Death Company Tycho conversion.

Hello.

                                                   

                                                 

                                                    

                                                     

This is my version of Death Company Tycho. I was commissioned to build and paint this guy to be a replica of the Codex artwork for Tycho's entry in the Blood Angels book. The drawing is in black and white in the book, and Tycho is standing on a dead Chaos Marine. This didn't jive with the fluff for the iconic image of Tycho alongside the Death Company on Armaggedon. A little research dug up the original color version of the artwork, where Tycho is indeed in his traditonal gold armor.

I built the original version as a mock-up, with Tycho standing on the Chaos Marine, and as soon as I posted it online, there uproar began. "DC Tycho has to standing be on an Ork!", the masses shouted, and they were right. Luckily, I happened to have a plastic Nob from the Boys box handy. I think V2 of the base is certainly more iconic, and includes a little skull with a bullet hole in the forehead from the Black Reach Termies, because every GW mini needs a skull on the base;).

For Tycho himself, I kept the build pretty simple, as the latest Blood Angel kits are beautiful. The arms, legs, head, right shoulder pad, and the front of the torso are all from the Sanguinary Guard.  The backpack, wing icon, left shoulder pad, and the back of the torso are from the Death Company box. The gun is from the Commander box. I think the cloth hanging from his right shoulder pad is from the Command Squad box, but it may be from the Termie box. The final little addition was an extra purity seal on the left leg. The Tycho in the artwork is a little more ornate, but since I knew this mini would see time in my client's army I wanted him to be a bit more rugged so parts don't fall of if you pick him up.

As far as converting and sculpting, I only had to cut a few parts away, like the Blade Encarmine from the right hand and the Angelus Boltgun from the left. I cut the big blood drop off of the wing icon so that I could sculpt the three blood drops for Tycho's Third Company badge, and used the big blood drop to cover the spot where I had cut the boltgun off. I cut the Sanguinary Guard legs at the right hip to get my pose, and then sculpted a bit of armor to cover the gap. Lastly I sculpted Tycho's mask, using two little bits of paper clip for the pipes coming out of the side instead of trying to get Greenstuff to stay put.

The base is pretty simple. Sand and cork board, done at the right angle to make sense of Tycho's pose. The Nob is built straight out of the box, with a bit of tread on his boots done by rolling the handle of my Exacto to make a pattern in the Greenstuff. Any excess that had gotten pushed beyond the boot sole was allowed to cure and then trimmed off. Viola, one easy boot tread. Well, two actually:).

The greenstuff rim around the back of the base is there to stop the rubble slab from looking like a random pile to strike a pose on. I've seen it done on minis before, and I always found it stops the eye, and lends an illusion of a scene existing beyond the base. We'll see how it works out.

Now it is time to get painting. I have Tycho's finished look pretty much figured out in my head. I'm not sure how I will paint the Ork. The trick will be to paint him in a subtle way, so that he doesn't dominate Tycho, who will be black, with a touch of red, gold, and white. It will be a challenge for my color selection skills, and a new aspect of composition to tackle, since this is the first time I've painted two minis interacting together. Wish me luck.

Thanks for looking.

Cheers
 JAH