Back on the old boards, I started compiling fluff and minis ideas for Megarachnids... and then with the loss of everything I had typed up when Artimum spat his dummy, I dumped the whole lot in my bits box and left it at that.

Were it not for the Non-Imperial contest, they might never have been resurrected! :D

Here is what I hope will be the first of many Arachnid warrior minis:





The model is based on the old Starship Troopers 'Assassin Bug', with extra parts from the 'Mantis Bug' and plenty of greenstuff. The casts (by Mongoose, boo hiss!) are not great, but with a large amount of superglue I was able to test out a few poses and assemble the finished model in an evening.

I didn't take any work-in-progress shots, but I will do on the next one! :rolleyes:

I assembled the Assassin body as normal, using a GW large base to add stability during the notoriously difficult leg build. I then cut the tiny, fiddly mandibles from the Mantis head and glued these straight onto the socket where the Assassin jawbone would go, and filed off the eye sockets within the recess.

Each mini comes with two sets of arms - extended and retracted, perfect for a Megarachnid! I emulated the shoulder sockets using greenstuff, positioning them on the second-from-top pectoral plates of the Assassin body, in between and slightly lower than the main arms. By carefully choosing which arms to put in what order, I created what I hope is quite an organic looking pose for the raised outer arm, followed by a less raised arm etc.

I then undercoated in Skull White spray, two coats being required to cover the darker-than-GW Mongoose metal. Wash all over with Asurmen Blue, and drybrush everything except the blades with a blue-grey, then pure Skull White. Blades are then washed in Badab Black and drybrush Boltgun Metal.

At this point I decided the colour was too dark and too blue, looking like a newbie's Space Wolf... so I decided to wash and highlight all the body with thinned down Skull White. This was perfect, allowing me to keep the drybrushed highlights but smooth them all together to be less grainy. A final highlight with Skull White brought out the edges of the armour and little spined ridges, and the blades were highlighted with Mithril Silver. To finish, I touched up all the articulated joints with Badab Black or Asurmen Blue, depending on how deep they were.

The dusty red Murder ground was achieved with builders' sand, coated in Mechrite Red and washed Badab Black. A quick drybrush of Mechrite, followed by Tanned Flesh (!) brought out the detail - I think this will work spendidly for Mars terrain too, and avoids the pinky-orangey colour I've seen some people blunder into!

Comments?

this lookes a Star Wars miniauters model at first glance; an acklay, i think.

i like your painting technique, but i can't recall what color the Megarachnid were, so i can't comment on the scheme itself.

i like the base though, it provides a great contrast compared to the miniature itself.

looks good so far.

The fluff extracts I wrote in my sketchbook 18 months ago were:

Megarachnid Warriors
"Silver blurs" like upright beetles shod in metal
Twice the height of a man
3-segmented bodies
Armour fused with arthropoidal bodies
Weapons possessed rather than carried
Metre-long curved blade - brushed zinc or galvanised iron
3m tall, 8 limbs - 4 hindmost for walking, other 4 as weapons (blades)
Squat, wide, wedge-shaped head
Short mouthparts, no eyes
Ivory headcrests, larger crests indicative of age/rank
White blood

Flying Megarachnids
Glassy wings
Gloss black bodies, legs pulled up under

Murder
Red dusty earth
Gigantic grass stalks, grey-white, 20m tall, thick as a man's thigh
Bottom metre of stalks, black larvae sacs
'Tree' - white calcified bone, wide capped mushroom 50m across, 10m trunk

All taken from Horus Rising, obviously.

Not so very different, actually - I never noticed that, despite being the #2 ranked SWM player in the UK... :lol:

Thats incredible!

How many do you play to do?

I have enough parts for three more MAs, and then I want to take on the flying MAs too, and a larval stage (from the grass stalks) which will make a legal 500pt counts-as Tyranids army.