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Ahoy folks! I figured I'd share my titan project with you all so that you might benefit from my mistakes should you decide to build your own. by the time the Titan is complete, I'll have spent less than 30 dollars on it. If nothing else, I hope this gives people the cofidence to try it on their own so we can see some nice big Apoc stuff on the tables without having to cry about buying Forgeworld. I mean I love the guys, but I'm a student. food comes first. HOKAI! lets get started.

Begin with materials: I chose an artist's manikin as my base. they come in a foot tall, humanoid shape, and cost only 9 bucks, give or take. my local hobby shop had one, but their pretty easy to find. check art stores. add to the nine bucks the cost of one set of Apoxie Sculpt (suggested by the clerk. major props to him, I LOVE the stuff now) and you end up with about 21, 22 dollars total. Your going to need some plasticard, but I figured if your tackling a modeling project like this, you've probably got some already. any thickness will do, I only use it to box shapes out. grab your reference pics and lets do this shiz.

doesn't look like much yet, but thats fine. here's whats happened so far: I've chopped the hands off at the wrists and used them as the kneepads, which took a little widdleing with a hobbyknife. then i sliced some plasticacrd to make the chest plates, and filled in everything with Apoxy. the dark gray you see there is true construction epoxy, which i found makes a great space filler while saving you from wasting your good modeling stuff.

here's a view from the front. you'll note the legs dont look right yet (nice bellbottoms, huh?) thats because im building the bottom shape and letting it dry. WORK IN LAYERS. it helps a bunch, dont try to make your entire, finished shape at one time, it'll just get lumpy as you try to push that much putty around. now that these little guides are in place, I can work on filling out the armor next

OK, on to the next.

What your seeing here isnt a manikin crying out in agony and wondering why God has so defaced it, but rather the next step in the armor filling. all the light gray is Apoxie, which has been doing a wonderful job. it smooths like glass with a little lick of the finger and cures rock hard. by layering, i was able to sculpt out the flank flaps and the front armor. those things on the shoulders are inverted eldar cockpits, just there as a placeholder, they'll be removed later. here, have a closeup!

you can see the dark gray construction epoxy around the shoulders, it's not very smooth, ill fix it later. When these dry I can move on to filling out the torso

behold, shape! ive proceeded down the torso, making the final piece of front armor out of (of all things) a piece of plastic easter egg. loooots of sanding smoothed out the shoulders into a better shape, and I've put four eldar cockpits on its back to form the beginnings of the engine pods.

I just overlapped them and filled the gaps with putty. the shape works pretty well, but they'll have to have a final, third section to be as long as their supposed to be. I've pulled that goofy looking head off. lets do that next. if your doing this kinda thing yourself, getting the head built will give you a huge sigh of relief. that and the pulsars are the biggest problems I ran into

any guesses?
Its an Iron Man Pezz dispenser head. 3 bucks from 7-11. the candy was horrible, but the head was a perfect place to start. I glued two pieces of sprue to the cheek bones to flesh them out, then each vertical section of the mask was two sprue sides glued together and cut. from there, putty and let dry.


a few hours later...

Ok! step two, gotta get that mohawk going and clean up the mess left by the previous beginning. this helmet was made in three different sculpt and dry sessions. if I'd made it all at once, it wouldve never looked right.


from here, all it needs are the sticking out bits, which I'll carve out of sprue bars and glue/putty on

lets hit the pulsars. I built both the same way, using the lower arm from the manikin and a long paintbrush already tapered proporly. the tips are eldar missile launchers (the long ones that come with the warwalker) and the rest of it is putty. I would've liked to cast the to make them symmetrical...but i cant cast. they turned out pretty close anyway

ok, so where are we now?





the head isnt glued, I just stuck it on for size, but you can see the final bits of it glued and puttied on. those things on the shoulders will eventually become revenant missile launchers once i get the putty on. needs its boosters! ill hit those next. the pulsars aren't attached yet (not sure if i like the pose) and where did those hip flaps come from?!



they came from a bad idea, thats where. If anyone comes up with a smarter way to do these, use it. I ended up using waaaaay too much putty building the things up from a piece of plasticard. it worked, but I'll regret it later when I run out. I attached them with pins and bits from the warwalker (its feet). they stick out there a bit too far, so i may change the pose. friend of mine said it looked too much like it was doing lunges. well, not quite as delicately as that, but that was the point

So initially I was going to say it looks like ...

