Tyranid Prime Ordo Xenos Crucifix - #KryptmansGambit

Behold! The most foolhardy machination the Ordo Xenos could devise: Kryptman's Gambit.

This project has been a long time coming. 

Some time back in 2011-2012, Hive Fleet Moloch, Hydra and me synergized a mad concept: what if the Ordo Xenos, in their unmatched hubris, sought to capture a live Tyranid synapse creature with the goal of using it as some kind of synaptic terminal through which they could force access to the Hive Mind. What you see above is that very creature, and what follows is some of the history for how we came up with it, more photos of my work on it, and an idea of what's next for this hideous creation.

Tyranid Prime Conversion

One of my favourite commissions over the last few years was this Tyranid Prime conversion that I created for a new client. Though I started with the goal of making something slightly larger than a warrior, to fit the standard size of a Tyranid Prime, we got a bit of scale creep going on, which meant, as you can see from the photo above, it wound up being something closer to a Hive Tyrant in stature!

What can I say? I like big bugs!

In this article, I'll go over some of my favourite parts of the construction and highlight some of the bits I used in the conversion.