Imperial Knights - Cerastus Twins in manufactorum pt2.

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #BuildingWarhammer on my Imperial Knight Cerastus Castigator and Acheron. You will recall I just had a pile of bits but I have since managed to construct one pair of legs [ignore the Horus shin pads, I'm not turning traitor, they're just dry fit in place of the plain ones, that will be primed on the sprue].

Lets have a little flashback. First of all I decided to offset the hip joints. Instead of them both pointing down I cut them off and rotated them so they were asymmetrically angled. I'm not sure if this made any difference, or if I chose the correct angle for the pose but I felt better for attempting it. 

The base itself had a sheet of pink insulation foam for the 'step'. I printed out some reinforcement detail, stuck to cereal bock card and glued to the facing. Coffee stirrer for the top and 1mm gem beads for rivets. The toes had screws superglue/bicarb to add fixed mounting points to the base.

My attempt is to recreate a mirror version of this Reaver pose - stepping down, rather than stepping on a 'tactical rock'.

I haven't quite got the legs perpendicular to each other and it's not quite stepping down, but it's not stepping up either. I'm actually quite happy with it. The thing is there's a lot of thought going in to achieving these poses, so much so that eventually you have to just commit.

It's something of a leap of faith. The alternative is to constantly have the process swimming around in your head on how you will execute it but just gluing the feet in place can settle on the next bit and then the next. Hot glue was used for the toe screws [to fill in the thread] and then superglue in places. I also ran glue into the knee joints to lock the pose in place.

I added some red crackle paint around the foot - to look like it had shattered the surface. Then added sand and gravel to help blend the base a bit. The weapon feed is fantastically engineered. I've even magnetised it so they can be swapped around.

OK, so the Castigator has also progressed. I actually ended up with 3 Paint |Your Own Venoms and this one - started with my Dremel, but the cutting disc wasn't wide enough to cut through his feet without catching the base. In the end I just used a junior hacksaw. I then glued on some slate, to cover the holes where its feet were and then used tile grout to blend it together. Legs glued in place, using Milliput to blend around the toes.

Added some sand, gravel, texture and crackle paint then I started to think about more decorative elements. I have a lot of Genestealers and I considered adding some. However the 3 'running away' didn't seem to make sense, despite them looking much cooler than the three running toward the knight.

I've now considered 2 on the left and 1 on the right, which gives the knight a little more space around its feet. Obviously I'll be removing their bases but I think I will pin them and add them down the line, that way I can leave the base as it is for now.

There's still a fair bit left to do on both of these:

• Decide on how the legs and torso will be connected
• Make the pilot access hatch openable
• Finish weapon magnetising

OK, that's just three things, but they're quite complicated problems to solve - the Acheron Chainfist has some pistons on it that I need to magnetise or pin so they still function and there are no guides online to make the hatch moveable.

This has been quite a long-winded build. I started on the 17th August and it's still not complete. It's occupied a lot of my hobby thought processes but luckily my urge to paint is non-existent. I'm hoping DreadTober will go someway to getting my painting mojo back, but I want these ready to go or at least prime, before the weather properly turns and priming becomes problematic.

Imperial Knights - Cerastus Twins in manufactorum pt1.

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #BuildingWarhammer. Way back when they were just Forgeworld resin, after I got my Cerastus Lancer, I always hoped there would be a Cerastus Knight with a big gatling weapon, but instead they next brought out the Acheron with a silly flamer weapon that was rubbish. Then, when they did bring out the Castigator that silly flamer weapon became an insanely good weapon and my desire shifted. However, I wasn't in a position to add another Cerastus. But then they made them in plastic and with the Acheron now the lesser of the two options I couldn't decided which to go for, until the plot thickened. A dual box with both the Castigator and Acheron in it for what I would discover was less than 2 Questoris?!

Pre-order day came and I was busy painting my fence panels, so it was late in the evening when I finally checked. Most of the usual 3rd party sellers had already sold their allocation and only The Outpost seemed to be taking orders. So I couldn't resist, but half expected it not to come through - but it bloomin' well did, look at it!

Leg day. When I made my original Lancer, pinning those 'knee' joints really helped in setting my pose. Essentially it made the model behave like a marionette. Thankfully the plastic version has that option, so long as you remove the tabs to create the basic stance. Then when you get the position you want some liquid poly in all the joints will lock it all in place.

Weapons are all built but I'm going to attempt to magnetise them the same as my Lancer. This will allow me to swap out weapons and potentially get some alternatives so I could rune these both as Lancers too...

This is the attachment on the weapon. As you can see it has a 'mushroom' [anyone know the technical term for this] that sits inside the shoulder joint. But, the resin Lancer came with cylinder in the shoulder and a socket in the weapon attachment. So, I cut off the mushroom. 

Of course the shoulder mount is now flat and needs to hold a magnet. I got a pen and cut 4 tubes from it. It needed a bit of sanding on the circumference to reduce the thickness a bit but it would suffice. 

