Adeptus Mechanicus - House Krast Knight Paladins Painted

Pressed on over the weekend and got the waterslide transfers and some weathering onto the two Knight Paladins!

 

 

I envisioned the two paladins as being a pair of trusted retainers for the Baron (for which I intend to use one of FW's upcoming Knight Castigator). I rooted around through the big box o' transfers and found a few old Epic Titan Legion and Brettonian sheets that had some useful icons, and paired those with some of the transfers from the Knight kit itself. Once those were on I started sponging in the battle damage here and there, though I tried to keep it relatively light overall.

 

No battle damage on the rear of the Knights though - they always face their foes! Overall I'm quite pleased with the kit, though I wish it had a bit more native posability out of the box like the Eldar Wraithknight did. Nevertheless, I think the two of them have a sufficient difference in their posing to make them seem individualized.

In other news I busted out the Dremel and the respirator and set to sanding off all the huge casting gates from the King Russ tanks, as I feel I've painted enough stuff of late to warrant rewarding myself with some build time! Once all the parts are sanded, they go back for another soak and rinse and after they dry it'l be time to start the assembly process - woo hoo!

Adeptus Mechanicus - Knight Paladins livery painting

I've been feeling a little burned out on painting Thousand Sons recently and have been frittering around on various models trying to find something to 'cleanse the palate' as it were - I picked up and put down a number of units over the last week but nothing was holding my interest. Eventually my eyes fell upon a couple monsters lurking at the back of the painting shelves and I thought they might be just the thing!

I'd put the knights on hold a few months back as the boxes of resin crack from Forge World had arrived, but now that I've more or less cranked through all of that, I wanted to get some of the livery started on the Paladins. The old color scheme for House Krast included some red and white striped panels along with some cruciform icons. Pretty pleased with how they pop against the blue and yellow!

Still a long way to go before they're done! I need to sort out some further waterslide transfers as well as some weathering. The more I look at them the less happy I am with the edging as well - Trying to decide whether I need to go in and thin the light blue lines out by blocking in more dark blue, or add another even lighter blue as an extreme edge highlight at the corners of the plates. In any case, it's a welcome change from the swathes of crimson and gold I've been working on of late!

Adeptus Mechanicus - Knight Paladins painting continues

A bit more forward motion on the knights!

Finished the trim on the second paladin and starting sketching in some livery ideas in pencil. The upper right shoulders will have a quartered yellow and white/red striped pattern, which will add a little spot color to the blue and yellow armor plates.

Was able to get the second paladin assembled as well. At this point it's all detail work and basing, but the heavy lifting is done!

I'd snapped a couple pics early on in the build process and apparently never posted them. Here's a shot of the GW knight as compared with the 28mm Dreamforge Leviathan Crusader. The Crusader is significantly larger, and pretty much cements my intention of running it as a proxy Warhound (which means I need to build a second arm weapon).

They're quite comparable to my BigDaddy/Blight Wheel knights, perhaps a little smaller but not appreciably so! Overall I have to say I'm in love with the GW kit, and I'm sincerely hoping that they (or more likely Forge World) end up doing some of the other variants. The codex does mention the Lancer and Castellan which gives me hope! Forge World has confirmed that the Knights will be included in their upcoming Heresy books, which I'm rather happy about. Pretty much assures that they're going to be doing upgrades/potential full kits!

...Man I'm gonna be broke!

Adeptus Mechanicus - Knight Paladin(s) panting in progress

Well it should not come as no surprise that I ended up picking up a couple of the new Knights! I started with a pair of Paladins, to get a feel for how the kits go together before I tried any serious conversion. While the kit allows for quite a bit of pose options with the upper torso, arms and head, the legs are more or less required to be built in the standard pose (unlike the Wraithknight which just requires a little peg removal to 'unlock' the legs). The ankles are essentially cast at an angle, so will require a bit of engineering to reposition.

I followed the suggestion to leave the armour plates off in order to allow easy painting of the under-structure, which does definitely speed things up. Super fast metal basecoat/wash/drybrush and it's 90% done!

I decided to go with the colors of House Krast (see minor rant below), as I thought the blue and yellow would set off nicely against the red and white of the Adeptus Mechanicus I planned to ally them to in my Heresy armies. 

The plan is to paint one up as a squire and one as a knight, and the third as-yet-unbuilt one as a senechal. The squire will be predominantly blue, the knight in alternating halves, and the senechal will be in a quartered pattern.

After getting the silver edging on one set of armor plates, I tacked them together to see how it looked - I quite like it! I still need to add in the various striping and iconography, which will add in a little spot color and flair.

...And now the minor rant. I was pleased to find the copy of the Knight Companion book I'd ordered when I stopped home for lunch today, and I was eager to read up on the expanded fluff on house Krast. Flipped to the relevant page and surprise! Their livery is now apparently red and white. What the?! The fluff all ties in well with the little tidbits that were previously alluded to in the old Epic materials, but there is absolutely no mention (that I can see) about the old paint scheme. They are mentioned as having sworn fealty to the Mechanicum during the Heresy, so I'm going to be justifying it as the blue and yellow being their original scheme prior to their re-dedication (when they would presumably change their colors to the new red and white). Problem solved!

