Converted Tyranid Tyrannofex - #Gunbeast4

In case you're not familiar with my past work on Tyranids, it could be said that I've got a THING for big, beefy Tyranids, and for Tyranid gunbeasts. So it should come as no surprise that my most recent Tyranid project consisted of marrying those two interest into a BIG BEEFY GUNBEAST!

As this is the fourth gunbeast I've made after my Exocrine, Dactylis, and upscaled Dactylis, I decided to organize my posts about the project under #Gunbeast4. 

When Life Hands You Lemons

It all started with me learning the hard way that, if a deal on the internet for a model kit seems too good to be true, IT LIKELY IS. 

I got what I thought were two Tervigon kits for a STEAL of a price...only to find out it was the seller who'd stolen from me when what I received in the mail were two shitty, chinacast recast of a Games Workshop Tervigon kit.

Sculpting a Krootox (hobby stream)

 

This week on the #WIPWednesday sculpting stream, I finally got back to work on the Krootox I started back in Kitbashember of 2018. There's a lot of blathering in here, but, eventually, I get to some actual sculpting on the big boy for #Krootoberfest.

Dr Tabletop Drop Top Review (hobby stream)

 For this week's WIP Wednesday hobby stream, I start off with a review of the Dr. Tabletop Drop Top, which was created as part of a kickstarter to convert citadel paint pots into dropper bottles. As a long-time proponent of transferring my citadel paint to dropper bottles, I was interested to see how these new Drop Tops would measure up to the old standard of just transferring paint, both in terms of ease of use and cost.

Once I get through messing around with that on the video, I get to more sculpting on my #DominaNid3 Tyranid Dominatrix project, doing some more work on one of its arms.

Sculpting Live Streams on YouTube

For anyone who is still tuned in to the ol' bloggerino:

Thank you.
And I'm sorry.

Thank you for keeping on keeping subscribed to this blog and for checking in on it regularly. 

And I'm sorry I'm not as good at keeping it up to date as I may like. As captured well in the recent Between the Bolter and Me stream/podcast episode, hobby blogs may have a bit of dust on them these days, but they're still super valuable records/repositories for hobby content. 

The challenge is that, like hobby forums of yesterday, they don't always make it super easy to share content as fluidly as social media does :(

Therefore, if you're ever wondering what I'm up to, the most up to date source will always be my Instagram (and you can check it even if you don't have an instagram account...though the sneaky buggers may force you to sign up to expand a post >:P).

However, I've also gotten a lot more active on my YouTube channel recently, having made my first forays into hobby streaming. I didn't think it would be interesting for folks to just watch me sculpt. Apparently, I was wrong.

So it's now the case that I've gotten into the habit of doing a live hobby stream on YouTube every Wednesday night, around 8 pm / 20:00 EDT. However, I know that's not always ideal for people in other parts of the world, so I'll work at also doing streams on weekends or at other times when more folks can join. 

The best place to find updates on that kind of stuff is the community page of my YouTube Channel. If you were to check that now, you'd find that I've got a stream coming up this Tuesday, September 15th at 2:30pm / 14:30 EDT, or 19:30 GMT. 

Even if you miss the live stream, I archive the videos of each stream, and I've embedded the Hobby Stream playlist above. Though there's a goodly amount of random chatter with the folks commenting, the videos are good opportunities to learn to sculpt things. For example, on the most recent stream, I showed how to sculpt hakama / pleated pants, and quick and dirty hoods:

Here's hoping you'll be able to join one of the streams!

Sculpting Brains & Eyes: Tyranid enhanced senses (Project Gunbeast)

Next up on was tackling the creature's head. This Tyrannofex is going to be carting around some huge armour plates on its forearms to protect from incoming fire. One of the most important things it is protecting is its targeting array, which I wanted to make look like the organic, Tyranid equivalent of a satellite dish. The head is heavily armoured, but when those armour plates "bloom" open, they reveal all manner of eyes, scent pits, and even hyper sensitive brain matter.

Basically, a horror show of senses meant to detect any and all targets, across a number of wavelengths and spectra.

