Musings of a Metal Mind: titan

Showing posts with label titan. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Halfway through the factory....

Now all he needs is some armor, and I'm torn between Mechanicus red and Freeblade something else.

And I'm in search of a new blog template, because this thing needs a facelift. So, if anyone sees anything cool, do point it out.

Happy Wednesday, people.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Mecha Month Begins: Knight Warden Titan

At long last, the Knight Warden is finished, and I can clear the decks for other projects (including another artculated ZOE model). Unlike the Warhound before him, he got off to a pretty rough start. That head was totally unlike the one pictured until the last minute, and the hips took about a month to finalize, mostly because the toy it was based on was pre-posed with one leg extended. Also, it was only after everything was glued and set that I realized the carapace armor plates should overlap heading the other way. Oh well.

Like the Warhound before him, he's covered in shields and parchment, most of which would get blown off pretty quickly in pitched combat, but look lovely otherwise. With the head as low-slung as it is, I probably should have used heavy flamers or assault cannons, but given that the face shield came from a Gundam mode, the HB's were somehow appropriate, so I left them on. That right arm has an autocannon, complete with feed mechanism:

As always, feel free to click on the pic to zoom in. At a certain point the thing was just flying together, and I even had a shell magazine from an old tank kit that fit that notch on the arm perfectly. I still need to ink in some saint's names below the angel statues. on the knee guards. That thing peeking out from below the armor, by the way, is a campaign-shield commemorating a joint action with the Blood Angels:

I know, it's more than half-covered by the knee armor. That's what happens when you add detail after the fact. There was this perfectly good circle on the piece I used for the leg armor and nothing to fill it with, so I ended up making it a campaign shield (sensing a theme here?). There's a better one for the Imperial Fists on the other leg:

I wonder if the IF chapter would be insulted that it's under the main Titan Legion campaign badge on the knee armor? Honestly, it was this or some kind of campaign banner, and I still can't get those looking the way I want them to. I was going to hang one off of that rod under the Laser Destroyer barrel, but again, it just didn't look right..

Wardens are supposed to be long-range defense units, so rather than a battle cannon for the left arm (or the rather silly bolter clusters on the Epic model) I equipped him with a Laser Destroyer (featured on the IG equivalent of the German WWII Hetzer). I figured it was a nice anti-vehicle weapon to complement the Apocalypse Launcher on his back . No bulky clip or ammo feed for that arm, although it does have a huge heat exchanger on the back. That left arm is the only thing articulated on the model, by the way. You can also spin the barrels of the Apocalypse Launcher by turning the crank on the back, but that's about it.

If you're this close and have this view, you're probably in a Reaver or Warlord about to get a face full of everything this guy has to fire. Either way he's too slow skip out of the way of what's coming next, so that pilot's just going to sit unload while his machine slowly trundles away in reverse.

Hmm, speaking of which, no exhausts for that reactor. Maybe it vents forward, out from under the armor plates? Or maybe the designers implemented a cold fusion reactor, and it doesn't need to vent? To be honestly, I was torn with stemming some big exhausts off the rear, and may yet if I can find the proper parts. I was determined to make this model with what I had-on hand, as I had no cash to buy new parts. Otherwise, I would also have worked out an assembly for a separate pelvis. As it is, that pilot's going to be really uncomfortable whenever this thing moves. Maybe that's the reason for those monster shock absorbers on the back of the head?

In general I think he's a pretty successful build, although there's always room to improve. I need to finish off some detailing and base him before the deadline for the Titan contest. Hopefully, he'll hold up against all of those larger Warlords and such. The other glaring problem here is, of course, the lighting I've been using in the light box. Too many harsh glares, and I've had to compensate not only by using the tungsten setting on the camera, but also with a cooling photo filter in P-shop. When I get a job, and some money, hopefully I can upgrade to one of those photo-tents that Brent was showing on his site a while back.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Knight Warden Titan WIP and 100th Post Contest Winnah!

Here he is, covered in rivets and basecoated. I still need to suss out a base for him, plus there's some detailing that remains to be done, but he's basically finished. I think it gets across the whole "pygmy Reaver" look of the epic model from the last post nicely. I was thiiiiiiis close to giving him spindly Punisher cannon arms, but opted for the CCW and battle cannon instead. Given the piece I used for the Apocalypse Launcher (which looks like an enormous Thunderfire gun) a pair of gatlings would've been redundant, design-wise. He'll have to settle for strafing infantry with the heavy bolters on his low-slung head (maybe I should've made them flamers?) and that autocannon on his right arm instead. Here he is next to my still-baseless Warhound:

Color-wise, Red and brass always looks too Khornate to me me, so I may opt for a different tack with this model. Still, I want him to tie in with the rest of my AdMech forces.

