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Bellerophon Builds the Legio Metalica and Allies – 40K Knights & Skitarii - 26th Nov 22  [RSS] Share on facebook Share on Twitter Submit to Reddit
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Made in gb
Furious Fire Dragon





Midlands, UK

Bellerophon Builds the Legio Metalica and Allies – Two Scales, Double the Fun

Hey folks, welcome to my second Dakka blog. This one will follow my adventures in building Legio Metalica titans, in both 40k and Adeptus Titanicus scale, plus the allied forces that go along with them.

How did all this begin?

Around Christmas I bought myself a Warlord Titan. Full Size. What can I say, I’m weak for titans. The Warlord gatling blaster was released for the full size warlord, Forgeworld offered a bundle which appeared to be the only hope of any sort of discount they’d ever offer on the thing (it effectively amounted to getting one of the guns free), and I was in a position to treat myself as a Christmas present. I’m still amazed that I actually bought it. The huge pile of resin arrived and rather than thinking “Holy God-Emperor, what have I done?” I was excited. So that’s a good sign. The more terrifying part is that my brain was already contemplating more titans before I’d even made a start on the first. Anyway, I set to work checking all the parts against the instructions to make sure that they were all there and in decent condition, then started washing off the mould release agent and chopping off casting gates. For a kit this size, that’s a huge undertaking in itself and it took an age.

This is how a Warlord Titan arrives. This one has the Mars-Alpha pattern head, one Belicosa Volcano Cannon, one Warlord Macro Gatling Blaster and the carapace Laser Blasters.





[Certificate Number redacted, to be revealed at a later date!]

And this is what it looks like when you take all the parts out of the boxes and lay them out – 40k Salamanders hiding amongst the titan components for scale.












---


Why Metalica? And who will be the allies?

While I was washing resin, I was pondering which Legio it should join. I had a plan in mind that whatever Legio my Titan was from, I would get some AdMech troops from the same Forgeworld, and an allied Knight House. I don’t have any AdMech yet, but I do have some unbuilt Imperial Knights – the Renegade Box and Apocalypse Box have given me two Questoris, one Castallan and two Helverins (yes, they’ve been on my shelves completely untouched for quite a while!) I considered doing a homebrew Legio/House/Forgeworld, but even though homebrew is cool and totally valid, I tend to prefer doing my own take on canon subfactions. So I wanted a Titan Legio, a Mechanicus Forge World and Allied Knight house that were all reasonably well defined, and which I liked. And there aren’t many. Most Titan Legions have no obvious Knight allies, and many have a named Forge World that doesn’t have an official scheme. What I didn’t want to do was make my Titan, say, Legio Osedax, but then have to make up my own colours for Forge World Phaeton, because then I’d be running the risk of GW defining an official scheme down the line which rendered mine incorrect. From the short list, I eventually settled on Legio Metalica. They’ve got clear ties with the well-defined House Raven and Forge World Metalica. Great, just what I was looking for. I love the colour scheme of the titans, which I feel is the most important part of this trio of selections, deep red with white/black/yellow secondary is classic, and I like the Iron Skull heraldry. I also felt they were a bit under-represented in titans that I've seen online given they're a classic legion. Metalica Skitarii look cool in white, and make for a nice departure from most of the other primarily red AdMech.

The one part of the trio I’m not as keen on is House Raven, which is a shame, since they’re very close allies to Metalica, therefore they’re the logical Knight house to pair with Metalica and having well-defined knight allies was one of the main reasons I was drawn to the legion in the first place. But there’s a few things that put me off – I’d like to have my knights in a clearly different paint scheme compared to the titans because they’re separate organisations and I think it’s cool to have drastically different looking knights and titans fighting together, but the Raven colours are pretty similar to the Legio. I’m not fond of their heraldry (the Keep Inviolate looks a bit naff if I’m honest!), and I’d be tempted to include Legio Metalica heraldry in its place to show knights attached to the legion, but then that makes the colours even more similar than they already are. And finally, I’ve done enough major subfactions that I quite fancied doing a lesser known Knight House rather than the AdMech knight posterboys.

Step in Adeptus Titanicus. I’ve got friends and friends-of-friends who are into AT, and I kept seeing very cool models shared in our painting group. But I hadn’t bought any myself because small titans just didn’t feel right. A titan should be the size of a toddler and made from a mountain of resin, or is it really a titan? But then, suddenly I had a full size titan, and even though it’s still mostly in pieces, that objection to AT was suddenly gone. I’d got a big one, so having small ones now felt okay. Better than okay even, they’re really cool models. So I bought into AT. Naturally I’m doing Legio Metalica. Amongst others, I’m going to try to make one of the small Warlords match the big one.

