Aerofauna

The following models are in response to a feature on another Blog, see;

http://leadpeople.blogspot.com/2008/10/aerofauna-sightings.html

I thought that the idea was fantastic and decided I needed to model a couple of Aerofauna of my own for my Space 1889/Aeronef games. The first photo shows the Sky Floaters - passive bags of gas with a small body and long tendrils, although they look harmless and can be easily avoided, the Sky Floaters do pack a nasty punch and can easily disable a crew with their stinging tendrils. The stings, although very painful are not fatal. These creatures float on the wind in packs and are not known to be aggressive.

The second model, a Canal Crab Apple is a totally different animal, being very dangerous and a true predator. The tendrils and tentacles can kill a man with ease and the creature has a tendency to hunt its prey, sneaking up on any living being through detecting sound and movement. Once stung the injuries are nearly always fatal. Luckily these Canal Apples are very rare.

The remaining photos show work-in-progress shots, The Floaters being made from the plastic balls found in roll-on under-arm deodorant and florists wire with torn strips of green scouring pad.

The Crab Apple was made from a wooden air-freshener in the shape of an apple, with broom bristle tendrils and tentacles made from paper-covered wire

They have been great fun to build and paint. I would expect to build a couple more. To give an idea of scale, both designs are about 32mm round and the bases are 40mm round Games Workshop bases.

Tony

In greater detail;

The Crab Apple was based on an in-car wooden air freshener which was turned up-side-down, the top (which used to be the bottom) has some DAS modelling clay added to modify the shape and the stalk was drilled to accept the broom bristles which were first cut from the broom, bound with fuse wire and glued in the hole. The tentacles are more fuse wire, first covered with silver foil and then newspaper, the thick end has a small piece of the fuse wire still showing and attached in to the base via a pre-drilled hole. I added seven tentacles (although I modelled eight) - I wanted the model to be more alien! I coated the tentacles with white glue and some superglue. On the top of the Crab Apple I added five paper discs, punched from a self-adhesive label.

I then added small smooth stones (picked up on a beach in Spain some time ago and sieved) to the base with PVA glue and even a couple individually added with superglue, once set they were 'fixed' with watered-down PVA glue.

Once I was satisfied with the shape I painted the model with a mixture of acrylic paints and GW washes. The base is a piece of radio-controlled rod, attached to a GW 40mm round base to which a metal washer has been glued to the underneath, the groundwork is sand over PVA glue.

'Double click' on the photo above for a better photo.