With the advent of the Escalation rules and the ability to use a revenant in non-apocalypse games the last barrier to my purchasing of one was removed. This blog is going to discuss and show the process I used to build and convert a revenant titan to look unique.
Step 1: Concept
I was trying to figure out exactly what I was going to do to make my revenant look unique. With my wraithknights I modeled one after a giant warp spider and the other is using an old school shoulder mounted prism cannon as his weapon. So I knew I did not want to have just a stock revenant. I looked long and hard at various aspect warriors and dark eldar units to see if I could have him resemble one of those. The closest I got was potentially posing him as a giant harlequin. I decided that in order to really pull it off I would want to have crazy diamond and stripe patterns painted on him. The thought of that was not terribly enticing to me.
Then I saw the underworld basing kit and thought the crystals in it looked pretty awesome. I then considered what if I made the revenant the guardian of The Dome of Crystal Seers found on every Eldar craftworld. What if the titan had been placed there and not used in eons, would it have crystal growths on it?
The concept for my Craftworld is “The Cult of Vaul”, a Craftworld of artisans still experimenting with different materials and how they interact with the psychic abilities of the seers and bonesingers. They trade this tech to both Commorragh and other Craftworlds for
raw materials. So a lot of the units in the army have heavily utilized Dark Eldar wargear and imagery.
Then I went on ebay and purchased some pieces of quartz for the base as well as a few underworld basing kits for crystal growths. Being an avid Eldar collector I already had a few fire prisms to cannibalize the prism cannon from.
The final step is to figure out how I wanted to pose the model. I liked the idea of a static pose but the length of the models arms threw me off. I decided on a “john woo-esque” pose where he is leaping backwards and shooting.
Step 2: Preparation
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After placing the order for the Revenant I knew I would have to figure out a base. I decided on an unfinished 7” wooden plaque that I found online for cheap. When it arrived it required a bit of sanding to smooth out.
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When the Revenant arrived I inventoried the model to make sure nothing was missing as well as to see if there was any damage or miscasts. Luckily it looked fine other than a few warped pieces like the Pulsars and back fin which were easily fixed by soaking them in very hot water and then straightening them out.
Once all the pieces were accounted for I soaked them in alcohol to remove the release agent. Washing them with dish soap works as well but this is faster and does not require scrubbing so I am all for it.
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The longest part of the construction process came when I started removing mold lines and filling any small imperfections with greenstuff. This took a long ass time, I started Saturday morning and finished Sunday night, I broke for meals and to run an errand or two but it took longer than I was expecting. When I finished this I was finally ready to start building the model!
Step 3: Construction and Conversion
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The instructions that come with the model recommend starting with the legs. I knew I was only going to have one leg planted and the other up in a leaping motion. This was going to require a huge amount of pinning and stability.
I lead off with building the first foot so it would be flush to the base. Then I build up from an angle. I dremmeled the lower leg a big to make sure that it would be coming off of the foot at an angle I liked and then pinned it using brass rod.
Next I dry-fitted the knee and upper leg so that they would have a full extension and not be bent at all. I then drilled fully through the knee joint and into both the upper and lower leg the full length of the dremmel drill bit I was using. Through this I threaded a long piece of brass rod. I know a lot of the models weight would be resting on this and I didn’t want it to flex or break over time.
Once the leg was fully built I pinned it and used JB weld to secure it to the base.
The next step was to build the second leg. I build the foot more arched so the “heel thruster” would be pointing toward the ground. This leg was easier to assemble because I knew it would not be supporting much weight and the angle of the knee was less important. I pinned the ankle and knee going both into the lower and upper legs as well.
After the 2nd leg was constructed I started dry-fitting the hip assembly to make sure the torso would be pointing straight up. When I was sure I had it lined up correctly I drilled through the hips and into each leg ball joint. I secured this join with JB weld as well with superglue for the pin into the legs. I may not have needed the JB weld here but not being an engineer I wanted to make sure that the 2nd leg would not break free during game play and that the weight of the upper body would be resting on as secure of a platform as possible.
JB weld requires about 24 hours to fully cure so I propped the 2nd leg up and let it set and moved on to the upper body.
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The upper body is where the majority of the conversion work would be done.
I do not love the look of the back-fin on the revenant. Also I wanted to reduce the weight of the upper body as much as possible to limit the stress placed on the leg and hips. Instead of the back fin I decided it would have a smaller crest of crystals using the underworld basing kit. In order to build this I needed to fill the gap intended for the back-fin to fit into. Using plum colored Apoxie Sculpt, my favorite color of the Apoxie Sculpts (actually just the cheapest one) I filled the gap on the back of the torso.
Going along with the crystalline theme of the titan I knew I would be clipping off the ends of the pulsars and replacing them with crystals from the Fire Prism cannon. This was a very easy conversion, I just pinned the ends of the cannons onto the clipped end of the pulsars. I kept the flanged part of the cannon intact and had it coming out from the pulsars. I am going to take another look at it and see if the crystals should just be coming directly out of the pulsars, might look less abrupt. If I decide to change them it should be pretty easily fixed.
Once the tips of the pulsars were replaced I would assemble the cannon and its housing. With a bit of trimming I was able to get the cannons to socket into place. To ensure they were stable I did pin them and used JB weld again. Next came the first hiccup in assembly, queue ominous music…
For the sake of transportation I was planning on having the arms magnetized. So I dremmeled into the shoulder ball joint on the upper arm and place a magnet there and in the socket on the torso at a place that would give me the arm angle I desired. I dry fit this WITHOUT having the upper arm glued into the pulsar housing... that was a mistake.
After the magnets were placed and the glue had dried I attached the upper arms to the pulsars at the angle desired. When the glue had set I placed them in the shoulder sockets and the arms immediately swung down and were pointing at the dirt… They were a giant lever with the magnet being the fulcrum. Perhaps if the magnets were stronger or placed differenty it wouldn’t happen like that but I think even pinning would have a similar problem unless I angle them weird. I am took a day to think about the best option. I asked myself should I just glue them in or try to reorient and use larger magnets?
While I percolated on this problem I used JB weld to magnetize the pelvis and upper torso so they would be able to separate.
