Post by phayze on Aug 24, 2015 4:00:23 GMT
Hey hive, I've built myself a process over the years for creating terrain, objectives, bases, and now spore mines and mucolids!
This last week I was recruited to be a part of a large campaign battle whose story culminated with this final event, the invasion of an entire Tyranid Hive Fleet.
So I don't have any gargantuan creatures, but what I do have are 18 carnifex (between me and my close semi-nid player), and a will to build a wall of mines.
I didn't want to spend a bajillion dollars on plastic and shipping on spores and mucolids, and I have a real big passion for quick and easy conversions that look great.
So here's what you can do to get 3 full sporefields for about $15
SUPPLIES
Dollar store decorative grapes
Floral wire
Plastic practice golf balls and hot glue
Some clippers and used sprue with long, straight unblemished pieces on the edges (look for imperial vehicle sprues for the best results)
Your favorite modelling putty (you'll be using A TON of it, so unless you like spending a butt-ton of money on greenstuff...). I used some air-dry clay because it was cheap. Next time, I think I will try some oil-based clay or something, as once I rolled out the tentacles, they didn't really want to reconnect to the rest of the clay.
And the best tool I have, Great Stuff spray insulation foam
One last thing you need to have is a good idea of what you want your end product to look like. Note these green crystals, that's what I'll detail first.
This part here is simply for flair, I put these crystals on my bases, as it's part of my hive fleet's objectives in my fluff.
Start out by cutting yourself some long straight pieces of sprue.
Then with your hobby knife, shear off from the edges and corners some slivers to chisel the tip into a point.
Go ahead now and spritz a TINY bit of foam onto the bases (TINY because the foam will expand 3x the size you put it down as). When the foam is done expanding, but not yet hardened, stick your sprue pieces into the foam to anchor in inside. you don't need to glue it in, the foam should adhere easily to it.
^This is what it will look like when it is DONE expanding. too much foam, and you'll have to start all over from over-expansion.
Now after it fully sets in and hardens, warm up your hot glue gun and go to town drawing lines and webs across the foam, best results are when you press onto the foam, and oulling a slight distance away, pressing onto another part of the foam. this will draw thinner strings of glue around. from there you can draw lines from those points and start building a latticework of lines.
What you're going to want to do now is pluck off the rubber grapes from the stem. The kind I have does NOT let hot glue stick to it, so you may have to give it a layer of primer to let it stay. Go ahead and do the same thing you did to the bases, and once the glue has cooled, attach a small stem of floral wire (that you should have cut by now, oops) into the grape, sealing and attaching it with a good ring of glue.
Do that to all of your grapes now. Next we will go to the Mucolids, preparing them nearly the same way. using a hobby knife or a large sewing needle, poke yourself a hole for the wire on the underside of the ball. Cut yourself a longer piece of wire and stick the end into the hole, sealing and attaching them with a small layer of glue. Cover your ball with the glue-lattice work, leaving the bottom third open for your clay.
If you want, you can go ahead and stick the mines into the bases to make it easier for you.
Now roll yourself out some tentacles from your clay.
Stick your tentacles together and attach them to your mines as best you can by sticking the wire through, sealing the seam with a thin layer of hot glue. If you drag the metal tip of your gun across the glue as you draw it, you will flatten out the line instead of leaving it too round.
Do the same thing for your mucolids, using thicker and longer tentacles. You'll want to attach the tentacles to a small ball of clay, THEN stick the wire of your ball through the clay, spreading the edges out over your plastic ball to smooth it out, sealing the edges with a layer of hot glue.
ON TO PAINTING!
Detach your mines and cover them in black spray paint primer.
You can paint more detail into your tentacles if you'd like, my model's bodies and tentacles are mostly all black and grey anyways, and I didn't care too much for TOO much detail on cheap models. I have a lot of them to do. I'll only use them sparingly. I'll skip it for now.
Here's your range of Citadel paints you can use to achieve this look. This is the easy way of getting this effect, so anyone can try this method and get really frickin' cool results.
If you can't read it in the picture, the paints here are Xereus Purple, Screamer pink, Carroburg Crimson, Emperor's Children, and 'Ardcoat.
You won't be straight painting it on, but you aren't going to be straight dry-brushing either. use a technique somewhere in-between, removing the majority of your paint from the brush, but leaving it still wet. Every layer after this, you'll get closer and closer to a dry brush, until Emperor's children, where it WILL be a light dry-brush.
