So, I'm a Tyranid player and as such am making a BFG fleet to match my army. I've made a few ships by hacking apart some old and crap models I made when I was 13 (seriously, they wouldn't have looked out of place on 1D4chan's THIN YOUR PAINTS article) and splicing them back together in such a way that they look like spacecraft, with the addition of some less crappy bits and plenty of putty.
Now I've only done 4 ships, all of which were small: a Vanguard Drone made almost entirely from milliput coated in Green Stuff with a few small nid bits for detail (Devourer for Pyro-Acid prow, flesh hooks and adrenal glands for sensory clusters) some things which could be Krakens out of Warrior pelvis/tail pieces with sliced off talons and flesh hooks for the Feeder Tentacles and Spinefists for organic thrusters, and a slightly larger model (probably a cruiser) out of 2 Warrior back plates, the Carnifex twin-linked Devourers, a Warrior Barbed Strangler, the huge talons from the Warrior kit for some Massive Claws (attached to look like beetle pincers) and a large amount of putty (this one isn't finished yet). I'm quite happy with how they've turned out, but I haven't primed them yet and as they still have the dreadfully applied paint from 2009 on them they don't look all that great.
So, anyway, I had some questions:
Firstly, as I don't need to worry about the GW parts lawyers with BFG due to it being obsolete, are there any 3rd party pieces/common knick-knacks/toy pieces I should be aware of? I do have a Chapterhouse Warrior Lash Whip which I might put to use as a long spinal tail thing on a Hive Ship, and also I was planning on using sea shells/non-volatile sea creature bits to give them a real "spaceborne creatures" feel, partially inspired by the Space Monsters from Gunbuster.
Secondly, whilst I wanted to make it obvious that they were my Tyranids I wanted to give them the same colour scheme as my 40K army, however due to their sheer mass I would imagine that they would look fairly different to the planetary attack organisms. Any ideas on how to paint them to make them look space-y?
(For the record, here are a few pics of one of my 'Nids. Sorry about the crappy photography!)
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Third, are there any guidelines regarding the size of the models? I was planning on making an absolutely huge Hive Ship to represent that it had been fully upgraded with extra structure points (using a Rupture Cannon as the rear half!) but obviously if there's rules regarding size I might not be able to do that. I recall reading in the rules that there's no real size limitations, but I'd like to know general player etiquette.
Also, any general wisdom on fleet equipment/ship choices?
Thanks!
