Help on a Tyranid vs Guard diorama

[Ice_Rabbit]

Good day all,

I have been a long time lurker on these forums, but never really had a reason to post. Recently I have been thinking about attempting my first (GW) diorama. I was thinking about a desert scene where an imperial guard patrol squad of about 5 man is being attacked from below by a Tyranid trygon that is bursting trough the ground. There will be some guardsmen knocked down on the ground and some that are firing at the trygon. I was also thinking about adding some kind of reconnaisance vehicle (possibly a jeep) and one unlucky guardsman that is being thrown in the air by the trygon and is about to be eaten. This poses a few problems, and I hope somebody can give me some advice.

First off, I think I need to heavily convert or possibly scratchbuild the trygon. I want one that's even more snake/wurm like and perhaps a little bit bigger than the GW model. Also, I would like it to have it's head facing upward. Can anybody with knowledge of the gw model tell me of this is achievable with the standard model?
Second, the guardsman that is being thrown in the air. I want it to look like the model is falling into the trygon's mouth, so I have to pose it a little bit above it. Would it look good if I connected maybe one or two of the limbs to head/teeth/tongue of the the trygon model? I want to prevent it from looking like the guardsman is holding on to the trygon. Alternatively, I could use a see trough plastic rod, but I don't know if this would look good. Anybody have any experience with this?

I hope you guys can imagine what I'm going for here. If not, I can try to clarify with drawings. Any help will be much apreciated.

Cheers,
Ice

 

[Mourner]

First of all, welcome

Your diorama sounds great, the first association it brings to mind is of this mini somehow.
I think the coloring would be great for a desert.

One thing that's kind of troubling me is balance, how can 5 guardsmen (one of which gets eaten allready) possible be a match for a trygon?
Adding a scout vehicle (like te FW Tauros in the reference) with a larger weapon might give the Guard a chance.
Plus it provides a number of extra possiblities.

Imagine the Guard were setting up a beacon, or their engine broke down.
This would take them out of their vehicle and away from their most potent weapon.
Maybe convert one guard to be sprinting for the truck-mounted weapon.
And if the driver was repairing the vehicle and got eaten first....

Judging from what I can see of the trygon online, the head is a seperate part, so you should be able to angle it back as far as you like.
You may have to shave of a headplate or stretch the neck to make it work though.

There's also a tongue spike in the kit which might solve your tossed-into-the-air problem.
Replace the middle part of the tongue with metal wire and use that to pin the guard to the trygon.
Use any length of wire you like, and using putty to make it look like a tongue.
This would look like the trygon tossed him into the air, harpooned him with his tonguespike and about to bulp him down.

Keep it up, start working and post pictures
-Mourner

 

[PegaZus]

One thing that's kind of troubling me is balance, how can 5 guardsmen (one of which gets eaten already) possible be a match for a trygon?
-Mourner

Why would they have to be a match? :devil: Perhaps the trygon has the upper hand in this situation, and it's either die or flee?

 

[Mourner]

Why would they have to be a match? :devil: Perhaps the trygon has the upper hand in this situation, and it's either die or flee?

Might be, but what's the fun in that?
4 of them are definitly not walking away.
Why not give the 5th at least a chance?
Let the audience figure it out for themselves...
Relatability is a big part of the appeal a mini has.
It's easier to relate to a human guardsman than to an alien trygon.

And who would you rather be?
The Hero who killed the trygon that killed all your mates...
Or the guy that ran away while his mates got eaten... and then got eaten himself...

In the end though, it's Ice Rabbit's call...

 

[Ice_Rabbit]

Guys thank you very much for the input. You have given me stuff to think about. On the one hand I agree with Mourner about matching things out in the diorama and giving the guard a fighting chance. On the other hand I don't know if that would be very realistic. I want the scene to depict a surprise attack, like the very moment that the trygon bursts out of the ground, and I don't know if it would be realistic that the guardsmen would be prepared to open fire at that given moment. But we will see how it pans out. I will first start by making the base and see how it goes from there.

In the meantime, does anybody have any good tips about adding a sense of movement to a diorama? Like for instance, would it look good to add streams of sand to the top of the trygon, and make it look like the sand is falling of it's carapace?
Also, I am considering using a mawloc instead of a trygon. Looks more 'sandwurmy' imo (a la Dune 2, if anyone remembers that game)

Cheers,
Ice

 

[PegaZus]

Yeah, I guess we never answered the question about action. Probably because we don't have many answers. Most minis that I've seen with any action to them have cleverly hid the support. For example, there's a witch figure on a broom and a flight (?) of bats make up the support to give her the appearance of flight.

One idea that comes to mind is to wrap the tongue around a guard (edit: Mourner did suggest that). Another would be to borrow Mourner's idea of a beacon. Put that upside down at some angle and use that as support from the nid to the guard.

I've got a similar problem as I want some trees to be in the middle of being felled by a blow from the main character of a dio I've got in work. I've thought about using some semi stiff strips of clear plastic to hold the tree tops.

One last thing to pass along that I saw in the Denver museum. They had some stuffed antelope kicking up dust, and modeled the dust! Emailed the curator to find out how it was done, and it was some clear plastic cut to the shape of the dust with the dust splatter painted. Not sure how thin one could find some plastic film that would work but that might be something to look into.