Knight Missile Pod

So, a few years back you may remember I spent ages working on a Paperhammer Knight.  It’s a fantastic model from Newobmij, and I’m still very proud of how mine turned out.

That said, a while back you may remebember GW put out their Renegade box set, with Imperial Knights vs Traitor Knights.  Big shock—I loved the idea of Knights that had fallen to Chaos.  Plus, it meant I could now do fantastic giant robot battles with Marcus.  One of the online bitz sellers I deal with frequently bought a bunch of Renegade sets and put a lot of Knights up for sale at about half off. Just bare-bones Knights—not the expansion/ Warden sprue—but still really cheap. Almost half-off.

I may have made some poor choices.

Anyway, so... now I had some Traitor Knights. A few careful bids on eBay got me some weapon options without costing me too much (it’s more about patience than anything else).  A small traitor household began to come together.

The one part that kept eluding me, though, was the missile pod. People were willing to pay big bucks for one.  I’d see them routinely go for $28 or $30. And I told myself I wouldn’t pay more than a third of that.  After losing a dozen or so auctions, I turned to my bitz jars.

And here’s what I came up with. 

These two boxes will be the base of our rocket pod.  They’re from the classic Rhino set (normally they’d go on the back slope of the treads).  I glued the open faces together to give me a solid box.  If you don’t have these exact pieces—no worries.  There are enough random boxes and blocks kicking through the various lines that will work. You could even just scratch-build a box from scrap plastic.

Next, I very, very carefully found the center point on one of the narrow sides and drilled a hole there. My post is the bottom half of a Lizardma—sorry, Seraphon standard pole.

Helpful Hint—whenever I need to do a hole, I start small.  I use a thinner drill bit than I need, because it’ll be easier to place the hole, or to clean it up if you’re a bit off.  Then I can expand up to the larger size, using the initial hole as a guide.

I checked that post from every angle. It’s very important that it be as straight as possible—perpendicular to the surface of the box.  I checked it multiple times from every angle.

Okay, so, while that whole thing was drying, I built two Havoc Launchers from the Chaos vehicle sprues.  These were just straightforward, standard builds.  The only thing worth noting is that I didn’t use the bracket that normally holds them—just the bare launcher. I also cleaned the heck out of them as far as mold lines and sprue marks. By nature of being a weapon and a conversion, I knew this piece was going to get a lot of attention.

Once they were relatively dry, I glued them onto either side of the box.  This took a little bit of work and patience.  I wanted them to be flat across the top, but they also needed to have a lot of surface area touching the boxes for the glue.  It required some wiggling.

Helpful Hint—once I had them more or less in place, I flipped the whole thing over, letting it stand on its head to dry.  That way the top of the piece would dry flat, even if things slipped or settled.

Now, the next part was tricky.  I had a post that fit in the top socket of the Knight, but I needed a bracket to hold the pod upright and stable.  I dug through some random scraps and found some plastic tubing that was just about the right size to fit in the ring around the socket.  A little work on the edges with a file and it fit perfectly!  I could cut a short section and set it around the post, so the two elements would each lock into place.

But... it needed to be perfectly centered.  Even a little bit off and nothing would fit.  I’d have to cut it off and try again.  I mulled on this for a few minutes and then realized the answer was right in front of me.  The ring and socket on the knight were already there. I just needed to fit the tube section and pod into place and they’d center themselves.  The only worry was being cautious with the glue so I didn’t accidentally attach the whole thing right now.

So, I set the pipe section into the ring, carefully applied a thin coat of glue to the top, and then slid the pod’s post through it into the socket. The whole thing settled snugly into place, and I waited about ten minutes before checking to see if I’d messed something up somehow.

And look at that.  A perfect little bracket for mounting on top of the Traitor Knight.  Exactly lined up and centered. It keeps its place so well I can take it on and off with no problem at all. it's solid when it's in place, but pops right off for transport.

Anyway... at this point the missile pod was more or less done, but I wanted to add just a few details to make it look more solid, more like the original pod and even more Chaos-y.  So I dug up another one of those vehicle sprues and clipped off a few more things...

The big Horus eye plaque for the Land Raider fit almost exactly across the top of the missile pod. That helped to tie it all together so it looked a little less cobbled together. I also added in a strip of plastic here to fill a small gap.  Next, the regular missile launcher has a sort of antenna/sensor array that wraps around one side.  I wanted to imply that, and found out that one of the curved spiky bits (usually used to line hatches and turrets) worked like a dream for this.

For a few final details... a spare lens from the bitz bins (I think it might be from the basing kit) helped fill up some space in that center section. 

And there you have it.  A $30 missile pod for... well, one afternoon of rooting through my bits.