For Knight Allies, there’s two obvious choices – Krast and Lakar. The original old-school Krast description described them as fighting for Legio Metalica while showing them with their original blue colour scheme. The recent Legio Metalica transfer sheet includes the heraldry for the original blue Krast scheme. I really like the blue Krast scheme. But Lakar is really cool too, rather like Lamenters with a flash of blue thrown in, and they’re listed as having fought for Legio Metalica at Beta Garmon. I think I like Lakar more, but I’ve got transfers for Krast. But then, I reasoned, since Krast is blue-with-yellow, and Lakar is yellow-with-blue, they’ll look great together. Yeah, why not, I’ll have two allied Knight Households.



Back to the full scale conundrum. Obviously 40k Krast has changed markedly from the Heresy days (they’re now in a more standard Mechanicus red scheme with totally different heraldry) and appear to no longer be associated with Metalica. But nobody said anything about Lakar. There’s pretty much been no fluff on them since the early days of 1st Edition Titanicus, and a brief mention in a list in Titandeath. I’ve seen a few people online paint them in AT scale, and one notable (and very cool) 40k scale Lakar collection floating around the web. So they’re far from being a major subfaction, look cool, have a notably different colour scheme to the titans. Perfect. I can easily fluff that they’re still fighting in their original colours and they’ve kept up at least some ties to Metalica in honour of their service in the Heresy. So House Lakar will march to support Metalica in 40k scale.
Decision made.

However I’m not going to rule out some Raven too, their ties to Metalica are just too strong to ignore! We’ll see when I get there, but I may end up with two knight households in both scales. However that’s a much more significant undertaking in 40k than it would be in AT, so I’m certainly not going to commit myself just yet.


40k scale – Legio Metalica – (probably) House Lakar - (maybe some) House Raven – Metalica Skitarii

AT scale – Legio Metalica – House Lakar – House Krast

Onwards, for the Omnissiah.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
40k Warlord progress

In the five or so months I’ve had this titan, what have I actually got done? Well, surprisingly little in the way of obvious progress. A lot of time went into the washing, cutting off gates and cleaning up, but there hasn’t been that much in the way of sticking the thing together. Partly that’s down to the question of how and where I’m going to magnetise this thing. It’s such a big, expensive kit and I’m going to be drilling such big magnet holes that it’s a bit intimidating; I want to make sure that I’m not going to screw it up. I tried drilling some test magnet holes in some of the casting gate scrap, and drilled one at a noticeable angle, so now I’m pondering that I should set up a jig or a drill stand to make sure I drill straight. I’ve got the magnets for the arms – and possibly head – 10mm diameter by 10mm deep neodymiums, rated at 5kg pull. Because these weapon arms are substantial. But I’m also contemplating doing the waist and for that I’d want something even beefier, and an even bigger hole to drill.

So in the absence of knowing what to drill and how I’m going to make sure I get it right, I’ve started by JB-welding a few parts together that I know isn’t going to get in the way of doing my magnets. I had been contemplating pinning most of the joints in the titan, but the JB-Weld is such a tough joint I don’t think it’s necessary. I used it to fix a couple of the casting gates together and tried my damndest to pull them apart. There was no way they were moving.

Anyway, here’s a a couple of shots of pieces sat in clamps waiting for the epoxy to cure. With a tape measure because I still can’t quite believe how big it is.





The finished laser blasters with the armour panels dry-fitted, painting bench and Sororitas for scale.



And a scale comparison of the shin/knee assembly against the equivalent part from Adeptus Titanicus.




Adeptus Titanicus Progress

I’ve just recently started working at this, beginning with a pair of Knight Lancers and a pair of Warhounds to test my schemes for Lakar and Metalica respectively. These are still WIP, but mostly there. I still need to base them, apply decals, weather and matt varnish them. I haven’t done weathering yet because I’ve not tried my streaking enamels or pigments yet and I don’t want to risk making a mess of the (nearly) finished models. I’m probably going to prime and them paint a few of the left-over traitor armour panels to test out the weathering techniques before I apply them to the titans. The Warhound armour panels and heads are mostly dry-fitted and blu-tac’d in case any of them look slightly dodgy in how they’re fitted. Weapons are magnetised.





I've been rather indecisive over whether to stick with the gunmetal trim or whether to change it for a pale gold - of the old-school Metalica titans I've seen, there's both silver and gold trim, and I can't quite decide which I prefer. I think I lean towards the gunmetal though, which is why I painted it that way to begin with.

Aside from needing to practice weathering and finish those models, I've also been working on a pair of Reavers. I'll try to get some WIPs up soon. I'd also like to do some test knights in the Krast scheme fairly soon.

This message was edited 12 times. Last update was at 2022/11/26 22:15:34


   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut




The Knights and mini-titans look great. I like how much thought you've put into the various components of the alliance.

   
Made in us
Walking Dead Wraithlord






By the God-Machine. This is going to rock. Little bots look great so far.
   
Made in gb
Furious Fire Dragon





Midlands, UK

Thanks both

Some progress to report. The AT Warhounds haven't had any further progress yet, still working out my weathering and trying to make my mind up if I'll base them in the same arid earth as my 40k. I probably will. Instead, I've got two reavers to about the same stage of completion - the main painting done, but no weathering, decals or basing yet.

