Creating a Winged Tyrant - Advanced Tutorial

Model conversion by Insaniak

Model painted by yakface

The original WIP thread can be found HERE, although some of the pictures may no longer be functioning.

If you’d like to comment on or discuss this article, please click HERE.

Introduction

This article represents a fairly advanced guide to creating and painting a winged Hive Tyrant using a combination of components from both the plastic Carnifex kit and the metal Hive Tyrant kit along with some green-stuff sculpting.

To replicate this Tyrant will require some pretty serious conversion skills so if you are looking for the easiest way to make a winged Tyrant model, this is not the guide for you.

The original idea behind the model was just that I wanted a winged Hive Tyrant for my army that didn't just look like a standard Hive Tyrant model with wings stuck to its back as with so many other conversions I have seen. Unfortunately, my modeling and conversion skills are pretty rudimentary so I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to create the kind of conversion that would be fitting for the amount of time I was putting into painting this army.

So I finally settled on commissioning the conversion from Insaniak from Under the Couch, a Dakka user who regularly shows off his work in the modeling forum.

Converting the Model

After discussing concepts with Insaniak, we finally decided to use the Hive Tyrant’s lower body, tail and legs and the Carnifex’s upper body (including carapace) and head along with the classic plastic dragon wings from Games Workshop.

This concept was chosen for a number of reasons, but primarily because Insaniak prefers to work with plastic whenever possible as it is much easier to cut and manipulate than metal.

In addition, by sticking with the smaller Tyrant lower body and legs it makes the winged Tyrant look as though his legs are under-sized which is appropriate for a creature whose primary locomotion is flight. The larger upper body provided by the Carnifex kit would also give the impression that this Tyrant’s upper body was overly large, which again would be appropriate for a creature whose arms are constantly flapping to keep itself aloft.

The Arms

I had requested that the arms be magnetized so that I could switch between two different weapon configurations: Two sets of Scything Talons or two sets of twin-linked Devourers.

However we had both agreed early on that we didn't want an extra set of ‘wing arms’ coming out of the creature’s carapace which meant the wings were going to take up one of the existing arm sockets. That would leave only a single pair of sockets to represent effectively two sets of weapons.

Therefore Insaniak came up with a couple of really brilliant designs to get around this issue.

Scything Talon Arms

To create two sets of Scything Talons on a single arm, Insaniak came up with the idea to make the Scything Talons two sets of “fingers” on each hand. The hand was sliced off at the wrist and turned sideways and the two Scytals fingers were then added.

The actual muscles driving the claws would presumably be in the forearms, but the hands are a little too skeletal for the tendons to be internal, so using a little green-stuff he created “tendons” attaching the Scytal fingers to the hand (both on the top and bottom of the hand).

Magnets were added to the shoulders and one of the arms was re-positioned at the shoulder as with both scytal arms pointing directly forwards, it looked like he was blowing a raspberry.

Devourer Arms

We toyed around with two different designs for the Devourer arms. One style that looked more like two Devourers simply stacked on top of each other and the other style where the two weapons looked fused together kind of like a ‘mega-devourer’.

Ultimately I preferred the first design as the second one looked more to me like a super-devourer rather than twin-linked devourers.

Tubes were added running from the Tyrant’s arms into the weapons, the gaps between the weapons was 'green-stuffed' to make them look fused together and magnets were added to the shoulder of each arm.

The Head

The goal was to modify the Carnifex head to look more Tyrant-ey. This was done by shaving off all but the first of the head carapace plates and then adding new, slightly smaller plates with green-stuff, leaving the large, bulbous cranium area at the rear.

Next to mimic the trademark spikes the Tyrant has on its head, plastic smaller spikes were added along with the big honkin’ metal Tyrant head spike.

Finally, greenstuff veins were added to the back of the head to show off the Tyrant’s psychic potential.

The Wings

One of the problems with using Dragon wings for a Tyrant is that they don't look like Tyranid wings.

With that in mind, the shoulder was re-shaped so that it would fit into the arm socket and all the little scale patches were scraped off. The large claw was removed at the wrist joint and was replaced with a Scytal hand.

The outer edge of the wing was then sculpted over with GS to look like a modified Scytal blade, along with the inner wing vanes. The forearm was also sculpted over to give it a Tyranid carapace look.

The outer scythe blades on the wings were created by rolling out a layer of green-stuff and slicing out the shape of the scythe blades while it was still soft. They were then left to set, and, after a little smoothing and filling where needed, simply glued them in place on the outer edge of the wing and filled in any gaps between blade and membrane.

While these blades worked out fine on the top of the wing where they're buried in the folds of the membrane, on the underside they were looking a little tacked onto the wing. To compensate, some connecting tissue was added connecting the blades to the wing membrane. This also helped to make the wings look a little more like Tyranid wings and less like dragon wings.