Knight Paladin 'Vultus Mors' - Complete!

It's been insanely busy in Real Life(tm) recently so I've unfortunately not had much hobby time. However, as a little breather from the Crimson Fists, I did find the time to finish up the Knight Paladin and the pilot model that I'd picked up subsequently. Just some minor weathering on the base and a final shot of the matte sealer to knock down some of the shine and Vultus Mors is ready for the battlefield!

I definitely enjoyed painting up this model, and I look forward to attacking the Knight Errant model that arrived a month or so back - it went into the Closet of Doom as a reward for finishing off the Crimson Fists, so it will likely be a while before I get to build it.

While I like the predominantly red scheme on the Paladin and feel that it will tie in to the rest of the Ad-Mech army, I'm not sure that I want to do the same paint scheme on the Knight Errant - I'm leaning towards something entirely different, perhaps predominantly blue and white. Of course, with all the Crimson Fists I've been doing I may have gone off blue by the time I get to it!

I tried to paint the pilot in such a way that it ties in with the Knight - though I found that the shoulder pauldron is so small there's no way I could replicate the rampant lion, and the little squiggle of white I'd initially tried as an approximation actually looked worse than just the plain green section. Ah well...

Part of the fun of modeling in my opinion is using everyday objects for the hobby. In my other life I play the bass guitar and a couple practices ago one of my strings gave way so I replaced the whole set. I think it's a safe bet to say that future projects will not want for wire tubing!

Knight Paladin 'Vultus Mors' - Part 3

Work continues apace on the Knight Paladin - I found some time to add some of the detail scrollwork as well as add some waterslide transfers.

 
I took the advice of several people and rooted around in the old Empire transfers that a friend gave me to find a rampant lion, and decided to add a smaller stylized "T" of the titan legions just to show the Knight household's connection with their larger cousins.

 

I started working on the base as well, it's nearing completion though there's still a bit more weathering and highlighting that I plan to do. I've been experimenting with adding modeling snow to some bases based on the excellent tutorial by Misterjustin on From The Warp, and I'm considering adding some to the various bases on the Ad-Mech army. I think that some white snow on the rubble bases could set off the reds and golds of the models nicely...

 

 

The next package from the fellow that sculpted the Knight Paladin arrived yesterday, which included a pair of Knight Pilot models, the original sculpts can be seen here at Big Daddy's Blog. Of course, it's back to blowing snow and sub freezing weather here, so they're not getting primered any time soon, more's the pity. I really need to track down some Gesso and give that a try for these cold winter months...

One more painting session and I think I'll be finished with Vultus Mors. No major changes from here though, minor cosmetic detailing and weathering is all that remains!

Knight Paladin 'Vultus Mors' - Part 2

I had time to get a bit more work done on Vultus Mors yesterday, and it was nice enough to grab some pictures this afternoon:

 

I was able to get all the Burnished Gold trim blocked in, though it still needs the Shining Gold highlights. I also added a banner to the Battlecannon arm and roughed in the hazard stripes on the Chainsword.

 

I experimented with Devlan Mud for the first time on the Boltgun Metal and I really liked how it turned out. The banner was printed out on thin cardstock and glued to a small plasticard tube before being pinned to the barrel.

 

It's time to start working on all the smaller details - scrollwork, iconography and such. Once that's done there will need to be another highlighting stage, and then I can attack the base. I'm pretty happy with how it's coming along so far, though I'm still undecided what I'm going to do for icons on the green parts of the heraldry. I'm torn between the stylized "T" of the titan legions and something with a bit of 'old world' feel to hearken back to the knightly orders fluff. I'm open to suggestions!

Knight Paladin 'Vultus Mors' - Part 1

The fellow that made the newer of the two Knight Titans I'd purchased is organizing a painting contest over on the Adeptus Mechanicus forums, and I figured that was an excellent reason to get cracking on the one I'd picked up. I spent some time yesterday laying down the base colors, and snapped a few in-process shots:

 

I decided to mimic the scheme that I'd used on the first one though I'm going to add some sort of heraldry to the green sections on the shoulder and shin, and will be doing a bit more scrollwork and such. Obviously I'm just focusing on painting the knight itself so far, but the base should be pretty fun as well, I tried to add a lot of fun little details that you really can't see in the primered state.

 

I still need to add all of the burnished gold trim and add hazard striping to the chainsword. I'm going to go in and add a bit of brass/gold to the various pistons on the arms and legs as well. The all-steel look strikes me as a bit bland now that I'm looking at the pics.

 

There's still a bit more to be done highlighting the red panels as well - they still look a little flat. I struggle with red over large surfaces, so this has been a bit of a challenging model for me. On the other hand, I think this model has a lot more character than the first one I'd painted, and overall it's been a lot of fun to work on!

