Tyranid Monsters: Haruspex

I admit I was tempted to do a very bad thing here. It’s probably the worst crime a modeler could do, utterly unforgivable without extensive explanation and pleading to the general modeling world: I was going to make a copy of a model - a recast. Now before you condemn me for my thought-crime let me explain.

This is a delicious model. It’s big, it’s cool looking, it’s detailed, it’s useful in gaming and it’s out of print. I got one by luck. I scanned ebay auctions for months trying to buy another one within my budget and couldn’t. Armorcast had long since lost the license from Games Workshop and when I talked to them, they didn’t seem particularly happy with them. I wasn’t going to sell them, I was just going to have a couple, maybe three, maybe trade one......

ARRRGGGG!, I nearly sunk to the depths, brethren and sistren, I almost transgressed into the fiery pit of the vile recaster! My immortal modeling soul lost among the dregs of the Thai slave camps copying vinyl kits - okay, let’s not go there - for I have sinned there too.

This time, I kept my Smooth-On silicon rubber on the shelf and took the path of light and didn’t copy the kit. I built it Instead. I was looking for a change having done many miniature lately (Necrons) and wanted something to airbrush. Tyranids are favorite subjects of mine because they can be anything I want them to be; no color matching or even reality to get in the way. I just got to go to town.

I got the idea for the color of this beasty while in the shower (don’t we all think better when hot water is running down our backs and our smelly bits and foamy with Irish Spring?) I looked over at a bottle of shampoo and loved the deep amber color of it. That I had to have, I said to myself and lathered my balding head right up.

Achieving such a depth of color would be a trick and I borrowed such a trick from Bill Craft who writes and builds exquisitely in Modeler’s Resource magazine. He uses a technique of using stains for shadows under transparent colors. He makes it look easy, and I’m nothing if not easy.

After washing and assembly the piece, including pinning the arms and mandibles and filling the gaps that I didn’t like with Magic Sculpt, I primed it with my gray automotive primer. I considered using white, but I went with gray for its neutrality. The Swiss Rewl!

I then concocted a stain, which is more like my washes or my glazes being that it’s oil paint. Oils make for great washes over acrylics and lacquers. I mixed a red and a brown to make a warm but dark undercoat for the amber. I spread it on the model. After it had set a bit, I wiped off the raised areas with a paper towel. This really brought out the detail. I let it rest for a while to let the oil paint dry.

I used Tamiya Color clear acrylic paint, thinned down with my regular airbrush thinner. I started with yellow. I used clear orange and painted in the shadows. The clear paint was wonderfully forgiving. I doubt I could have messed up if I wanted to. I achieved the effect I was looking for.

I painted the spines and pincers with my Liquitex Basic Acrylics. I wanted a better horn color than I used with my other Tyranids. I started with the recipe I concocted for my Grim Reaper and played around with it a bit. I used burnt umber oil washes to really bring them out.

The mandibles were surprisingly difficult. I couldn’t make the horn color work at all there, as I had on the spines and the pincer blades. I couldn’t leave them amber like the shell - they had to look different to look sharp. After several failures I settled on the remaining under-color of horn heavily stained with more oil paint. It’s a subtle variation of the amber color which works nicely.

I painted the “feet” burnt umber with raw sienna dry brush. The eyes I painted blue, but you really can’t see them until you’re in the mouth, then it's too late to comment. The teeth were painted horn color with heavy white highlights.

There you have it, another terrifying monster for my Tyranid Swarm. I plan on making a new data sheet for him with the recently released rules to make him as formidable as he looks, and he looks like he could eat a titan for lunch! Now if only I had a couple more...

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