# Tervigon WIP



## MidnightKid333 (Feb 2, 2011)

*This Thread contains lots of Pictures! *​

Hi and thanks for checking out my Tervigon work-in-progress. I wanted to make my tervigon as unique as I could, so I stayed away from all the obvious stuff (birthing tubes, nearly identical to a carnifex, etc). 

I Originally wanted the body of the tervigon to be made out of the body of a Hive Tyrant, but ebay did not have any hive tyrant bodies in stock and I was not about to buy an entire hive tyrant just for one little part of it. I also did not want the body to be too heavy, which I'll explain why later. 

Since I could not find a Hive Tyrant body, I decided to go with the trygon body, because I like the appearance of it and I think it's carapace looks the coolest/sleekest out of the other GW casts of carnifexes and other Monstrous Creatures.

I love the idea of the Tervigon walking on scything talons because it is a cool thought to think of him being hundreds of feet above the termagaunts, protecting them from the dangers of the sky, looming above them with tremendous scything talons keeping it up. Similar to the alien invading monsters in War of the Worlds.










Notice how he is supported by the massive legs. That's sort of how the tervigon will look, just replaced with scything talons and not so high up. (theres also 4 of the talons, not 3).

For the mouth, I took some of the Drywall plaster and stuck it around the cracks of the mouth. I hope this Drywall stuff works out okay. IF it doesn't, I may need to go buy some green stuff. (I've never used greenstuff before so I would fail alot with it). What do you guys think of this mouth idea anyways? The tervigon regurgitates or vomits the termagaunts instead of the normal tube-on-the-belly kind of thing. 

As you can see, I pay top dollar for my hi-tech model support systems... :laugh:









Sorry it's a bit blurry. My camera is so ghetto it gets outperformed by iphone cameras. What do you think of it being backwards? good idea? stupid idea? It kinda reminds me of the mouth of a Hierodule for some reason.

I know the background is black (or at least, very dark) in this picture, but the background is not important and the flash makes it so you can see the mouth easier. I am a bit unsure about making the drips with the drywall because it would snap off if I were to drop it or if someone else were to handle it without proper attention to the mouth or if I would be transporting it to a tournament or something. I am also planning on taking the mandibles of the trygon and attaching them to the mouth. It'll just make the mouth look scarier IMO. 

I'm also thinking about putting a termagaunt in his mouth and modelling it as if the termagaunt is being regurgitated and is all slimy and whatnot. Pics of that later when the drywall is done drying.

















For the part of the tervigon that stores all the termagaunt larvae, I decided to go with a big fat bulbous abdomen, like a spider. 









My Termagaunt storage abdomen thing is not as big or spherical as the one in the previous picture, but the spider is where the idea came from. I know alot of people are now using the Araknarok kit for Goblins/orks, but I'm trying to keep this Conversion as cheap as possible. So far, all I've bought is the trygon body. 

I also don't really like the big pincher thing on the end of the araknarok abdomen. It doesn't really fit the purpose of the abdomen of the tervigon. It made it look as though the abdomen is ther to kill people and just that, not store termagaunt larvae. I could have clipped it off but theres still all kinds of things on it that make me turn away form using the araknarok abdomen. I guess I just want my tervigon to be as original as possible.

So to make the abdomen, I took a bunch of tinfoil and scrunched some of it into a ball. when I was happy with the shape, I gave it a generous helping of drywall plaster to increase the size of it and cover up any spots where the tinfoil was shining through. I then touched parts of it with my finger to make it look spiny. I figured it would be a way of defense. He could swing his abdomen around or something if anyone is behind him so he could smack the person with a fat spiny gooey abdomen. 









Here is the abdomen drying. I have this piece of styrofoam I wasn't using, so I stuck the tinfoil ball onto one of my filing sticks and stuck the filing stick into the styrofoam. I'm pretty good at coming up with last-minute ways to support my conversions. 

(kind of) a close-up.