Pathetic Excuses Post

This spring has turned into a whirlwind for me, and (as usual) modeling and gaming is what’s taken the hit.   I wanted to be working on a paperhammer Destroyer by now (I’m going to need it), or at least some Tyranid scenery (also paperhammer—it’s going to be great).

Pretty much all I’ve managed to do is prime a few things.  But I thought some of you might like this—it’s the Imperial Knight I made last year.  I don’t put up pictures of painted things that often, and I know sometimes it’s easy to write off paperhammer projects when they just look like... well, cardboard.  But even just a basic coat of primer shows how great these models can look.

I’ll put up a few more shots as it gets some color on it, but I wanted to give you a look at it right now.

And next time, I thought I could go over some basics before diving into that Destroyer.

Warm Liquid Goo Phase

Austin Powers reference.  Only eighteen years late...

I know one question a lot of people have about paperhammer stuff is “but how durable is it?”  We hear paper and think of fragile origami birds and the soaked, floppy newspapers we just primed some models on.  Nobody wants to spend two or three long weekends building something that won’t even survive getting painted, let alone moved around the tabletop for one game.

Speaking for myself, I almost never build with paper, always with cardstock.  So the models I’m building are very rigid and solid in that sense.  Some of them I even reinforce a bit more with very simple supports.  Everything I’ve ever shown here at In The Grim Cheapness of the Future... is pretty close to its plastic counterpart as far as sturdiness goes.

But there is another process I take some models through.  It adds a few bucks to the final cost, but makes for an even sturdier model in the end.  Behold...

This Imperial Knight might look like it got wet, but I’ve actually given it a coat of thin superglue.  The glue soaks into the cardstock, dries, and the resulting material has the  consistency of plastic.  I try to hit all the joints, broad surfaces, and the points that are going to get bumped on a regular basis.

Helpful Hint—make sure you’re using thin superglue, not regular and definitely not the thick, gap-filling stuff.  It needs that watery consistency to flow smoothly and soak into the cardstock.  Thicker glue will just sit on the surface and form blobs or runs.

Now, a word of warning.  The superglue will make all the surfaces rigid.  If there’s some coarse or ragged spots where the cardstock peeled or a paper template didn’t come off in one piece, the glue will make them like that permanently.  I’ve used this to my advantage a few times, turning those rough areas into patches of rust or battle damage (on the Plaguereaper, for example).  But if the end result’s supposed to look super-clean, it’s worth taking some extra time with a hobby knife to scrape and polish all the surfaces.

 Helpful Hint II—Thin superglue gives off some powerful fumes.  Hard to believe I know, but... they’re not healthy for you.  At all.  When you start a project like this where you’re going to use a lot of glue, make sure you’re either outside or in a well-ventilated area.

A bottle of thin superglue is about five or six dollars, depending on where you get it.  I used about half a bottle on the Knight, maybe 3/4 of a bottle on the Plaguereaper, and a whole bottle for all the different Gargant components.  Add that to the dollar or two that some of these paperhammer models end up costing (or even the higher Gargant price tag), and you’re still getting a fantastic deal on a model that would usually be $75 or more.

More Knight Variants

So how many viable Knight versions are there now, counting Forgeworld?  Six?  Seven?

There are a lot of things you can do with Knights these days.  And a lot of them can be done pretty easily with Paperhammer.  Rather than focus on the individual variants like the Warden or Gallant, though, I thought I could take a  few minutes and just go over the new weapons that come with them.  I mean, the basic body, head, and legs are the same for all of these models.  The weapons are the main difference, so let’s add a few more to the basic battle cannon/ reaper chainsword that come with the fantastic classic Knight Paladin template the Newobmij made.

The thunderstrike gauntlet is essentially a big power fist.  I talked about how to build an arm last time with the Knight Lancer.  However, while it’s much simpler, I don’t think the box-fist I explained then would work here.  It won’t have the Ion Shield to shift focus. In fact, now the fist is the focus of attention.

Print out an extra knee-cylinder.  It’s on page five and six of the template (one for each leg).  Build it, but don’t add on the extra rivets or 1/8” discs for detail.  All we need is the cylinder.

Defiler claw to show fingers

Now print out some of the claw-fingers from the Defiler model template.  This will need three fingers and a thumb.  Yes, the GW model has four fingers, but we’re a bit limited for space.  I’m sure a clever person out there can figure out how to do four without making it look too awkward.  Glue three of the fingers along the cylinder, perhaps “fanning” them out a bit.  Then attach the thumb so it lines up with the “pointer finger.”

