WIP: Linkless belt-feeds for imperial knight

If I ever suggest that a linkless belt-feed looks cool on a model and that I need to build one, stop me! However, for the "Gattling" carrying knight I already decided that it would be nice to have some linkless belt-feeds from the gun to ammo crates on the back. FW has this for the Castigator so I thought it would be ok. But how do you make these from scratch? One could just try to make something out of GS or use some thicker board that you could bend into shape. However, these things will be a large part of the model and has to look like they belong and have enough detail to not look out of place. So after some initial trial and error I came up with the idea of using a bi-layered plasti-card template to define the form and then cover these in segmented plates and fill the interior some how. So far I have only managed to do the template and the outer segments, since this step takes a ridiculous amount of time. The segments are first draw on a piece of plasticard, then each one is cut out and filed to smooth the edges. Each band is about 25 cm and the segments are 0.5 cm so there are about a 80 segments in total on the two belts.
When I did the templates I needed something to hold them while they set into shape. I used a piece of wood and measure approximately where to put them in relation to the legs, the gun and ammo crates as they would be on the knight. They are still a bit flexible so I should be able to makes some small adjustments one they are to be fitted to the real knight.
Now I just need to figure out what to do on the insides to make them thicker. I also would like to show two rows of cartridges to match the ammo boxes on the gun.
Well it is not much to show, but they take time to make.

Pre Heresy / Fallen Dark Angels

Me as so many others bought the Betrayal at Calth game for the Mk IV armours and a starter for a 30k force. I have always liked the Dark Angels since the first Angels of Death codex and since I already have a substantial Pre Heresy / fallen Dark Angels force I decided to do a quick paint test on one of the Mk IV armours to see what it would look like. I added some blue white checkers to the paint scheme but otherwise I kept it in-line with what I already have. I put it in a line up with the other armour types already in the force (it is in the middle). I think it can work, just need to sit down with the bases.

WIP, mechanicum stuff and knights

So, I am home for Christmas and my plan is to get something done. First off I just show the mechanicum stuff I painted during my last stay away from home. This consist of two fairly standard sicarians with dual wielding swords. I also tried a new skitarii conversion using necron parts and some of the mechanicum parts leftover from the sicarians and the ranger squad. I like the mechanicum models, but I do not think they cut it for the main stay of the skitarii troops, in this sense I am more into the necron feel of legions of cybernetic warriors/robots doing their human masters bidding. Rangers and Vanguard are to me special troops working on the fringes of the skitarii legion.
I also finshed and assembled the battle robot and as I took the pictures I realised I forgot to heat stain the flamers so I need to go back and do that.

Apart from this I have worked a bit on the Knights and mainly on the Gatling totting guy, the War Monger. I added a top handle to the gun so that it can be carried in one hand when not used. Also added the receiver ports for the ammo feeds. The I started building the ammo containers that will be hanging off the back. Since it is quite a massive gun I did not want the ammo containers to be to small. I am pretty ok with how they look at the moment, I am however not to sure about the vents on the ammo exit ports. I might need to adjust them so that the coolers are not so far in. There is space for ammo to pass but the eye makes it look like there is a collision. I am not user how much of this will actually be visible but if I should do it I suppose I should do it right. Next up is the ammo feeds, there will be two of them. I have actually started with this process but that will be another post, especially on the topic of making curved plasticard things.

A long way from home

This month I have been at home 4 days so hobby time has been short. luckily I have a set of paints away from home and have been able to get some brush time in. One of the things I have been chipping away is the mechanicum robot. I am not sure I will use the shoulder armor I prepped, I quite like the way it looks now. I will paint them up and we will see what will happens but so far I am happy.

Very short post

I am just home and repacking for yet another trip so I have not done much really. I finished a pre heresy Knight and worked a little on the WLK, getting the legs assembled and posed in a new position, adapted the fingers of the power fists so that the can grip the handles of the weapons and finally got the weapon in some sort of order. Not much but it is something

Mechanicus stuff

Well, life is hectic, so no time for hobby. At least not in any big chunks, so the knights have been on hold while I have finished of some models that has been hanging around almost finished. Then I also could not resist buying some Kastelan robots. The later is for my home away from home studio as I finished the last of the skitarii last time I was there.
After building one of the robots I must say I am a huge fan of the Kastelan models, (except the head design) as the kit is very versatile in posing etc. This is how they should have done the knight legs. Just cut away the pegs and you can do almost anything. I also had to fiddle around with the arms a bit. I think they looked a bit stumpy with just the guns, and hands are always cool... so I mashed them together. I also switched the head for some left over bits from a defiler, looks much better than the original in my opinion. The original head got turned into shoulder armour. I also had the beef up the back mounted gun by making it twin linked. I also added the fuel tanks to the back instead of the side to make it less awkward.

So this is it for a while now as there will not be much progress the coming weeks.

WIP; knights etc

Just a short update on the Knight progress. Since last time I have been working on bases, I know that I am not big on these as I want the model to be the centre of focus. But to make the stands of the Knights work I need them to interact with the ground and hence I need to make the bases first. As mentioned in a previous post I am playing around with cork and sand for the bases and I will carry this through to these Knights also. Well, as I was going to make some base work I also thought I would finish the bases for the Titans as well. As I was in a bit of a hurry when I glued the bases plates to the feet of the titans I did not really think to much about what the bases should look like. I think I was just going to add the sand. But I really liked the effect of the cork on the Knight base so I decided to do something with this also for the Titans. But as they were already glued to the bases I had to work around the feet rather than having them stand on the cork. In the end I ended up doing some road surface which cracks beneath the tread of the titans. I know that the way the broken pieces lie around the holes are not the way the would end up in reality but it was the best I could to with what I had and I needed to cover the holes between the feet and the road. I think it looks passable at least. So most of my time has gone into making and building bases this week but in the end I also managed to get the legs for the War Lord Knight built.

