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!

Rocketgaunts: Alternate Plastic Gargoyles

REMINDER: If you haven't gotten around to it yet, you've only got until tomorrow at midnight to enter the 10,000 View Commission Giveaway, so be sure to get on it :)

For all my talk of making Tyranids, there have been painfully few of them kicking around this blog for a while now, so here's an attempt to address that discrepancy! Anyone who has been around Warpshadow has, likely, already run across my Rocketgaunt concept, but I thought I'd dig out my rats with wings, dust them off, and take some better photographs of them.

The Rocketgaunt originated back when the idea of plastic gargoyles was just a rumour on the breeze. The only gargoyles available were the annoying, precarious, flying-brick pewter models. I was determined to find a way to build plastic gargoyles out of a pile of Macragge Termagaunts and some other more-or-less unneeded Tyranid bits. I took my inspiration from Tyson Koch, also known as Menelker, and his Rocket Tyrant solution for a flying Hive Tyrant:

The Screamer Killer rides again

To build up some content on the site, I'm going to be posting a few of my past projects that were kind of like milestones in my development as a sculptor. I'll call them "Old Strains," and you can feel free to check them out if you're curious.



The classic Jes Goodwin pewter Carnifex/Screamer Killer has always inspired me. When they look at it these days, most people see an oddly constipated-looking beast intent on giving someone a big hug with those curvy arms of his. However, when I look at the thing, I see the model that first got me into Tyranids specifically, and Warhammer 40K in general, back in the mists of second edition. It also reminds me of the black-and-white sketch that greeted me when I first opened the Tyranid codex all those years ago:

From Plastic Screamer Killer

Though I love the pewter Screamer-Killer, and I still field them to this day (well, on the few occasions when I actually play), I’ve always felt that there was so much more potential in that sketch than the rudimentary casting processes GW used to use could ever truly capture.

Redux: Tyranid Dominatrix from a Hierodule

To build up some content on the site, I'm going to be posting a few of my past projects that were kind of like milestones in my development as a sculptor. I'll call them "Old Strains," and you can feel free to check them out if you're curious.


First up, I would be remiss if I didn't credit my Hobby Brother, Hydra, for being the first person ever to convert a Tyranid Dominatrix from a Forgeworld Hierodule. Go see his original work, though he wrote that article about 12 years after he created the original!

Having learned from the work I'd done on Ross'/Accommodator's original Dominatrix, and having improved a bit through practice over the time in between, I endeavoured to take ANOTHER stab at the idea of creating a modern Tyranid Dominatrix from a Forgeworld Hierodule model. The project was another one that was sponsored by Moloch, and, when all was said and done, it would be he who would put his brush to it. With this in mind, and having seen the fantastic treatments he'd given the Dactylis and Exocrine, I was well motivated to go above and beyond on this Dom.

The Infestation of Casavant Prime

To build up some content on the site, I'm going to be posting a few of my past projects that were kind of like milestones in my development as a sculptor. I'll call them "Old Strains," and you can feel free to check them out if you're curious.



With my budding work on Tyranid Scenery from scratch coming along, I was asked by some friends in Toronto to breathe some Tyranid life into their table build for Games Day Toronto 2008. These guys had been bringing original tables to Games Day for a couple of years, and the previous year their extensive trenchwork table had been beaten out by a PC speaker and a smoke machine. This year they were determined to bring the pain to their long-time table nemeses.

The meat and bones of the table were actually constructed by the original build team and took the form of a cityscape with a canal running down the center, and me, Accommodator, and our creative ilk were given free reign to add some flare to the cityscape by transforming it into one that was in the beginning stages of a full-blown Tyranid infestation. I jumped at the opportunity to have a focus for my until-now-largely-aimless Tyranid scenery building.

Dactylis - Project De-Sluggify 2.0

To build up some content on the site, I'm going to be posting a few of my past projects that were kind of like milestones in my development as a sculptor. I'll call them "Old Strains," and you can feel free to check them out if you're curious.

Though I initially created the Exocrine for Moloch (hence his applying his brush/scheme to the beast), due to certain matters of sentimentality and friendship, he gifted the finished model back to me. However, we made the exchange with the understanding that I would create him an even better version of a Carnifex-sized gunbeast to make up for the lack of Exocrine. For our next tandem effort, I would move on to the next Tyranid beast from the old Epic line that I hoped to DeSluggify: The Dactylis.

Mycetic Spores

One of the biggest chips out of my shoulder when it comes to Tyranid design is the way that the concept for Mycetic Spores/Tyranid Drop Pods has been mailed-in ever since it first came about with the Tyranid Seeding Swarm list back in White Dwarf and Chapter Approved 2004. Bitchy or not, I have never seen a model for a mycetic spore that I could love, and that's mostly because they all wind up looking like the same, bloated, rugby-ball-/coconut-inspired Tyranid fleshbags. Space Marines get these sexy, tapered drop pods that open up like flowers of death upon impact. Tyranids get exploding fleshbags.

Not. Cool.