Then I realized I'd mistaken Revenant for Reaver,

Guess I shouldn't read these after a few beers, eh?

Now that I realize it's NOT a Reaver, it looks fantastic! Great idea using the artist's model!

ZamboniKnight wrote:So initially I was going to say it looks like ...

Then I realized I'd mistaken Revenant for Reaver,

hahah, yeah, admittedly its a pretty crappy looking reaver titan, XD. thanks!

the engine pods were a problem for a long time. I found something I like the look of, but I have to apologize in advance to people looking for tips to make their own, as the base I used wont be available very long. what your looking at is the top of an Iron Man Slurpee mug 7-11 was running as a promotion, hacked up and walled off with plasticard. the mug was the whole head, which i bought for a warlord titan project ill do later, but the top had these gold parts that had the shape I wanted. here's how it turned out.





lots more to do in order to make these work right, but i was glad to get something up there. I've ripped the arms off in preparation for re-positioning, and the fins are going up next. as you can tell, my titan has a bad case of mega-butt. im still working out ideas for fixing that. I think Im going to fit the whole titan with wings molded after the solar sails on eldar BFG ships. it'l look neat, and cover up some of the features of the manikin I cant really do away with.

This is really excellent work! Great idea and looks to be well executed so far. Keep it up!

Just one thought though, since it's based on a human mannequin, it's proportions are human. Should the arms and legs not be a bit longer to keep more in scale for the Eldar? Having a look at the forgeworld stuff, it seems that the revenant titans are more 'elegant' in their proportions...

As I say, just a thought. I really like what you've done so far.

it's amazing. i can't wait to see more progress

I will be watching this closely, as I intend to build a Revenant by similar means.

Orlanth wrote:I will be watching this closely, as I intend to build a Revenant by similar means.

go for it! there are certainly other methods, but using the manikin saves a lot of time

InyokaMadoda wrote:Just one thought though, since it's based on a human mannequin, it's proportions are human. Should the arms and legs not be a bit longer to keep more in scale for the Eldar? Having a look at the forgeworld stuff, it seems that the revenant titans are more 'elegant' in their proportions...

right you are, which is why mine has a bad case of mega-butt. I cant do too much about the proportions, but i can disguise them fairly well. or atleast put enough other flashy stuff on the finished product that they'll be overlooked

Looking good so far keep up the work =)

I really like the visions you have. You're able to look at the basic shapes of the items you used (in their original forms) and see "Eldar Revenant" and them make them actually work. That is really awesome. You are capturing the essence of the forges of Vaul nicely!

That said, I had a couple of points of criticism. I felt like there was something "just not quite right" about the overall look of the model. I simply could not put my finger on what it was. It took an image and an observation from another poster to make the light go off in my brain. Turned out to be two things. The first, mentioned above, was that the legs look too short for an Eldar war machine. Maybe not even so much that they are short. Maybe it's just that they are too thick? The Eldar walkers have notoriously spindly upper legs.

The second (and biggest) thing finally hit me when you posted this pic:

Blight wrote:

The torso just seems WAY to long to me. It's really throwing off the balance and it makes the legs look even shorter. It looks like a Revenant sitting on something's shoulders...



Ghidorah

Blight wrote:

Orlanth wrote:I will be watching this closely, as I intend to build a Revenant by similar means.

go for it! there are certainly other methods, but using the manikin saves a lot of time

My Revenant Titan concept thread

Wow, kudos to all you titan-builders out there. Wish I had the time and skill.

I was thinking of doing much the same thing. I found a "more human" looking maniquin though. It doesn't have the "mega butt" problem. I also think I will be using a female maniquin instead. That way I can get a more eldar proportion. I never thought about using a pez head though, that is a good idea.

