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Hi, so I've been lurking for a few years and now I'm making a plog to get myself to finish this army.

 

Back in 2018 I made a Knight. It mostly came about because I really wanted to put a leman russ eradicator cannon onto the end of a big battlecannon, and I also wanted to make an elaborate base. The base is just so big. You gotta make it interesting. And I wanted to make it look like a city that hadn't been reduced to rubble just yet.

 

I also read a whole bunch of blogs about knight conversions, including JeffTibbetts' amazing Queen Bee one, which was all about the sorts of small, tangible details I really love.

 

It was also a chance to really push my freehand skills which had never been all that great.  Best way to learn is to start off with checkers, diamonds and different stencil patterns, I reckon. And so, I made:

 

Captain Marième Marot, Honoured Protector of the Peoples of Everfair, Pilot of the Blue Flowers of the Springtide

 

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Tibbs definitely inspired me a lot with all the little details, and with all the weathering effects. I'm real proud of the head, the general reposing of arms and legs and really just about everything. This was also the first time I used resin and water effects and while I think it could have come out better, I'm still real happy.

I was also pretty inspired by the idea of Knight Worlds being somewhat separate from the awfulness of the Imperium, and also having a different tech aesthetic.

 

I also started on making some armigers, one warglaive and one helverin.  These were really inspired by the conversions that JeffTibbetts started on, as well as KrautScientist's great harpoon gun conversion. I can't remember exactly where I got the lego knight helmet idea from, but it's also a good one.

 

I was working on these back in 2018, and then I kinda just lost momentum and a bunch of things happened in my life and they've just sat uncompleted until now:9liadnk.jpg?1

 

 

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I'm a little bit further along since this photo, since I finished the heads, made a bunch of progress on the bases and put the bases colours on the arms, but still, not by much.

 

I did make some more pilots tho, but they won't get names until I finish the armigers. The two on the left are converted from Victoria Miniatures characters, and the one on the right is made from a Forge World Games day model (maybe 2013/2014?) with a head from an Infinity model.

 

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To go along with all of these Knights, I also bought some Solar Auxilia (last year, I think). I've got a 20 person rifle squad, plus 3 flamers and a volkite gunner I picked up from Ebay. I haven't played in many years so I got no idea what I would run them as (although they're work pretty well for Scions) but I reckon they really have the right aesthetic and vibe for troops belonging to a Knight World. They also need a bunch of freehand heraldry on them.

 

So far, I've got 5 models painted up:

 

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The plan is:

 

1. Finish the Armigers

2. Finish the troops I've got

3. Buy a squad of the Volkite guns so that I've got 2 sgts and a bunch of models I can also convert to have plasma/melta guns so that I can run what I've got as scions in killteam or whatever

4. Buy one last Knight, and convert it up

5. Maaaaaaaybe in the future buy one of the Cerastus Knights

 

 

For the last knight, I'm really keen to convert it similarly to Binary's fantastic Archangel knight, with the great shoulder mounted missiles. I'd go less cathedral-ish otherwise, but I want to give it a go. I'd want to make it look a lot more hulking.

 

So far, I'm painting up about 2 solar auxilia every few days (I can paint 2 a day when I'm not interrupted, and I've got a decent amount of time with lockdown, but there's still other unrelated work I need to do).

 

I'm looking forward to painting more soon.

Edited by lalabox
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Wow! That knight and base is really a centerpiece!! Love the attention to detail on the base and the freehand in the knight is spot on too. Don’t be so tough on yourself. That ripple affect in the water effects is great( and things like the fallen leaves and broken metal handrail all are aces too!)

So LEGO wise; is that one armiger helmet from their Nexo knight range? My 7 year old sons LEGO container may get pillaged one night in the near future.

Edited by Yosef Hausakluif
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Thanks for the comments!

 

The ripples are made with a gel from ak interactive, which dries very clear. I was lucky enough to live kinda close to a hobby store/warehouse that stocked a whole lot of scenics and technical powders and whatnot. It's still around, but getting there requires a car that I no longer have.

 

Vallejo also does a gel and I was actually introduced to the effect with this video.

 

https://youtu.be/rZRoYVykB_Y

 

The still water itself didn't work with the base i'd made, and it kept on peeling off. so i ended up going with resin, but the gel stuff is good. I'm going to use the still water for some other effects, including the fountain on one of my armiger bases.

 

 

The lego helmet is this one, which I'm not too sure what range it's from. I just ended up buying some from people who sold individual lego bits.