I'm a bit unsure about all the spikes, since it'll make this thing a bitch to prime and paint. I ill have to look over it 100 times to make sure I've hit every nook and cranny in between and underneath the spikes. More to come when All the drywall dries and I get around to making more progress on the two parts of the model. 

thanks for visiting! 
Subscribe to the Thread for easy access to my progress. The painting and modelling forum is a total ZOO! :good:


----------



## MidnightKid333 (Feb 2, 2011)

*Update 1*

Glued the mandibles to the mouth and glued the spore stacks together. Will eventually start on filing down the abdomen so it fits.
















the spore stacks look quite un-even in this picture. Maybe ill cover it up with some drywall?
-

Forgot to add this picture aswell. This is what I am using to substitute Green Stuff and make the abdomen. Works pretty nicely and (as you can see) you get alot of it! 7kg of it to be exact! Pretty nice for filling in cracks and whatnot. It is also not too difficult to deal with. you can even use your finger if you don't have a wooden stick on you. Not sure how much a tub of this stuff costs, since my dad gave it to me for making textured terrain. If I had to guess, I'd say around 15 - 20 dollars. As long as it's less than 50, it is worth it.










Alright so, once the abdomen was dry and I had some free time, I started filing down the drywall around the smaller end to make it fit better, but when I held it in my hand, some of the spikes chipped off. If it takes just that for the spikes to break off, then I figured I'd just break them all off, since The ones that were still intact would have broken off after I would put the paint on it, resulting in a bunch of ugly white spots on his red abdomen. It is unfortunate that the drywall wasn't as hard to do this, but to be honest, I never liked the spikes on it anyway. 

Also filled in some of the cracks with more drywall. The abdomen is actually larger than the body, which is what I was aiming for.










Overall View











These are the talons. Also in the picture is a lonely termagaunt that I took off his base. I'm planning on gluing him to the base of the tervigon for aesthetics. It _is_ a tervigon, after all.


In the next update, I'll glue the lower spikes to the holes on its belly, add some toxin sacs/flesh hooks on the belly to make it look cooler and ultimately just glue on some cool bits I had lying around

Will then prime it and glue the legs to it. The legs are pre-painted, so they'll be going on last.









:bye:
Subscribe for easy access!


----------



## Dave T Hobbit (Dec 3, 2009)

Very interesting idea.

I like the abdomen.

For delicate work plaster is probably too rigid. Depending on which you would find easier, the two best ways I have encountered for making drips are (i) dipping a thread into poly-cement, letting it dry, and dipping it again until you have a dribbly-looking thread , and (ii) green-stuff over a wire.


----------



## MidnightKid333 (Feb 2, 2011)

Dave T Hobbit said:


> (i) dipping a thread into poly-cement, letting it dry, and dipping it again until you have a dribbly-looking thread


That's a cool idea. If the drywall plaster breaks or snaps then the string will still be there to hold it in place. If I do any more drooling effects, I'll try that and see how it goes. Thanks for the compliment aswell. k:


----------



## DestroyerHive (Dec 22, 2009)

That is simply amazing. Looks kinda like a Hierodule  I love the concept.


----------



## El Mariachi (Jun 22, 2008)

I'm going to have to keep an eye on this, this is shaping up to the be the best looking Tervigon yet.


----------



## MidnightKid333 (Feb 2, 2011)

I'm glad I finally decided to do a WIP for once in my tyranid-materializing hobby. I wish I did one of these for my Harpy. Oh well. thanks for the support, (much) more to come.

I have a question about the base of the model. I am going to use an old 60mm monstrous creature base that was leftover from another conversion. The tervigon (with the scything talons attached) is much larger than the base. Is it okay for the model to be nearly twice the size of the base? 

I was thinking about taking a wooden stick and drilling a hole in the center of the chest of the tervigon, then attaching the stick to the center of the base and to the hole in the chest of the tervigon, so the body of the tervigon would be centered over top of the base, giving the center of the model some support, with the scything talons giving it stability to prevent it from falling over. 

So to give you a mental image, the base is 2.5" in diameter, and the tervigon has a length of 5" with a width of 4" (2" model and an additional 1" for each leg). I would love to take a picture, but holding the camera and positioning all 4 legs, while holding the body of the tervigon over the base is impossible (without glue).

*Is it legal to have a model that is huge with a base that is small? Or is it "anything goes" when the model does not have an official GW model?*

Also, transporting this thing will be a bitch. Should I get some magnets that will be strong enough to hold up the tervigon?