Not the best photos, but decent enough to convey the colours on a WIP.





I've also been working on the Warlord Macro Gatling cannon for the big fella:



After the epoxy on the barrels has cured, I just need to fit them barrels to the body and the main body of the gun will be assembled. It'll just have the couple of armour plates to do, but I'm going to leave those separate until after painting. One of them does need a bit of bending into shape though.

   
Made in us
Walking Dead Wraithlord






Loving those stripes. Can't wait to see some paint on that cannon.
   
Made in gb
Furious Fire Dragon





Midlands, UK

 youwashock wrote:
Loving those stripes. Can't wait to see some paint on that cannon.


Cheers sir, I'm enjoying the process. They're all masked and airbrushed, which isn't something I'd really done at all before. It's been fun and quite effective. Testing some techniques that I'll look to use on the full size titan/knights too, like gradients on the panels.

I've painted a couple of lancers in the old school Krast scheme to test it out. Lancers mainly because I could just throw them together quickly without having to think about magnets, and because between the Knight Household box and a couple of the new core set, I've got quite a few. Anyway, rather than painting the varying detachment colours quartered with the yellow, I just decided to do the red/white striping as shown in the crest. Photographed alongside the test Lakar models at about the same stage of painting - still awaiting heraldry, basing and weathering.



I've also epoxied the gatling blaster barrels onto the body:



Full Warlord armament. Is this enough dakka?


   
Made in us
Walking Dead Wraithlord






The guns are amazing models in their own right. And impressively large.
   
Made in gb
Furious Fire Dragon





Midlands, UK

More work on this first batch of titans - basing, decals, weathering and varnish. I've ended up using the same basing material as with my 40k, though I haven't given it the sepia wash that I usually do - I was tempted to keep it a bit more desert-y, but I may end up washing them at some point if I change my mind. I've also added a few small clusters of rocks for a bit of interest, but other than that they're pretty plain bases. For the weathering, I've used AK Streaking Grime on a good number of the armour panels, and some AK weathering powders mainly around the feet and legs. After some of the careful masking and painting, it was slightly painful putting grime and dust all over it, but I think it works fairly well.

One thing that I may go back to do is add a power/glow effect to the lancers' weapons and shields, but other than that I think these are done.






   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut




Given they are miniaturised versions of fictional 20m high war engines, those titans look incredibly realistic!

   
Made in gb
Furious Fire Dragon





Midlands, UK

Thanks fingol!

I've been quiet for a while, but I haven't been idle. A good chunk of the intervening time has gone on other armies, but I've been working on a pair of Acastus and a pair of Warlords for AT, which are coming along nicely. But today, what's made me post an update, is a bit of work on the full size warlord. I'm trying to log the various stages of this build process and today was a big one - installing the huge magnet in the hip piece, to magnetise the hips to the torso. I wanted to magnetise the warlord at the waist partly for the aritculation/poseability, but also because if I ever want to transport it somewhere, breaking apart at the waist will certainly make it easier. But I wasn't really sure how large I should go on the magnets. I figured overkill would definitely be better than too small, though. I ended up buying a 25mm diameter, 10mm deep N42 magnet to sink into the 'plug' on top of the hip piece - rated pull about 16kg. Then, rather than direct magnet to magnet contact, I planned to place the second magnet inside the torso. The bottom plate of the torso is about 3mm thick, so they'd have reduced pull over direct contact, but I figured it would be a physically stronger assembly to mount it on top of that plate rather than drilling through it, and I could make up for the distance by just fitting a bigger magnet. So, for the torso I picked up a 25mm diameter 20mm thick N35 magnet - rated pull 22kg. Test fitting these told me that even with the 3mm distance, the pull was pretty strong, and becoming slightly concerned about the structural integrity of the whole thing, I 3d printed a support piece to put around the torso magnet.

Because the one in the torso has a bit more leeway in positioning I wanted to do the one in the hips first, and use that to help align the torso magnet. And for the hip magnet, I wanted to drill the hole before the hip piece was mounted on top of the legs. Which pretty much meant that my build was stalled until I drilled this magnet hole. And I was dreading it - what if I screwed up and ruined a Warlord Titan? So today I decided to experiment. I'd ordered a set of Forstner drill bits for this purpose, and I wanted to practice and also figure out whether I should be using the 25mm or 26mm drill bit. So I put the 25mm bit in my power drill and drilled a hole in a piece of MDF. The magnet fit nicely, with a little bit of clearance around it - just what I wanted, a slightly loose fit, so I could fit it with plenty of JB Weld. Next up I tried another hole in a piece of resin casting gate to get a feel of how it behaved in resin. It went well, so I took a deep breath and clamped the Warlord hips to the table...






Perfect!


