fredag 28 februari 2014

Heavy Defiler Knight and Opus Magna




This will be a short post with few images as our internet quota is up. In principle I finished of the Heavy Defiler Knight just in time for the release of the imperial knight. Now I have a trio of Knights although they are not compatible with the imperial knight rules as the weapon lay out is quite different. Well that is not a huge problem. It will be interesting to see how they compare to the new kit though. They should be about the same size but not as bulky. The style of the defiler knight is quite different from the new GW design but there are still element that are similar, as the under slung weapons, large shoulder plates and hunchback. Well we will see if I can get my hands on one soon.

I have also put some time into the Opus Magna. I have temporarily assembled it to see how to proceed with the next step which is to build some structure to hold it together but still allowing me to disassemble it for painting. I was quite struck by the shear size of it. I did know how the footprint looked like and I did the inverted assembly before, but it is quite something else when you see it in all three dimensions as it will be when done. There is still much to do before I can even start to contemplate how to paint it.

måndag 24 februari 2014

Heavy Defiler Knight armour plates



 

Now I have painted the armour plates for the Heavy Defiler Knight. I went with the same flaked blue white striped pattern that I used on the other Knights and the Titans. I also added some battle damage and some spreading colour change around the chaos growths. I also attached them with some blue tack to get a feel for what the Knight looks like. It is starting to beef up but I still have to do the shoulders and the missile racks to get the Heavy feel I am aiming for...   well that will be next up. I might be able to finish this in time for the release of the GW Knight.








lördag 22 februari 2014

Heavy Defiler Knight update



So the imperial Knight kit is now available for pre-order. It is an great looking model and I will have to have one at some point. I just cant by into one right now as I have sort of a shopping ban at the moment. Well, I will have to do with my Defiler Knights in the mean time. I am making quite some progress with painting of the heavy version of my Knights. The fact that I only use three base colours in the drybrushing compared to five or nine that I have used lately certainly makes an impact. On the other hand, the weathering process is slightly slower then what I do on my infantry.

I did try to make some motif painting on the cockpit of this knight. I had the Idea that a painted skull over the front would look cool, but the shape of the cockpit made it look more like some Ork thing than a nice flashy imperial paint job. So I decided to go with a uniform bone colour instead, which is more in line with how the other mechanicum models are painted any way.

Just to say something short about the Imperial Knight. I do like to model and how it looks. I am however a bit disappointed with the way it is put together. The fact that the legs are not poseable is just strange, as they have put the effort into putting the waist, arms and head on ball sockets. Well that can be addressed with some cutting, but it would have been so easy for them


to split the legs in to two parts instead of one. The other thing is the number of possible builds. The to versions that come in the box are more or less identical, one heavy weapon and a chain blade. As the kit is about the price of the baneblade and is a bout the same size one would have expected more build options, i.e some more weapons alternatives. The weapons should also have been made so that you could build them both for the right and left hand side which also would have made for more possibilities. I suspect that there will be add on kits for this one if it becomes popular, adding other variants as extra sprues that can be bought separately like the extended transfer sheet. Well enough about this and back to what I have...   next up will be the armour plating.




tisdag 18 februari 2014

General update




So I am back home again after several weeks on the other side of the pond with work. This off course means that I have not done much with the hobby lately but I have managed to get some hobby time in since I arrived home. So this post will mostly be a general update of some of the things I have done.  Some perks with the jet lag is that if you cant sleep you can always paint. The blood letter was painted one night when I woke at 3 am and could not get back to sleep. The Fallen Dark Angel with the jump pack was actually painted the night before I left, as I have trouble sleeping before travelling, and the prow of the Opus Magna was built on the day after arriving home due to severe abstinence.


Then we have the legs...  these have been sitting around my to do shelf for some years now. If you have followed this blogg for some time you might remember that after finishing the titans I started a project with some Knights and Myrmidons. Well as it happened I decided to finish of the last Knight after I was done with the drop ship, and this was actually done before the news hit that GW is releasing a plastic Imperial Knight. So it might look like I am just jumping the band wagon with Knights, but I was once again a head of the release with my project. Well I will try to finish this one of before the actual release of the new kit so that I might get me one and start out with it without having to wait for this one. I also decided to show off the leg construction I use for these. It might be a bit late as I think the number of defiler Knights might decrease now, but if there still is some one that would like to try these out here they are. One thing that I do that I have not seen on any other defiler conversion is that I place the hip joint on the side of the thigh as a human thigh bone looks. This makes the stance more natural then if one just places the hip joint at the end of the thigh. I also make the pelvis narrower than if one just uses the defiler main body. This becomes necessary due to the side mounting of the hip joint. All in all I am happy with this conversion as the legs look more natural.

I have also tried out some new weathering on these using a multi layer sponging technique. I think it looks ok. In the end I might have to get some weathering powders and oil washes to make it look better but for now I am happy with the result. Now it is on to the main body...