Tyanid Red Driver Ant

Dead Tyranid Canifex Painted In Driver Ant Scheme

I went on freecycal.com the other day and found a destroied carnifex there for grabs. I gathered the beast off the geezer who was nice a local and painted him with a kind of driver ant scheme. working mainly by blending on a back base bending out slowly with dark to light shades of red. like the achual driver ants i wanted the beast to work out from red to black so that in a swarm the sything taylons wouldn't stand out but the exoskeltton/shell/carnipeice would attract the most vissual attention. rather the sything taylons would seem to be thined by the tonnal and colour contrast to the nice razor sharp points, like seen in an ant raider party that swarm with their skittish sea of limbs that flurry and consume their foe.

Driver Ant Head

Driver Ant

 The carnifex was pre destroied and mostly gluded so i didn't have alot of freedom there, it really had to be a dead canifex. At the end of the day this wasn't a bumber beacuse i know the driver ant uses it's body to build temportay living structures and so i guess the idea of tyranids using this guy to cover their own brood be pretty sick. also it does make a good addition to any kind of appoclictic terrain, in fact i like the idea of seeing swarms of dead tyranid hormagaunts lying as the evidence of a failed wave of attack. i think it might give a table that sence of tyranid determination and riziliance simply sending hords of expendible relentless swarms to suffercate the ememy. however it would cost alot of money to do that if i bought them. i'll just keep a keen eye out on freecycal i think.

My Carnefex With PVA-ed Toilet Paper (you can also see the old paint scheme taylon in the corner there)

Anyway. this dead carnifex, it didn't have a large sything talon so i made a kind of exit would in it's place co-insiding with two boltgun/boltpistol entry wounds in the top of the canipeice.

In and Out and O... It Ripped My Arm Off!

this was simply made by wetting toillet paper to make it manuable and then as brushed the genral shape and clups of gorey flesh i added pva glue to make the thing solid. this could have proberly been done alot easier with green stuff but i ddin't have any so if your looking for a very cheap alternitive to green stuff that you proberly have lying around the house anyway.

Bushing Work With PVA

I really played with this stuff alot.i mean i took a very long time to dry properly and it was so manuable for hours! but i really does give a good exit wound blast out effect when you flick your bush from the centre out. very easey way to make bloody messes on larger creatures. i wouln't suggest it on smaller creatures simply becuase the paper is quite uncontrollable and if you have very little space and alot of precious detail you don't want to lose that to being cheap and not buying the green stuff.

Entry Holes

while painting it i thought i would move totally from the normal paint the carapeice one colour and then the body another colour. yeah i wanted the whole thing to blend like ants to in the picture you can see in my previous post and on the top of this one. so achaully although the shell/armour work is more red than black the exoseketon/flesh is achaully hightlighted and blended into black with reds on the connecting peices to give it that sence of wholiness. the creature isn't made up of induviual parts but a whole connected interweived system of exoskeleton and fleshy musels. arguablily this is very monotone and doesn't really bring the tyrnaids out, but hay a sawrm of monotone is exsactly what ants look like so i feel quite acomploished in that sence.

Finished and Painted Carnifex Showing Exit Wound That Ripped Off Arm

 I feel really makes this beast is the sninny exoskelton, which i did really simply. literally as i had finished with all the painting i just mixed PVA with warter untill it was soft and manuable like a paint and then just applied a thin layer to the whole thing. it just gives it that cool gloss. however it can bulk up and add perphas unwanted detail to your model. however i personally hulked it up on perpose on the carnipeice to give it that crustation like weathered effect.

Finished Carnifex Showing Entry Wounds

 looking at tyranids now they also remind me of alien alot too. infact that's the reason i went for a green blood. not just to contast but to comapre with alien as ants have no oxygen in their blood therefore it is transparent and trasparent blood would be very boring. so as you can see i based the inside with a dark green and then hight lighted with a ligther green. infact so light that it is the lightest tone on the carnifex apart from it's skull.  i really wanted to have something that yelled at you in my paint scheme and so why not make it some lovily gore that gets all the attention!

Shell Work

what i would like to do next time is to base in black (following this driver ant paint scheme) then add a clolur base of very dark brown to 70% of the model leavesing just the more fleshy bits and holes to just be black then again bend up into a kind of dark reds to hightlight  but to finish give it a brown wash to seep into the crevises. i still plan on buying the battlefoce, just as soon as i get some money.

Some More Angels

Top Veiw Giving You That Monotone Feel

Top Veiw Agian Showing You That Battered Carnipeice

Narrtive For the Carnifex (good read for thows who like warhammer novels)  

I personally like to imagin that the carnifex was shot at from some kind of imprial gaurd, space marine or eldar sniper team garinsoned high in a building, which would explain why the entry wond is on the top of this massive towering creture. through that's kinda boring so i also thought of a more epic synario.


Imagin this carnifex is doing really well at war. It's just masicared it's way the main line of gaurdsmen pushing entire platoons back with swooping sything taylons and stamping on thows who fall under his massive body. the noise of tearing metal, ripping flesh, screaming men and the groul of the beast fill the air. lazrifles vainly shoot into the body of the beast barley skratching the serface, the men are terrified of this beast and can't fight with such fear in their hearts. If this thing isn't brought down soon it would have broken the line and the incomming hormagaunts will fill the gap like running warter and the blood of the gaurdsmen will flow like an occian as the entire line collapes from this one weak point out. As hope for the line flutters a space marine assult squad strike from the sky like death from above landing like bombs onto the ground sorround the beast. the carnifex covers it's self with it's limbs in preporation to explode with a wind of sything talons and the srrounding marines. The sargent takes a delaied flight to the sky but on his late decent tagets the beast as he falls like lightning shooting his blaster into the back of the beast. a few craks appear on the beast shelly back. the sarget then crushes down on the beast like a huracain crakinf it's back more and stands on the top of the beast as it flaials around trying to remove the pesty vultucher that looms over his back baring the eyes of death. the sargent points his bolter into the weakened spot gipping the best and it's trys like a bull to shake him off. he unloads a 2 pefect shots that peniprait right through the beast exiting through a arm of the canifex ripping it appart with a debry of musels and flesh from it's root. the beast collides with the earth. as thick, dead, heavey and limp as lead the beasts touches death and the sarget with eyes as narrow as knife wounds, focused and calm he steps of the beast shattered back and reforms the line with his brothers who are shooting off the incomming swarm of hormogaunts.

RETURN. DESTROY. CONSUME!