Cleaning up my Tyranid Bastion

Back in March, I showed some pictures of a toy I’d picked up to convert into a Tyranid bastion.  That post was mostly just praise to Dwez from 40k Addict for giving me the idea and some size comparison shots, but I’ve finally broken ground and started working on the model.

The bulk of the work really came in three parts: removing unnecessary components, green stuffing gaps, and adding more unnecessary components.

Removing Unnecessary Components:

To start with, I identified those pieces on the model that were completely superfluous and had to be removed.  In general, these are the parts of the figure that looked too cartoony, or out of place in a 40k/tyranid setting.  This included some of the components inside of the tower, but mostly consisted of removing the two spindly arms on the figure, along with the red demon with a punching arm from the back.

Now I’m sure I could’ve worked to make either of those components fit in with the scheme, but they just didn’t look right, so they were removed.  Additionally, I wound up peeling off the stickers from the top of the model (ie. the “lava” stickers) with an exact-o knife and some goof-off.

At this stage, I also wound up gluing the two halfs of the model together.  This was one of those things I debated for a while, but ultimately decided on doing it.  I guess this is akin to assembling a tank without painting the inside, but my thought process was having it in half would leave an unsightly seem.  Weighed against the potential positive of being able to position guys inside (something I doubt I’d ever do–in fact, I had this same debate with my Imperial Bastion and glued that together as well), I opted to glue it together.

I also wound up gluing the mouth/door halfway open.  My thought there was that the purple teethy door and the slide/tongue both could act as the door and I didn’t want to get them confused, so I opted to glue this one halfway open to use it as a firing slit later.

Green Stuffing Gaps:

There’s no rocket science here.  I just took blobs of green stuff and filled in the various areas/holes.  In cases where the holes were significant in size, I wound up wadding in balls of tin foil first.  This was because I didn’t have much green stuff to my name at the time (in fact, I had to actually borrow some from Simon to “complete” that stage).

I’m so thankful to have a good group of friends to play toy soldiers with.

But it was really just filling holes and cracks:  essentially the holes made from removing parts and the seams from where pieces went together.  One area I’m pleased with was a big square on the back of the model got some green stuff to make it look like a rounded hole–though the pictures really don’t show it well.  One area that leaves something to be desires is where I did a little braiding thing around one of the holes to try to make it look more tree-ish: it clearly needs some more love.  Good thing I’m not done with it, eh?

Adding More Unnecessary Components:

When originally showed the tower to people, several got the bastion vibe, but a couple of people wound up thinking it was going to be a Chaos model and not a Tyranid one.  Frankly, I thought it was a spitting image of a Tyranid figure, but with the initial confusion, I figured I should do a little something to make it more buggy.

When I paint it, I knew the bulk of the figure would be blue (to match my scheme, of course), but that it could use some extra armor plates for color balance.  Since I had purchased far too many carnifexen over the years, I had a glut of their back plates available, and figured they could work out.  I wound up gluing them all in place and snapping the photos you see in this blog post to show to friends.  Personally, I felt it looked weird and over-the-top (particularly the little spire to the side), but they seemed to disagree.  In fact, one of them insisted that I put more on there!

I wanted to work in some other Tyranid bits, but couldn’t really find any that seemed appropriate.  I did have one of the old plastic hive pieces from the Battle from Macragge  boxed set, and it fit perfectly over another porthole that I thought may be confused for a door, so I wound up covering that up and doing a simple bash of green stuff to blend it on (in hindsight, that needs more work too).

So, that’s where we stand.  Clearly it needs some more work before I can call it finished, but I’ve come to a temporary stopping point as I’ve run out of green stuff.  I also think adding some tentacles would be nice, so maybe it’s time to order a tentacle maker?  More to come…

For anyone who wants to know more about the toy I used as a base, please check out my original post on the subject.