Helpful Hint-- Whatever way you end up posing the fingers, consider having the thumb make contact with at least one of them and gluing it there.  It’s a small, subtle thing, but it will make this whole assembly much stronger to have multiple connections.  And you want it to be solid because you’re going to smack it against a Wraithlord or some Tyranid Warriors at least once a month if you’ve got a good gaming group.

Another Helpful Hint—It’d be possible to do some really nice detail on these with 1/4” and 1/8” in discs from a hole punch.  They could be mechanical joints on the sides of the fingers or “knuckles” on the tops.  I’d probably only do one or the other, though.

As a last touch, consider using a spare knee or ankle armor piece to form a vambrace over the back of the fist.  Or maybe cut something a little more custom.  Either way, add on some rivets and purity seals and it’d be a solid-looking power fist.

For the carapace-mounted rocket/missile pod, you could just build a variation of the whirlwind launcher I made way, way back at the start of all this.  A box 1” tall, 2” wide, and 1 1/2” deep is a good base to start from.  A thin 1/8” by 1” strip of cardstock forms a divider down the front center.  Then I can do a nice alternating layout of 1/8” discs and 1/8” spaces which should give me nine “missiles” on each side.  Yes, that’s slightly less than the GW model, but if the people you’re playing with are complaining about that...

If I was feeling exceptionally clever, I’d also build a double-wide version of the armored hood from the battle cannon to put on the missile pod.  It’s good detail and a nice tie-in, design-wise.  Alternately, a 1/4” strip wrapped around the front and back edge would look very nice.  Again, add rivets and some purity seals to finish off details.

The avenger gatling cannon is going to be a lot simpler than it looks.  All you need to do is print out seven copies of the heavy stubber—the one that goes with the battle cannon.  It’s on page eight of the template.  Okay, technically you need eight of them so one can go on the left shoulder.  But for the gatling cannon, you need seven.

Build six of the heavy stubbers just like I did for the Knight Paladin.  On the seventh, we want to cut off the majority of the barrel and just leave the thicker part at the base.  We’re going to call this the core, for reasons which will soon be apparent.

Important Note—Mark the now-missing edge before cutting off the rest of the barrel to make sure the core ends up the same size as all the other bases.

Once all seven elements are dry and solid, take one stubber barrel and the core.  Glue them together so the base of the barrel is flush against the core.  Keep their individual seams as close to each other as possible, and make sure the two pieces are parallel.  If they’re not parallel, this isn’t going to work.

Once the two pieces are joined, take a second barrel and glue it so it’s touching both the core and the first barrel (and its seam is close to the core).  Viewed end on, they should form a triangle.  Once the glue had dried, add a third barrel so it’s touching the second and the core . Now it should form a diamond.  Let it dry and keep adding, making sure each one touches the last barrel added and the core.  If everything is parallel and the same size, it should look like this from the front (with the core in blue).

           

Wait for this whole assembly to dry and then attach it to the cannon body.  It should fit perfectly with the existing armored hood, although it would also be easy to add a more rounded one that ran along the overall curve of the gatling assembly.  And that would be a little closer to the existing GW model as well.

And there it is.  You can spend five or six hundred dollars building an army of Imperial Knights... or you could spend five or six weekends and have them for maybe five or six dollars, total (not counting all the cereal and frozen pizza to get cardstock).  If you started right now, it wouldn’t be hard to have five different Knights done by mid-June, Fourth of July weekend at the latest.

Next up... I’ve been working on something big.  A crossover project with my friend Marcus who runs the Atomic Warlords page.  Let’s just say there’ve been a few too many Knights, and not enough for the xenos among us.

Imperial Knight Lancer

So, a few weeks back I finished up my Imperial Knight Paladin based off the template by Newobmij.  During the many, many months it took me to complete (hey, I had a lot going on), Forge World put out a variant called the Knight Lancer.

Anyway, I saw a couple of easy ways Newobmij’s Knight template could be adapted to build a Lancer without too much trouble.  Now, I don’t really have the time to build this version, but what I thought I could do is go through the process of building a regular Knight again and point out the places where I’d change things if I wanted to build a Lancer.  You can get the main details there and the tweaks and options here.

Ready...?

Parts I and II are going to go pretty much the same.  It’s just some basic, core stuff with the torso, the engine and the head getting assembled.  Nothing different there.

The first big change is in Part III.  The head and neck are assembled the same, but when I go to gluethem together I want to flip the head so it’s pointing up rather than out.  That little point where it all comes together?  That should be the top now, not the front.

Helpful Hint--This arrangement may need a small spacer in the back when it's attached to the torso.  There’s enough neck for the head to make a solid join, but these things are always stronger if you can come from two directions.

