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It needs talons on its feet.

I'm thinking you should go full-insect here. Maybe take a little inspiration from katydids and spiney crickets for the legs, you could possibly layer GS on the carapace, then carve it into more chitinous components... Maybe look at using Tyranid armour pieces as well as Chaosy stuff.

For the face, I do think it looks MUCH better without the jaw- the teeth are a little too 'slavering' for the rest of the head- however, if you could find a more solid jaw, without the teeth or horns- something like a Dunkleosteus jaw, that might work better there.

Pilot looks great in there......again.

I much preferred the jawless head in the first shots, but seeing the (almost) whole thing the jaw has grown on me.

Hey guys, it's been a while, but it's finally time for another update: Due to the awesome generosity of fellow hobbyist ElDuderino, I have finally managed to get my hand on another set of Bloodthirster vambraces -- a part I urgently needed to finish converting my second renegade Armiger Warglaive. So I've been on a bit of a roll today, knocking together the basic assembly for the model. Take a look:





As I have stated earlier on this thread, my objective with the model was to give the model a bit of personality (and, by the same token, have the Armiger refllect the personality of its pilot) while also featuring recurring elements matching the first Armiger (such as the gun arm, the shin armour and a part of the decoration), in order to show how both Armigers are still retainers to the same renegade noble.

After much hemming and hawing, I have also managed to come up with a pose that I like: It's really just a subtle tweak of the standard Armiger leg pose, but I have widened the machine's stance a bit, making it look slightly more aggressive while also creating a pose that could be interpreted as the Armiger bracing for firing its harpoon.

And while I was at it, I also started fine-tuning the machine's pilot, "The Huntress":





Still quite a bit of work to be done (especially when it comes to detailing), but I think I've achieved a bit of a breakthrough with the model, nailing down the general look I want for it. Thanks must go to ElDuderino for blowing some life back into this project with his bitz drop!

As always, let me know what you think!

Those armigers look like pretty mean pieces of work, I love the harpoons!

I think you should have the Armiger's head mimicking the pilot's head- just all around mimic the armiger to the pilot, I think.

Really liking the Armiger with the pilot!
I second Anvildude's suggestion about mimicking the Armiger and the pilot's heads - if you plan to add some sort of neural-command cables running from the pilot's head?

Even aside from matching the pilot, I think it adds a lot more dynamicism to the model- making it look like it's focused on the target of its harpoon while prepping to fire.

Cheers for the feedback, everyone!

I forgot to mention this earlier, but both the head and arms are still 100% movable, so I still get to do all kinds of tweaks, like the one suggested by Anvildude, before I commit to a final pose. And even then, the arms will be left mostly unglued, so they can still be taken off, and the pose can be tweaked as needed.

Anyway, here's an update for you:












So there are definitely enough shared elements between the two models to tie them together from a visual standpoint. But at the same time, I also wanted each model to have its own personality and, by the same token, have the Armigers reflect the personality of their respective pilots:

With the Hound, I imagine its pilot as a former member of a loyalist Knight household who was forced into rebellion when the Forgeworld protected by his house seceded from the Imperium. He eventually found his way into Baron Harrowthorne’s lance, as part of the World Eaters’ 4th assault company, but when all is said and done, he still subscribes to the traditions and trappings of knightly houses, which also shows on his Armiger (the fairly standard armament, the banner listing the pilot’s accomplishments,…).

This second Armiger’s pilot (codenamed “The Huntress” for now), on the other hand comes from a more techno-barbarian-styled background, as a member of a slightly more feral warclan. Now her homeworld may be a Dark Mechanicum Forgeworld or a former Knight world, but it has been in the clutches of the ruinous powers for far longer, and this shows in her warlike disposition as well as the somewhat more feral look of her machine. For this reason, I chose a slightly more brutal looking armour plate (from the vintage Bloodthirster) for the space between the legs in place of the – more traditional – banner. I also added a huge spike to the right pauldron (for a slightly more gladiatorial look). At the same time, I think the more open, threatening pose also does a nice job of hinting at a less restrained, more openly aggressive personality for the pilot.

