bone described in the book but am not convinced so will research spiders and see which takes my fancy. I hoping to use mainly washes for the bodies and simple highlights for the armour to give me time to enjoy painting the giant spider!

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