Building Two Trygons From One Box

The finished article

In order to complete my army for next weekend's Open War XVII tournament organised by the First Company Veterans club, I needed to build two Trygons - and I decided to cut costs by attempting to build both from a single box! Here is how I did it...

Materials





Work in progress # 1

First, an admission. Whilst I did make two Trygons from the one box, I did need one or two extra things - the biggest one being a monstrous creature body. In this case, I used the body from a 'spare' Carnifex that our Dave (he of the painting masterclasses soon to grace the Claws & Fists blog) very kindly gave to me in return for lifts to a recent tournament. I addition, I used Milliput, some thick plasticard, some Halfords' wire mesh and an old resin truck from the bitz box.

Trygon # 1

The first model was made from the main tail-pice of the Trygon model, plus the Carnifex body mentioned earlier. I also used the large base from the main kit, which I weighted down with the resin truck to give the finished model some stability.

I wanted this model to look like it had just wrecked the truck, so I positioned the main tail-piece to appear as though the Trygon was enveloping it within it's tail, ready to be crushed and slashed into pieces by the might of this Tryanid moster (much like the Squats were in the late nineties). To finish the look, I fixed the barbed tail-end on the other side of the truck, so it looks like the Trygon is looping underneath the wrecked vehicle.

The body was an easy fit, and only needed a bit of milliput to fill in the gaps. The head was another matter, however. As I was keeping the main head for the second model, I again had to dip into the bitz box, where I found an old Carnifex head (ebay is wonderful, isn't it?!). I sliced off the top of the head and then affixed it to the Mawloc crest (the one with what looks very much like deeley-boppers on it). The hardest part was then to fix this completed head assembly to the body. This was done using lots of polystrene cement and then milliput, the surface of which I carved to match with the ridged armour plates  on the back of the Carnifex body.

Parts used:

• Trygon main tail
• Trygon barbed tail
• Carnifex body & claws
• Mawloc crest
• Carnifex head
• Trygon small spiky claw bits
• Large base
• Resisn truck (base decoration & weight)

Trygon # 2

Work in progress # 2

The second model was made from all the bits in the kit that weren't used above. I started by cutting a piece of thick plasticard into the right shape, to act as the base. I wanted this Trygon model to look as though it were appearing from a subterranean sewer, so I cut a rectangle of metal car-repair mesh and then sliced it nearly in half. I folded and bent the two halves over to look as though this Trygon had slicced clean through the metal grating. To finish the base, I cut thin rectangles of plasicard with I stuck around the mesh to look like the concrete edges of the sewer-drain.

The main body of this model was straight from the Trygon box, so this followed the instructions that come with the kit. The tail was fashioned from the tail-loop which usually curls around the base of the Trygon (a bit of a waste, if you ask me!). Firstly I needed to straighten the tail-loop, which I did by slowly and evenly heating the plastic over a small candle (just like we all used to make biplane wing-wire and sailing-ship rigging by stretching platic sprue over a candle or lighter). This worked very well, although I did have to take time on this to make sure I didn't melt the detail off of the tail!

Once the tail had been glued onto the base and the body had been glued onto this, the claws and head were fixed on. Again this was as per the normal instructions. Once all the gluing was done, I used Milliput to fill in all the gaps - in particular underneath the tail-loop, which is basically hollow as it's supposed to be glued down onto a base.

 

Parts used:

• Plasticard (base)
• Trygon tail-loop
• Trygon 'scorpion' tail
• Trygon body, claws & head
• Car repair mesh

Painting

The two models were undercoated with Halfords grey primer (my primer of choice). Once this was dry I base-coated with Ice Blue, and then liberally applied a wash of Asurman Blue over this. Armour plates and claws were based with Liche Purple, over which I layered rough stripes of successively lighter shades of purple/white mix onto the edges of the armour plates. Finally the teeth were painted with Skull White.

The bases were base coated with (very old) Codex Grey, which I wet-blended with various shades of darker and lighter greys. I washed the base with a thick coating of Ogryn Flesh, and once this was dry I drybushed with a couple of light shades of grey. The resin truck and metal mesh were drybrushed with Gun-Metal and the edges of the drain were picked out with stripes of black and yellow.

Paints used:

• Ice Blue
• Asurman Blue wash
• Liche Purple
• Skull White
• Grey, yellow, black & Ogryn Flesh (basing)