First off is a good layer of Xereus Purple, leaving a small amount of black in the deeper cracks.
Next is your layer of a 50-50 mix of Xereus Purple and Screamer Pink, leaving a great deal of purple on the actual grape. hit the raised parts of the glue, and a little bit of the grape to give a gradient.
Now give your mines a lighter brushing of straight screamer pink, only hitting the glue.
Now to most this looks pretty good, and if you want to skip the next step you can, but this is what I do because I like the stark difference between the muted colors and emperor's children. Add a good wash of Crimson, (only one, we want a muted, not deep look) and wait for it to fully dry before moving on.
Now with a very dry brush, gently layer on your Emperor's Children. ONLY hit the raised parts of the glue. This will add depth and light to your mine, enhancing the droopiness of the glue.
Lastly, cover the head of the mine in a layer of 'Ardcoat. I put a gentle layer on the model (usually I end up with 2 or 3 pools of white goop because of the glue), then stab and peck with the brush to spread it around. I found that this gives it a stickier-than normal look. Cover the entire goopy head of the model, leaving the tentacles bare. This will help contrast the model and make it look even wetter and stickier.
Do this to everything and wait for your 'Ardcoat to finish.
Looking back on it, I guess you can use this method for a good dark brain-coloration to the older zoanthrope models. the newer ones are a bit too angular in the brain for this to be perfect though.
For the crystals you can paint them white, then wash them in a green wash once to give it a bright sheen on the edges. the flat surface will naturally pool away from the edges for you.
Stick the tip of your glue gun into the hole you made in the foam base from earlier, and put in a tiny droplet of glue. Quickly stick your spore's wire into the hole to attach it. if the glue pops out of the hole, it's no big deal, but if there's too much popping out it will cool to an opaque white. Very obvious.
NOW YOU ARE DONE! Enjoy your Spore fields. Total cost is about $15 depending on how many plastic golf balls you got. Mine were like $6 for 15 of them.
Have fun! this process, especially what you did for the bases, can be used to create objective markers (put them on bases, the foam will adhere to everything), and easy scenery for anything you plan to do!
The process works great for scenery:
Bases
And objectives, too!
Here's a look at the Sporefield in action during the game. That's me on the right infiltrating all of those spores.
Thanks!
This last week I was recruited to be a part of a large campaign battle whose story culminated with this final event, the invasion of an entire Tyranid Hive Fleet.
So I don't have any gargantuan creatures, but what I do have are 18 carnifex (between me and my close semi-nid player), and a will to build a wall of mines.
I didn't want to spend a bajillion dollars on plastic and shipping on spores and mucolids, and I have a real big passion for quick and easy conversions that look great.
So here's what you can do to get 3 full sporefields for about $15
SUPPLIES
Dollar store decorative grapes
Floral wire
Plastic practice golf balls and hot glue
Some clippers and used sprue with long, straight unblemished pieces on the edges (look for imperial vehicle sprues for the best results)
Your favorite modelling putty (you'll be using A TON of it, so unless you like spending a butt-ton of money on greenstuff...). I used some air-dry clay because it was cheap. Next time, I think I will try some oil-based clay or something, as once I rolled out the tentacles, they didn't really want to reconnect to the rest of the clay.
And the best tool I have, Great Stuff spray insulation foam
One last thing you need to have is a good idea of what you want your end product to look like. Note these green crystals, that's what I'll detail first.
This part here is simply for flair, I put these crystals on my bases, as it's part of my hive fleet's objectives in my fluff.
Start out by cutting yourself some long straight pieces of sprue.
Then with your hobby knife, shear off from the edges and corners some slivers to chisel the tip into a point.
Go ahead now and spritz a TINY bit of foam onto the bases (TINY because the foam will expand 3x the size you put it down as). When the foam is done expanding, but not yet hardened, stick your sprue pieces into the foam to anchor in inside. you don't need to glue it in, the foam should adhere easily to it.
^This is what it will look like when it is DONE expanding. too much foam, and you'll have to start all over from over-expansion.
Now after it fully sets in and hardens, warm up your hot glue gun and go to town drawing lines and webs across the foam, best results are when you press onto the foam, and oulling a slight distance away, pressing onto another part of the foam. this will draw thinner strings of glue around. from there you can draw lines from those points and start building a latticework of lines.