With the head being a little higher, I’m going to skip the extra piece I called the cowl.  Which is fine, because the Lancer doesn’t have that element.

As seen on the template

The Forge World Lancer model is taller than the standard Knight, so my suggestion for Part IV is to use the “wasp waist” piece that I skipped in the original build.  This will also help give the Lancer a slightly more gaunt figure like the Forge World model.

Like the cannon barrels, this waist piece is very well done in that all the detail is built into this one piece.  I just need to cut it out, give it a curve on my hobby knife, and then roll the whole thing up.

Helpful Hint--This is now the major join between the hips and the chest, so I want more than just the thin edge of the cardboard connecting them (even if it’s doubled up).  Cut a strip and run it across the inside of the wasp waist, so it has a lot of surface on top or bottom for glue to grab at (I’ve done this before on the Baneblade and the Defiler). Don’t worry if it’s a little messy—all of this is going to end up inside the Lancer.  Just make sure it’s flush on the top and bottom.

 

The heraldry shield is the only thing in Part V.  It goes on the opposite shoulder for the Lancer model.  You could also give it a different shape by hole-punching the top corners rather than the side.

Part VI and VII and VIII are all just about building and assembling the legs. Nothing changes here.  Unless you want to go for a different pose.

There are some esthetic choices for Part IX.  Personally, I’d cut out the shin armor, but mount it so it runs together as a single piece across the front.  You could add a detail/ decorative strip or angle in the front to hide the seam.  I wouldn’t use the knee or ankle armor.  We want that chicken-leg look

Now the big one.  Part X is weapons. The Lancer has a very different weapons loadout, so let’s talk about how to do this.  We need to build a lance and an ion shield.

The Lance is pretty simple.  It’s just a narrow gun barrel extending in either direction.  I could do it either like the Baneblade cannon (but a little smaller) or, in all honesty, the battle cannon barrel that comes with this template is a pretty good size.  Whichever method I use, I’d put a few “rings” along the length of it to help sell both the round aspect and the sort of  energy/magnetic/gauss aspect of the Lance.

The tip is a big diamond shape.  It looks tough, but it’s actually very simple.  I’ve made tapered points before for the Plaguereaper and the Silver Towers of Tzeentch.  This just tapers in both directions.  I could even be super clever and make one side shorter than the other.  This will sit right in the end of the barrel and... done.  A lance, just like that.  It can connect to the shoulder pad with a 3-4-5 triangle block, just like the chainsword did, so it can be posed a  bit. The other option would be building another knee joint, gluing that to the underside of the shoulder, an then using that as the “pivot” for the Lance.

The Ion Shield is a little trickier.  First it needs an arm.  Then it needs a shield to mount on the arm.  So, first things first...

 

The arm is just the knee and calf again.  Use the knee under the shoulder as another elbow (it’ll match the one on the Lance).  And now this arm should end in a flat surface (where the ankle would normally connect). To make a fist, just assemble a small box—something I’ve done here many times. Adding a few cardstock strips and shapes for detail helps sell it as a fist ( 1/4” circles would make good knuckles).

Alternately, if I wanted something a bit more elaborate, I could expand the idea of the Defiler’s power fist so its less of a claw and more of... well, a fist.

To build the ion shield, look for some basic shield clipart on your computer or on the web. I’d use a simple shape, but if you feel confident enough to go a bit more elaborate, it’d be a nice bit of “customizing.”  Print out two or three copies at what feels like an appropriate size (probably no more than 4” top to bottom)

I think the easiest way to add detail is to make layers.  Draw a new outline (inline?) around the inside of the shield, then make a wide X across that.  Add a circle in the middle (maybe quarter-sized).  Then cut this all out so you have a kind of shield-lattice with four quadrants. 

(Please pardon my attempts to explain with more childish pictures...)

Then take another copy of the clipart, trace and quarter it again, but this time make all the beams maybe half as wide.  And this time actually cut the inside of the center circle out, too. Now when these two pieces overlap the edges and center should look multi-layered.  Another 1/4” disc at the center gives some nice detail, or you could make a ribbon-less purity seal that size and give it a real “arc reactor” look.  Carefully glue these together (this is going to be one of those elements that draws the eye), wrap it in wax paper, and stack books on it.  Lots of books.  I’ve done this a few times when I really, really need something to be straight.  When it dries, it’ll be double-layered and very rigid.  Attach it to the wrist and arm in a dramatic way.

And there’s a lance and ion shield.

Parts XI and XII are some of the final details.  I skipped the tabard, then took one of the unused ankle-armor pieces, flipped it upside-down, and used it as a codpiece.  And then there’s all the purity seals, aquillas, and other items you can add at your discretion.

