First Out Of The Factory...

Yep, there they are; the Doom of Malan'tai and his buddy, Tyracron Warrior 01.  The first two models in the Army of the Void Dragon. Yes, I'm aware that DoM's base is a bit bigger, but he's also a special character, after all. Strangely enough, like Deathleaper, he isn't a synapse creature, and so doesn't merit the ubiquitous White Hat of Independent Thinking. Oh well, he'll still be snacking on Eldar with the rest of them before long.

Yet again, hindsight is 20/20, and if I'd bothered to think about it, I could've gone the extra mile and found some way to cast the Alien Queen's body in clear resin (preferably in two parts) so I could stick a little light inside there. Don't get me wrong, I love the light effects in DoM's chest and aerial vents but seeing him light up would've been super-cool. Failing that, it would also have been good to have a mold of an out-of-production part. Of course, that part has also been in my bits box for years, too. I had considered putting green  bits on the ends of the bright lances, but that might've made them too long and brittle.

One of the techniques I ported over from another project was the use of painting glows on the area surrounding an area, the product of some controlled "messy drybrushing" while painting the rib vents and back sections. DoM has to look extra-unearthly, after all, considering he drank an entire Eldar Craftworld dry. How he did that by himself while not being a synapse creature is beyond me. I guess he just lurked and drank until the place was empty....

I thought of painting the glowy sections using a "reverse highlighting" technique, but the recessed areas in the chest were a bit too deep, and would've been in shadow no matter what I did. The Tomb Spyder head looks fantastic, but for the mass-produced Zoancrons, I'll use Destroyer hover-skirts and the more spindly Necron Warrior bodies. Given that Tyranids are typically hexapods (that's "six-legged" for those of you in Rio Linda) I probably should've given him four more Wraith arms, if I could've found them in the first place. Also, since DoM, like Deathleaper, isn't a synapse creature, he doesn't get the White Hat of Independant Thinking. The synapse-only white cranium will also help me pick out synapse creatures on the battlefield visually, since I've never used the 'Nid codex before. Don't tell my adversaries! Shhhh!

I'm generally happy with the way the Tyracron warrior came out. He's cheap, parts-wise, and easy to mass-produce without a ton of conversion work. I plan on making six to nine of them, total, with different weapons loadouts to keep things visually interesting. The gauss coils on his weapon got the same glowy treatment as used on DoM. I'm kind of glad I didn't use the 'Nid legs now; a three-wound model should be burlier than a regular one. Also, as I've said before, they offer the potential of more dynamic poses.
 

The bronze-gold on his carapace came out brighter than it actually is, and also, much yellower; I used Dwarf Bronze to give it a reddish tint. Seeing as how he's a more elite creature, his color scheme is more along the lines of an Immortal, rather than the boring metal of a simple Termacron (or Necron warrior, if you prefer). I toyed with the idea of making both the Tyracron and DoM vastly different, but then they would have stood out too much from the existing models I'm using to fill out the horde. Now, a teaser image of the forthcoming Deathleaper:

That's right, I found more Alien Queen bits. It seems nothing I built with her remains lasted very long (come to think of it, I bought that model way back in the Battletech years). Deathleaper will be getting some parts from those Cryx warjacks too; namely those wicked-looking scything talon things. The mass-production model Lictors will be more Tyranid Warrior in terms of parts, but I might recut the legs to be more sprightly and sexy like Deathleaper's. Maybe I'll start calling the character models pseudo-C'tan, since they're individuals with their own names and weird abilties. Hmmm.....