@El Mariachi - I checked out your terrain Generator in your sig. Has some cool ideas in there. I really liked the toxic river.


----------



## MidnightKid333 (Feb 2, 2011)

*Update 2*

You know when I was saying that it would be impossible to position all the legs, hold the camera and hold the tervigon all at the same time with the steady hands to not make the picture blurred? Well I lied. 









Now you see what I mean by how huge he is over top of the base. I want it to look as though he is walking forwards, so I want one or two of his legs to be off the ground.

What should I do for eyes? Should he even have eyes?

Glued the spikes to the belly. These really make him look even scarier. I also scratched the idea of gluing flesh hooks to the belly of the model. I want to be able to fit this in my carrying case and the flesh hooks would make the mdoel too big and fragile, so they got cut from the idea. 










I also reduced the length of the scything talons to make the tervigon higher up. I snipped off an approximate .5" from the arm. Not much, but it will still help.










:bye:


----------



## Alexious (Apr 13, 2009)

Eyes ideas...

Do some short stalks with multiple eyes? 

Could make them cluster like spider like, 4 to 6 eyes in a group?

Small protected eyes almost like grooves in the carapace?

Great work so far too.


----------



## MidnightKid333 (Feb 2, 2011)

I have decided to magnetize his legs for slightly easier transportation, so updates will be very small (or non-existant) until I go to the shop to buy some magnets. I will then drill the hole in his chest and prime him. 

@alexious -- Decent idea of using spider eyes. Will strengthen the spider reference and make him look cool. Should i just throw on some dots on the carapace when I paint him? How should I show these eyes? Any ideas?


----------



## Dave T Hobbit (Dec 3, 2009)

midnightkid333 said:


> *Is it legal to have a model that is huge with a base that is small? Or is it "anything goes" when the model does not have an official GW model?*


If there is no official model then, strictly speaking, there is no official base size so you can use anything you wish. However, some opponents might (justifiably) complain if you mount your model on a base that is a different size from that of similar creatures that do have official bases.

Having a model that is larger than the base is sometimes unavoidable: I once played in a tournament that had a rule that all walkers had to be on a 40mm base unless they came with a different base, so I had to mount my my Defiler on a base that was smaller than the body.

To avoid issues caused by GW, or someone else, defining the legal size of the base I suggest making the base removable from the bottom of the support rod so you can swap it out.



midnightkid333 said:


> Should i just throw on some dots on the carapace when I paint him? How should I show these eyes? Any ideas?


The Chaos Spawn kit has many small (2mm diameter) eyes on it, so if you know any Chaos players they might be happy to trade/give you those.


----------



## MidnightKid333 (Feb 2, 2011)

thanks for the info, Dave. I do not know of any chaos players around here, so if I wanted to do that, I would have to order the bits from ebay. 

I think I'll actually just paint them on or simply not give him any eyes and say he gets around by influence of the hive mind. He is a tervigon so he is connected with the hive mind. I could just say the hive mind controls him like a puppet or something like that. I have my ways of bending the fluff so it covers up and problems.


----------



## MidnightKid333 (Feb 2, 2011)

*Update 3*

I finished magnetizing the legs of the tervigon. I usually prime over the magnets to make them less noticeable. I positioned all the magnets so that it looks as though the tervigon is advancing slowly forward. I do not know if it'll give the illusion I want, though. It'll look better when I get the support stick in it's chest, so it is actually connected to the base.









the paint is there to keep it from falling over. the last leg was still gluing when the picture waas taken.

I wanted to get the legs done before I primed the thing because the legs are more important and, like I said before, priming over the magnets makes them less noticeable. It is also cold, wet and windy outside, so it would be tough to prime it. 

Heres a shot of one of the termagaunts coming out of the mouth of the tervigon. I'll let you tell me what you think of it. The termagaunt is actually an old gargoyle body I had lying around. The gargoyle donated its wings to one of my warriors. Ever since the shrike conversion, I have been looking for a way to use these gargoyle bodies and I think I finally found it.