The basic T-piece I built to give the head some more detail will still work here.  If you wanted to give it a little more, two triangles with the tips cut off make a fine visor more in the Lancer style.  You can even give them a faint curl around the edge of a hobby knife so they sit right up against the head.  Glue one on either side of the head.

And there it is.  If I’ve got this all figured in my head, these tweaks to the template should give you a more-than-passable Knight Lancer

As a little addendum, since I started this post, Games Workshop announced their Warden/ Crusader model.  I was going to add on some thoughts about those, but I think that might have to wait for next week.  Right now, I need to get set up for Texas Frightmare Weekend in Dallas.  Stop by table #155 in the Made In Texas room and say hello.

But next week... more Knights.

Imperial Knights, Part XII (the end)

Okay, let’s talk about some final extras.  None of these things are necessary, but I think they’re a lot of those good little details that can really make a model pop, especially a Paperhammer model.

First up, my friend Marcus sent me a tracing of the base from one of his plastic Knights.  I copied this onto foamcore and cut it out.  Now my Knight was on an official-sized base.  I also painted/smeared a lot of glue along the foamcore edge so the whole thing wouldn’t dissolve when I primed it.

Helpful Hint—The big trick to cutting foamcore?  Don’t do it all at once.  Get a clean, sharp knife and cut halfway through.  Then go over the line again and cut the rest of the way.  It won’t pill up or tear this way.

Next up was... well, a bit mind-numbing.  Rivets, rivets, and more rivets.  I used my 1/16” hole punch and made about a hundred tiny discs.  The original templates had lots of drawn-on rivets, and I used these as a guideline for placing my actual ones. They went on the torso, the leg armor, the chainsword, and so on.  I highly recommend a long audiobook or maybe a few episodes of one of your favorite television shows standing by.  Rivets alone can be two or three hours of work on a model this size.  I watched two bad SyFy movies while putting all these on.

Another Helpful Hint—I didn’t put all the rivets on the Knight that were on the template.  This design is very rivet-heavy, like a lot of the older models, and the new GW one is a bit more streamlined in that regard.  This is every other one, for the most part.

Helpful Hint 2.2—Rivets add so much to these Paperhammer models, but there’s something worth keeping in mind.  You’re making a piece that’s not much wider than it is thick, so the cardboard  tends to “flake” a bit.  It’s not unusual for a rivet to peel apart into two or three sections of paper, only one of which is glued to the model.  It happens I’d say it happens to about one out of five.  Make extra rivets, use a little extra white glue so it soaks through, and be patient.

The shoulder pads draw a lot of attention because they’re big, relatively smooth areas. So I thought about what I could put there.  I decided to try to put an aquilla on one shoulder.  As I’ve mentioned once or thrice before, there are a bunch of Warhammer 40K fonts floating around the web, and you can probably find a few of them with Google.  Try searching for Marines, Imperial, and ChaoSquat.  Many of these have a version or two of the Imperial Eagle.  Using my word processor, I created one 3 1/2” long (105 points).  Once it was printed, I had a template for an aquilla.

There were still a few challenges, though. At this scale the aquilla was a little harder to cut out than the big one I’d used for the Thunderbolt wings.  The claws, the heads, the multiple sections... there’s a lot of work to get this exactly right.  I went for about 80% right and it was still a lot of work.  Much to my surprise, one of the easier parts was putting said aquilla on a curved surface once it was cut out.  I curved the body and wings around the handle of my knife and it sat very well across the shoulder pad.

 

Then it was time to think about purity seals.  It’s very easy to make Paperhammer ones with a pair of hole  punches and some scrap paper.  I liked the idea of a Knight being covered with the accumulated prayers and blessings of hundreds of years of service, so I wanted a lot of them.  They’re also great because they can go anywhere, which also means they’re a good way to hide small flaws, gaps, and so on.

I made about ten 1/4” ones and maybe twenty 1/8” ones.  I also made a few of them the extra-long-and-flowing type.  I put a bunch on the shoulders, especially on the non-aquilla pad.  Some went on the tabard, the heraldry shield, a few along the weapon housings, engines, and the leg armor.  I covered up some of the less-detailed parts of the aquilla.  I also used this idea to accent the two seals at the top of the tabard and give them some more detail.

My last detail was probably the trickiest one, because, to be honest... well, if I screw this up I’ve kind of ruined the model.  I wanted to give the Knight a face.  Something simple that would resemble the helmets on the GW model.  I played with it in my head for a while and came up with the idea of giving it two 1/4” hole-punch eyes.  Then I’d use two 1/8” strips to suggest a visor and a center ridge/crest along the Knight’s head.