What you're going to want to do now is pluck off the rubber grapes from the stem. The kind I have does NOT let hot glue stick to it, so you may have to give it a layer of primer to let it stay. Go ahead and do the same thing you did to the bases, and once the glue has cooled, attach a small stem of floral wire (that you should have cut by now, oops) into the grape, sealing and attaching it with a good ring of glue.
Do that to all of your grapes now. Next we will go to the Mucolids, preparing them nearly the same way. using a hobby knife or a large sewing needle, poke yourself a hole for the wire on the underside of the ball. Cut yourself a longer piece of wire and stick the end into the hole, sealing and attaching them with a small layer of glue. Cover your ball with the glue-lattice work, leaving the bottom third open for your clay.
If you want, you can go ahead and stick the mines into the bases to make it easier for you.
Now roll yourself out some tentacles from your clay.
Stick your tentacles together and attach them to your mines as best you can by sticking the wire through, sealing the seam with a thin layer of hot glue. If you drag the metal tip of your gun across the glue as you draw it, you will flatten out the line instead of leaving it too round.
Do the same thing for your mucolids, using thicker and longer tentacles. You'll want to attach the tentacles to a small ball of clay, THEN stick the wire of your ball through the clay, spreading the edges out over your plastic ball to smooth it out, sealing the edges with a layer of hot glue.
ON TO PAINTING!
Detach your mines and cover them in black spray paint primer.
You can paint more detail into your tentacles if you'd like, my model's bodies and tentacles are mostly all black and grey anyways, and I didn't care too much for TOO much detail on cheap models. I have a lot of them to do. I'll only use them sparingly. I'll skip it for now.
Here's your range of Citadel paints you can use to achieve this look. This is the easy way of getting this effect, so anyone can try this method and get really frickin' cool results.
If you can't read it in the picture, the paints here are Xereus Purple, Screamer pink, Carroburg Crimson, Emperor's Children, and 'Ardcoat.
You won't be straight painting it on, but you aren't going to be straight dry-brushing either. use a technique somewhere in-between, removing the majority of your paint from the brush, but leaving it still wet. Every layer after this, you'll get closer and closer to a dry brush, until Emperor's children, where it WILL be a light dry-brush.
First off is a good layer of Xereus Purple, leaving a small amount of black in the deeper cracks.
Next is your layer of a 50-50 mix of Xereus Purple and Screamer Pink, leaving a great deal of purple on the actual grape. hit the raised parts of the glue, and a little bit of the grape to give a gradient.
Now give your mines a lighter brushing of straight screamer pink, only hitting the glue.
Now to most this looks pretty good, and if you want to skip the next step you can, but this is what I do because I like the stark difference between the muted colors and emperor's children. Add a good wash of Crimson, (only one, we want a muted, not deep look) and wait for it to fully dry before moving on.
Now with a very dry brush, gently layer on your Emperor's Children. ONLY hit the raised parts of the glue. This will add depth and light to your mine, enhancing the droopiness of the glue.
Lastly, cover the head of the mine in a layer of 'Ardcoat. I put a gentle layer on the model (usually I end up with 2 or 3 pools of white goop because of the glue), then stab and peck with the brush to spread it around. I found that this gives it a stickier-than normal look. Cover the entire goopy head of the model, leaving the tentacles bare. This will help contrast the model and make it look even wetter and stickier.
Do this to everything and wait for your 'Ardcoat to finish.
Looking back on it, I guess you can use this method for a good dark brain-coloration to the older zoanthrope models. the newer ones are a bit too angular in the brain for this to be perfect though.
For the crystals you can paint them white, then wash them in a green wash once to give it a bright sheen on the edges. the flat surface will naturally pool away from the edges for you.
Stick the tip of your glue gun into the hole you made in the foam base from earlier, and put in a tiny droplet of glue. Quickly stick your spore's wire into the hole to attach it. if the glue pops out of the hole, it's no big deal, but if there's too much popping out it will cool to an opaque white. Very obvious.
NOW YOU ARE DONE! Enjoy your Spore fields. Total cost is about $15 depending on how many plastic golf balls you got. Mine were like $6 for 15 of them.
Have fun! this process, especially what you did for the bases, can be used to create objective markers (put them on bases, the foam will adhere to everything), and easy scenery for anything you plan to do!
The process works great for scenery:
Bases
And objectives, too!
Here's a look at the Sporefield in action during the game. That's me on the right infiltrating all of those spores.
Thanks!