I scored up the inside of the hole, coated in JB Weld, pushed the magnet in, then cleaned up the excess that squirted out of the sides:





My next step is now to let that cure for at least 24 hours, then I'll JB Weld the torso magnet and its support into the torso, using the pull from this magnet from beneath to hold it in place while it cures. And using the hip magnet to hold it in place will have the added benefit of making absolutely sure I get the polarity right!

The torso magnet and it's support appear thus (dry fitted). The bottom of the magnet is practically on the resin (there's only a 1mm thick bit of PLA underneath it). It's a chunky magnet! Once that's in place with plenty of JB Weld, I may slap loads of milliput all over it just to make absolutely sure it's going nowhere, and then I'll be in a position where I can start building up the torso.


   
Made in us
Walking Dead Wraithlord






That's industrial strength modeling, that is. Impressive.
   
Made in gb
Furious Fire Dragon





Midlands, UK

I've got plenty of progress to report, so let's get started with Adeptus Titanicus. First off, I've painted up a couple of Porpyrions in house Lakar colours.



Sticking with the knights, I picked up one of the new Cerastus Boxes to gain a pair of Castigators and a pair of Acherons. Really I'd like more than that, if only because I've got eight Lancers at this point and I feel that's an excessive Lancer-to-other-Cerastus-chassis ratio. But I've got enough models in the backlog already that I figure I'll pick some more up at some point when I've got through more of the models I've got. I've assembled those, and another pair of Lancers, so that's six Cerastus to go on the painting bench soon.

I've also been working on a pair of Warlords. I've got them both to the point of being ready to glue the armour panels on - pretty much all that's left to do is actually glue them on, add decals, do the weathering and basing. But this is where I've stalled. Because I'd like to make one of them into the small-scale version of my Forgeworld Warlord, as a sort of tester for the scheme. So what I want to do is pick my favourite combination of armour panels for one Warlord, to try to make my favourite rendition of the Legio Metalica scheme on a Warlord that I can come up with. And the problem there? I've got two more AT Warlords on sprue. If I paint them up before I glue any armour panels, I'll have four Warlords' worth to pick from to create my ultimate Warlord. And I feel I should do that, so these two will wait at this point in the process until I get the other two to the same state...

But since I wanted to get a photo I've blu-tacked the armour panels on.




Right, onto the big beast!

Now that I've sorted out the waist magnets, I test fitted the torso box. I really wanted this to be right, so I assembled it with elastic bands, figured out which bits didn't quite fit and then got on with the boiling water to bend them into the required shape. In the following photo, everything is dry-fitted:



Once I'd done all the bending I wanted to do, I decided that I was going to magnetise the head. I probably won't get another head, because I feel like the Titan's head is such an important part that it would be offensive to the machine spirit to pluck it off and fit another one... but at the same time I felt it would be handy to be able to remove the head if I wanted to. So I used the 10mm diameter by 10mm deep 5kg pull magnets that I'd bought for the weapon arms (had enough spare), sunk one into the ball joint on the back of the head, and drilled through the concave surface on the front piece of the torso.





Having done that, I epoxied the head together (mostly) - it's currently in three pieces for ease of painting the interior. I still need to add the crew - I haven't decided at this point whether I'll paint them separately and then glue them in.



Held together with blu-tack and held by the magnets in the neck joint:



Because the resin of the front piece of the torso is only a few mm thick and the magnet was sticking out a long way behind it, I wanted to make sure that it was supported from behind and wasn't going to move, so I went and 3d-printed another support structure.





Great, so the idea was to build the torso box (without the lid), and then JB-Weld that support structure onto the back of the front piece and the magnet to hold it firmly in place.

Then I started JB-Welding the torso box pieces a few at a time. But even when only a few pieces had the epoxy on them, I still assembled the entire torso box each time, clamped and elastic banded it all up, and made sure everything was aligned correctly - even though several of the pieces were only dry-fitted. I think that's incredibly important to this build, because any misalignments in the torso box would be a huge pain to put right after several pieces are epoxied together. Dry fitting the rest of the parts makes sure that the ones which do have epoxy on them dry in the right position and alignment. Irwin quick grip, the Titan builder's best friend...



So now I've got to the point where the torso box is fully epoxied together aside from the top piece - which I wanted to remain unglued so that I can access the inside to help if I'm pinning the shoulders. After that dried, I took the lid off, epoxied the front magnet support into place, and put a lot of milliput around the 3d-printed pieces at the bottom to absolutely make sure that even if the epoxy somehow managed to let go, that they're not going anywhere.



Assembled together, with the head in place...



I've done a little more (a bit of a start on the shoulders), but that photo seems like quite an appropriate place to finish this rather long post.

   
Made in gb
Furious Fire Dragon





Midlands, UK

I’ve got enough progress on the Warlord that I think it's time for another update.