Female manniquins have the advantage that the built in skirt can be used as mounting the the waist jets, so they don t need to be mountedon an outrigger. The chest loks like 'woman in a jumper', no breasts per se, but a deeper frontage at the top. This should give extra leeway for all the stuff you need to mount at the shoulder.

nice job, keep up the building and the pix.

Wow, that is a very smart idea...using a drawing mannequin. Very cool!

Orlanth wrote:Female manniquins have the advantage that the built in skirt can be used as mounting the the waist jets, so they don t need to be mountedon an outrigger. The chest loks like 'woman in a jumper', no breasts per se, but a deeper frontage at the top. This should give extra leeway for all the stuff you need to mount at the shoulder.

looking back at it now, you may be right. there were only males at the store where I picked mine up. I wonder if the female would've worked better

One thing that you may want to do... but it will be a lot of work, would be to cut the lower torso off, and attach the legs higher up. I think that Eldar Titans have pretty short torsos.

Blight wrote:If anyone comes up with a smarter way to do these, use it. I ended up using waaaaay too much putty building the things up from a piece of plasticard. it worked, but I'll regret it later when I run out. I attached them with pins and bits from the warwalker (its feet). they stick out there a bit too far, so i may change the pose. friend of mine said it looked too much like it was doing lunges. well, not quite as delicately as that, but that was the point

I would suggest making a undersculpt out of super-sculpy to put the apoxie sculpt (if that is what your putty is) on top of. Another material that I have had a ton of luck with for that is pink styro insulation, the same stuff that you use for tables and terrain. You can carve scraps with an xacto knife.

Build in layers that work with the detail you need, starting with the layer that needs the least detail, but the most volume.

Layer 1:base layer -> supersculpy, styro, layered cardboard
Layer 2:surface layer -> Apoxie Sculpt, crude 2 part epoxy putty
Layer 3:detail layer -> Greenstuff, Brown stuff, Pro-create

[quote:xenite]I would suggest making a undersculpt out of super-sculpy to put the apoxie sculpt (if that is what your putty is) on top of. Another material that I have had a ton of luck with for that is pink styro insulation, the same stuff that you use for tables and terrain. You can carve scraps with an xacto knife.

Build in layers that work with the detail you need, starting with the layer that needs the least detail, but the most volume.

Layer 1:base layer -> supersculpy, styro, layered cardboard
Layer 2:surface layer -> Apoxie Sculpt, crude 2 part epoxy putty
Layer 3:detail layer -> Greenstuff, Brown stuff, Pro-create

Alright, another recap. when I got the fin sculpted I felt the need to put the whole thing together and see where I was at. one, because I was excited about it, and two...because I'm out of Apoxie. looks like the titan is going to sit tight till I can go buy more. but! its looking alright.





so where'd the fin come from? its actually part of a piece of castle terrain i hacked up. once i padded the base with putty, it fit between the engine pods like a glove

Blight wrote:

Orlanth wrote:Female manniquins have the advantage that the built in skirt can be used as mounting the the waist jets, so they don t need to be mountedon an outrigger. The chest loks like 'woman in a jumper', no breasts per se, but a deeper frontage at the top. This should give extra leeway for all the stuff you need to mount at the shoulder.

looking back at it now, you may be right. there were only males at the store where I picked mine up. I wonder if the female would've worked better

In my local arts shops I only found male mannequins. They were also very poor quality, if I were to buy a female one from a net shop I would be buying blind. Which company made your mannequin, it looks decent quality. I would like to see if they make a female one.

Looking great. I am totally going to steal your idea on this one.

YOINK!

This thing is coming along really well! Good work.

hey guys, been a while. sorry for the long absence. ok! so this forum and many others pointed out the hip problem, and right yee are. I elected to go ahead an make that drastic change, so with hacksaw in hand, I destroyed the lower half of the manikin and shaped it into the hips it should have. ill post the pics soon