So when you place the two Armigers next to one another, there’s a lot to tie them together, but also a slight difference in look, which is exactly the effect I was going for:



And while we are already speaking of the pilots, I also made some tweaks to my model for “The Huntress”, of course:





While the basic kitbash already worked fairly well last time around, I now had to clean it up and make sure the model actually fit into the interior even when the carapace was placed on top and locked in place. I also tried to make her pose look similar to that of the first pilot, mostly in order to hint at the underlying way in which an Armiger is piloted.

I also added some bitz and bobs that few people will ever notice once the model is glued in place: There’s a small chaos icon dangling from the model’s belt, and also a skull shoulder pad that nobody is ever going to see
I also added a jagged tooth worn as a necklace to hint at the Huntress’ more tribal/techno-barbarian background. And once again, getting it all to fit together really took some doing:



So with most of the heavy lifting out of the way, the rest of the conversion will be mostly about two areas: There’s some gap-filling and a bit of extra detailing to be done in the cockpit area. The biggest part still left will be the detailing of the carapace and armour plates, including the placement of trophies and spikes, grafting some teeth to the armour trim here and there, and adding some battle damage to match the look of the Bloodthirster vambraces.

As always, let me know what you think!

Well, I'll be damned, this Armiger looks even better than the previous one imho, and that harpoon of yours is simply magnificent. It also managed to be even more menacing now that the the head and harpoon arm are aligned. Can't wait to see some colour on it!

The tusks really give it the character of a massive, predatory creature, along with the way it seems to be mid-head swing as if it was scouring the plains for its next prey...

They're beautiful models, the use of parts on the legs is inspired.

Cheers for the kind words, guys!

@ acrowsperch: Your comment actually makes me especially happy, because that was the very look I was going for! Cheers for that!

So here's a small update: I've finished the detail work on the model now, so behold the finished Armiger conversion:















It's not a huge change, when compared with the previous update, but I did finish the decoration of the top carapace, plus I also grafted lots of little teeth onto the shoulder pads and leg armour plates for that special renegade look

And I also straightened out the cockpit, of course:











So the model is pretty much ready for painting now. As always, let me know what you think!

I've just clicked through this entire thread - wow, what amazing conversions.

I particularly love all your iterations of Angron, especially the Daemon Primach version, and that Bloodthirster. Just stunning.
Is the Bloodthirster a stock model? I may have missed the post where you described where it came from.

Anyway, I'm just returning to the hobby after many years out and am planning to assemble a small Khorne warband in a similar vein to yours. So you have given me an immense amount of inspiration regards the conversions I had planned. So much so, that I've put a conversion of a terminator Chaos Lord and his squad on hold until I've got hold of some extra bits to do them justice.

Cheers, RobS: That is very nice of you to say! And yes, that Bloodthirster is basically the stock model -- in fact, instead of adding something to the model, I actually took something away by cutting that flaming chaos star off the tip of the whip

So here's a small update for you all: With the Bolter & Chainsword back up and running again after a longer downtime, it is time for me to think about what I want to pledge for this year's Call of Chaos events, and I believe this will be my pledge for this year:



Including the second Armiger is a bit of a no-brainer, obviously, as I really want to have the happy family finished before the year is out In addition, I want to get some paint on two Nurglite characters that have been sitting on my desk for ages:

First up, a Nurglite Lord on bike that was built over a year ago (originally for another B&C event, IIRC):



Still pretty happy with this guy -- you certainly wouldn't think he started out as a Ravenwing biker from Dark Vengeance, would you?

And there's this conversion of Maxime Pastourel's Lord of Contagion model from the Dark Imperium boxed set:





This guy should be fun to paint, with all the gribbly areas of distressed skin and gooey intestines

As always, let me know what you think!

All looking cool.

I particularly like the biker - did you just drill some little shallow holes in Imperial armour to 'nurgle-ise' it?
Good idea if so.

