Battle Fleet Gothic - DIY Tyranid Ships

 After a series of setbacks and stalls on my Ork Roks, I haven't been feeling excited about Battle Fleet Gothic as much. That said, I managed to acquire some cheap plastic creepy crawlies that I wanted to try to convert into Tyranid bug ships which I hoped would be easier to assemble and paint.

The crawlies in question

I started with one single large plastic crab (destined to become my hive ship) and a few ants. I wanted to create at least three different kinds of vessels to give my forces some variety and also wanted to try basing a squadron of smaller vessels. So, the plan was to create one large flagship, a medium-sized 'cruiser', and a smaller collection of 'destroyer' or 'frigate' sized vessels. 

I began (completely without a plan) by taking the plastic ants and chopping off the head and all the limbs. I noticed the heads, once they had the antenna removed, looked similar to horseshoe crabs - a great base for my 'destroyers'. I experimented briefly with reattaching the antenna as a pair of trailing tentacles but it proved too difficult to get the superglue to hold. Two crabs were based together on paperclip flight stands

A squadron of destroyers hurtle through space

Meanwhile, the ants' bodies had a weird, tubular carapace look with a bulbous end. I decided that these ends would be the main portion of the ship with the tube being a kind of mouth/boarding ramp. Needing some kind of appendage to grapple enemy ships, I took hold of the ants' legs and glued four of them, evenly spaced, around the end of the tube forming a 'mouth' of tentacles.

A side and front view of the 'cruisers'

Having finished the smaller ships, I decided to follow a similar style and process for the hive ship. I began by chopping all the limbs off of the crab's circular carapace. Then I glued four of its armored legs on its 'front' to form a powerful claw for grabbing/attacking enemy vessels. Four ant antennas served as small tentacles to pull prey into the ship's great maw. On the opposite side, I added six larger tentacles intended to represent a king of flagella. 

The hive ship hangs in space, swollen with spores to seed new worlds with terrible life

Painting the ships was straightforward. I looked at various deepsea animals and finally settled on a crab as the basis for the colour scheme of the fleet. I began with a pale beige which I dry brushed with white. Then I dry brushed a pale blue on the end of the tentacles to give them a sickly, electrical tint. Details like the mouths were painted last. 



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