Magnets... I absolutely wanted to magnetise the weapon loadouts for the warlord so I picked up some 10mm diameter by 10mm thick neodymium magnets rated for about 5kg pull. As I noted in the last post, I ended up using a pair of those in the neck joint to magnetise the head, but the weapons were the reason I'd bought them. My 10mm forstner bit resulted in slightly too tight a fit (difficult to get the magnet in, and there was no way I was getting epoxy around it), but I had another nominally 10mm drill bit that was just slightly larger and let me enlarge the holes just enough.

Shoulder weapon mounts (left: the bottom of the carapace laser blaster, right: the piece that goes on top of the shoulder)


Epoxy drying as they're fitted to the top shoulder pieces:


Complete with magnet fitted:


For the main arm guns, the Adeptus Titanicus version is designed for a magnet at the top of the arm where it slots into the shoulder socket, and each weapon comes with a complete arm. However for the full size version the arms come with the body which means you only ever get two arms and if you want to magnetise you need to magnetise between the arm and the gun. I considered magnetising at the shoulder too so that I could have some rotation, but then I realised that there's a pair of pistons between the torso and the arm that aren't present on the AT version which really want to be glued into place, so magnets at the arm/gun joint only it is. This is how I did it (looking down on top of the gun, and up into the arm). The magnets are plenty strong enough even to hold this substantial chunk of resin:


Lower shoulder pieces and hip gyros fitted. Since there'll be a fair amount of weight on the lower shoulder pieces, I pinned each one in four places with 2mm steel rod liberally coated in JB Weld:


The top torso pieces, exhausts etc:


Finally, the torso with the upper shoulders resting on top and with the arms held on with elastic bands... I haven't epoxied them on yet because I haven't quite decided if I want to pin through the arms or not:


With the torso practically finished, thought turns to the legs. One thing's for sure, even with the JB Weld I want to do a lot of pinning. I was running low on the 2mm steel rod, so I'd ordered some more - only for a packet to arrive with a hole poked in one end and no sign of any steel rods. They must have made their escape from the packaging somewhere in the postal system. So now I'm waiting on some more to arrive so that I can make a proper job of the legs. It's going to be one of the most nerve wracking parts of the build, I expect, managing to get the whole leg/foot/hip assembly put together and making sure that it all gets held in the right position for long enough for the epoxy to cure. I can't imagine much worse than leaving it to cure and then coming back to find that it's cured in some sort of weird bent-over position, so I'll be taking great care - this is why I've left the legs until last! I expect that I'll epoxy the upper and lower legs together, setting the angles of the knee joints, and then once those are cured I'll assemble them with the feet and hips in one go, assuming I can rig up something to support the hip piece while it cures.

I've also noticed that Forgeworld are putting up the pre-order for the Mori Quake Cannon next weekend. Now that's tempting. I'd been fancying a Sunfury for a while as well and just generally to complete the weapon set - it's the advantage of magnetising, right? Of course the problem there is that these are Warlord Titan scale weapons and run £92 each for the guns and £100+ for the power claw and carapace weapons - If I wanted a Quake Cannon, Sunfury, power claw and a set of Apocalypse missile launchers it would cost damn near the same as a fully armed Warhound! However I'll admit that I'm not the biggest fan of the power claw so I can scrub that one from the list, but even so, the two guns and the missile launchers... that's a hefty chunk of change and it would also result in the worrying thought of "Well, I've got enough spare weapons to fully arm a second Warlord..." I wonder if I'll be able to resist any more weapons at least until I've got the titan and the existing set of weapons finished.

---


Apart from the full size warlord, nothing much to share picture wise. I'm working on a pair of AT Lancers and a trio of Questoris for House Krast, so they'll probably be the next finished painted models. I've also built and primed a bunch of AT models, two Warhounds, two Reavers, one Warbringer, two Castigators, two Acherons and in finally making a start on the 40K knights, two Armiger Warglaives. It's going to be fun painting House Lakar colours on a larger scale.

   
Made in gb
Ancient Venerable Dreadnought






That’s one serious amount of modelling Bellerophon! Good luck resisting the itch to purchase more weapons and the inevitable second warlord!

Goberts Gubbins - P&M Blog, started with Oldhammer, often Blackstone Fortress and Void Panther Marines, with side projects along the way 
   
Made in gb
Furious Fire Dragon





Midlands, UK

 gobert wrote:
That’s one serious amount of modelling Bellerophon! Good luck resisting the itch to purchase more weapons and the inevitable second warlord!


Thanks! I resisted pre-ordering the Quake Cannon, I'll see how long I can hold out. Titans are certainly a pricy habit to get into.

I've been on a bit of a roll with the Warlord, and it's been incredibly satisfying seeing it (slowly) coming together. As of the last update I'd got the point where the torso was virtually done aside from epoxying the arms/shoulders into place, so I thought it was about time I went with the legs. I'd done the torso first because you're pretty much just putting it together. There aren't any posing decisions to be made, no making sure that the way you assemble it will allow all the armour panels to fit properly, and no worry about small joints that have to bear quite an enormous load. All you need to do is make sure the pieces fit and take it steady. But I had to do the legs sometime.