I feel like the red termagaunt is crammed into the picture. Do you think I should keep him there or find a new place for him? If so, where else should he go?


should I use the gargoyle body or snip apart the termagaunt to fit in its mouth? Turns out that the tervigon is too low to the ground for the termagaunts to fit underneath him. I could drastically increase his height with some scything talons glued together to make one extra large scything talon, but I do not have those bits. 

the abdomen of the tervigon rests on the ground, so I think I will add a support stick on the upper end of the chest as well as the lower end of the chest to hold the abdomen off the ground, because it would really hurt if you were dragging your delicate abdomen across the ground. IT would also damage the abdomen and chip it (I am assuming).

Here are some shots of the tervigon with all its legs. the termagaunts are there to make it look cool. After setting up the termagaunts, I realized that it is the termagaunts fault if they get impaled by the legs of the tervigon as he makes his way forwards.

























I actually like how he rides low to the ground. It makes him less attention-grabbing on the battlefield and will result in more cover saves from things like hills and whatnot.

This is the stick I will be using to keep the abdomen off the ground. I used it to place the drywall plaster in the cracks, so it still has some residue on it. Hopefully I can get my hands on a clean one. the drywall cannot be seen in this picture.









Next: Priming, hole-drilling and stick placement.

:bye:


----------



## MaidenManiac (Oct 2, 2008)

Very interesting Tervigon idea, keep it rolling 

For base Id consider using the big oval base that comes with Trygons/Valkyries/Storm Ravens. Its a lot bigger and lets the model perhaps even be able to stand on his base:wink:


----------



## MidnightKid333 (Feb 2, 2011)

@MaidenManiac - I would love to do that, but I do not have an oval base and I do not want to wait for one to arrive in the mail. 

Thanks for the interest, though.


----------



## Angelofdeath690 (Sep 21, 2011)

Im liking this version of a tervigon, i cant find many that i can say i like and i'm a bit picky with the few Tyranid models that haven't been released *curses GW*. I do like the spider look of yours and it doesn't look as odd as some i have seen.

Props to you and your nid, hope to see it painted up!.


----------



## MidnightKid333 (Feb 2, 2011)

*Update 4*

will be available within the hour.


----------



## Bubblematrix (Jun 4, 2009)

midnightkid333 said:


> *Update 4*
> 
> will be available within the hour.


Oh you tease


----------



## MidnightKid333 (Feb 2, 2011)

*Update 4*

Okay, so I lied about the update being available within the hour. I got distracted. 

This update was a bit more work than the others. Attaching the model to its base, yet making it removable to allow for easy transportation. The body and abdomen fit comfortably into my box, and the legs are just magnetized. Nevertheless, It was a pain in the ass to get the sticks in the correct position. 

Apart from that, I threw some drywall in the cracks of the gargoyle. There was still some damage from snipping off his wings, so it had to be covered up or I would risk ruining the entire tervigon.










_Speaking of the gargoyle, do you guys think I should even include it in the model? It looks a bit weird. I was thinking about replacing the gargoyle with the termagaunt. ...any thoughts on that?_

without the gargoyle








With the new positioning of the tervigon, his saliva is on a weird angle. Do you think I should I remove it or what?

with the gargoyle









here are Pictures of the stick placement. I had to angle the second one to avoid it from falling backwards, because of the weight of the abdomen.

















Here he is on the base. The sticks are not too noticeable, but I think I am going to paint them black anyway, so they will blend in with the base. 

















thoughts so far? I need feedback. should I keep the gargoyle or replace it with a termagaunt? How do the sticks look? 

Thanks.

:bye:

@Bubblematrix - I like to keep you waiting. LOL!


----------



## Dave T Hobbit (Dec 3, 2009)

I think vomiting out a creature works; as the Tyranid genome alters I do not feel it matters whether it is a Gargoyle or Termagaunt.

Once the sticks are painted black I do not think they will be very noticeable.

I would replace the saliva dribbles with correctly angled dribbles, as small impossibilities always detract from great work for me.


----------



## MidnightKid333 (Feb 2, 2011)

I just think the gargoyle gets in the way of the tervigon. I may have to re-model it to make it look better. 

The gun of the gargoyle is in a stupid direction, so I will probably re-position it to make it look as though he is aiming it, or something along those lines.


----------

