A long time ago I made a Deathleaper conversion for someone and for some reason never gave it it’s own post.
That Deathleaper was made as a commission piece and from my desire to try to emulate some of the great artwork that existings for Lictors.
I started with a standard Tyranid Warrior as a base. I wanted to emphasize the stalkery nature of Lictors giving him long thin limbs. To do this I separated all three sections on each leg and shaved off all the details on the Warrior legs and drilled through each from top to bottom so I could thread them onto a length of brass wire. This way there was a single piece of brass wire running the length of each leg. I don’t like my conversions to be flimsy or too delicate, they have to be equipped to be used as gaming pieces.
Where I wanted to lengthen a section of the leg I would cut it in half and fill with green stuff, covering the exposed brass wire in the middle. This gives me a shape that can then later be cleaned up and have details (like chitin plates) added back on.
The process was very much the same with the arms. The toughest part of this whole conversion was posing it to look like it was stalking forward, but the extra arms complicate things.
The rocky base started out as a piece from an Empire Griffon kit piece. I added more rocks in a rough manner with Magic Sculpt, and after about an hour, before it had cured fully, I took a scalpel to it and cut away the surfaces to give it sharper edges.
After the original Deathleaper (which I’d failed to show off very well) someone asked for a remake. The above video is that recreation. Made in much the same way. I also included a Hive Tyrant head, with the same style of tendrils. Very pleased with how they turned out. It’s actually simpler than one might think.
I started out by rolling out lots of thin sausages of greenstuff mix, giving them a pointy end, and simply bending or twisting each of them. When they had fully cured, I basically grouped the best ones together and glued them to the front of a jawless Tyrant Head. Then it’s a matter of blending the plastic and the tendrils together with putty.