I knew I wanted every joint in the legs to be pinned, so I picked up some 3mm stainless steel rods. I know most people pin using brass rod, but I figured why use brass when I could use steel (bolt cutters are a useful hobby tool for cutting my steel pins to size!) There's no way that I was going to be able to pose the entire feet/legs/hips assembly in one go and get them to stay in place, so I decided to start by epoxying and pinning at the knee. I've seen other people building warlords doing it by putting a pin straight through the knee joint from one side to the other, and that made sense to me so that's what I did. I drilled in from each side to make sure the holes were centred on each side, and then pretty much just met in the middle. I then packed the joint with blu-tac and stuck one of the steel rods through the holes which made the knee joints rigid enough to do some test posing. I found that an old Army Painter varnish rattlecan was just about the perfect height to support the hip piece.





That done, and happy with my pose, I cut the steel to length, removed the blu-tac from the joint and re-assembled with JB Weld in its place. I gave the legs a day to cure, and then decided to commit to the legs - I would try to make sure the pose came out right by epoxying the ankles and hips at the same time. Again, I used the varnish can (with a bit of blu tac and carefully positioned dice on top) to support the hips, and one of the legs has a steel rod holding it up so that it didn't swivel and fall, but other than that there was nothing holding it together waiting for the epoxy to dry. I couldn't figure out any way of clamping it that wouldn't spin the parts out of the pose that I wanted, so I just pressed them together long enough for the JB Weld to begin to take hold, then carefully positioned it with support where necessary, and kept a careful eye on it for the rest of the day. I put a spirit level on top, because I wanted side-to-side to be as close to level as I could get it. After putting it together I realised that I had a very slight forward tilt on the hips that would translate to a slight forward lean on the torso, where I had been going for completely level, but I liked it so I left it that way. I think a small forward lean gives the feeling that it's pressing forward.



After that had cured, I pinned the joints at the hips and at the feet. For the hips, I drilled through the part where the hip gyro mounts since the gyro would hide the hole once fitted. For the feet I drilled up into the ankle from underneath. In each I fitted a length of 3mm steel rod liberally coated with JB Weld. I followed that up by fitting the hip gyros and pistons. It's parts like this where the extra detail of the full size warlord comes into play over the AT one - anybody who's built an AT warlord will know that the pistons are a fixed part of the upper leg assembly and they're always at the same angle relative to the leg no matter what angle the leg is posed at, whereas here the hip mounting rings are lined up with the hips and each piston is a separate piece and you can actually position them so that they're angled appropriately to the leg. You get a fair length on each piston so they can be nicely extended, or just cut some of that length off if they're going to be short.



I then attached the arms, and the toes, with plenty of epoxy for a strong bond.



... to get to this point:



What's left? Well you may notice that the arm pistons aren't fitted in that photo. I've since done that. The shoulder pieces that fit the laser blasters are just dry fitted at the minute. Before I epoxy them on I want to drill down through the arms and pin them. The leg/foot pistons are dry fitted, just because they would stay in place dry-fitted and I thought the photo would look better with them on. I'm going to paint them separately and fit them at the end, and the same goes for all the armour panels, bolt cannons, lascannons and void shield generators. Oh yeah, and I still need to glue the railings onto the back of the torso. Otherwise... it's on the verge of being ready to prime.

Each part felt big as I was working on it, but mounting the torso on top of the legs for the first time was a great feeling that brought home just how huge this thing is. I mean, the biggest kit I'd built up to this point is the Scorpion Grav-Tank for my Eldar, and this titan makes it look tiny.

   
Made in us
Walking Dead Wraithlord






Immensely awesome.
   
Made in au
Ragin' Ork Dreadnought






Albany, Australia

Impressive. I was going to say, if you were worried about the lean, a slightly angled up base would work - but I suspect his feet are all the base you need / want... I haven't dealt with anything tht large before...

   
Made in gb
Mad Gyrocopter Pilot





Northumberland

Damn that m-f is big. That will look so awesome when it's painted.

One and a half feet in the hobby


My Painting Log of various minis:
# Olthannon's Oscillating Orchard of Opportunity #

 
   
Made in gb
Furious Fire Dragon





Midlands, UK

Thanks guys! Just now I've pinned the arms and epoxied the shoulder weapon mounts on, which was the last major construction job before moving over to priming/painting. Unfortunately the weather forecast is dodgy for the next few days so priming will have to wait a bit.

 Arakasi wrote:
Impressive. I was going to say, if you were worried about the lean, a slightly angled up base would work - but I suspect his feet are all the base you need / want... I haven't dealt with anything tht large before...