And I did it all in one go! And you can watch the results below:

Sculpting Tyranid Weapons - Armour plates on a biocannon (Project Gunbeast)

I've got another video of me working on Project Gunbeast for you (two in one week! Must be on vacation!), still working on the creature's biocannons. This time I'm adding the armour plates to the top, largest cannon, and I try to sculpt them all in one go.

Once again, this creature is meant to represent a Tyrannofex, borrowing heavily from my own Tyranid Exocrine and Dactylis designs.

Sculpting Tyranid Weapons: Bio-Cannons on a Tyrannofex (Project Gunbeast)

Here's some progress on a Tyranid project I've been working on in the background. Years ago I found a KILLER deal on two Tyrannofexes on eBay. It was cheap enough to seem too good to be true, and when they arrived, it turned out it WAS too good to be true.

Alas. Chinacast.

I was so frustrated at how I'd been duped that I burried the models in the bottom of my Tyranid bin and forgot about them. 

Until this year, when I stumbled across them, and resolved to get my revenge on the chinacaster by turning one of them into a badass Tyranid gunbeast. I'm referring to this as Project Gunbeast. On paper, this bad boy is going to rep a Tyrannofex, but you'll find that my design borrows heavily from my previous Tyranid Exocrine and Dactylis designs--particularly the idea of it being a mobile Tyranid gun emplacement that carries its own fortifications around with it!

Anyway, in this livestream I do some detailing on the Gunbeast's back-mounted biocannons.

Project #DominaNid3: Sculpting legs on a Tyranid Dominatrix

In my next adventure in livestream sculpting, I take on one of the legs for the #DominaNid3 Tyranid Dominatrix conversion, trying to make a leg big and stompy enough to match the stompy feet I had already planned.

Xenos Alchemist bonus episode: Vestigial Twin

Back before Brother Pink and I came up with the Xenos Alchemist podcast, we were experimenting with what a recorded program would be like, and what we'd talk about. Those experiments resulted in this: the Proto Tyranid to Xenos Alchemist's fully-formed plastic Tyranid Warrior.

At the time, we called it "Vestigial Twin."

So, as we're busily working away on our next episode of the proper Xenos Alchemist podcast, we thought we'd share this blast from the past with you to tide you over until the next proper episode of XA drops (we'll try for a week today). And I promise that we'll make the wait worth it with double the content...whatever that means!

Until then, enjoy this. It's mostly just Brother Pink and I shooting the shit, mostly talking about sculpting and various materials. Since it's a proto-cast, the sound quality is not stellar, so consider yourself warned!

ALSO! If you actually read this far, I figured I should check if anyone who's been listening to the podcast has any questions or topics they'd like to suggest for us to cover on the air? If so, you can share them in the comment below or email them to modernsynthesist__at___gmail__dot___com.

The return of Xenos Alchemist - Interviewing The Hydra / Simon Schnitzler

Well, it's been a bloody long time since Brother Pink and I put out our previous episode of our fledgling Xenos Alchemist podcast. However, now that I've restarted all the cogitators, re-established our link to the Hive Mind, and moved us off Soundcloud, I'm looking forward to doing a lot more of these. But first: let's clear the backlog of episodes Brother Pink had already produced before we went off the air.

No better way to mark our triumphant return than with an interview with Simon Schnitzler, one of my hobby heroes who is probably better known as Hydra over on his website H Archive, or as 4ydra over on Instagram. Simon and I met way back in 2006, and our friendship has blossomed well beyond the hobby in years since. Still, he remains one of the most prodigious builders of Tyranids I've ever seen, and his hobby brilliance has been rewarded with several Golden Demons.

Though this interview was meant to be about sculpting, we do a fair bit of digging through Simon's hobby history, and also wind up reflecting on our collective love for 90s action figures. Here's the episode for your listening pleasure:

...and if you've been subscribed to the blog for a while now, I wanted to point out that we've shifted our host from Soundcloud to Buzzsprout. Buzzsprout assures me that their system handled this seamlessly, and that anyone who was subscribed to us before should still be subscribed to us now. However, if you wanted to find us on Buzzsprout, you could do that here.

And, as we're dusting off our podcasting muscles, please let us know in the comments below if there are certain topics that you'd like to see Xenos Alchemist take on in podcast form.

