Constructing A Tyranid-Themed Objective Marker

As a part of the Finish-an-Army Challenge, I decided to make a Tyranid-themed objective marker for my army. It's an access vent to the undercity that the Tyranids are trying to defend/capture. Hopefully it looks like the genestealers have infiltrated and are trying to break out through the vents. This could also be used as tunnel marker for Apocalypse games.

What You'll Need

You'll need one of the small bottles that prescriptions come in, (Being old, I have lots of these around), a bendy straw, and an extra pair of rending claws from a genestealer. I mounted mine on a 60mm round base, but you can base it on anything you want. I also used a thin strip of foil from a wine bottle for the hazard stripe, but you could use freehand this or use a strip of paper.

Step-by-Step

The full bottle is shown on the left, the WIP is to the right. I started with the hole in the top where the genestealer arm was going to come out. I scored the top with a hobby knife and then used a pair of pliers to push the edges out and pull the corners up. This makes it look like something burst out of the top.

Using a razor saw, cut the main body down to size and then glue the cap to it. Ream out two holes for your pipes, cut the bendy straws to fit, and then glue everything to the base. I used Liquid Nails, but you could just as easily use PVA glue.

Drybrush everything with Citadel Tin Bitz, then with VMC Gunmetal and then wash with Paynes Grey. As the wash is drying, paint up your genestealer arm in whatever palette catches your eye. I've painted mine to match the rest of my army. After the wash is dry, you probably want to rehighlight some of the edges with Gunmetal and Silver.

The industrial stripe was made out of a piece of wine foil. I thought it would be neater to make this a separate piece vs. freehanding straight lines on a curved surface. I laid down a piece of hobby tape on the backside and used it as a guide to cut it out. I glued it onto the vent and then painted the stripes. In hindsight, I should have painted the stripes first and then glued the strip to the vent. Oh well. I think this may be the basis for another tutorial.

Our last step is to add some rust, glue the arm in place and the base the marker. The sand was drybrushed Scorched Earth, Bestial Brown, and then Bleached Bone (or something like that). Lastly, I finished the off with some light green static grass. The grass also serves to cover up some of the areas I overpainted or where the color transitions didn't really look very good. I also added some green tinted PVA glue to the edges of the hole to make it look like acid, but the effect came out OK but not spectacular.

Notes

Last updated	11/20/08
Author	Michael Kan
Pre-requisites	None
Related Articles	Endgame Finish-an-Army Challenge