To save time, this idea did not work.  Fortunately, it was clear almost immediately it wasn’t going to work, before anything was glued to anything else.  The head’s curved just a little too much to make the pieces sit in a way I felt good about.  If I’d done this right at the beginning, before things were assembled... maybe I could’ve made it work.

However, I decided I still wanted to do something here, and the T piece I’d cut out fit well on its own. It’s a small thing, but I think it cleans up the head a lot and gives it a more solid “eyeline.”  It’ll stand out even more when I paint it.

And with that... I think the Knight is done. 

This is a really great template that does a lot of very clever things.  If I had to fault it for anything, it’s that it relies a lot on printed detail over actual detail.  And even then... this is a pretty great template.

(and I just now found the page of the guy who originally created it--Jim Bowen a.k.a. Newobmij.  He's got a ton of amazing projects over there)

Total cost for this model, assuming I had to buy the glue, the bamboo skewers, and the foamcore for the base... about three dollars.  So that’s three dollars ($3.00) for Paperhammer versus $140 for the Games Workshop.  And if you build more than one, that three dollar price would actually drop to more like $1 - $1.33 a model, depending on how long your glue held out.  That's about 99% off retail price.  And that's pretty damned cheap.

I know this dragged on for about ten months here, but I think it’s possible to build this model in about three weekends.  Maybe a solid week if you had nothing else to do.  A lot of that is drying time, so I don’t know if you could cut it down more than that.  On the plus side, the template is simple enough that you could be building two or three of them at the same time.  Which means in one month you could have a very solid, play-worthy detachment of Imperial Knights (over 1100 points worth) for maybe five dollars.

Imperial Knights, Part XI

So, I was getting ready to attach the arms when I realized my Knight needed another heavy stubber on the left side to bring it up to current GW specs.  Not really a problem.  I had a spare template that I’d printed up at the start (on the off possibility this project went very fast, ha-ha).  I just re-built the stubber that attaches to the cannon.

The way I’d assembled the upper body, there’s a slight difference between the shoulders and the torso.  It gave me a nice groove to set the heavy stubber barrel in so it could make a solid contact.  I also set it back a bit so only the front half was sticking out.  Once it was in place, I also added a small 3/8" square of cardstock on the back to block that end of the barrel.

Helpful Hint—Again, I made a point of keeping the seams down.  Half of it’s hidden, but I made sure the seam at the front of the barrel was as low-profile as possible.

With that done, it was time to assemble everything.  And unlike most of the big projects I’ve done here, that meant I actually had to take a moment to think about posing the Knight.  It’s much more a character than a vehicle, after all.

With some of the tweaks that happened during assembly, the Knight’s head does have a slight angle to the left.  I decided to use this and position the torso on the legs as if the Knight was moving forward and its body was shifting accordingly.  So I set the right shoulder back a bit until the had was facing straight forward.  This ended up working very well with the pose I’d set the legs in (with the right leg forward), but I have to admit that was more dumb luck than any planning on my part.

So... time to glue the torso to the legs.  I put a circle of glue on the hip/pelvic section and lined up the torso as described above.  And then I held it for about, oh, ten minutes.   Maybe even a little more than that.  I checked it every minute or so to make sure nothing had slid or shifted.  This needed to be really, really solid, and it was not a point in the project where I wanted to stop and rebuild something.  So... at least ten patient minutes. Which I spent watching Pacific Rim.  A deliberate choice.

Once that join was solid, I turned to the cannon. 

First things first—both the cannon and the chainsword have upper arm sections on this template.  I decided not to use them, because once I’d taken out the wasp-waist on this model (and shrunk it’s height by about an inch) extending the arms would give it very ape-like proportions.  And I didn’t want that.

I wanted to give the model a good pose, but I also didn’t want the cannon aiming off in some random direction.  I played with it for a few minutes and found a position that worked well, in my opinion.  It also set the cannon base slightly against the hip cylinder.  I decided to add glue there, too, and add to the overall stability/ solidity of the whole model.

Again, I waited over ten minutes for this to dry.  Extended weapons like this will always get tapped and bumped, so they need to be solid.  Patience (and a firm grip) is a must here.

Now the reaper chainsword. Thing is, I didn’t want it to be flush up against the shoulderpad.  I think that right-angle look works with ranged weapons, but a melee weapon is going to have a much bigger range of motion if it’s going to be useful, and I think that needs to show.  But, as mentioned, I also didn’t want to add on an inch of upper arm.

I decided to build a small piece that would let me give the chainsword an angle without adding any real length to the arm.  Maybe a 40 degree angle, tops.  I worried about how to make this practical but still look ornate and smooth, but then I took another look at the GW Knight and realized its upper arms are pretty mechanical-looking.