Yeah, I could do, but I'm quite happy with the very slight forward lean on it, and it's certainly nice and stable with the wide feet and the way I've posed the legs. I'll probably put it on a base anyway, but with the feet flat. I know a lot of people don't base titans, and some people I've spoken to have been surprised or almost incredulous that I could be thinking of basing a warlord, but I've got a couple of reasons. One is just that I think models look better if they've got a base. The only possible exception is tanks, but I suspect that's just because I've been used to tanks not being based for all the time I've been interested in 40k and so seeing a tank on a base looks cool, but odd. My other reason is for stability and to protect the toes. Each toe is a separate piece and they're epoxied to the main bit of the foot, and I'm aware that if I'm moving the titan and putting it down, if I put it down at a bit of an angle or there's something under one of the toes it could put a lot of stress on that epoxy joint, but if it's on a base that's not an issue.

Because it's such a big model with such a big footprint, I'd like to do a fairly minimalist base that barely extends beyond the edges of the toes, just so if it ever gets used in a game it's got a better chance of actually fitting on a table in between terrain. I've got some large MDF ovals that I cut back when I had regular access to a laser cutter just in case I ever wanted to base some titan-scale models. Since I've got those anyway, I'm tempted to make a permanently attached 'small' base with an irregular shape, that basically follows the contours of the feet, and then have a larger 'display' oval that the small base slots into the middle of.

   
Made in gb
Furious Fire Dragon





Midlands, UK

I've been working hard at AT scale titans recently. I wanted to complete my remaining warlords as part of my plan to test out my colour scheme for the full size warlord by painting all of the armour plates for four AT scale warlords and then mixing and matching to find my favourite combination - but since I'd got a bunch of other titans built and primed and all their armour plates loose I wanted to get them finished and the armour plates glued on before I started mislaying any of them - which given the quantity seemed like it could happen all too easily. Luckily I didn't lose any, and got this lot finished:







I've now just started the painting on two AT Warlords, 2 Acherons, 2 Castigators and 6 Questoris. I've also made a start on a pair of 40k scale Armiger Warglaives, which are planned to be the first foray of my Lakar into 40K scale.

Finally, I've actually got my hands on some Admech to add to the queue. A friend was looking to clear out some unbuilt sprues, and part of that included a Tech Priest Dominus, 20 Skitarii, a Secutarii Hoplites upgrade set and a Titan Tech Priest - just what I need to support my Legio!

   
Made in ca
Grisly Ghost Ark Driver






oooh, the Secutarii Hoplites upgrade set looks super cool, I'd love to see those!

See what's on my painting table Now painting: Kruleboyz Gutrippaz 
   
Made in gb
Ancient Venerable Dreadnought






Sweet titans, the darker yellow is certainly my favourite, but the pale works great on the last dude. That could be because 90s 40k is my heritage!

Goberts Gubbins - P&M Blog, started with Oldhammer, often Blackstone Fortress and Void Panther Marines, with side projects along the way 
   
Made in gb
Executing Exarch





London, UK

Stunning work Bellerophon, I've not seen someone do a build log of one of these monstrosities so keen to see how you get on! The mini-titans are looking the business too!

   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut




The weathering on these guys looks great, really makes them seem mid-walk

   
Made in gb
Furious Fire Dragon





Midlands, UK

Thanks for the replies everybody, always appreciated.

Since the last post I've completed my four AT Warlords and some more House Lakar Knights. Here's some pics:





As of now, my AT Metalica roster consists of 4 Warlords, 1 Warbringer, 4 Reavers and 4 Warhounds, plus House Lakar with 2 Porphyrions, 2 Lancers, 2 Acherons, 2 Castigators, 3 Paladins and 3 Errants, and House Krast with 4 Lancers and 3 Gallants. I've actually got my AT collection to the point where all I've got left to do is another pair of Lancers and three Questoris... until the Warmaster turns up! Might have to get another Warbringer too, that one seems a bit lonely when it's surrounded by 4 of every other class, but then I assume they'll release the volcano cannon version at some point soon so I'll probably wait for that.

In other news, a new toy turned up in the post yesterday - a Harder and Steenbeck Infinity CRPlus - the perfect tool to do justice to my full size Warlord. I'm planning on starting work on it pretty soon, and I'm going to use the AT Warlord with the white cockpit and black-and-white striped shoulders as the template. That was the point of getting all four AT warlords done at the same time after all, so I had four sets of armour plates to mix and match to pick my favourite combination. I'll probably end up trying to do much more detailed decoration/freehand than I've put on the AT version though - or rather I'll try and see how well it comes out. If you're painting a full size Warlord you've got to go over the top.

   
Made in gb
Furious Fire Dragon





Midlands, UK

Another update, on the big titan this time. I've been working at painting the interior of the cockpit. I painted it with the front and the back of the cockpit separate, and I've now epoxied them together. The top is remaining unglued. Now that the front and back are glued together, I'm going to drill for magnets and magnetise the top on, so that you can pluck the top off the head and see the interior. It would just sit there by gravity well enough, but I like the thought of the positive retention that magnets provide. I'm mildly amused that I've got the titan to the point where it looks completely unpainted from the outside, but just look inside and the cockpit is fully detailed already.