Tyranid Broodlord Genestealer Patriarch Conversion - Nyarlathotep

I can't say no to a commission that involves creating a horrible monster. Ostensibly, this one was meant to be a big Tyranid beastie: either a Broodlord or a patriarch for a Genestealer brood that had taken a decidedly Eldrict turn somewhere along the way.

However it could just as easily be any kind of horrible chaos demon.

Usually clients allow me a lot of freedom when developing the design for the beasties they ask me to build for them. This client, however, was pretty exacting about keeping the design very close to the source material, which was this Yugioh card for Lovecraft fan favorite: NYARLATHOTEP!

HORAY TENTACLES! IA! IA! FTHANG R'LEH! 

AHEM.

To say I was thrilled by the challenge would be an understatement. Not only did I get to give flesh to an ancient horror, I got to do it in the service of the Hive Mind!

Old Strains: Genoproject and the Genestealer Hybrids

Or, "How I once converted a Eldar Genestealer and Ork Genestealer"

What feels like a thousand years ago, the revised plastic Genestealer kit released to much fanfare. However, that fanfare was pretty negative as this was the early days of the Internet, and the advance photo of the new plastic Genestealer that leaked was taken from the front, the with crumby, potato phone camera pointed right up its nose!

Thus began Stealergate: the controversy of the entire 40k community panning the new genestealer models before they were even released for having giant nostrils, and Jes Goodwin swearing off the online community for them having prejudged a model they hadn't even seen yet.

So, when the new plastic Genestealers finally released in the Battle for Macragge they did so under a bit of a pall. However, there was a group of us Tyranid hobbyist who couldn't be dissuaded by net negativity. We appointed ourselves Goodwin's Army, and we decided that we would embark on a project to show what the plastic Genestealer was really capable of!

Or at least I think that's how we started. Regardless, the Genoproject was born!

How To Sculpt Organic Armour - How to Sculpt Miniatures Episode 7

I've been dragging my heels on this one for more than a little while, but I'm happy to announce that my next full-length How to Sculpt video is live on my YouTube Channel!

This one focuses on sculpting organic armour, of the type most commonly seen on Tyranids. However, in this video I also detail how the process for sculpting Dark Eldar armour plates is essentially the same. I also do the whole sculpt big, then sculpt small approach in this one.

I hope you find it useful!

And if you've not been over to my YouTube channel yet, please head on over and subscribe as I'll be releasing a couple more videos soon, and subscribing on YouTube is the best way to get notified about them as soon as they drop.

Happy Sculpting!

Tyranid Prime Conversion

One of my favourite commissions over the last few years was this Tyranid Prime conversion that I created for a new client. Though I started with the goal of making something slightly larger than a warrior, to fit the standard size of a Tyranid Prime, we got a bit of scale creep going on, which meant, as you can see from the photo above, it wound up being something closer to a Hive Tyrant in stature!

What can I say? I like big bugs!

In this article, I'll go over some of my favourite parts of the construction and highlight some of the bits I used in the conversion.

How to Sculpt Amatures - How to Sculpt Miniatures: Video Tutorial 6

Got a BRAND NEW How to Sculpt video coming at you, this one focusing on getting started with armatures.

It's also the first wholy new video I've shot in nearly 4 years! I got a bit disheartened with how much work goes into these things, and how little folks seemed to care about them.

But I've been getting a steady stream of subscribers to my YouTube Channel of late, and that, combined with a swift kick in the ass from my brother Hydra, inspired me to get this video shot, edited, and uploaded inside of 24 hours! No dragging my feet on synching audio and editing down. Just a one-shot, direct to digital product.

So it's a little rough around the edges in places, but I hope you like it and find it helpful!

Note: I'm also posting this from my phone, so I'm sorry if it Le Bust.

How to Sculpt Stitches & Sutures - How to Sculpt Miniatures: Video Tutorial 5

Sculpting stitches using greenstuff / epoxy putty is a process that looks like it should be fiddly and complex, but is surprisingly easy to pull off when you have the right instruction. It's for this reason that I'm so excited to share today's video with all of you today. This is easily one of my favourite things to sculpt :D

So, just like how I did with the spinal columns video, I will start by showing you the process in large scale using plasticine (ew), and then move on to show it in small scale in actual greenstuff mixed with apoxie putty.