 

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Wow! That knight and base is really a centerpiece!! Love the attention to detail on the base and the freehand in the knight is spot on too. Don’t be so tough on yourself. That ripple affect in the water effects is great( and things like the fallen leaves and broken metal handrail all are aces too!)

So LEGO wise; is that one armiger helmet from their Nexo knight range? My 7 year old sons LEGO container may get pillaged one night in the near future.

 

Bricklink probably has some in stock. 

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Small update

 

I got 2 more riflers done:

 

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But I also got the bases done. I make a lot of the pavements and such for the knight bases out of mdf. Specifically a 3mm thick mdf that this one scenery company down in Melbourne uses (Knights of Dice). They're regulars at auxpax and I did ask them once where they get 3mm mdf from, rather than the standard 5mm, but it was a trade secret. Still, very useful stuff.

 

I also picked up some lasercut bases from another melbourne lasercut mdf company, which is where all the hexes are from. I hadn't used hex patterns on the bases of my knights so far, and it was a bit late to change them, so I went for a mix of pavements. The bases were also 25mm which meant they were slight too big for the bevelled warhammer base. So i needed to sand them down etc.

 

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I also picked up a Canis Rex kit now that gw stores are open, but I'm gonna promise myself to finish the armigers before I really get stuck into that one.

 

Finally, I'd bought the Solar Auxilia Medic group off ebay a little ago (after I randomly saw it for a good price). Wonderful models. A little too mad doctor-y for my army, but I'm definitely going to find some use for them in the future.

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So, there are a few more details to add to the base and the model, including a few scenic effects. I also really, really want to make some little posters and newspapers as scatter for both this model and my other ones.

 

BUT

 

after sitting around for over a year and a half, I have finally just about finished my warglaive armiger

 

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The radar array on the melta weaon is a dark angels bit from a landspeeder (with the idea taken directly from JeffTibbett). Jeff also supplied the running/charging pose. The harpoon gun is similarly nicked from KrautScientist. All I can really claim to have done is add the fuel tanks from an imperial guard flamer.

 

I'm gonna take some more detail shots once the light is a little better, and once I've added on a bit of scatter scenery (including one very important detail for the bus stop). But for now I am super pleased.

 

The Helverin Armiger is coming along really nicely as well. Finishing up the base on that one is gonna take a bit more work, since it has a water feature and i'm going to add some kinda silly details.

 

 

Also, now that the two armigers are looking like they are soon gonna be finished, I really should get around to buy a proper case.

 

I'll try them for my self a bit, but would you be able to fit 2 knights, at least 2 armigers and a bunch of infantry into one of the battle figure cases, or do you really need the crusader one?

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And a few more detail shots, along with the base

 

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The bench is actually kinda oversized. Like, a primaris marine could comfortably sit on it, and everyone else is gonna look like a child. But, I'm still ridiculously happy that I manged to just find a random bench kit that looks nice and that I can just base my knights with details like that. The leaves are a sort of seed pod that I ordered from Antenoctis Workshop back in 2018 (well i thought it was antenoctis,  but i can't seem to find the product anymore). The are really fantastic as leaves.

 

 

 

Lancer Renée de Tabris, Pilot of the Born of Amber Winds. The pilot is converted from a Victoria Miniatures model which doesn't appear to be sold any more (it was one of the adepticon ones).

 

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Edited by lalabox
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Your knights are awesome :woot: and the popped up helmet visor is brilliant. You should totally build a knight household for Titanicus and do a scheme like that, it'd look great. 

Thank you

 

I think that would definitely push my freehand skills past their limit, but it's something to think about

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Hmm, I've got a few more places to look, but I think I've lost the right shoulderpad for my first knight. They weren't glued on for ease of storage (the arms can detach from the torso, and the torso comes off the legs). I'm certain I had both of them when I moved in, but seems like I don't.

 

I'll maybe try buying some more on ebay, but the ebay bits market is a little sparse at the moment, and international shipping seems to have gotten a lot more expensive.

 

Alternatively, I've got half a mind to buy some casting and mold equipment. I don't know if this piece would be the easiest place to start learning since it's quite big and vertical (and I'm really only ever going to cast some odd bits here and there for conversion purposes). But it might be a thing worth learning about.

 

 

Also, a friend pointed out that my armiger there looks like they're running after a bus they just missed and yes. I agree.

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And so, I have completed my second Armiger.

