The Tarrasque miniature project.

[Brakkart]

Inspired by this thread, I've decided to have a go at making a model Tarrasque in much the same way. I have bought the same model Rancor kit as frankthedm and intend to follow his ideas with regard to shortening the arms (by the length of the manacle), though I don't think I'll bother shortening the fingers, the Big T looks to have pretty long digits in every piece of art I've seen of it.

The feet have to go though, so I've also bought a Jurassic Park model T-Rex which is at roughly the same scale as the Rancor, and that will provide the lower legs and feet as well as the Tarrasques long tail. As for the horns, I'm gonna get a couple parts from Citadel Miniatures mail order (Manticore tails) and file them to shave off any unwanted detail, and of course I'll use a liberal amount of modelling putty to smooth over any gaps and joints between the various parts.

I have a week off on holiday soon, gonna assemble this beast then and start the long process of painting it (though undercoat is gonna be quick and easy, a can of Citadel skull white spray should do the trick in no time at all!).

Thanks for the idea frank. When I get this sucker finished, I'll be sure to post some pics here.

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

Thanks for the idea frank. When I get this sucker finished, I'll be sure to post some pics here.

Why not post some pics as you work on it as well? I'd love to see it all come together, in addition to just the finished mini.

 

[pogre]

Why not post some pics as you work on it as well? I'd love to see it all come together, in addition to just the finished mini.

I agree some workbench photos would be cool!

 

[Brakkart]

hmm okay, I'll need to recover the digicam from my parents (when they get back from France this week) and take a few shots of it as it progresses, as I plan to put it together next week (I'm on holiday from the 11th for a week).

In the meantime I'll work on clearing my painting table, working on the following right now:

Marauder Miniatures - Unicorn (Nice big warhorse style unicorn, now sadly OOP. Got mine off ebay)
- Liche
- Necromancer
- Giant Cockatrice
- Treeman/Treant
WotC Miniatures - Beholder (metal)
Reaper Miniatures - Naga
- Basilisk
Citadel Miniatures - 3 Chaos Warriors
- Bard
- Elven Ranger
- Dark Elf Sorceress

Figure it should take me most of this week to clear these off the desk. I honestly have NO idea how long painting this Tarrasque is gonna take, but looking at the bits, I'm sure gonna use a lot of paint!

 

[Brakkart]

Workbench photos as requested!

You asked for them, so here they are. Well some shots of the progress made thus far anyway. Bit of a pause in the construction right now, need plaster of paris (to fill the legs with to give it stability else it will be horribly top heavy) and superglue, both of which are easy enough to get and will be gotten on friday when I get paid, and I'll resume work on the beast then. For now though, here is where I have gotten too so far:

tarrasque1

Still need to attach its left claw, the joint needs to be expanded out a bit by heating the plastic and moulding it. This is the arm that had the manacle removed from it. Weirdly I didn't need to shorten the other arm, as without the manacle they are the same length! As you can see, I've had touse a lot of putty to fill in the gaps between the parts. Still need to putty around where the T-Rex tail attachs to the Rancor body.

tarrasque2

This is the tail joint (upside down). As the T-Rex came missing the very tip of its tail, I used the tip from the Rancor's stubby tail that I sawed off to replace it.

tarrasque3

Held up like this, you can see how well the tail fits with the flow of the Rancors spine.

tarrasque4

This is the assembled right leg of the beast, made from the top half of the Rancors leg, and the lower half from the T-Rex, with putty to mould around the joint. I now need to fill this with plaster of paris to give it weight.

tarrasque5

And to give a sense of scale... this is the creatures right leg stood against the figure we use to represent the dwarf barbarian in my campaign.

More photos to come soon once I've got more of it put together.

 

[frankthedm]

Cool.

 

[Turanil]

tarrasque5

Sorry to hijack the thread, but I am intrigued by what I see behind the Tarrasque. What is this map? It looks like a weird kind of map of Earth with Atlantis in the middle or something like that...

 

[Brakkart]

That's a map of the Warhammer world. A poster size map of the world was a free gift in the 300th issue of White Dwarf (in Britain anyway, dunno about elsewhere). The atlantis continent you mention is Ulthuan, home of the High Elves. The world itself is styled on the earth map, though there are many significant differences (for instance the huge gulf halfway down Africa/Southlands, and the Arabian peninsula facing into the Atlantic/The Great Ocean instead of the Indian Ocean/The Sea of Dread.

It is a very cool map, I bought the magazine just to get it.

 

[Turanil]

Aaah! Okay! If per chance I ever come across this White Dwarf I will remember to pick it up.

Thanks

 

[KulCha]

You asked for them, so here they are. Well some shots of the progress made thus far anyway. Bit of a pause in the construction right now, need plaster of paris (to fill the legs with to give it stability else it will be horribly top heavy) and superglue, both of which are easy enough to get and will be gotten on friday when I get paid, and I'll resume work on the beast then. For now though, here is where I have gotten too so far:

tarrasque1

Still need to attach its left claw, the joint needs to be expanded out a bit by heating the plastic and moulding it. This is the arm that had the manacle removed from it. Weirdly I didn't need to shorten the other arm, as without the manacle they are the same length! As you can see, I've had touse a lot of putty to fill in the gaps between the parts. Still need to putty around where the T-Rex tail attachs to the Rancor body.

tarrasque2

This is the tail joint (upside down). As the T-Rex came missing the very tip of its tail, I used the tip from the Rancor's stubby tail that I sawed off to replace it.

tarrasque3

Held up like this, you can see how well the tail fits with the flow of the Rancors spine.

tarrasque4

This is the assembled right leg of the beast, made from the top half of the Rancors leg, and the lower half from the T-Rex, with putty to mould around the joint. I now need to fill this with plaster of paris to give it weight.

tarrasque5

And to give a sense of scale... this is the creatures right leg stood against the figure we use to represent the dwarf barbarian in my campaign.

More photos to come soon once I've got more of it put together.

thats looking nice!