Then each 'plug' had a magnet installed and any gaps were filled with super glue and bicarb of soda. Don't forget to CHECK YOUR POLES!

Then I gouged out the receiving socket from the weapon  and made it suitable to fit the socket mount plug.

Once they were glued together, onto the weapon, it was pretty easy to drill out the hole to receive the magnet CHECK YOUR POLES!

And CHECK YOUR POLES AGAIN! You don't want to mess these up and it's always important to ensure the poles are consistent across all Knights, shoulder mounts and weapon mounts - that way you can swap them out across any chassis.

Both torsos are built and pilots too, although at this stage they're not glued into the torso, so it's easier to paint. 

I mean it's still going to be challenging to paint the pilot as I did glue him into the throne but I still haven't worked out how I'm going to have the hatch openable so this could all be redundant anyway.

You may note I added a gemstone on the top of the shoulder mount. I just felt it was missing a rivet. It might not actually be visible when the shoulder pads are on but I know it needed it.

Waist sections and heads. I really wish I had a couple of the Forgeworld ones but they're OOP, and silly prices on ebay. Taro Modelmaker has the coolest one but I really don't want to spend much more on these.

Oh man, if I could have this pose! There are supposed to be a couple of pistons in the arm pits that might prevent it though.

And now we understand the importance of Venom.  I'd looked at the one I had and was looking for urban rubble resin bases. They ranged from £18 to £35 for the best ones and that just felt like silly money. But I had Venom and base is perfect the perfect size for a Knight base and only £4.99. The only problem being Home Bargains had sold out of them...

But I still went to Southport, months after picking up the first one to check. The 'paint your own' models had all been moved and put on a top shelf. I saw Captain America, Spider-man and others but Venom was not visible. Then, on tip-toes I spotted a bigger box at the back and lo and behold the last Venom was there - winning! So, I am going to build a base, similar to my Reaver Titans for the Acheron. Then I am going to decide if the Castigator would look great on the Venom base or I'd rather build another one from scratch. As great value as the Venom base is I don't want to deface it if I don't need to. That said, I want a walking pose [similar to the Warhounds Liam created for me] and a resin base with one point of attachment will be more stable than one made of foam and tile adhesive. But it will also be heavier so there are risks either way. But progress has slowed after all this building. I'm not sure when I get a Big Build medal for this but when I do I'll know it.

Adeptus Titanicus - Cerastus Knight Lancers - WHITE PICS ⚪

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer on my remaining #AdeptusTitanicus Cerastus Knight Lancers and here are the pics on a white background for the connoisseur.

The heraldry on knights can be a lot of fun to do, but also kill the momentum of a project.

I was quite lucky here in that not being the case.

I also had the advantage of being able to add some Legio Gryphonicus decals too, just to reinforce their commitment to the Titan order.

I randomly decided to add yellow lightning bolts on the shin pad as kill markings. I was only going to do 3, but it looked a little WW2 war symbol, so I added more to make it a pattern.

I love doing the chevrons but the shin on es should be going up at the middle rather than down. I was copying a previous one that went down and now I see it's the opposite of what's on the carapace. Nevermind.

The decals add such a history to the model, which technically it doesn't have!

The orange plasma glow worked great in some places, but the eyes are a bit ropey on both of them, but I can live with it.

Some top down views so you can see how the carapace and shoulder pads were painted.

And the set of 4. As much as I hanker for the 40k Cerastus I think it's just Lancers I'm after for Adeptus Titanicus.

That said, I do want some Questoris so I can copy my 40k knights in epic scale. Until then I hope you enjoyed all these little giant robots.

Adeptus Titanicus - Cerastus Knight Lancers - TO DONE! 🔴

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer on my remaining #AdeptusTitanicus Cerastus Knight Lancers. I genuinely thought I'd be over painting little giant robots after the titans were done, but it seems I'm not.

These two fellas were a lot fun to finish off and it meant I didn't have to focus on the Lion or my Tyranids.

I'll be honest my enthusiasm and momentum is somewhat lacking at the moment. 

There's just one month left in the season and I don't feel I have the energy to get much done.

We'll see though, but I've blogging to catch up with and a new hobby season to conjure up.

But I did enjoy fitting these in and they were much quicker/easier to do than I had imagined.

One worry is that GW have just announced a twin box for the Cerastus Acheron and Castigator!

I am sorely tempted. I always wanted the Acheron and when the Lancer came out I always hoped one would come with some kind of gatling weapon.

That said I'd been planning on the Acheron and getting 3rd party bits to make the Castigator. 

3D printed sword and using the baneblades Vulcan Mega Bolter to make the gun. It'd be cheaper and I can't ever imagine running 3 Cerastus.

Certainly not if they don't make the Imperial Knights Codex, which is still unconfirmed.

Not to mention there have been rumours of a different knight coming in plastic, who knows what I might want instead.

But for now, these guys are done. I may actually talk about painting them in the white background pics 😂

Another Bloody Great Big Bloody Stamps of Bloody Approval!