Sculpting Brains & Eyes: Tyranid enhanced senses (Project Gunbeast)

Next up on was tackling the creature's head. This Tyrannofex is going to be carting around some huge armour plates on its forearms to protect from incoming fire. One of the most important things it is protecting is its targeting array, which I wanted to make look like the organic, Tyranid equivalent of a satellite dish. The head is heavily armoured, but when those armour plates "bloom" open, they reveal all manner of eyes, scent pits, and even hyper sensitive brain matter.

Basically, a horror show of senses meant to detect any and all targets, across a number of wavelengths and spectra.

And I did it all in one go! And you can watch the results below:

Sculpting Tyranid Weapons - Armour plates on a biocannon (Project Gunbeast)

I've got another video of me working on Project Gunbeast for you (two in one week! Must be on vacation!), still working on the creature's biocannons. This time I'm adding the armour plates to the top, largest cannon, and I try to sculpt them all in one go.

Once again, this creature is meant to represent a Tyrannofex, borrowing heavily from my own Tyranid Exocrine and Dactylis designs.

Sculpting Tyranid Weapons: Bio-Cannons on a Tyrannofex (Project Gunbeast)

Here's some progress on a Tyranid project I've been working on in the background. Years ago I found a KILLER deal on two Tyrannofexes on eBay. It was cheap enough to seem too good to be true, and when they arrived, it turned out it WAS too good to be true.

Alas. Chinacast.

I was so frustrated at how I'd been duped that I burried the models in the bottom of my Tyranid bin and forgot about them. 

Until this year, when I stumbled across them, and resolved to get my revenge on the chinacaster by turning one of them into a badass Tyranid gunbeast. I'm referring to this as Project Gunbeast. On paper, this bad boy is going to rep a Tyrannofex, but you'll find that my design borrows heavily from my previous Tyranid Exocrine and Dactylis designs--particularly the idea of it being a mobile Tyranid gun emplacement that carries its own fortifications around with it!

Anyway, in this livestream I do some detailing on the Gunbeast's back-mounted biocannons.

Project #DominaNid3: Sculpting legs on a Tyranid Dominatrix

In my next adventure in livestream sculpting, I take on one of the legs for the #DominaNid3 Tyranid Dominatrix conversion, trying to make a leg big and stompy enough to match the stompy feet I had already planned.

Necron Warrior conversion - hobby live stream

I decided to try something new: both in terms of models and format. 

With the release of the Indomitus box, I not only took the plunge into Necrons, but also into hobby livestreaming.

And now you can watch me fumble my way through BOTH on this YouTube video! The quality is not stellar as I shot it on my phone, but have a look anyways to see how I make out.

Anyone out there joining me in this new necron plunge, inspired by these stellar new models?

How to Sculpt Ribs: Video tutorial 9, ft. Hydra

Next up in the How to Sculpt Miniatures video series, we have another guest post from Brother Hydra,  This time focusing on how to sculpt ribs. As this is one of the main textures on Tyranids, it's a really useful one to get down.

How to Sculpt: Getting Started with greenstuff

I've done a number of sculpting tutorial videos over on YouTube, but if you're just getting started with greenstuff, and you have only 3 minutes to spare, here are my quick tips that you need to know. Once you've got these down, I very much encourage you to check out my other video tutorials on YouTube.

Also! If you're already familiar with my tutorials, and you have a suggestion for other videos I could produce, let me know in the comments below what I can help you sculpt.

Xenos Alchemist: Hobby in the time of Corona

In this episode of Xenos Alchemist, we talk to Hydra about his most recent passion, Frostgrave, and how he's playing miniature games remotely in this time of Corona. There's a lot about Frostgrave and the idea of miniature liberation. However, we also talk about balancing family and hobby, why we're probably not getting into CAD sculpting any time soon, and how #Blanchitsu  and #Inq28 is the equivalent of an artistic revolution.

Even if you're not into Frostgrave (as we're not!), this should still be an interesting listen. We really wanted to have Hydra talk about Frostgrave because its stripped-down approach to rules could be pretty useful for folks who are into Inq28 / AOS28-style gameplay and narrative events.

Based on your preference, we've got two ways to enjoy this episode.

In audio format, like usual:

Or in video format:



However you prefer your podcasts, we've got you covered.

If you're not already following Hydra, you can see more of his work here:
https://www.instagram.com/4ydra/
http://h-archive.com/

We talk a bit about the #FG28 hashtag, and you can see more about that here:
https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/fg28/

The featured artists from this episode can be found on on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/77th_terrorfels/
https://www.instagram.com/thewarsinger/

And here are the Instagram handles for the other artists we mentioned:
@hivefleetmoloch
@with_teatea
@btwnbolterandme
@thepolysmith
@a_polanscak

Let us know what you thought of this episode, and if you have any questions you'd like to ask us or Hydra, you can share them in the comments below or email modernsynthesist@gmail.com.

Project #DomniaNid3 : Tyranid Dominatrix from a Hierodule rides again

It's that time again: time to return to the Tyranid Dominatrix from a Hierodule concept to see how the intervening years can improve on this community concept.

I call it a community concept since, though I've created two Tyranid Dominatrix from Forgeworld Hierodule models in my time (Tyranid Dominatrix attempt 1, Tyranid Dominatrix attempt 2), it all started with Hydra / Simon Schnitzler and his vision to cut up a pristine Forgeworld model to make something wholly new:

He cleaved pretty close to the classic Forgeworld Tyranid Hierodule model, fixing all of the annoying angry chicken parts of it, but with that he challenged the idea that Forgeworld models couldn't be converted, and he moved the Tyranid Dominatrix concept forward from the classic Epic model...

...into something new and awesome.

And he started something.

Xenos Alchemist bonus episode: Vestigial Twin

Back before Brother Pink and I came up with the Xenos Alchemist podcast, we were experimenting with what a recorded program would be like, and what we'd talk about. Those experiments resulted in this: the Proto Tyranid to Xenos Alchemist's fully-formed plastic Tyranid Warrior.

At the time, we called it "Vestigial Twin."

So, as we're busily working away on our next episode of the proper Xenos Alchemist podcast, we thought we'd share this blast from the past with you to tide you over until the next proper episode of XA drops (we'll try for a week today). And I promise that we'll make the wait worth it with double the content...whatever that means!

Until then, enjoy this. It's mostly just Brother Pink and I shooting the shit, mostly talking about sculpting and various materials. Since it's a proto-cast, the sound quality is not stellar, so consider yourself warned!

ALSO! If you actually read this far, I figured I should check if anyone who's been listening to the podcast has any questions or topics they'd like to suggest for us to cover on the air? If so, you can share them in the comment below or email them to modernsynthesist__at___gmail__dot___com.