I'm really pleased with how it came out overall. I was going back and forth on what colour as the base for the interior before settling on Model Air Light Blue - though I'd describe it much more as a very pale blue-grey. It just seemed a very fitting "interior paint of military hardware" sort of colour to go with. Lining it with Army Painter Strong tone (and using the Strong Tone to put a few streaks on the door) gave it a suitably used sort of feel.

For the main screen, I'd seen somebody's photo on Titan Owners' Club, or a build log somewhere, where they'd had a go at freehanding an enemy titan on the screen, and I thought that was cool so I had a go at it myself.




   
Made in gb
Executing Exarch





London, UK

Excellent bit of freehand, even if you won't see it all the time the effort was put in for anyone wanting to look. The interior is a good colour too, it feels military and the weathering you can do with the colour will really sell it.

   
Made in gb
Ancient Venerable Dreadnought






Wow! That looks supercool, the enemy Titan in the view port is fantastic. Great work

Goberts Gubbins - P&M Blog, started with Oldhammer, often Blackstone Fortress and Void Panther Marines, with side projects along the way 
   
Made in gb
Furious Fire Dragon





Midlands, UK

Glad you like it! I think it was the right call to stop the freehand when I did - I'd started out by doing the titan greyscale, and was then considering actually adding some colour to it, but I think I would have only messed it up, and I think you'd barely pick out colour at that distance anyway.

Yesterday I set myself up to take some full army photos - mainly with my Eldar in mind, but I got the Titanicus out first, thought it would be cool to get some pictures of the collection. My makeshift photo studio is a board on my kitchen floor, with a towel over the radiator... but it worked reasonably well. I only realised afterward that my photo wasn't the sharpest, but oh well. Maybe I'll get a better one next time.



I've also started airbrushing armour panels for the big Warlord - doing the white and yellow ones first, since they're going to need to be masked off and have black stripes added. Plus a few of them need to have red on other parts of the panel, so my approach is going to be finish the white and yellow (and varnish), then mask and add the black stripes (and varnish), then totally mask off the finished panels where necessary and do all the red. At the stage these photos have been taken, I've added gradients to the yellow, but the white is only a basecoat.




   
Made in gb
Furious Fire Dragon





Midlands, UK

I realised that it's been ages since I've given an update on the warlord, but I have been taking the occasional photos as I go, so time to show a bit of progress.

I'm feeling somewhat inspired today by the fact that WarCom posted an illustration of the new Warmaster titan in Metalica colours. It's interesting seeing what the modern 'correct' studio scheme is, because at the time I started this project the only Metalica titans I really had to go on were a bunch of really oldschool ones - and more recent ones by other people who'd used the oldschool ones as templates.

Spoiler:

A few things I really noticed:
  • The red in the photos is lovely and vibrant without being too bright, it looks really cool. I think mine is just a bit darker and less flashy on the whole.

  • They've gone with gunmetal trim, and I feel vindicated! The various Metalica titans I saw online had various shades of silvers and golds for their trim, and in the end I settled on gunmetal because I thought it suited the scheme and also seemed to fit with the theme of Forge World of Metalica itself - and it seems the studio agrees with me!

  • I see black and white stripes, but no black and yellow stripes (though the shield is halved black and yellow...). Going by the oldschool stuff, the striped sections were normally black and white, but I've seen a fair few black and yellow too. They might be pulling back on the black and yellow because of the similarity to Ignatum, but whatever, I think mine look cool with both b/w and b/y stripy sections and I'm going to keep doing it! (Plus, now I think about it, there's black and yellow stripes on one of the Reaver heraldry shields on the AT Metalica transfer sheet, so yeah, perhaps played back a bit but not gone entirely). My current warlord is going to be mainly black/white on the shoulders and the right thigh, and black/yellow on the right arm, volcano cannon shield, left knee and left shin. More individual use of yellow perhaps, but the shoulders will be dominant - as per the photo of the AT scale version a few posts back.


  • So, progress... stripes added! These were masked off with AK masking tape and sprayed Vallejo German Grey, then Army Painter Matte Black around the edges before removing the tape and tidying up a bit with a steady brush.




    Next, some red. Again, with the previous sections masked off. The red is mainly Vallejo Burnt Cadmium Red, with some Hull Red around the edges and a bit of Pure Red in the centres of the panels.From the colour plate in the spoiler above I'm marginally tempted to go back and brighten up the highlights a little bit, still not sure really. I think you can see from the photos below that it really depends what light it's in.




    Working on trim (and a sneaky Phoenix Lord amongst the plates...)




    And finally, the body and guns have been sprayed Vallejo Gloss Black Primer, followed by Metal Color Steel all over. I gave a coat of Exhaust Manifold over the gun barrels since it seems suitable for areas that have been rather hot. I've since added heat bloom effects to the laser weapons, but I hadn't done those at the time I took this photo. The armour plates on the left leg are dry-fitted just to see how it was looking. They're not finished - I still need to do some shading on the trim It does seem a bit brighter in the photo than in real life:



       
     
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