Question - have you ever tried to model rivets onto bits you've converted or model with green stuff?
I can imagine it'd would be good to add a bit of definition to something cut or modelled, but would actually be quite tricky to make look good.

I got a delivery of bits today -including a Khorne warhorn from a Bloodletter set, which I am going to use for my Dark Apostle, shamelessly ripping your idea off.

Also, did you know the origin of the term 'berserk' as in a berserker warrior came from either the norse words for 'bare-shirted' or possibly 'bear-shirted', either way meaning to fight without armour.
So my Berserker champions (and Dark Apostle) are going to be bare-chested for that reason (and also because cool).

Cheers, man!

Those holes were indeed created by just drilling them into the model with a small GW pin vice. As for the rivets, whenever I have needed any rivets so far, I have just carefully shaved them off leftover bitz. Another option is to just use the plastic bristles from big old brooms and carefully cut them into really thin slices -- perfect instant rivets, although they work better on bigger models, vehicles and the like.

So I have a new project that has me a bit sidetracked at the moment: While the recently released 2018 version of Adeptus Titanicus has left me weirdly indifferent so far - surprisingly so, really, as I always thought I would be right at the front of the queue if it ever made a return - when the AT-scaled Questoris Knights were released, I knew I had to pick up some of them. And at 25 Euros for three, they seemed reasonably priced, so I made the plunge.

What really surprised me was how the detail on these is truly off the charts: It’s almost uncanny how GW has managed to make them resemble the bigger version down to some of the smallest detail. And I found myself regularly having déjà-vu moments while building the first model — it’s that close to it’s bigger kin. And seeing how I was already having those déjà-vues, I started feeling the urge to build a smaller version of my Renegade Knight, Gilgamesh — in fact, some of you might still remember my previous attempt at building a “Chibi-Knight”, roughly at the Adeptus Titanicus scale – from all kinds of odds and ends:





Building that smaller version – dubbed “Chibi-Knight” by me – was a fun project back then, and I think the model still holds up fairly well, all things considered, even if it’s maybe a bit too clunky. But having a base model that was already a fairly perfect representation of an Imperial Knight from the get-go this time around really made me want to one-up my previous effort.

So I got to work, trying to make one of those small Adeptus Titanicus Knights resemble this guy as closely as possible:



And here's what I have come up with:











Pretty close, wouldn't you agree? Here’s a comparison with a - slightly - earlier version of my WIP next to the previous, kitbashed Chibi-Knight:



I actually like how the previous versions’s slightly weird proportions make it resemble the visual clunkiness and retro charm of the old Epic 40k models. By the same token – and due to the more delicate sculpt of the AT Knight – coming up with a way to mirror those chaotic decorations was slightly tricky, and had to drop some of the detail that was simply too small to reproduce – or would look weirdly clunky (such as using a Bloodletter face on the gun barrel, for instance). I also got the impression that most 28mm GW bitz are just a tad too big to use on those delicate AT Questoris Knights, so this did take some doing.

The project didn't stop there, however, as I just found myself staring at the new Adeptus Titanicus Knight's hollow upper body and wondering if maybe,...



Well, to make a long story short, I decided that the smaller version of Gilgamesh, just like the original, needed a fully realised interior and pilot. After much hemming and hawing, I remembered one of the old plastic Bretonnian Knights from an old WFB starter box having a stylised little person as their heraldic helmet crest — maybe at just the right scale?

When I dug out the bit from my cupboard of shame, I realised the figure was pretty much the right scale indeed — but alas, it was a Lady of the Lake style sculpt:



Very fitting for Bretonnians, no doubt, but not a particularly good match to recreate my Baron Harrowthorne model at a smaller scale. But maybe there was still something there that I could use? So I shaved off most of the detail from the helmet crest, until I was left with only the bare outline of the model, then tried to carve it into a rough incarnation of Gilgamesh’s pilot:



If nothing else, I was able to leave the suggestion of facial features in place. And I realised I had the beginnings of a pilot.

