Hive Guard

Hi everybody; long time between posts.
Unfortunately I haven't made much progress on my SoH, uni and life have been getting in the way of my much more important hobby activities.
I did however get to play in QM 3 over last weekend, and as usual it was a well run event, and I had a great time catching up with mates and playing some games of 40k.
I was lucky enough to win players choice again with my nids

And best painted went to my good friend John, and his amazingly painted Carcarodons space marines. He has a blog HERE which I recommend you go check out, he's a very prolific and quality painter.



Apart from the players choice, I came 15th out of 26, so about midfield. Not bad considering I had only played one game of 6th, and that was the Friday night, and  had only found out on the Wednesday that it was 1850, not 1750. Which lead me to convert and paint 2 hive guard just in time, and I had the presence of mind to document the process for once.

Components:
Hormogaunt head
Tyranid warrior torso, legs, tail, deathspitter, & flesh hooks
Genestealer scything talons
Curved armour plate from the gaunt-gant upgrade sprue
Knead-it putty
Greenstuff
1200 grit sandpaper

Firstly take the tail section of you warrior, and using the sprue insertion point as a convenient marker, cut the tail off angling the cut backwards from the top of the tail to the bottom. Then using a sharp blade whittle the stump down into a tail like shape, once its close take the sand paper and smooth the tail out. You should end up with something like this.

At this point you can also remove the dome of the waist, this will lower the torso, giving a more squat look and differentiating the guards from the warrior its based on.

Next we begin work on the torso, clip the high point from between the should blades, and glue the curved plate from the gants upgrade sprue over the neck opening. Use a bit of putty to hold it in place while the glue dries.

Next taking some of the knead-it, because it dries in 5 minutes and can be filed/sanded, smooth the plate into the shoulders, use a bit of water to get it reasonably smooth, but don't worry too much because you'll sand it as well.
Attache the front and back halves of the torso together, and glue the legs to the tail section, and the torso to the tail section.
Also, to get the eyeless look, use some putty to cover the eyes of the hormogaunt heads, sculpting them to look like armour plates.

Now attach the flesh hooks to the fron of the deathspitter to give the impression of an impaler cannon. you can attach the head at this point dependent on you colour scheme, I find it easier to leave it off.

Next time I'll show you all how I paint them.

Aaron