It was with this niggling annoyance in mind that I set out to come up with an aerodynamic, lithe, distinctly Tyranid-looking design for a mycetic spore.

Tyranid Atmospheric Procressors

To build up some content on the site, I'm going to be posting a few of my past projects that were kind of like milestones in my development as a sculptor. I'll call them "Old Strains," and you can feel free to check them out if you're curious.





These Tyranid terrain items were conceived 'round about the same time that I was working on the Tyranid barricades I detailed previously. I wanted to find a way of not just making Tyranid scenery but also a means of representing the diverse structures and creatures that may be present on a world that was being Tyranoformed/gutted for its natural resources. One idea I had (largely inspired by the shape and material of the plastic orange containers) was for balloon- or blister-like growths on the surface that would process the air in the atmosphere. They would expand to fill themselves with nice clean air, but when they contracted they would spew out a toxic, infectious fume teeming with microscopic Tyranid phage organisms. 

Tyranid Barricades

To build up some content on the site, I'm going to be posting a few of my past projects that were kind of like milestones in my development as a sculptor. I'll call them "Old Strains," and you can feel free to check them out if you're curious.




Well, repurposing walnuts, coral, and lotus seed pods is all well and good for some quick-and-dirty Tyranid terrain, but I've never been much of one for quick-and-dirty as far as modelling is concerned. So I listened to that little voice that every 40K player has inside his/her head: the one that looks at the foam packaging that your new monitor came in and thinks "that would make a pretty bad-ass piece of scenery." Except, I followed this voice a little further down the rabbit hole than most do, seeing a fantastic-piece-of-Tyranid-scenery-to-be in this:

Dominatrix from a Hierodule

To build up some content on the site, I'm going to be posting a few of my past projects that were kind of like milestones in my development as a sculptor. I'll call them "Old Strains," and you can feel free to check them out if you're curious.

Though I created this beast, a large portion of the credit for it goes to two other folks. First, Hydra, for if he hadn't had the spore sacs initially to take a saw to an already-beautiful Forgeworld model, there never would have been the idea to create a Dominatrix from a Hierodule. I'm glad he was rewarded for his inspiration at the Canadian Golden Demons back in 2007. Next, credit needs to be paid to Ross Nickle, a dear friend of mine and paragon of moderating might over on Warpshadow under his handle Accommodator.

When I expressed my interest in taking my own stab at a Dominatrix from a Forge World Heirodule back in 2006, Ross told me to do it. When I told him I hadn't the stones to pay $200+ CDN for a pretty model like that if I was only going to tear it appart, he bought me the model and said I could build it for him on commission.

Exocrine - Project De-Sluggify 1.0

To build up some content on the site, I'm going to be posting a few of my past projects that were kind of like milestones in my development as a sculptor. I'll call them "Old Strains," and you can feel free to check them out if you're curious.

In 2006, I got a hold of the plastic carnifex kit for the first time, and immediately set to work tearing it appart and attempting to build it up into something more. I was, once again, inspired by a fantastic concept sketch for a Biovore (this time by the phenomenally talented Roberto Cirillo) that had gone unrealized in the rather underwhelming resculpted Biovore model.

Though it was a sketch for a Biovore, I thought I'd be able to do it a bit more justice if I upped the scale somewhat to Carnifex-size. I also thought this might be a good opportunity to start in on a completely separate idea I'd had for some time: starting in on re-imaginings of the classic Tyranid Epic-scale beasts. I wanted to give them actual legs, bodies, and a imposing presence on the battlefield (hence why I labeled the idea the "De-Sluggification" initiative), and I thought that, perhaps, the plastic carnifex kit was the best backbone for the project.

Thus was the Exocrine born.

Old Strains: Old One Eye Conversion - Hel

To build up some content on the site, I'm going to be posting a few of my past projects that were kind of like milestones in my development as a sculptor. I'll call them "Old Strains," and you can feel free to check them out if you're curious.

Way back in the summer of 2004, I made my first true foray into the world of sculpting when I attempted to convert a pewter Old One Eye model into something that looked a little more imposing than the old grinning rhino. The project was meant to be a Golden Demon entry for Games Day Toronto 2004, but, as it was my first time entering a Golden Demon competition, I had very little idea how stiff the competition could be. Thus, though I made it past the first cut, my rough sculpting and only slightly-better-than-table-quality paint job left me beat by other 40K large models that were whole worlds better than mine.

Still, it was a good experience, and I was (and, looking back on it now, am still) very proud of what I'd accomplished with so little former experience with greenstuff/sculpting.

Though the project became a Golden Demon one, the real inspiration to start it came from a concept sketch by Dave Gallagher (I think) in the back of the old GW Inquis Exterminatus sketchbook.

I've been a big fan of concept sketches ever since watching a friend's older brother create comic-perfect pencil drawings of characters to run in his D&D games. As I've progressed into the world of conversion and sculpting, I've found concept sketches to always be the most inspiring thing for kicking off projects. They are detailed enough to provide you with a good framework for a new model, but the white space in them still yawns wide enough to allow you your own interpretations.