A Side Dish

Well the Holidays have prevented me from working on the Hagar for a while and the work I have done is pretty much gap filling and uninteresting stuff.  I did however, get a bit of a painting bug to finish some models that should have been done at Da Boyz tournament. 

My Witch Hunter army has recently taken on some allies in the form of imperial cultists.  I use these guys as regular imperial guardsmen.  They are created by a pretty simple kit bash of Empire Flagellents, and Cadians with a little bit of gap filling and cutting to get the arm that holds to gun to fit.  I'm really happy with the results. 

Also this is one of the first times I have really given Object Source Lighting a fair shot.  I tried it with multiple colors with each power weapon.  I am really pleased with how the blue power weapon came out.  I don't know if Blue is a really good color for the technique, or if I just did a better job.  I'm sure with time, I will find out.

No Rest For the Wicked

Deeper down the rabbit hole I go.  Today I put on some more greenstuff to texture the tail of the beast.  I'm not entirely happy with it, but I think after I take some sand paper to it I will be more satisfied.  Here are the pictures of it.  I tried to continue the texture of the Trygon abdomen as it moves down the tail.  I added some ridge like things in the center.  I may add some scales to it to further reinforce the dragonlike/fishlike theme.

Here are some pictures of the rider as he comes along.  I try to make my heroes larger by making them true scale.  This allows them to stand above their peers and be easily picked out.  I saw some shin greaves on Scibor Minis and a guide on how to make them.  I practiced on making Celtic knots, and got really frustrated.  I gave it a shot and you can see the results below.

As you can see, they are a little bit too big, even for true scale.  The design I chose to make is a Triskelion which I think is a Celtic design, which I think is good for Space Wolves.  I need to figure out how to model the rest of the legs.  I still may just use Terminator shin pads and just glue my homemade pads on top, but that will make the foot look to small.  Also I would have to deal with the cables that are on the calf area of terminator pads.

Tomorrow I will have both of the fish fins on the beast.  Then I will need to blend them onto the beast so they look natural, but I have a good plan for this....Sneak Peek!

Whats that coming over the hill?

Hello again, New update:  Customer service didn't send me just the missing jaw piece of my kit, they sent me a whole new model!  I got two Black Dragons for the price of one.  This solves one of the problems I had since I really wanted two sets of webbed feet, and now I have them.  I just need to do a little sculpting at the transitions, and I can make those hands into feet.  Also this has the added advantage of giving me another set of necks and tails since the earlier ones are all bent and warped on account of my mishaps last time. 

I have done some serious scultping here too.  I extended the carapace down the tail, and made scales over the neck transition where I expect the rider to be placed.  I also tried making a barnacle on the carapace.  I intend to make several more, and near the end have some sort of lamprey attached to his body so you know he is a sea beast.

I still need to figure out a way to thicken the neck out the bottom and smooth the transition between the tyranid neck and the lizardlike one.  I also need to figure out how to make gills.  I think I might use mawloc jaws and bits to make the gill webbing.  The great thing about this is that it doesn't have to look exactly like terrestrial gills, but just be reminiscent of them. 

The next thing to do is get webbing on those fins I made.  I bought a bunch of harpy wings as well that I can use as small fins along the sides where those little holes are on his body which are normally used for spines on the trygon model

The rider is also coming along.  I'll try getting a picture of him in next post.

Something wicked this way comes

Here's the first shots of what I have so far.  I bought a trygon kit and a Malekith on Black Dragon kit.  The Black Dragon kit was missing a bottom jaw, so I called customer service and they said they would rectify it.

So at this point I am deciding on weather or not I should put some crushing claws from the Old One Eye kit in one of the arm slots.
I also tried boiling parts of the dragons neck and tail to bend it.  I read on the internet that it would work.  It doesn't   All I got were some warped parts and a terrible smell in the apartment.  I did it really slowly and everything.  I think I can fix it with green stuff, but I learned my lesson: there is no easy way out

What I ended up doing for the tail as a result was use some copper wire and greenstuff to make it into the general shape of a tail.  Ill sculpt on detail later.

Intentions

Hello, and welcome to my new blog.  I am an avid Warhammer 40k player, and modeler/painter.  In my free time I attend dental school.  This blog is to chronicle my attempt at creating a showpiece model that I can hopefully make a play at some competitions with. 

After a long drive home from Da Boyz GT, I talked with my traveling companions and we threw ideas back and forth about this.  Originally I wanted a Space Marine riding a Dragon, but we settled on something pretty close:  Space Wolf Lord riding a Leviathan

I will attempt to describe my vision for this monstrosity.  Wolf Lord Hagar the Horrible has bent a mighty leviathan to his will.  When it is time for battle, he rides atop the leviathan setting upon the enemy by bursting from below through the ice of a frozen lake.

Now this project is really made of three parts:
Part one: The Wolf Lord.  This guy needs to look more bad ass than the other marines.  I intend to make him true scale like the other Space Wolf characters I have completed.  He will have custom made armor. Since the model is going to be bursting from the ice, he needs some apparent way to have been breathing underwater.  I could use a helmet, but I think I am more likely to have him bare headed with some sort of apparent rebreather.

Part two: The Leviathan.  The fluff describes these creatures of the deep as beings of an ancient tyranid hive fleet.  Little more description is given.  I plan on combining dragon and trygon kits to create the beast.  He needs to be apparently of tyranid origin, so that means 3 sets of legs and a carapace.

Part three: The ice base.  This is the part where I am having the hardest time figuring out.  I want to make the beast seem as though he has just bursted forth from the ice lake.  This means there needs to be (from bottom up) a water effect for about half an inch, then an ice effect for a little ways, and then some way to make a splash with the water and ice effect  as it shatters and blows out.  I really have to idea how to do this.  I have clear two part resin that people often use for water effects that I think will help.

Pics on the next post!