Varangian WIP

Slowly but steadily the insides of the Varangian are taking shape. I have added some more detail to the bottom parts, including the doors that I had to custom make. I also worked on the upper side panels, adding the niches for the weapon servitors. I think I have now come as far as I can without gluing the torso together, but I will let it rest a day or two until I do that so that I am sure I do not need to make any measurements or so at the bottom. Once the torso is glued together I can start to make the final adjustments to the panels, making cut outs etc to fit more snugly. Once that is done I will make the reactors, which is just in mock up in the pictures at the moment. Then I think I will be done with the major build for the inside and I can start with detailing, which hopefully will not be to much since I used as much of the terrain kit as possible. I am very happy with the progress and even if it is not exactly as I had planed it I think it is shaping up nicely.

Varangian WIP

Finally, I have started to work on the Varangian, warlord of the Nothern Ghosts. As I am building an interior for my warlord I started out with the torso pieces. First of was some drilling and magnetizing for the waist and the head. Used a 10 mm/0.8 kg magnet for the head and a 20 mm/10 kg magnet for the waist. Then it was on to the torso assembly. After several dry fittings I realized that things were not as straight as they appeared to out came the hair dryer. After some individual tweaking I dry fitted the whole torso and wrapped it in masking tejp. Then I put the hair dryer to one of the rear vents and filled it up with hot air, Then I gently squeezed the whole assembly so that any gaps closed. This was then fine tuned after taking it apart and gently warming one part and pressing it against it cool mate. This worked out fine and the fit between the parts is now so god that the glue I will use to assemble it might actually fill them so I do not need to green stuff it.

Once I was satisfied that the parts were coming together in the right way I started to work on the interior. I had some ideas of what it might look like but once I started with the manufactorium parts I sort of just went with it and used as much of those parts as I could, even for things I initially thought I would use plasticard for. All in all I think it is coming together nicely, and once I have lower internal parts done I will assemble the bottom and start moving upwards. All the internal panels will be painted separately but I need to make sure they can be moved in and out. I will have to build some custom stuff but I thought I would try to use as much molded plastic as I can and hope that there is some margin in what weight the legs can take.

CCW inside WIP

After spraying the CCW knight I could not hold back from some painting, so I started out with the inside. This time I went with a lither green-white inside the knight instead of using the same green brown of the outside as I did on the first knight. This was inspired by John over on 40k hobby blog who has also made some really nice interiors for his knight. Well all in all it is not much to say really. My GS sculpting is not so good which translates into the detail of the knight. Not much of this will be seen any way but I have learned a few things that I will implement for the other knights. One thing being, that all panels with buttons and lights etc should be made separate and then mounted in the knight instead of being sculpted in place. Now I have assembled the torso and need to wait for it to set before moving on.

Close combat knight and Warlord plans

Hi there. Lately I have actually managed to get some hobby time in. Mostly I have been working on the close combat knight and planing the warlord build. The later I have realized will require some serious thinking before I do any more than clean up work, which I have done for all the major parts for the torso, as this will be the first thing that I build as I will also build the interior. As for the knight I have finished all the green stuff work and have broken it down for paint, there are quite a lot of different components that goes into this one. No I will just spray it and start painting.

When it comes to the warlord I am currently playing around with different ideas of how to build the interior and what need to be there. I am planing to a use some of the manufactorium scenery parts for some of the interior, but much will be pasticard and green stuff. I also would like the interior to make some sense as to different parts and their location in relation to things on the outside. As the entrance to the titan is from the back and you need to get to the head there is no way around the fact that you need some sort of path going straight through the titan preventing a large reactor to be placed in the middle. So I am thinking about housing the reactors at the back beneath the cooling vents and ventilation conducts. This would mean that the reactors would be in mostly the same position as in the reaver, which makes kind of sens but breaks with the fluff which states that the reactor is in the center instead of the rear. I will throw things around a bit but there is not much space in the lower part of the torso, there also need to be space for four weapons servitors. Since there will be an interior I will also need to come up with a way to stabilize the side walls where the arms and shoulders are mounted as there will be quite a lot of weight there and the roof will not be there to complete the box as intended. Most likely I will put in some steel rods going across from arm to arm once the interior is in place, I just need to play around with the bits a bit to get a feel for what I can do. Once this is under way will start building the legs which will also be an undertaking as I am planing a scenic base for this one, which of course influences the stance and the legs. One thing I learned from my warhounds is that resin is flexible over time, so even if I can make a cool stance and everything is holding up now, things might start being over time, so I need to make sure that I do not over stress anything with my modifications.