Also, I took some photos of the titans out side in natural light, to see if I could get the real colour across.

O, and by the way, I got request to show the Gatling mounted gas canisters I decided not to use...

War Lord Knight WIP

So, I managed to get some time off this weekend so I fiddled around with the Knights. Just wanted to show a little of the progress with the War Lord Knight. I built the shoulder mounted thermal cannons which turned out to be a case of kill your darlings. I had imagined building a large revolver type of magazine with gas canisters instead of the pair mounted on the side. I actually assembled six tanks in a revolver mount, but it turned out to be to large and made the whole assembly back heavy and with out a flow to the aesthetics. So even though the magazines as such turned out as I wanted them they did not fit this build. Instead I focused on replicating the back mounted cannon I already build for my other knight with some minor tweaks. I also made a back mounted autocannon to go with the rest of them (I am planning a dual mounted auto cannons in the main body also). I think it is turning out ok and now it needs to get some legs so I can start with all the details.

Taking a walk

My work with the Knights continue. This time I worked a bit on the War Dancer Knight, more precisely the legs. I want the knight to look like it is hunting with some grace, not lumbering forward. To achieve this I wanted a more human gait, were on foot is in front of the other, using the hips to walk, rather than swaying back and fort. Of course GW did not make the legs of this kit poseable... So we have to convert them. This conversion is in fact quite easy as the original legs are pointing outward and I wanted them pointing inward I just had to swap them around. This was achieved by first cutting of the hip joints and swapping them around. I then had to adjust the ankle joints a bit as the legs are now pointing inward instead of outward. I also opted to make the back foot a bit raised as if the Knight is about to take a step, this is not strictly necessary. I also opted to adjust the toes of the back foot to look a bit more dynamic.

Then I also played around with the bases. As I will have all Knights with different leg poses I need to have some support from the base for some of them, something to stand on, have the foot on top of etc. As I am not really a huge fan of making bases I normally just put some gravel on them an let it be as it is. Now, on these large bases that tend to look a bit desolate. So I decided to try out the cork method of making concrete slabs / road segments. This is very simple, just take a 4 mm cork sheet, tear it up, put some plaster on top, let dry and paint. For my first base (for my already painted Knight I choose to make it simple, just a few pieces lying around but not to much. I think they turned out ok so I will make the rest of the bases so that I can pose the knight on the rubble.

Well that is as far as I have come this week...  next week will be slow as I am away on businesses.

More Left from Right

Once again I find my self building a left arm weapon from a right one. This time it is the rapid firing battle-cannon. Not only is the body of the gun just made to accept the magazine from one side, the original shield is also asymmetric, which would make the guns look out of place if I just build one identical gun and placed it on the other side. Switching side of the magazine was not really difficult and it will just require some GS to fill in the gaps. The shield and the auto-cannon is another matter though. The shield is very hard to convert to get it mirror symmetric so instead I used the shield to the Gatling cannon, which surprisingly is made to fit both right an left arm. This however meant that I could not use the original auto cannons, so instead I use a pair of the back mounted auto-cannons and fitted them to the underside of the cannons instead, All in all I think they look fairly similar.

I also attach the back of the envelop sketch that I made of the trio before deciding on the project.

Knights;WIP

Just a short update on my Knights build. For the Warlord Knight (WLK) I am currently working on the shoulder armour. To fit the extra weapon hard-points I had to raise the shoulder above it normal position and hence I need to fill the gap beneath with something so that they do not look to high. On the sides towards the body I added extra rims to cover the gap between the body and the shoulders. I made some holes in them to give it some structure. I will add border trim etc with GS. Then I also added some shields beneath the shoulder rim, sort of an homage to the old beetelback Warlord.

The Warmonger Knight (WMK) got two power fists in the last post, but I could not let it be without some fire power. So I am building some mini-gun like weapon that will be held in the fists. Right now it is mostly mock-up to see how big it will be and how I can make the hands work with holding it.








Well, that is as far as I got this time.



/Agis

Making a right from a left

Games Workshop in all their wisdom as a models company have a tendency to make models that can only be assembled one way. This is not good for modellers who might want to change the pose of the model, change its out fit etc... it almost appears that the models are tailored to fit the gaming system, ...strange.

Well I need a right power fist for my knights and the kit only comes with a leftie. First I thought that they might have made the kit so that the power fist could be built either way but it is only meant to be on the left side. So to make a right out of the left I needed to do some cutting. In the end it was not a to hard conversion, but it nags me that I needed to do it at all.
First I cut the thumb socket out of the top and bottom part of the hand. Then I cut a matching hole in the other side. I flipped the thumb socket around and mounted it on the other side, The pieces left over got to fill the remaining voids where the thumb used to be. The hand is not fully symmetric so I needed to cut away some of the edges and fill some gaps with green stuff to make it all smooth. I also needed to adjust the shield that goes on top of the back hand. In this case I could not easily swap the to sides and make it look good so I had to fill the gap where the thumb was with green stuff. To help support the green stuff I used a thin piece of plasticard as backing. This will all be trimmed down to look like the original once it is GSed.

All in all I must say that I love these kits, even though GW messed up with all the static posing, lack of interior and what not. The level of detail is amazing and they actually look quite realistic and they pose a challenge to any one like me to make something non standard out of them. I have seem some great re-posing and some truly innovative conversions of these models on the internet and I hope that my contribution to this will be appreciated.

/Agis