As it would happen, your classic 3-4-5 right triangle has a small angle that measures just under 40 degrees (about 36.9).  That means it’s easy to design a triangular block to fit the Knight’s chainsword. Yes, folks, it’s finally here-- today’s the day high school geometry finally pays off.

I attached the triangle block to the to the chainsword.  Then, for detail, I added four bamboo pistons around block.  One went on either side and two directly in the front.

Helpful Hint—Make sure none of the pistons stick out past the top of the block.  They can be flush, but they can’t stick out at all or they’ll mess up the seal when I glue the chainsword to the shoulder.

I gave all of this a good twenty minutes to dry.  Then I glued the whole assembly up under the shoulder.  I angled it in just a little bit to add to the dynamic look

So...main body assembled.

There’s also a tabard-banner in this template, and it’s a nice detail piece.   It’s made to be doubled up, under the assumption of all paper, so I cut off the back section and just used the front.  I bent this back and forth against my hobby knife to put a bunch of curves in it so it would look more like heavy fabric and less like... well, a piece of cardstock.  I even curled the bottom corners a bit to give it a little more “motion.”

That’s all the basics covered in the template itself.  Pretty damned impressive, really.

However, at the risk of making this project even longer...  I want to talk about some extras.

Next time.

Imperial Knights, Part X

Okay, so... when I left off I’d finished all the cannon elements, but it struck me I hadn’t shown off the assembled cannon.

The battle cannon barrel glued into place with no problem.  I’d though about adding an internal brace, but with the detail wraps, it had a solid ring for the glue to grab.  Also, the top edge of the barrel can glue to the underside of the hood, which means it’s held from two directions.

The heavy stubber was the same.  The detail pieces gave it enough surface area for the glue to adhere, and the top edge could press up against the base of the battle cannon.  Again, held in two directions.  It was very, very solid.

Helpful Hint—I glued each barrel so the seam where it came together would be against the seam from the other barrel.  If you look close, you can see the edges between them.  This only takes a little work but makes everything look much cleaner.

For the reaper chainsword, I had a sudden realization.  There are four layers of “teeth” on the template.  However, as I’ve noted a few times now, this template is designed off the idea that it’s being built just with paper. Did I really need all four layers if I was building with card?

In a bold move for me, I decided to test-fit some elements.

There are three components I’ll call the sides (2) and the housing.  I assembled all three, let them dry, and then set just placed them together without any glue.  Turns out the two sides fill the housing pretty solidly, so more than one layer of teeth would probably be too much.

So I cut out one set of teeth.  Because of the curves, this is very slow-going, and I highly recommend going slow—no matter how comfortable and confident you are with a hobby knife.  This is a weapon, so it’s going to be a high-attention area.  Everything here needs to be sharp and slick.

 

Once the teeth were done, I assembled them with the sides, and then put that piece into the housing.  I also added a pair of 1/4” discs from my hole punch for a little bit of extra detail.  This all fit together so well that I just needed to hold it for a minute or two and then it was done.

Now I needed to assemble the back half of the reaper chainsword.  The other big part —we’ll call it the motor—is just a box.  It goes together in a very straightforward way.  No real problems there.  But it does get a lot of detail...

There’s a disc that matches the one on the cannon (we could call it the elbow) and also another one on the back.  I added a 1/4” disc to that, too, to layer the detail a bit more.  And then there’s a large piece that wraps around half of the motor—I’m not sure if it’s a blocky manifold or an oversized head block.  Either way, it adds to the look of the motor.

           

Once that was dry I glued the chainsword blade in place.  There’s a tiny gap at the back—right between the housing and the motor—and it kind of gnaws at me.  So I think I’ll need to cut another small piece of card to cover that up.  If I layer it right, it should blend right in.

 

So... I have the body, the legs, and weapons for both arms.  Next time--the eleventh chapter in this ongoing saga (only one more than the Baneblade/ Plaguereaper)—final assembly and a last few detail bits.

Imperial Knights, Part IX

So, much thought was had about how to do the armor plating on the Knight’s legs.  While the current GW model has a single large armor piece over the shin/calf area, this paperhammer model has a pretty elaborate set of sections that go around the leg.  I debated trying to merge them into a single piece, but I didn’t feel confident that I could do it in a way that would look good (and that I could re-create here).  In the end, I decided to simplify.  I’d do the two big side pieces, the knee, and the front ankle, but not the back sections.  That would match up a little more with the GW model, too.

I added the armor supports for the upper sections.  They’re the oblong boxes on pages five and six of the template. 

