Tyranid Hobby Update: Swarmlord and Tyrant Guard Basing

Got loads of work in this weekend on hobby projects.
This included building and airbrush painting 40 Gargoyles.
Building and airbrushing Swarmlord - I decided to buy the proper model rather than converting yet another of my Carnifex/Tyrants from dusty Carni models.
Putting snow basing on 60 Gaunts and 20 Gargoyle flying stands.
Converting the Space Hulk Brodlord to have a lash whip - he is my Tyrant Gaurd, but also my Warrior Prime model so he has to look bad ass.
He also got airbrushed.
I also built and positioned the basing for three Tervigons.

I decided to take a break from the boring basing of the masses of models.. about a third of the way through Gargoyle bases and almost half way through Gaunt bases... and go to more distinctive basing for the Swarmlord and his lash whip wielding Guard.

I'll update this post later in the week with painted pics of both the bases and the models.

The Tyrant Guard to the right was built from a pretty simple arm swap. the back left arm (in shot) is in fact the dual left armS of the existing model - this was then clipped and trimmed to remove the second arm and put as the back limb. It was then a simple job to put in the lash whip arm from the plastic tyrant kit - a perfect sized piece for the job!
converting the guard....


As you can see from the Guard's base, I decided to use foam board to build some ruin pieces rather than the cork board that I used for the Ravenwing and for Swarmie. I have always been ab it worried about its applications since I built some Infinity terrain last year -it was a bit shaky, so since then I've not been convinced by it. However, here it is supported by the plastic base and framed around the existing scenic base from the Space Hulk. I used super glue to get it onto the base and also placed a piece of plasticard tubing running through the base to give a greater level of detail.
I first had a dry run of the pieces to see how it would all look across the layers of ruins. I very much encourage everyone to adopt this as best practice.
After the pieces were in place I also used some liquid green stuff to create an amount of sewage flowing from the pipe. Suitably nasty for the Nids I thought and in homage to his original function as a Genestealer - this is the kind of dank nasty place we may find a Genestealer cult.
To further increase the detail, I used some random detail pieces from the Manufactorum GW kit that I had lying around.. but any old bits of palstic kit could work.. bodies, limbs.. I even thought about some bike parts to represent the successful trial of my Nids vs Ravenwing/IG this weekend in playtesting.

For Swarmie I did use cork board, mainly for scale - as a monstrous creature, he can command a more substantial base than the Guard, plus...he kinda deserves something bigger - I personally feel the plastic model is a little small.. although I am not going to lie.. it makes him easy to hide loL!

His base look very plain at the minute, just having a broken aquila piece and some piping for sewage.. the sewage will get the same liquid green stuff..."muck flow".. coming out of the pipes.. I am also going to steal some metal paperclips from school today and insert them into the broken ruin building slab to represent the steel enforced elements (Rebar) of the concrete.. this will add detail to the rubble..plus, it will have patches of snow all around the base for more detail.. I may create some ice patches too for Swarmie to slip on...lol..or maybe see if I can model "Enfeebled" old man or some sort of Bio-shield to represent Telekine Dome.. some sort of psychic lols basically..  

Both bases are going to have snow added to them after the detail is painted to tie in with the rest of the army.. the ruins help to lay ground work for coherent theme with the Zoanthrope models which will be mounted on small peices of rubble/ruin terrain.. Theme is important for me in this army.. I want them to be good looking. I feel I am improving on my "completed" armies with each one.. I was first pleased to have a one colour space marine force...then my Wolves were tournament ready at 3 colours plus detail and WYSIWYG...then the Crons got airbrished to really have their Gauss weaponry POP on the tabletop.. Now the Nids will take that POP and improve through basing..
The Ravenwing take both of these elements too to be fair..
Anyway, more later in the week..