Knight Errant option complete!

It was warm enough yesterday to primer some models I'd built over the last couple weeks, and so I took advantage of that and then finished off the alternate arms for the first Knight Paladin to allow it to be outfitted as a Knight Errant. The first painted models of the new year!

This Knight is magnetized at the waist and both arms to allow for easy storage.  The newer Paladin is simply pinned at the waist as the model goes together in a way that doesn't allow for a magnet large/strong enough to hold the torso on. Not a big deal though, as the pin is more than sufficient to hold the torso in place.

This was definitely a fun model to build and paint, and I used some of the things I'd learned building this one in the construction of the new Paladin (a much more interesting base, for starters). I think I'm going to use a similar paint scheme on the new Paladin, I think the sections of green with white/black hazard striping sets off the main red and gold nicely.

Back up on deck are the King Russ tanks. I'm hoping to get them finished off and sealed this weekend while it's nice outside.

Shameless Plug: The Knight Paladin/Errant is up on the auction block along with some other odds and ends at the moment as I need to offset the cost of some airline tickets. ...Not that air travel these days is exactly a pleasant prospect!

Holiday Reinforcements - More Mechanicus Madness!

It's been rather cold and snowy here recently and I needed to take a breather from painting, so I thought I'd take a spin at building or converting something. To that end I decided to see if I could whip up something suitable for the Myrmidon Assault Engine described in the Ad Mech codex I'm using. I cracked open the Robogear box I received earlier last week and pondered the contents:

The model is in a slightly larger scale than 40k, it appears the pilot would be about half-again as tall as a guardsman. However, my hopes that it would be similar in size to a Defiler were not to be realized. No matter, the Myrmidon is described as being slightly smaller, more on par with a Penitent Engine or War Walker. The basic Myrmidon is armed with a twin-linked Autocannon and a pair of Dreadnought Powerclaws. As an option, it may replace one of the Powerclaws with either a Conversion Beamer, a Graviton Cannon or a Shockwave Cannon.

I rooted around in the bits boxes for inspiration, and came up with an old set of Starship Troopers "Grizzly" armor which I used for the torso. I like the helmet's look, as it's vaguely Roman with the T-shaped visor. A friend suggested that the legs left uncovered seemed a bit too spindly and "un-Imperial", so I whipped up some armor plates to bulk them out a little. It also hearkens back to the Defiler style plating. I decided to add a weapon from the Robogear sprue to act as a representation of one of the various upgrades.

I utilized some leftover bits from a Sentinel for the engine, and fitted it with an underslung twin-linked Autocannon taken from the innumerable Guard heavy weapons sprues I have lying around. The Powerclaw is fashioned from a Mortar, one of the lasrifles from a Chimera, an Autocannon ammo drum, and a couple blades from a Defiler leg. As I purchased two of the Robogear Spider models, I took care to use parts that are easy to find in my bits boxes, which will allow me to build another one of these almost exactly like it (though I may opt for a different weapon loadout).

It ended up being a fairly good-sized model, it's a bit taller than a marine dreadnought and significantly larger in diameter. I am somewhat stymied on what to do for a base however - The footprint is far too large for a 60mm base, but a CD at 120mm seems too large. I'm leaning towards leaving it un-based unless I can find an interesting 100mm resin base somewhere...

But wait! There's more!

I'd sold off a few superfluous models prior to Christmas and decided to use some of those funds to pick up another Knight Paladin made by a chap in Monaco, figuring it would be well after the holidays before it showed up. I was amazed at how quickly it arrived however (exactly a week from when I purchased it), and I was thrilled with the contents of the box. While I liked the sculpt of the first Paladin, and I'm well-pleased with it overall, I felt that this new one more closely captures the look and feel of the original Epic-scale models. After a session with the Dremel and a nice wash I set to building it.

I decided I wanted to do something a bit more structured and interesting with the base and rooted around in the Cities of Death bits to make a ruined step, with some miscellaneous piping and whatnot exposed beneath. I made some slime dribbling out of the large pipe using white glue and dripping superglue onto the top of it. The superglue reacts with the water in the white glue and it shrivels as it dries, forming a bubbly, ooze-like finish.

 

 On the back side I added some cabling and I'm planning on adding some purity seals here and there. Once it's primed and painted I'm going to add a kill banner to the Battlecannon. Not that it's going to be warm enough to primer anything anytime soon, so these will likely sit on a shelf for weeks until we get a day over 40F...

 

Lastly a side-by-side shot of the two Knights. They're very nearly identically sized, though the arms are just different enough as to look awkward if I try to mix and match between the two models. I do have an alternate set of arms for the painted Knight that I need to finish up (a Multi-Melta and Power Axe) that I need to finish that allows me to kit it out as a Knight Errant. Once I get those done I'll likely auction off the old knight along with the spare arms and just keep the new one, as I think it fits the look of the army a bit better.

...That and I'd likely get dice thrown at me if I tried to field two Knights in one game!