Helpful Hint—the boxes attach so their small/short end is at the top.  This is important so the armor ends up angled in the right direction.

I also added one of the longer supports for the front ankle—it sits between the two armor supports, but its top lines up with their bottom edge.  The angle on this one is steep, so it’s a bit tricky getting it in the right position.  Patience is important on this one.  I held each one for a good six or seven minutes while it dried.

 

However...  this left some empty sections around the ankle.  This is one of those models where a lot of detail is “printed on,” so not adding the armor (or its support) would mean, well, a hole in the detail.  I decided to make up for the lack of printed pistons by adding real ones.  Or, at least, something close to real ones. 

My first thought was round toothpicks, but I decided pretty quick they’d be too small.  Small coffee stirrers might work, if I could find single ones somewhere (instead of the double-shaft ones).  Inspiration came from my girlfriend’s garden bag, where she had a bunch of bamboo skewers she used for marking plots and making small frames for seedlings to climb. And these came from the dollar store, so they’re still keeping this project cheap.  I used two of them and cut sixteen pieces (eight pairs), each one 1” long.

I arranged these so they lined up between the armor supports.  The front ones went on either side of the support for the front ankle armor.  A dab of glue on either end held them in place.

Then it was time for the armor itself.  First off was what to use.  Again, this looks very complex, but mostly because (as mentioned before) the template assumes you’re just working with paper.  All of this is supposed to be doubled up.  But since we’re working with cardstock, I only needed half of these pieces.  And only one of the eight ankle pieces (since front and back are identical).

I gave each piece a gentle bend around my utility knife.  That’s the knee, the ankle, and the two large sides.  The large sides got more of a bend, because they need to go around the entire leg.

Helpful Hint—If you look at the lines for the side pieces, you’ll see they’re not straight up and down.  That’s because the side armor flares out (like huge, 41st Millennium bellbottoms).  So putting a bend in them involves moving the knife shaft across the piece and bending along each line individually.  Don’t roll the whole thing around the shaft or nothing will line up later.

Then I attached the ankle armor.  This one was tough, because the support’s angle makes it hard to put any pressure.  It’s another exercise in patience.  It also sticks out just a tiny bit more than I’d like, but not so much that I feel the need to tear anything apart.

I took the small box that’s supposed to be the kneepad support and cut it into four parts.  I layered these together to give me a spacer that was about 1/8” thick.  Once it was dry, I glued it right below the knee joint.

And this made the legs pretty much armored and done.

Which meant it was time for the best part... weapons.

The design on this cannon is kind of magnificent, to be honest. As I mentioned, it’s made around the all-paper idea, but it still works great in cardstock. Simply put, the designer made the barrel and details all one piece.  I cut it out, wrapped it around the hobby knife twice to give it a good curl, and then glued the main part of the barrel (where the tab lines up).  I put some clothespins on this and let it sit for a while.

Once it was dry, I wrapped the rest of the detail work around the barrel.  Normally I try to go easy on the glue so nothing slips, but here I went a little heavy just for that reason. I wanted to be able to slide the cardstock a bit so I could make sure things lined up.

Helpful Hint—Pull these pieces very tight.  It’ll make the whole piece more solid and it’ll also help all the seams line up as much as possible (which makes them easier to hide).

The co-axial heavy stubber barrel goes together the same way.  I gave it a curve on the knife.  I glued the main section together and then, once it was dry, I wrapped the detail around.

Helpful Hint—Because this barrel is so narrow, I had to fold the tab in half.  I couldn’t bend it enough for it to fit well inside the rolled-up barrel.  You may want to trim it with a hobby knife.

The body of the cannon is a simple box. Rather that cut out the three circular vents for the back, I just used my 1/4” hole punch to make three discs.  They’re slightly smaller, but it’s so much easier and faster... I decided I could live with that.

The cannon also has a “hood” of sorts that fits over it.  The extra section actually folds under the hood, so when it’s in place the front edge is double-thick and has a small ridge underneath it. This ridge will but up against the box when they get put together.

There’s a big magazine for the cannon. It looks a little complex, but it goes together very easily (alas, most of the detail here is only printed on). Just remember to score the top half on the opposite side, because it’s going to be a concave bend, not a convex one.

(yep, I’m bringing geometry into this...)

I glued the hood onto the main body.  Once it was dry, I added the magazine to the bottom.  I also punched out two more 1/4” discs and used those for detail on either side of the cannon. 

Helpful Hint—If you’d rather have a Knight Errant with a thermal cannon, there are lots of titan models out there with other weapons options.  You could use part of the melta cannon from the  Warhound Titan template and I don’t think anyone would question it.

Next up is the chainsword. Which we will get to... next time.