Well that is it for now, but it feels good to finally have started on the warlord, even if there is some time yet until paint time.

Things do not always turn out as you plan

In my last posts I have hinted at a reinforcements for the northern ghosts in the form of a Warlord titan. This has now arrived, but since it was delayed from Forge World and the delays in our house building made the arrival coincided with wall paper work, it resulted in it now time to start with the clean up. Once the wall paper stuff was done we received visitors that stayed for a week and hence still no Warlord work. But it turned out the the guests were really interested in Wh40k, which meant that I got to exercise my models in a number of tutorial battles. We started out with the Dark Vengeance box and played two battles, one ended in a close win for the chaos forces, the other was a total wipe from the imperials. The next day we played a 1000p battle using codexes, Chaos vs Dark Angels/Adepta Sororitas which also ended in an imperial victory.  Sadly it becomes more and more apparent that I have forgotten or mixed up rules from over two decades of playing (due to lack of continuous practise) and I am not so sure that all things were actually according to the correct rules. Anyway, it was great fun and I am reminded why I started playing once upon a time, and it is always nice to see my lovingly painted  models actually dish out some damage.

Our guests became so enthusiastic about the whole thing so they decided to also paint up the Dark vengeance set, but they needed some hints at how to paint, which meant that I got to do my first tutorial in a very long while, painting a mk IV marine in pre-heresy Dark Angels black.

So my Warlord is still sitting in its boxes, waiting for me to get some time of to start with the cleaning and so, but I will get back on that subject as soon as I have some progress.

CCW Knigth Green Stuff WIP

Vacation is slowly moving forward, and in between house work, barbecuing and socializing with the family I have been managing to work a bit on the Knights, more specifically on the green stuff. I have been practicing my skull sculpting skills and I think I am making progress. The trick is to get the proportions right and to let go of any misconceptions about what I think it should look like and in stead focus on reference material.

I am also still waiting on my titan from Forge World that has been delayed due to low stocks. As they were kind enough to send me a mail telling me this I also took the opportunity to ask about the possibilities to get hold of the mars beta head, if there were any options rather then fly in or buy from ebay. Sadly these seams to be the only options at the moment. I have been checking what it would cost to visit warhammer world, which is something I would like to do in any case, but that would cost almost as much as the titan for us, so then the only option seams to be ebay, that or I convert the alfa head to look more like the beta. That could be an interesting thing to do, but as the head is the focus of the model it is kind of a big risk if I screw it up. On the other hand it will be a chaos aligned titan so a funky head might not look to strange. Comments or thoughts?

Kastelan robots

It is vacation time! Which means that I might get some hobby time in between all the things that is needed to be done around here. To start off I finished the pair of Kastelans that I have been working on at my place away form home (i.e work in another part of the country). This one also have the combo fists/guns as I did on the first one. I also decided to twin link the auto cannons, using both provided in the set. To do so I needed to shift them from the right side to the left so that I could stagger them without having the ammo boxes colliding. I think it turned out really nice. Now I just need to finish of the bases (which i am notoriously bad at doing). I really like these robots, apart form the head, and I can very well imagine me getting more. To bad about the data priest as he is mono pose and having multiples of him in the same pose will look a bit strange.

I still have a few models left from my 40th birthday present from my wife, but I still decided to go a head and get my self a little larger present from my self (with the wife's consent and blessing). So I order up some big time reinforcements for the northern ghosts in the from of a warlord. This means that project titan will start up again. One thing I am not happy with with this model is the head choices. Not that there is anything major wrong with the Knights head but the warhammer world exclusive would fit so much better for what I have in mind for the Varangian (name of titan). It is a bit strange that they would make a part of such an expensive model exclusive to the ones visiting warhammer world. If you pay top money for a collectors model you would like to have all the options without having to get on a plane and fly in to Nottingham to get it in person. Well I will see if I can get hold of one some how. Until then I think it will be headless. I will use the shields though as they are better looking. Of course I will do it in the same transitional mode as the rest of the titans of the northern ghost, but this time I will have to sculpt the chaos parts instead of the imperial. I am also thinking about building an interior in the main body, as there are such in the other titans. I will have to see if it can be done without compromising the stability of the model. I am also thinking about making a scenario base, but I am generally not a big fan of those, so I am a bit apprehensive about it.

Well I will get back about it when the package from Forge World arrives.