The cockpit, on the other hand, was almost trivially easy to build: I used some tech-y leftover bitz (from a Heldrake foot, IIRC) for the reactor section…



…and if you take a closer look, you’ll see that I even included a small control panel for the pilot:



So here’s another comparison shot for you: The 28mm version of the cockpit and pilot:



And my WIP version at the Adeptus Titanicus scale:



Of course I realised that the pilot was still looking slightly too primitive, so I added some tweaks to him, greenstuffing in the tiniest shoulder pads and placing some teeny tiny plastic nubs on the model to suggest both the medals on the bigger version’s chest as well as the cranial augmetic implants:



The rest of the detail will be suggested by the paintjob — at least that’s what I hope! Now in all fairness, the pilot is probably still a tad too big, but there’s just no way I can come up with an even smaller version, so I’ll call this conversion a success!

As always, let me know what you think!

I'm surprised you don't have any Chaos trophyracks that you could put on the smaller guys, to match the skull-spike decorations on the big 'un.

Brilliant

Outstanding conversion, really cleverly done. I get what you say about Adeptus Titanicus, I was completely indifferent on release, though some of the projects on Dakka have built up some minor interest for me, but still not enough to justify the purchase. What do you think is killing your interest in AT?

Hah, you must be the first to do a pilot for a AT knight I wonder if it will catch on, like the custom pilots and interiors in 28mm knights.. I'm looking forward to seeing it painted! I like both of your chibi knights, the old kit-bashed one is remarkably close to the original Gilgamesh, and funnily really close in size to the new chibi.

The only suggestion I have is that you could maybe weather that crotch-flag a little, to make it look like it was torn/burned. It looks a bit too clean right now, but of course getting the scaling right for the weathering might be tricky..

Cheers for the feedback, everyone!

@ Anvildude: Those spikes on top of the carapace are actually supposed to represent the trophy racks on the bigger version --this seemed like the most sensible compromise, seeing how even in GW's very skull oriented catalogue, there are no skulls quite tiny enough to work as trophies on an AT model

@ Dark Apostle 666: Hm, I think my main issue is how much bigger the scale seems to be compared to the old version, with Warlord Titans almost Knight-sized. I totally get why they did this, and it probably makes lots of sense, but I am simply not in love enough with the Warlord design to want and build another massive model like that. Plus they seem to want to make us pay premium prices for the few models that an AT army consists of

@ mcmattila: Cheers, man. Regarding the flag, it has to be intact enough to be able to fit a World Eaters decal, so I didn't want to get too adventurous with it

So here's another small update: While the paintjob is nowhere near finished, but let me share some PIP pictures with you, if only because I am pretty happy with how the tiny pilot is shaping up:







As always, let me know what you think!

Your chibi-knight is coming along very well! The one you kitbashed yourself has more charm I think but that's just me.

@ Tyranid Horde: Cheers, man! I see where you're coming from -- there's definitely something charming about that slightly clunky, homebrew Epic 40k look, isn't there?

Here's a more substantial update on the new Chibi Knight: I haven't had much hobby time recently, but I tried to make it count. And I was able to mostly finish the paintjob on the model. So let's take a look:

Once again, just to remind you, here's the big version again:



And here’s what I have right now:











Pretty close, wouldn’t you agree?

As for Baron Harrowthorne and the cockpit, I had to give the area another small round of tweaks, of course:

So, once again, let’s start with the bigger version:



And here’s the Chibi-Baron:





Since there is so very little actual detail on the pilot, I’ve had to use the paintjob to suggest detail were none extists, and to create an evocation, for lack of a better word, of the much bigger, more detailed 28mm pilot. I am pretty happy with the outcome, though — if you take a closer look you can even see the glowing buttons on the control panel:



And here’s another comparison picture with my earlier Chibi-Knight kitbash:



So a few very minor tweaks notwithstanding, the new Chibi Knight is basically finished at this point — except for the basing, that is, and I do have a rather nifty plan for that. Let’s hope it works out!

