2020 – The Year of Papa Nurgle – Part 4

Snails Probably Move faster

We are well into June now. The end of June actually. My hobby rut has its grip on my throat. Tyson and I are still doing the Blackstone Fortress thing online occasionally. 

At this point Covid-19 has been a part of the world’s vocabulary for half of a year. Insane. What’s even more so is, it’s still not looking like it will be ending anytime soon. My alternate work schedule is continuing. And my wife and I are still staying home. Doing all of our shopping online. Including groceries. In May, when the weather got better, we started taking walks in the late afternoon/early evenings. That proved to be therapeutic for both of us. We would go to a local park and play outdoorsy-type games. And have the occasional picnic. It was spooky to see the roads so empty in our usually lively village.

I was still looking for a way to get back to my hobby desk though. I would pull squads of this, or that, out. Sit down and try. But that got me nowhere. It was like an author with writer’s block. Towards the latter part of the month I would finally figure out what I wanted to do.

Sitting under my desk was a box that I had bought for my birthday this year. 

A large maroon colored box with blueprint looking designs. And a large ominous logo at its center.

A birthday present that had no intentions of being built. Just added to a pile

A Forgeworld Warhound Scout Titan. 

I had bought this out of equal parts interest and envy. As I had seen Tyson’s progress and results from building his in the past year. It was a project that I absolutely wanted to attempt. The price was steep. And would end up getting much steeper. (I will get into that later.) But this was a project that, even just thinking about it, sparked so much creativity in me. 

[PSA]

Now, before I continue. I would like to say this. I am not going to go too in-depth on this build. 

Not in this article, that is.

This was a project that lasted for a very long time. The old cliche, blood, sweat, and tears would be pretty accurate. Though the blood was mostly my fault. The sweat was a given. And the tears? Well.. uhhh… I don’t want to talk about it…

Anyway, I had plans, even long before I was asked to contribute to this site, to do a detailed write up on this build, painting it, it’s evolution, and everything else in between. 

So I will be writing that detailed article about all of that with more detailed pictures and links to stuff. So, if you are interested, please give that a read when I get around to it. 

Otherwise, here are the cliff notes.

[end PSA]

You immediately get an idea of the scope of the project when you open the box and start producing the contents. There are bags of big “bits” and bags of smaller bits. And just about every size in between. There is also a large envelope. Inside are Forgeworld’s idea of what instructions are. A couple small things used in the build, and a certificate. 

Unleash the Death$%hsr.

Not exactly easy to read, right? But pretty damn cool regardless. I love the “Excommunicate Traitoris” over the Imperial Aquila. A very nice touch. I told myself that I would frame that at some point, to display with the finished product. But have yet to do so. 

One thing I learned, the hard way, and highly suggest to anyone buying these resin kits, was that you need to take stock of all the pieces included in these. Particularly when it comes to Forgeworld. As their quality control is lacking. But, oh boy, that is a story for another article.(which will lovingly be titled Fire Raptor Hell)

This is the contents of the Chaos Warhound box. The gun arms, on the right, are bought separately. 

I ended up losing the clear plastic sheet for the cockpit eyes. So I kept the resin flash covering the eye sockets, reinforced them with masking tape from behind, and painted over it all

If you haven’t built one, you may be thinking that it doesn’t look like there are That many pieces. And for the most part, you would be right. While the Warhound is a massive model, the pieces are large chunks of resin. For the most part. There are plenty of tiny pieces. Particularly, the pneumatics on the legs and feet.

My next step would be to sort everything out into assemblies. All the left leg components in one bag. Right leg components in another. Left foot. Right foot. And so on.

These are the limits to my organizational skills 

And that was pretty much my first day on this project. I told myself that I was going to take my time and thoroughly plan this out.

I wouldn’t return to this project for about a week, because of work. Another reason to take my time. Work would regularly get in the way. 

On those days away from the table I would be doing research. Planning stuff like which Legio my titan would be from and whatnot. So I would be doing a deep dive into 40K lore. Working midnights afforded me a good amount of time to accomplish all this. 

When I was able to get back to my hobby table, we were into July. I got to work prepping the resin. Cleaning it, trimming the gates, sanding, etc.

It was at this time that I had actually started a new hobby. One that I had been thinking of trying for about 10 years or so. But it was always so damned expensive.

3D Printing. 

Nowadays, you can get a perfectly functional printer for about $250.

So now I was juggling two big projects. Luckily printing takes time. And it can be largely left alone. 

By middle July I got the feet built and dry fit the legs with blue-tack. I would mark the joints with a sharpie once I had chosen a pose.

I accidentally cut the mounting pegs off of a couple toes. Had to pin them

It wouldn’t be until the end of July that would see the lower extremities completely built. And that took a lot of patience, planning, glue, and epoxy.

Post piston hell

It was around early August that I finally made up my mind which Legio this Titan would belong to. Legio Krytos. The God Breakers. 

They had a long history of working with the Iron Warriors. Pre and Post Heresy. So they were perfect. I also really liked the color scheme. 

I forget where I found this picture. A Wiki or Fandom. All credit to the original artist. Definitely not my work

I had planned out a paint design scheme based on this picture. But I would make it my own. Using different shades of the colors. 

The airbrush and masking made this job easy.

Airbrushing and masking. Go together like salt and pepper.

Work on the lower armor would continue over the next month and change. I had to do the base colors, the trim gold, and the detail gold. Then shade the golds, and do the battle damage. This kit is very detailed. All of the big chaos markings took a long time to do. I had to use masking paint to make sure that I didn’t mess up the base colors too bad. It was my first time using masking paint. Definitely ruined a few paintbrushes painting that stuff on. But it is very useful.

I would finish, for the most part, the bottom half of the model at the end of September. There were some things I wanted to wait to do. 

I was impressed with the stability of this kit. I thought for sure it would tip over

When I vowed to take my time with this kit, I wasn’t lying. But I also wasn’t doing marathon sessions either. I was only doing a few hours a day. 

I would, however, soon be kicking it into high(er) speed. This project was about to get a new direction.

To be continued…

[This post was originally published at Otherverse Games & Hobbies]



Robert

All of these are true except for one:

Robert is: a Hobbyist, a Music Lover, an RPG Gamer, a Mustard Lover, Chaotic Neutral, a Japanese Speaker, a Veteran, an Otaku, a Table Tennis Player, an Anime Fan, an Aviation Professional, a New York Rangers Fan, a Chaos Lover With Loyalist Tendencies.

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