Hey everyone! This is it! If you have been following along, it has been a long month and a half but both armies are done.
It only took me an entire day to photo and upload both of them too. If you would like more images (100 total) feel free to check them out on my Facebook or blog.
For those that are seeing this for the first time, here is some background:
Every year I do a large scale project for Adepticon, a convention in early April in Chicago IL. This year I did two! This is the 40k display.
The title “Memento In Utero” is latin for “remember, in the womb.” It is a snapshot of the horrific memories the Emperor’s Scythes retain of the initial attack of Hive Fleet Kraken, which almost wiped them out. At the birth of the Tyranids, was the death of the Scythes. But it is also a literal image of the few existing “Salvation Teams” – small groups of hardened veterans that have no home, but wander the galaxy fighting the Tyranids in some of the most terrible places imaginable. Kraken and the Scythes’ destinies are completely entangled in every sense – time, mortality, beginning to end.
There are also other subtle themes. The birth and regret of something created which ultimately takes life. The Tyranids may have been a created weapon, something designed to kill in a controlled manner, which ultimately had a much bigger impact than the creators could imagine. They may have been an experimental weapon gone awry. An experiment aborted in every sense that takes a life of it’s own and changes the destiny of man.
The display itself is based on an egg chair. I havent measured it, but I am about 5’11” (almost two meters for the metric folks? Average male height) and I stand eye to eye with the skull. The chair is not only an original but a pre-production prototype model from the original design. This made it not great as a chair – no cushion and a large mold line, but for me it was perfect and that gave it an extra bit of story. The inside is all scratch built out of various parts. and you can find tons of images in building it on links above. I have many WIP images of it bare and being built. There are so many parts and types of materials used it is impossible to list them all, but in the images they are fairly easy to identify. I tried to avoid actual 40k parts as much as possible, unless they were from more obscure FW kits such as the Thunderhawk and the Titans. I did not want any parts to be instantly recognizable. I could go on and on about the how it was built, but really all the images in the WIP tell it so much better.
With that, enjoy! If you are going to Adepticon, please do not hesitate to stop and say hello.