 

Lancer Ousmane Marot, Pilot of Litha's Bountiful Harvest

 

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The fountain is from the same kit that I got the bench from. It's just some foam card and some btis of mdf that I stuck some empire cannon details to. The reeds are made from some very cheap paintbrushes, along with some long static grass. The lilypads are made from hole-punched paper, that I painted green and then cut up a little more.

 

The dark angels landspeeder bits that I bought to put the radar array on the warglaive were also super useful here. I put another radar array onto one of the autocannons and it fit really well. I had to cut a quarter of the gun shield off to make it fit on, but it's still nice and clean. It also provided the little grim reaper to mount on top of the fountain.

 

Unlike the close combat focused warglaive, I didn't add a faceplate to the helverin. I reckon that it's a bit further away, and also I really really like that helverin face. It looks like it's got little mandibles like a spider.

 

 

And so, now I'm gonna keep on going on the solar auxilia and also start building the other knight. I still can't find the other shoulderpad, which is why I haven't posted a group photo of all the knights just yet. I've got a dreadful suspicion that it fell into my rubbish bin and I chucked it out without noticing.

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So

 

Small update

 

I've completed two more riflers.

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It's been raining heavily in sydney, so i've only just managed to get  the rest of the models undercoated (as well as those bases I made, which have been sprayed black).

 

I'm just going to continue my progress on them for a bit.

 

However, now that I've finished the armigers, and I've also managed to make a trip out to a hobby store to get another pin vice and a magnet kit, I've been working on my second Knight.

 

So far, I've put together the body, the waist, the head and a few other uninteresting bits.  But I've also been working on the legs

 

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I'm going to add a bit more height on this one, since I want it to be a little more towering and imposing. So, I'm adding an extra segment to the legs. As you can see, I'm using a bit from a defiler kit (the bronze one on the left is one that I bought years and years ago when I was still a kid, the other one came in a huge box of bits from someone I very briefly dated who wanted to get rid of it). The pieces have been cut and filed down even more than what's in the picture, to give a little more articulation.

 

I've also filled up the middle of the normal knight leg pieces with a bit of clay and a lot of greenstuff. The clay was originally in there just to block things up because I was planning on filling the pieces with resin. But I eventually just settled on greenstuff. There just needs to be something to drill into so I can pin some rods into them for strength later.

 

I've also been getting to work on magnetising all of the weapons. \

 

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I mostly just followed the tutorial here: http://tibbsforge.com/the-revolution-will-be-magnetized/

 

Although there are a few differences. I couldn't really get hold of any strip magnets (apart from some useless fridge magnets), so everything is just with the rare earth magnets. I'd bought a kit with 2mm, 3mm, 4.75mm and 10mm.

 

The other thing is that the tutorial up there is just to switch between the thermal lance and the battle cannon. I'm trying to make all the weapons switchable. What this means is that I've magnetised the bits that connect the weapons to the upper arm. Those bits are eventually going to be glued in place to the respective sides of the weapons. I haven't done that yet because I want to figure out the poses first.

 

I'll also need to put in a pin or something to make sure that they don't swivel and that the pose is kinda set. All the articulation in the knight is fantastic for posing purposes and being able to remove limbs etc for easier storage, but I find that everything tends to hang a bit limp. So, I'm gonna have to figure that bit out.

 

I realise now that maybe i could have had an easier time if, instead of leaving the latch bit for the upper arm, I'd made it so that the arms could just be pulled on and off, instead of needing to be disassembled. That would mean that the minigun arm and the chainsaw arm could just be glued together with no magnets needed. It'd just be for the thermal cannon, battle cannon and las-impulsor arm that'd need to come apart. Hmm.

 

Still it's good fun.

 

The chainsaw is glued together apart from that joint, and the big minigun came together really easily and is really intuitively magnetised.

 

 

 

 

Finally, I'm also a bit obsessed with building mechs and pilots and I've got a few one off projects in mind that aren't gonna be part of the Defenders of the People's of Everfair.

 

So far I'm mostly just experimenting

 

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Excellent work on the Skitarii.

Finally, I'm also a bit obsessed with building mechs and pilots and I've got a few one off projects in mind that aren't gonna be part of the Defenders of the People's of Everfair.

 

So far I'm mostly just experimenting

 

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I really like how the model has human-like proportions. Too often, Games Workshop gives human-made military units (Titans, Knights, Terminators) a downright xeno appearance, i.e., non-human.
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Excellent work on the Skitarii.

