Arise, Cerastus, Arise! -Part Three- (TSG Post)

The mad Doc has been at it since we last checked in on his Imperial Knight Titan project. It's important to note that the Knight in the following pics isn't the same knight in the previous posts, for the Doctor is working on three Cerastus Knight Titans at the same time!

As per the previous posts, the following  quotes are from the text messages that he has sent me with the pics

"Notice how the sword arm swivels. It is magnetized at the arm/body connection and the elbow."

Here is the side view of the arm swiveling. This sword reminds me of a carrot peeler...

+"Finalizing the rubble on the cerastus titan base."

He seemed proud of how fine the granulation of his basing materials were so he sent me multiple pics of it, and well, maybe someone out there wants to see some detail of it, so enjoy!

On one of his other bases, he did more green stuff work that incorporates more vehicle wreckage...

Here is another view of these legs and you can see where he had to make some corrections to the casting by filling in the holes and gaps with greenstuff.

When he sends me more pics I will post another update.

Arise Cerastus, arise!!! Part two (TSG post)

As you saw in the the previous post Doc TSG has been working feverishly on his Cerastus Knight Titan. So far, it's looking most impressive with it's base illustrating how it crushes anything in it's path. This first pic shows how he modeled the impression of the Cerastus' great weight, by having it crushing and bending the metal of a fallen Land Raider.  

However, this is only the framework of his vision, as he wants to have the tracks appear to pop and burst from the pressure of the war engine's weight. But in order to achieve that look, he needed more track pieces than he had available...

The solution: the greenstuff mold! By making a simple greenstuff press-mold (something I have always wanted to try out BTW), he solved his problem. He was able to model them around and get them to conform in a way that the existing plastic bit might not allow him to achieve. I will let the next batch of pics speak for themselves:

You can see how the greenstuff track links look like a slackened belt that has slipped it's gears. I like the buckling effect particularly. It's a lot of detail for a base accessory that's not part of the main model, but that's the point, everything you see is the model, and the base should help not just as a support for the model or a playing aid for the game, but to serve as part of the story for the model. Which this will do once completed. 

And here is the whole model up to this point.

And yes, those guns and arms are magnetized.

In part 3, which I already have pics for, the good Dr adds more texture to the base...

Arise Cerastus, arise!!! Part one (guest post)

It's been some time ago, as far back as the dark days of 2014 when the first Codex: Imperial Knights was new, that Dr. TSG began work on his Imperial Knights. As far as I know the two "basic" Knights above are all magnetized and ready to get in line for painting. However his third Knight, a Cerastus Knight, is taking a bit more time and thought.

The concept here is that the Cerastus is standing, and crushing, the ruined hull of a Land Raider.

I asked him how he achieved the bent metal look, and he said he used a fine heat gun to soften the plastic to make it bend the way he wanted it to.

This is something I have been curious about doing and I am glad to see someone figured it. The effect looks pretty convincing I think, and it does add to the illustion that this machine is seriously heavy.

Arrising in it's full glory, crushing anything in it's path, this model will sure to be a fine centerpiece to his army, and indeed, his whole collection. (Jeez, have I turned into a pitchman or what?)

I suspect that the weapon/arm options will also be magnetized. I don't have any details yet on how, or even what, those options could be.

 In the next part, the Doctor continues the illusion...

Brass Scorpion and Bloodcannon part 1 (TSG Post)

Greetings. If the title wasn't a give-away, the following post in a guest blog-post by my best friend of 26 or so years, the man I have been calling "the Doctor" on here but we shall hence forth go with calling him TSG, as it lacks the pompousness of "The Doctor", and doesn't insinuate any unintentional Dr. Who affiliations. He doesn't have a blog of his own yet, nor does he even have a google account (he replaced his nipples with Apple logos back when the iMac was launched). So, since I have shown off on this blog some of the models that have I painted for him over the years, I decided to put a tab on here for his projects. He likes to share, via text message or email, work in progress shots of his projects, and darn it, it's a real shame to not share these with the rest of you. So here we go, guest blog-post #1. Which is really just a compiled series of text messages organized and edited for your viewing.
-Neverness

EDIT: And, with any experiment, there is risk of failure. Apparently I was confused by the first line of the text, and well, no, he's not turning a Brass Scorpion into a Bloodcannon. Oops.

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Making progress on the Brass Scorpion. I am going to use the model for the Bloodcannon.

I had to cut a foam armature to hold up the body while I custom pinned each leg on.

Then, using my Paxxon drill, I was able to easily double-pin each leg joint--greatly adding to the stability.

The join between the body and tail was horrible.

I needed to be able to unarticulate this joint for storage in a KR Multicase, so I built up the region with greenestuff, double-pinned the joint, but left one side unglued, then hid the join in new greenstuff cables.

This morning I woke up and decided to take 30 minutes to work on pinning the front shield arms in place. Here are the results:

I won't glue them in right, pending getting the rest of the front gun bits on to ensure the shields do not obstruct the gun.

It is important to remember how big the brass scorpion is:

Here it is next to my half-finished knight titan. You have to admit, this thing is going to look phenomenal...

I expect to have rough assembly done by the end of next week.

-TSG.