Oh yeah, the contest winner.

Drum roll, please.

Ghengis Vaughn, for Warden of Sovereignty.

Ghengis, email me your mailing info so's I can mail you the sprue, and thanks to everybody for playing, not to mention being a reader of this blog. Hopefully after this Titan's done, I can sum up the courage (and plasticard) to cleave into that ancient AT-AT in my garage and make a full-sized Reaver out of him.

Also, I'm clearing out more stuff on eBay. Most of it sci-fi/anime-oriented, though I daresay there's something for everybody. So take a look and fund my miniatures addiction. International shipping is available.

Next time, we show off some Dark Eldar conversions....

Friday, January 15, 2010

Starting big....

To get myself active in blogging again, I've decided to move this blog from stream-of-consciousness type to more of a showcase for my nerd hobbies, that is, modelling and painting SF miniatures and models. I also love photography, and will be flexing those muscles as I document the things that roll off my hobby desk. As such, we'll start big with the biggest thing I've scratchbuilt to date: a Warhound Titan for Warhammer 40,000.

There's the big chap in all his glory. I built him to spec using measurements taken from, of all things, the 40k Landspeeder model. Since it featured two pilots, side by side, I reasoned it would do for the dimensions of head, which is a bit wider and longer now due to armor, etc. For those of you who need something for scale reference, here's a picture of him with his Techpriest minder:

As you can see, while there's a pile of detail on him, he's still missing the Collegia Titanicus iconography, as well as a detailed war-banner on his crotch plate. In my defense, however, he's articulated at the neck, hips, shoulders, elbows, and ankles. I had to glue the "knees" in place because the mechanisms turned out to be far too frail for the weight of the model. Yes, you read right. I said he's posable. I like my toys to move. I found some large-size ball joints from the new Zoids hobby line on eBay, and they were perfect... until the model was assembled, and the sheer weight of all the plastic made some parts looser than others. Oh well. At least I can disassemble him for transport, if necessary. Here he is plodding towards you to say hello (by way of his large-bore cannons).

As far as parts go, a lot of him is made from plastic card reinforced with sprues. I used legs from an old Gundam model for the rear reactors, bits from the Manfactorum set (notably the gorgeous Mechanicus cog on his carapace), legs, arms and a torso from an old Dougram model, shields from WHF grail pilgrims, and a variety of other bits and bobs from my bits box. More pics:

The Vulcan Mega-Bolter as presented in the Apocalypse rules is woefully underpowered for its size, and a twin-mount model (that's 10 barrels! Yikes!) would require the thing to pull a cart twice its size for its own ammo. So, I made a massive single cannon with a big ammo drum (yes, that's an old paint pot). I think it looks much more imposing, although the elbow joint has started to losen, so the cannon sags after a while. Strangely enough, the Plasma Blastgun arm stays up and won't go down at all. Somewhere (where I can't reach) the mechanism got stopped by another part inside the blastgun. Wish that'd happened with the vulcan....

The Blastgun was another case of things just coming together after a while. I would've preferred some kind of green transparent tubing, but being a cheapskate, I settled for plastic tube painted accordingly. The sheer size of the model allowed me to add all sorts of other little details. The thing has vents all over the place (sold as "stairs" in varying sizes), and I even stuck a little Adepta Sororitas sign in there. (See? Next to the head?). I have the terrible habit of saving everything "in case I need it later", which is where I got little panels for fine detailing. The Manufactorum box helped an awful lot, as you can see from the top view and the rear.

I had the most trouble with the feet, and they turned out rather undersized for the model. This thing has enough one-of-a-kind parts to make it a one-of-a-kind itself. It would take a lot of finding to replicate it perfectly, but I don't need another Warhound anyway. I play 40k sporadically enough nowadays, and Apocalypse never, really. Still, I'd like to roll this thing out on the gaming table at least once, even if doing so results in my opponent's entire army blowing it away.

The paint scheme is what I imagined for the Legio Invicta from Dan Abnett's Titanicus novel, although there are enough "undocumented" Titan legions that he could be from any one of a number of them, really. The red scheme matches my Adeptus Mechanicus army quite well, actually. You'll see a showcase of those posted here later on.

Till next time!