The immediate application for this technique is for sculpting flesh that has been hurriedly stitched back together on something like a pit slave or a haemonculus flesh construct. However, if you hold back on all the puckering and stretching of the flesh around the stitches, and leave it more smooth, you can easily use this technique for creating roughly stitched leather for things like Ogre Kingdoms, Oruks, and Skaven. Heck, I'm sure that a chaos general could even apply this tutorial with great effect :)

I didn't mention it in the video, as it can be obnoxious, but please click the link to the video on YouTube and like, comment, and share the video from there to get a few more eyeballs on it. I spend a lot of time and effort making these videos for free, so I'd love it if you could help me get them to the widest possible audience!

If you've got any suggestions for videos you'd like to see, please leave them in the comments below. Our next video will be about sculpting organic armour plates for Tyranids and Dark Eldar, and after that I'm wide open for suggestions :)

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Tyranid Dactylis from an Exocrine Conversion: The Process

Last time I showed the completed photos of the Tyranid Dactylis from an Exocrine conversion, but I thought I would go through the construction process in this post for anyone who was curious about how it came together.

Here's what I started with: A bunch of my nid bits box stuff, an official exocrine model, a Tyranofex model, and my own converted Exocrine of yore for inspiration...oh, and a bottle of peaty scotch :)

I first tried to mock up the beast with the original exocrine arms.

...However, the exocrine arms weren't working for me in that position, so I moved the arms forward to extend the profile of the model. I was already loving it a lot more :)

How to Sculpt Miniatures: Video Tutorial 4 - How to Sculpt Spinal Columns

Well, it's been a while, but—inspired by the warm and fuzzy comments on YouTube—I climbed back on the hobby tutorial horse. I present to you How To Sculpt Miniatures Episode 4: How to Sculpt Spinal Columns!

If you've got a long memory, you may recall that this is our second run at a spinal columns video. However, I assure that this video is far more...um...professional...than that video, and far less German :P

This should be useful for any flesh crafting Haemonculi out there, any Hive Tyrants, particularly those looking to craft some massive Tyranid terrain, or maybe even plaguelords or other chaos generals looking to make some fleshy, daemon constructs.

I hope you enjoy it. It is a good deal more in depth than previous videos as it focuses on one topic, and my future videos will be in this style.

If you've got any suggestions for videos you'd like to see, please leave them in the comments below. Our next video will be about sculpting stitches and sutures, and I've got one more slightly Niddier one in the can, but after that we're wide open for suggestions :)

< Previous: How to Sculpt Miniatures: Video Tutorial 3 - Skills & Applications

How To Sculpt Miniatures: Video Tutorial 3 - Skills & Applications

For the third How To Sculpt Miniatures video, we're going to be combining what we covered in videos 1 and 2 by applying different tools to putty to see the effects they create.

Once again, these first three videos will rehash the information I shared in my original How to Sculpt Miniatures posts, which is best geared at sculpting beginners. However, even experts may discover some helpful tips :)

With this one posted, we've finished covering the first three articles, so next time I'll be sharing a re-do of the shakey-cam How To Sculpt Spinal Columns video I did back in the day.

As always, please let me know in the comments below if you have ideas for things you would like to learn to sculpt in a video.

> Next: How to Sculpt Miniatures: Video Tutorial 4 - How to Sculpt Spinal Columns
< Previous: How to Sculpt Miniatures: Video Tutorial 2 - Putty

How To Sculpt Miniatures: Video Tutorial 2 - Putty

Next up in my series of How To Sculpt Miniatures videos: how to use epoxy putty!

These first three videos will rehash the information I shared in my original How to Sculpt Miniatures posts, which is best geared at sculpting beginners. However, even experts may discover some helpful tips :)

Once we've got the first three videos taken care of, we'll move into new territory, like sculpting armour plates, stitches and sutures, and spinal columns. I've also been rolling around the idea of doing a tutorial on sculpting nurgle-y things like worms, pustules, gross drippy stuff, and third eyes. Anyone interested in that sort of thing?

As always, please let me know in the comments below if you have ideas for things you would like to learn to sculpt in a video.

> Next: How to Sculpt Miniatures: Video Tutorial 3 - Skills & Applications
< Previous: How to Sculpt Miniatures: Video Tutorial 1 - Tools