This was the first Hive Crone/Harpy kit I've built and painted, as my own Behemoth army doesn't have any flying monstrous creatures. Overall, it is a nice kit. I was surprised by the size of the model - the Crone is pretty enormous (even competing with the Imperial Knight on my painting desk).
This is another dual kit, so as ever you're left with several leftover bits such as bio-cannons etc.
The spread ints give lots of opportunity for extra detail work - in keeping with my client's existing army (which I painted last year), these were painted with dulled flesh tones. I added speckling to the wings, and went a little further with Rhinox Brown patterning.
This must be why the Crone has that Vector Strike extra rule...
The carapace was patterned in the same way as the rest of the army, but as I had extra space I went with something a little more exotic.
I like that the current larger monstrous creatures have chips and scuffs sculpted onto the carapace plating. I picked these out contrary to the patterning, for emphasis.
My client also purchased some aliens-style eggs, part of a terrain kit, and these were glued to the base.
These shots show the underside of the model. Initially, I was going to paint the bio-sacs in flesh tones as well, but part way through the model I decided against this. There is so much flesh on the wings, I think more of those tones would've overwhelmed the model. So, instead I used a variety of washes - sadly, these photos don't really demonstrate the colours very well!
Finally, when I said that the model was finished I was being a little "liberal!" I've painted but not mounted the four tentaclid parts. These are supposed to attack enemy flyers and have a haywire type rule, so I painted them with Nihilakh Oxide, perhaps demonstrating some internal bio-source or power. This is one of my favourite technical paints from the Citadel range, and has lots of uses outside of painting oxidised metals.
The tentaclids will be mounted to the wings with magnets, but I need to order them.
Hopefully, early next week I will be able to photograph some gene stealers I'm also finishing up for this army.