The Body

The Tyrant Torso is shorter than the Carnifex, has fewer ribs, plates instead of spikes down the breastbone, and has flesh hooks. So there was quite a bit to do in order to make the Carnifex torso look like a Tyrant torso.

The weapon arm sockets were drilled out and magnets were added. The spikes on the breastbone were sliced off and the bottom two ribs were removed. Not only did removing these ribs make it a closer match to a regular Tyrant torso, but it also allows a broader range of movement at the waist.

The collarbone was also trimmed to allow a broader movement range for the head. Green-stuff plates were then added to the breastbone.

One of the noticeable differences between a Carnifex and Tyrant torso is the spines/stacks/breathing tubes (or whatever the heck they're supposed to be) on the back carapace.

The Carnifex has three pairs, while the Tyrant has four, with the front-most set being rather vertical on the Tyrant model, in addition they have armored plates on them.

These front vents were hacked off a Tyrant model and were pinned in place on the Carnifex's front carapace section. Green stuff was added to the bottom to help them stand at the proper angle on the model’s back.

The second and third set of stacks were also re-positioned in this way using green-stuff.

Flesh hooks were added protruding from the chest. These were made from plastic blades which were then carved down to look like a ‘hook’. Green-stuff was then used to make a suitably Tyranid looking flesh hook arm.

To fit the Carnifex upper torso to the Tyrant lower body it needed a big solid pin. The bottom of the rib-cage was filled with green-stuff and a hole was drilled into the Tyrant’s waist. A hole was also drilled into the bottom of the Carnifex torso and a pin was added.

Finally, the first vent (the one taken from the Hive Tyrant model) was bulked up to make it fit in with the rest of the Carnifex vents. This was accomplished by smoothing a layer of putty around the back of the vent, and then when set, added a second ring off putty around the top to add a little height and extra bulk where needed.

The Upper arm sockets were then drilled out and a hefty pin was put in both wing arms (not pictured). With that, the construction of the Tyrant was completed and shipped off to me. Here’s some final pictures of the finished Tyrant before paint (along with a breakdown of all the components). Click on the pictures to see larger versions.

The Biomoprhs

Along with a choice of weapon arms, I also wanted to have the ability to add or remove certain Biomorphs at will. The three I asked to have built (and be removable) were some Toxin Sacs, Adrenal Glands and an Implant Attack.

Toxin Sacs

Rather than sticking the Toxin Sacs right onto the model’s arms (which always looked a bit odd to me), Insaniak decided to mount them on the body, right behind the lower arm socket. A couple of 2mm holes were drilled there, small magnets were glued in place, and the holes were then puttied over.

A couple of monstrous creature Toxin Sacs had 1mm holes drilled into their underside and a small piece of steel wire was glued into there. The wire was then cut off flush with the plastic and a little putty was added to neaten it up.

When the Toxin Sac is placed against the side of the torso the steel inside the sacs is grabbed by the magnets and you have a set of Toxin Sacs that can be added or removed as needed, for use with whichever arms the Tyrant is currently wearing.

Implant Attack

It was decided to steer clear of making the Implant Attack tongue-based (as with Genestealers) because it needed to be removable. The tail became the obvious choice.

A small piece of plastic (the bottom of a Marine standard pole) was cut it into an organic spike sort of shape with an angled and hollow end; kind of like a syringe. A 1mm hole was drilled into one side. A countersink hole was drilled on the other end with a 1.5mm drill bit. The pointy end was then cut off a pin and then glued into the hole so the pin head sat flush with the bottom of the spike.

The Tyrant's tail had a hole drilled into the tip and a small magnet was glued inside and puttied over. This creates a normal looking tail which the spike can be magnetically attached.

The end result is a nice pointy spike that can be rammed into the target using the Tyrant’s tail. The claws on the end of the tail then hold the target in place while whatever unpleasantness the Tyrant has stored up is pumped into the hapless victim!

Adrenal Glands

I don't like the standard humongous Monstrous Creature Adrenal Gland that is made to be slapped onto the back carapace. Not only does it look stupid in my opinion, but it also seems like the least functional spot for an adrenal gland to pump adrenaline into the body.

Instead, a couple of Gaunt Adrenal Glands were used with the connecting tubes on the sides sliced off and the bottoms flattened out. A couple of pins were added into the glands the exact same way as with the Implant Attack spike.

The Tyrant's neck was then drilled out, magnets were inserted on both sides of the neck and puttied over in the usual fashion. This allows the glands to be attached on both sides of the Tyrant’s head and also removed when not in use. It's not as huge and silly looking as the normal Monstrous Creature Adrenal Gland, but is still enough to show that they're there.

That’s pretty much it for the biomoprhs. Here’s a final collection of on/off looks at the three removable biomorphs.

Painting the Model

For a description of how this model was painted, please click here.

Categories: Tyranids Painting and Modeling