Finally, I'm also a bit obsessed with building mechs and pilots and I've got a few one off projects in mind that aren't gonna be part of the Defenders of the People's of Everfair.

So far I'm mostly just experimentingI9vrbxX.jpg?1

I really like how the model has human-like proportions. Too often, Games Workshop gives human-made military units (Titans, Knights, Terminators) a downright xeno appearance, i.e., non-human.

I kinda like a lot of the non-human aspects of mechs and armoured suits

 

It's one of the reasons i fell out of gunpla a bit, since i wasn't a huge fan of the human faces, rather than leaning more into the "robot aesthetic" (also the whole thing where a lot of the designs are about evoking sleek fighter jets rather than the clunky, more weighty designs that i really like).

 

I like incorporating more human aspects like arms with hands etc, but i do think that that's then best mixed with more nonhiman aspects like the three-segmented legs, or heads and optics being mounted on the front of the chest, etc

 

This whole army started bc after a while of gunpla, i just realised i really like gw mech aesthetic a nd not much else was scratching that itch.

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While I'm waiting on the opportunity to get the stuff I'll need to make my knight's base, which'll allow me to work on the overall pose, I've been playing around with that little experiment.

 

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I'm probably gonna use some more gunpla bits and pieces here and there for the shoulder pads and leg plates.

 

I'm trying to get away from the armour trim that defines a lot of imperial stuff.

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  • 2 weeks later...

This is the ideal mech body. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like.

 

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So, this has been a bit of fun to work on. The back little laser-targeter is supposed to look like it folds out, a bit like how launcher fold out in titanfall (a big influence on this project).

 

The base is made from some 60mm resin bases from micro art studios(?). I picked them up on sale from a local hobby store, and chopped up two of them to fit on this. The molded logs and such are really detailed, but painting them will be a chore.

 

I'm half tempted to ditch the deep forest look, and instead try to make an alien planet looking base. Something like the Black Mesa xen worlds, or the more beautiful No Man's Sky worlds. I dunno. I just see stuff like this and I just wanna make cool alien worlds with huge mushrooms etc.

 

 

So, I've also made some more progress on the troops.

 

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I can probably make a poorly constituted kill team now.

 

So, I've got 10 more to paint (9 riflers and one flamer). Forge world still isn't taking orders so getting the rest of the volkite guns is gonna take a bit. I'm very tempted to eventually use the volkite gunners to count as las volley guns, and then to convert a few of them to be holding plasma guns (I've got some of the Victoria Miniatures ones that'll look nice and different) and some looking like they are holding meltas (not sure how I'll do this conversion, but hopefully I can find a way to make them resemble the knights and armigers' melta guns.

 

It'll just give me more options when playing. I've read that the scion kill team generally has a sniper plasma gunner and as many volley guns as you can fit in.

 

I've also finally painted the bases and put most of the troops on bases but it's currently night time and I also haven't put on the leaf scatter etc so no pictures just yet.

 

 

And finally, I've made some good progress on the second knight. A lot of this is very much inspired and copied from Binary's thread.

 

The big this is adding in the extra leg seglment made from some spare defiler bits. It really opens up the posing options. I absolutely love the knight kit, but the default leg pose is pretty garbage.

 

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Since it's from the Canis Rex kit, I've got the interior. I didn't want to do the propped open hatch, and unfortunately my experiments with adding a working hinge to the hatch haven't worked, so it's gonna be the classic removable top. Thankfully there was a spare land raider in a bits box that I was able to pull apart for that engine bit.

 

The cockpit is still currently removable bc I'm gonna need to convert a sitting version of the pilot I started years ago (it's an Artel W miniature). I'll see how it goes. It's propped up by a single long piece of sprue that reaches to the bottom.

 

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I've also decided to do the shoulder mounted missiles rather than put them on the top. I was originally going to copy Binary's arches idea completely, but it turns out that the pod can just be cut in half to easily fit on, and this version fits my aesthetics better.  I've also copied the cut down shoulder pads.

 

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Finally, I wanted to make a different faceplate than one of the standard ones, but one that still fits in with the aesthetic. I was originally trying to scour my bits box for something like the cerastus lancer, or the acheron, but I wasn't so successful with that. I did find a neat gunpla bit that makes something unique, however I'm not completely sold on it. At the very least, I'm going to have to add a bunch of rivets before it is finished.

 

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The next big this with the night is going to be figuring out if i want to convert more and add other little details etc before getting to work on building the base.

 

I guess I also have to build the gauntlet.

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