Rogue Trader - Protonid - Fan Sculpt

Hello, l am currently working through some of my favourite of Oldhammer fan sculpts and todays post features a fan commissioned tribute to the extremely hard to come by limited release prototype Tyranid, there is a lot of speculative fiction surrounding the origins of the prototype Tyranid miniature on various forums and blogs but I am not going into that here.

If you have not seen the original protonid miniature it features in the photo 'Battle for Geo-Station Erpes - Orks battle Marines' on pages 102/103 of the Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader rulebook, this fan sculpt really captures the essence of the original protonid miniature and apart from the original having a gaping mouth, I think it's a superb alternative.

Painting was a bit on and off for 3 months, it's huge daunting miniature, 90mm long and 40mm high but I finally got into it, I started to go for a similar tone to the original and there was a lot of space to fill but no matter how much highlighting and shading I did on the it the miniature still felt a bit flat so then I deviated from my plan and went for an alien with a touch of horror thrown in and tried to break up the space with animal type patterns and other details like running blood, veins, etc which I think brought the miniature to life.  Due to the miniatures size I had to source a modern Games Workshop base and I raided the skulls box chucked on some sand, textured paint and job was done, after I have matt varnished this miniature I plan to gloss the eye over.

** Update **

Now I have had a lot of messages on FB and Twitter on about where one could potentially get hold of fan sculpts and I've always been unhappy tagging a person as they might get spammed, anyway I happy to announce that these miniatures are available from Ye Alchemist now do yourself a favour and go buy you will not be disappointed.

Protonid - left side

Protonid - right side

Protonid - front

Size comparison with the super tall and chunky Inquisitor with power weapon

I have included a few images of the original Tyranid so you can make your own comparisons.

Tyranid illustration page 201 Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader rulebook

Tyranid miniature page 103 Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader rulebook

Bryan Ansell's Tyranid (photo borrowed from Steve's old thecitadelcollector website)

Thanks for dropping in, more fan sculpts coming soon.

J