Imperial Knight - Armigers in manufactorum pt.4 - METALLICA!

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer on my Imperial Knight Armigers. With the Deathwing finished I got to focus solely mostly on the Armigers. I wanted this one to have limited yellow and black on it.

Almost just the twin ribbons hanging from the back. I did my usual weathered brassy/bronze. It looks rough as can be but with the weathering it'll work out in the end.

The armour plates are painted separately on the sprue, it was easier at this stage, although I hadn't done the metallics just yet. Although you can see the bonding studs, which were to be white.

The second Armiger was to have the traditional yellow and black chevrons. I didn't have one that had just the two furthest outer fairings of the carapace. So it seemed to make sense to take the opportunity.

I'm not 100% convinced of the structural integrity of the pose. Despite pinning it still feels somewhat wobbly and fragile. Time will tell if it stays in one piece. It doesn't help that the base feels reasonably heavy for something bulked out with cork...

Its armour plates. The yellow is just stippled on Colvin & CO Gamboge art acrylic. Kicking myself I didn't buy more of these now Home Bargains only stocks a few primary colours rather than these more leftfield colours.

With the Gamboge in place it pencilled in the chevrons, using a wooden coffee stirrer to help get a uniform thickness.

And then it's just filled in with black. For the first time I was contemplating the additional white edges here [as part of the House Raven scheme]. It would help tidy up the edges and cover the pencil marks.

But I wasn't going to give in just yet. Things were progressing really quickly, but there were still some unresolved issues in my head. However I was itching to get decals on, even at this stage where I hadn't done half the highlights and shadows. So, although the dopamine was kicking in for the rapid progress there was a shadow of negative doubt building that it wasn't quick enough, which was attempting to squash my feeling of achievement. Could I power through...?

Imperial Knight - Armigers in manufactorum pt.3 - BIG BUILD BASE TO DONE!

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer on my Imperial Knight Armigers. I've got on with the Red Planet BASE! 🔴 in my usual fashion.

Army Painter Rough Iron was used everywhere else for the metallic basecoat.

Some of the debris on the base needs to be picked out later on in the process, but for now the base is complete.

The 'running' Armiger was progressed at the same stage. I started the modelling process January 22nd, but these pics were from February 19th.

At the time I was still painting the Deathwing, but this was hobby butterfly mode. I was lured away to the Armigers but I was managing both projects sufficiently well enough I was not totally seduced by the new project.

It also meant that when the Deathwing came to an end these were even more progressed that I could just jump into them with abandon and keep that hobby momentum going.

Bloody Great Big Bloody BASE Stamp of Bloody Approval 

Imperial Knight - Armigers in manufactorum pt.2 - BIG BUILD TO DONE!

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #buildingWarhammer on my Imperial Knight Armigers. They've been built for a while now and had quite a lot of progress with the painting. So much so I've found it quite the challenge to fit in WiP pics.

Anyway, I love this pose so much. I even got round to adding some 2mm hemisphere gems to it's armour plates [not pictured]. This will give it the look of Heresy era marines, with their 'bonded stud' armour.

It's not the best implementation [when you see it] but it'll do for now and add some further uniqueness to the model. I obviously have to clean up some mould lines too! 😱

The second one is also done. Despite my excitement at achieving the running pose I'm not 100% convinced I got it right.

Also, it flexes a lot. I'm sure I pinned it in places but part of my thinks I should have pinned it more judiciously.

I'd also planned to add more embellishments. A terminator tilting shield, more leftover banners from my Wraithlord and some spare armour plates on the Chain Cleaver. 

Some close-ups of the reposed legs. They might be useful for those wishing to do the same.

And the clumsy but functional greenstuff on the hip joints again. Hopefully, obscured when I paint it black. But again it's useful to have a close-up for those that want to copy, or let's say 'improve'' 😉

And here we have another Bloody Great Big Bloody BIG BUILD Stamp of Bloody BUILD Approval

Imperial Knight - Armigers in manufactorum pt.1 - reposing the legs

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #buildingWarhammer on my Imperial Knight Armigers and the first thing is magnets obviously, but with that done it's reposing the legs. Now I do not look forward to this and although I love the results for the first armiger I went with my crude score the joints, then bend and snap approach. 

I trim off the back of the hip hose-rings are the back. This helps the leg fit at an angle. Then the gap is filled with greenstuff, which is crudely sculpted to look like it's got ridges light the other side of the hose ring. When it's painted you won't notice. I also use piece of sprue to hold the torso in place, cutting a notch in the hole to make a 'lock and key' fitting.

The pistons on the inside of the thighs were drilled out and had metal pins added. Holes were drilled into the inside of the legs to receive the pins. This will make it stronger. However, it can be tough getting the hinge pieces to fit in the groove around the groin. I crudely hacked at the connector until it fit. It won't be noticeable when it's painted.

Adding a gun shield to the Thermal Lance

I also decided to create a gun-shield for the Thermal Lance, using a Questoris Ion Shield. I drew a lien down the centre, put the gun in the middle, marked off the centre for each lance barrel and then drilled a hole. Getting bigger each time.

And bigger, until I stopped at 5.5mm and joined them up. However, I think 6 mm is perhaps the better size. 

So it could get over the lozenge shaped barrel mount. There's some gaps to fill around it but not bad fitting in the end.

In some respects I still prefer the profile without the shield, but I wanted more variety and to give the Armigers more character. 

I prepped the other shield too, same process and results. 

Reposing the legs on a running Armiger

Here I decided to do the better job on the legs - removing the hind joint whole. It is best to do this when the leg is still in right and left halves. It's harder to do and digging into the joint with a scalpel is not without risk. I found a way to do it that is relatively safe and videoed it but haven't done the edit yet. Once done you take the six pieces, join the halves together so you can pose the three pieces as one leg.

This means you can compress the leg as much as possible. I removed the pipe at the back, drilled holes in the connectors and used guitar string to replace the pipework. I would go onto trim the peg at the ankle ball so I would have more options in positioning the foot.

This foot is only resting on the front toe, with the back toes contracted. This mean you could see underneath. I used a nail to help pin the front toe. Filled the other toes with green stuff, then rolled out a thin piece to cover the bottom of the toe. Trimmed to fit the profile.

Then I used car body repair mesh to create a tread pattern - pressing it into the green stuff, after dampening it a bit.

The second toe got done too. I had to do this three more times on the other foot..

This leg has no reposing on it - it's full tilt but it was so low I added the little piece of slate under it's foot to add a little more height. It also meant the pin in the foot is not just going into cork. I sued tile grout to blend around the stone, so it looked like it was coming out of the ground.

Testing the position of the legs. I use a pin going through holes in the legs, the hole in the hip joints al the way through to the other leg.

You can bend the pin a bit to get more direction in the hips.

The foot will need to be fully contracted before I glue it in place.

And that's it. I'll upload the video at some point and next it's basing these two, ready for some good priming weather.