Tyranid Monsters: Dactylis

I was scanning the selection of Tyranid models on ebay and I ran across a Forge World Dactylis. I already had all the original Armorcast Tyranid monster models. I laid down some credit and picked it up.

What a booger! The thing looks like it’s made out of Sculpey. Okay, the original probably was, but isn’t the goal of making a model to make the model look like something other than clay? I guess I‘ve been spoiled with Armorcast and other garage kit makers, but if this was the quality of work coming out of Forge World when Games Workshop decided to dump Armorcast for them, I can see why it took nearly five years for Forge World to put something decent out. What a crappy model!

I’m not really sure what attracts me to make one model over another at any time. I decided to build this crappy model, probably just for a change from ships and in preparation of a summer of Warhammer 40K.

I washed the kit and decided the many pits and holes in the spaghetti arms really speak to the sculptors and caster’s skill, so I decided to leave them as is.

I chose to paint it before assembly and primed it. I don’t know what color GW originally designed these (or any Epic pieces) to be, so I chose my own scheme. I decided on a dark color.

Using my Liquitex Basic Acrylics, I mixed a Ultramarine Blue with Mars black. I washed the blue parts with a black oil wash and then lightened up the dark blue color with a touch of white for the dry brushing. That’s was just about as much care as my patience for this model would let me do on the shells. The head was blue/black but dry brushed with a purple, in preparation for the yellow bulb/warts.

I wanted a complimentary color somewhere on the model and so went for orange on the weird spaghetti muscle on the arms. This was probably a mistake because it does look like spaghetti now. I painted them orange, then used an old red ink I had for the wash and then a yellow dry brush. Ah’ it’ll do - the motto of the whole kit.

The ink I used on the arm proved to be a real pain. I couldn’t seal it all. Every time I got anything damp near it, like yellow paint for the ball the Dactylis is holding, the ink would run. It was bad, bad enough to swear me off of that kind of ink and keep to my own washes. I finally got a yellow on the balls and head by putting several coats of ink bled Titanium White covered with a Citadel yellow ink and a Citadel orange ink around the edges, poorly blended, but, Ah, it’ll do.

The fins and spikes where done with my usual claw recipe, a leather or sienna undercoat and then lightening shades of off white. I added a careful wash of umber this time. It’s an improvement to the recipe.

The blue things on the side were and gills were actually a problem. I originally had them green which made the whole kit look like a toy. I went with the baby-blue dry brush over the, er, blue things and then tried to do something with the lame gills. I used a base pink with red lines and pink dry brush and a thin red wash to finally blend it all together. Any detail or interest there is my doing.

I sealed the kit and put it on the shelf. I don’t like it. I don’t like how it’ll play in the game, I have better models waiting to be built- even better Tyranid monsters, but for some reason this one sits on my shelf.

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