Leviathan Zoanthrope

zoanthropy zo·an·thro·py (zō-ān'thrə-pē)
"A delusion that one is an animal."

Lately I've fallen in love with the Great Devourer - and one unit I particularly enjoy is the Zoanthrope. The model I own is the old finecast one; when the new ones came out, I didn't really like the changes made to them (I'm talking about both the size creep and overall spikey-ness), so I bought the finecast model when it was still available. Now I regret I haven't bought three of them, as the amount of detail on these models is incredible.

I had some trouble with the modelling part at first, though. The tail part was bent which caused the whole model to lean on one side. Luckily enough, just two hot baths were enough to make the model straight again.

 

I absolutely love the design of this beast. A giant brain floating above the animalistic hordes of gaunts works as a great representation of the Hivemind and it's psychic power. The whole thing looks like an embryo, or perhaps a sperm, which gives it a creepy, Giger-inspired look - and that's what works best for the Alien-inspired Tyranids.

The details on the head part of the miniature are truly mind-blowing, and I've tried to accent them as much as possible. In my colorscheme, I use red mostly for biomorphs and orange for less specific wet-looking details, so the brain was obviously going to be orange. The tubes connecting the mouth with the brain are usually painted white, so I've tried to do something different and gave them a red paintjob. It's such a shame the new plastic Zoanthropes are missing lovely details like this! I've given the brain and the tubes a gloss varnish layer (as I do with all biomorphs), which has increased the creepiness factor of the miniature to over 110%.

Anyway, thanks for reading! I'm terribly sorry it took me so long to make a new post. Life was wild lately - I got a new job, new home and I lost my camera, so these pictures were made with a cell phone - hopefully they look good enough. See you soon!