And another weekend lost in the flight deck.

So this weekend I focused my attention on the carriages which will be used to transport the fliers inside the flight bay. I have been hoarding potentially interesting plastic sprues for a while and selected a couple to serve as the basic shape for the carriages. I kept using lengths of sprue to further reinforce the structure of the carriage and along with some pinning and some small bits of plastic tubing, the shapes are starting to look good.

They are intended to look as though an elevator behind the launch rails brings up the flier, and the carriage travels along a rail into the launch area. The central portion of the carriages need to be bulked out and thickened so that the carriage will ride fairly high on the launch rail. I will be mocking this up with foam core before I commence work on it. The first had to take the weight of a Caestus Assault ram and here it is. The next will have to accommodate a Thunderbolt Fighter. Both are well along and I will be adding some grating courtesy of some needle point plastic grids that I had picked up a few years ago.

Here are some WIP shots of the first carriage and the load it has to carry.

I have also started work on a pair of Carnifexes, a unit of Venomthropes, an Exocrine, and a Hive Crone (the last two of which just arrived). The urge to paint is still not there, but building has me totally in it's grip. Its some kind of progress at least.

Time flies ... but maybe an update will help

Just looking at the date of the last post I am surprised how loing it has been since I posted an update. Well its like this:

The tyranids
I did a burst of painting and got some hive guard and a tervigon done. Then the desire to paint vanished and the desire to build came up instead so...

Landing bay terrain
I have been putting in a lot of hours detailing the first section (still) but it is a lot closer to being where I want it to be before I can plan out section number two. It is tedious, repetitive work but the first section already has a good sense of scale, especially height that will hopefully translate into a cool gaming experience.

More updates as inspiration strikes but I will have to force myself to get back to painting. Astro 2014 is up in 2 or 3 months and I have a lot of gribblies to paint. Take care.

Progress has slowed, but it is still progress.

Inking and shading on a tervigon's sacs. Giggle all you want.Still have more shades to apply here but it is coming along.

And some detail work on the heads assuming I can get them to display properly.

Shaded bellies...of doooom!!!

I have tried lightening the bellies of the tervigons to give the perception of severely stretched skin. It appears that they are just glowing instead, which still kind of works ofr me. I will be adding numerous ink washes into the darker recesses to give some color and better definition. Currently you can see the effect of the first of these which used the Leviathan purple ink that GW no longer sells. Soon to have blue, green, and ogryn flesh added to the mix. Doing the armour plates is going to be tedious, and I am still not 100% happy with the teal on the body. So I will be doing some more work on those areas as well to clean them up and hopefully blend some of the shade transitions better.

Also included is a shot of the tablet of monstrous creatures with which to terrify enemies. There are still a lot more coming for this army but this is a taste of what I am wanting to get done for this force. And yes that is the slowly evolving (hah!) hierophant biotitan at the back, along with his two hierodule buddies..

Project Tervigon: the walking wombs

Just a quick update shot of the tervigons wip. Also included a family photo of my 3 hive tyrants despite the shitty lighting. 

And yet another Nid unit done! The end times approacheth...

And the Hive Guard are now table ready. Not sure why but I have had a real desire to paint recently, to the detriment of everything else unfortunately. Still another unit under the belt and a tervigon on the block. It will require some prep work first but it will be minor before I can prime it. Not sure I will leave them with the satin finish. Its a little too glossy for my liking.

The 40Kegger Beer League 2013 - 2014 Nid Edition

So plans change again. I was asked to join the xenos horde faction for the beer league so I elected to field my tyranids instead of the Eldar. The league requires a core list between 300 - 500 pts that includes one HQ and troop that will always be in you game list. I selected  a flying Hive Tyrant and a Tervigon/Termagant combo to serve as my core, requiring a flying Tyrant model. So I caved and bought one. It is the first thing off the table and has already had a successful debut against my first league opponent.

So it looks like I am committed to Nids for the foreseeable future. Now back to work.