Big Momma

I have now finished my first Tervigon, and have even used it in a couple of games. Here is a quick guide to how I made the model...

First, I built the body from a plastic dinosaur I bought on holiday last year. The model was just about the right size (approximately 8 inches...ahem...), and had the requisite spikes and spines that Tyranids demand. I took the dinosaur head off as it was a little bit feeble, and repositioned the tail by cutting it in three places, angling the ends and then regluing to get the gentle curve I wanted.

Next, I added the front and rear legs, plus the excellent crushing claws which gave the beast a very menacing demeanour. At the same time I added a Carnifex head, which I imbedded into the carved-out neck cavity of the dinosaur skeleton.

I also had to fill the hollow body of the model, to convert the long-dead bones into the lumbering behemoth it wouls shortly become. To do this, I mixed PVA glue and water in equal quantities, then soaked up the mixture into kitchen roll. I rolled up balls of glue-inpregnated papier-mache and inserted them into the dinosaur's body cavity (slightly reminiscent of stuffing a bird at Christmas, but that's a tale for an entirely different website). The texture on the kitchen-roll gave a satisfyingly leathery skin texture to the belly of the beast. At this stage I also created the head-crest, which I made from flat, approximately 5mm thick strips of modelling clay on a curved piece of see-through plastic superglue blister pack!

Once the model was complete, I undercoated it with grey carpaint and then got to work with the acrylics. The main colour is Citadel's Ice Blue, over which I washed Asurmen Blue ink. The spines and scales were painted Warlock purple, and detailed with increasingly fine lines of lighter purples and finally white.

The last piece of work to do was the base. I use modelling clay to create a lightly textured rocky effect (no sand is used in the making of this model's base), which I then paint light grey and wash with Ogryn Flesh ink. Some dry-brushing helps to pick out the peaks of the rocky crags, and finally flock is added to give a bit of colour and contrast to the otherwise neutral base.