As always, let me know what you think!

Briliant stuff cab'r believe the pilot worked that well!

That's pretty cool, building a mini version of a heavily converted full size model that you did before. I do think you could really work some magic on one of the AT Warlord Titans; make it look like it's dedicated to Khorne like your other stuff.

Excellent stuff, that is a cool project indeed.

It's the cutest little bloodthirsty engine of destruction I've ever seen.

Nice work! It's impressive how much detail and texture you've put into such a small model. The result is definitely, distinctly characterful.

Thanks a lot for the kind words, everyone!

The last thing that needed to be accomplished to finish the new Chibi-Knight was the basing, and since the objective with this entire model was to match the bigger version as closely as possible, this also extended to the base, of course. So for starters, check out the base of the bigger version of Gilgamesh:



As you can see, I used some pieces from the Space Marine statue from the Honoured Imperium terrain kit to represent fallen Imperial monuments, and I really wanted to recreate that look -- and it seemed that fate was very much on my side...

I actually realised a long time ago that the aforementioned statue seems to have been created mostly by upscaling existing Space Marine bitz: If you take a closer look, many of the parts of the statue seem to consist of bigger versions of plastic bitz from the company champion that comes as part of the old Space Marine command squad box (incidentally, I am pretty sure the statue's cape is an upscaled chaos warrior cape, but that's beside the point). And I actually discovered a while ago that GW used a face very similar - if not identical - to the statue's face for different kits as well. So it didn't take much work to collect the pieces that would allow for a very close recreation of my original design for the base. Take a look:



The shield on the left is pretty much the exact same shield also worn by the Honoured Imperium statue. It came from the aforementioned Space Marine command squad kit. The sword is from a plastic Terminator -- I'll admit the company champion's sword would have been a better fit from a visual standpoint, but the Terminator sword worked better due to its size and proportions. And the head on the right is a piece of a broken Imperial monument from the WFB/AoS giant.

So I used these parts (or rather, copies of these parts) to create a setup that was fairly similar to the original base:



Now I had to improvise a bit, due to the bigger Knight's base having an oval shape (and hence more room), but I think the setup worked out pretty well. I also chose to have the head in an upright pose this time around -- something I should have done on the bigger base as well.

So here's the base after undercoating...



...and with the Knight provisionally placed on top:



And here's the finished base, painted to fit the bigger version:





So all that was left was to affix the new Chibi-Gilgamesh to his new home, and then the model was done. So here, once again, the big version for the sake of comparison:



And without further ado, I give you:

Chibi-Gilgamesh version 2.0



















I am actually really happy with the way the model has turned out. I may have had to compromise a bit here and there because a couple of visual touches from the bigger model just couldn’t be reproduced at the smaller scale (at least not without ending up looking extremely goofy, that is), but you can still tell at a glance that this is supposed to be Gilgamesh at a smaller scale, wouldn’t you agree?

And there’s also my favourite part about this project, the somewhat harebrained, yet ultimately successful, scheme of adding a fully sculpted interior and pilot to a Knight at the Adeptus Titanicus scale. Check out the bigger version of Baron Harrowthorne again:



And here's the chibi-version:







And now that the new model has been finished, here’s another comparison shot with its predecessor:



As I’ve said before, I really like how the older Chibi-Knight seems to represent the somewhat clunkier vintage Epic 40k design, while the new model fits the sleeker, more faithful designs from the new Adeptus Titanicus.

That’s not quite all, though. Because with the model finished, it was of course time to trot out the actual 28mm Gilgamesh in order to find out how well the new Chibi-Knight stands up to the big guy.

well,…







I think there’s definitely quite a bit of family resemblance, wouldn’t you agree?

Having managed to closely recreate the base also makes me stupidly happy, to be honest



As always, let me know what you think!

Fantastic job all round, and totally get the little touches such as the base and mini-Harrowthorne making a world of difference. Bravo indeed.