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!
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.