Project: Custodes Castellan Knight - Concept through to design pt2

Love it or hate it, my design for a Custodes Castellan Knight has had a mixed response, but enough of that, you have waited a long time for part 2 so lets dive in.  

I used the original shin armour from the Castellan and added 3mm plasticard to the sides and bottom and 1 mm plasticard as a guide to the front.  Once I placed the front  guide on a I placed more 3mm plasticard to the top but I forgot to take a photo.  

Now I had the desired skeleton structure I used car body filler to blend all the elements together, and sanded the filler to get a smooth finish.

I used the Legio Custodes Telemon Heavy Dreadnought as a guide for the leg armour.

Before I extended the legs I would need to create a base and feet to make sure everything fits together.  I used the broken Aquila from the Honoured Imperium scenery kit, and sculpted extra sections and extra cracks underneath the feet with Milliput.  You can also see I have changed the toes of the feet too.

I know it is hard to see in this image, but you can just see the extra plasticard I inserted into the legs to make them longer.

I used 1mm plasticard for the Aquila symbols on the leg armour and a Dremil to carve out the swirls on the other sections of the armour.  Just like the Shin guards I used the original armour and added plasticard and body filler to get the shape I needed for the thigh and arm armour.

Next time I will show you how I airbrushed it :)

Project: Custodes Castellan Knight - Concept through to design pt1

Love it or hate it, my design for a Custodes Castellan Knight has had a mixed response, so much so that I feel the need to justify my decision making.  But first I would just like to clarify what the original concept was.  The Custodes Knight is a relic from the past, manufactured on Terra and a prototype to the current Imperial knights.  With this as my mantra, I did not need to stick to the original design by GameWorkshop.  I was free to model it on the Custodes aesthetic.  

As most of you will be aware my design is based on the Forge World's Legio Custodes Telemon Heavy Dreadnought and I have to say is probably one of my favourite designs for 40K EVER!  Speaking of which I couldn't mention the Telemon with out mentioning the Mondoshawan from the film Fifth Element, in my opinion one of the top 10 Sci Fi films of all time, the Mondoshawan had such a unique design and akin to my next contender.  The original terminator in the early days of 40K,  mkI Tactical Dreadnought Armour, I remember queuing 40 deep outside GamesWorkhop Liverpool for an hour waiting for the shop to open to buy this bad boy, it is currently sitting in my mate Otty's bit box of things to do :)

Images owned by Games Workshop, ForgeWorld and the film Fifth Element 

Ok so we have my mantra of 'Custodes looking' and my influences of 'gold and flamboyant shoulder pads' the next part would be tricky to get the design to fit around the basic shell of the Castellan while fitting all the guns in.  So for once I actually sketched out some preliminary designs on scrap paper.

I really liked my second design because it's almost a complete copy of eh Telemon, but I didn't think the Siegebreaker cannons would fit, the shoulder joints would be in the way.  I decided to reduce the overall mass of the pouldrons and house the gun higher up.  It only just fit there to be honest, if I wanted to use both Siegebreaker barrels either side I would have had to make the pouldrons even bigger.  I think that would have made the Knight too top heavy so I had to settle for a single barrel in the end, which I think was a compromise I was not happy with.

I did some slicing and dicing to get the ideal design of head for my knight.

I fleshed out the chest plate with Plasticard

Kit basing a Shieldbreaker missile housing from a whirlwind kit.

I used plasticard to form the basic structure of the pouldrons.

Then a glued more plasticard to strengthen the structure.  I couldn't find my mini clamps so clothes pegs did just as good a job :)

Testing to see if they fitted.

I little bit of body filler and a lot of sanding, followed by more plasticard I had my basic top half completed.  

The Great Crimson Fists Sale (Part 2) Vehicles

Welcome to (part 2) of the Great Crimson Fists sale, If you have read (part 1) you can skip this bit :) 

It has been a 30+ year love affair but all things must come to an end.  With a sad sad heart its time to say good buy and let someone else take on the mantle of Chapter Master of the Crimson Fists.

This army has taken many years to collect and paint and it is obvious that the later painted figures are better as my painting style changed, from; table top standard i.e. just get it on the board to the later -me beginning to slow down and enjoy painting.  

Scratch built Damocles Command Rhino with Forgeworld Dozer Blade and interchangeable parts

2 Rhinos and 2 Razorbacks

3 Predators

Old School Whirlwinds from the original Rhino set 3 for £9.99 Bargain and yes I am that old :)

Yes your eyes do not deceive you, that is a Terminus Ultra pattern Land Raider and an Achilles-Alpha Pattern Land Raider (scratch built) 

2 Land Raider Crusaders

1 Land Raider Redeemer and 1 Land Raider 

3 Drop Pods

Converted Stormraven Gunship , looks like someone watched Star Fleet as a kid, anybody remember the X Bomber :)

2 Converted Stormtalons Gunship, I hated that model when it came out so I had to convert it.

Extra bits and some are even magnetized :)

Press here to view the ebay auction

The Great Crimson Fists Sale (Part 1)

Welcome to (part 1) of the Great Crimson Fists sale, it has been a 30+ year love affair but all things must come to an end.  With a sad sad heart its time to say good buy and let someone else take on the mantle of Chapter Master of the Crimson Fists.

This army has taken many years to collect and paint and it is obvious that the later painted figures are better as my painting style changed, from; table top standard i.e. just get it on the board to the later -me beginning to slow down and enjoy painting.  

There are a lot of conversions in this army these are my favorite three.

So what do you get :-

1 x Chapter Master

4 x Space Marine Captains

4 x Chaplains

10 x Honour Guard

40 x Tactical Marines

20 x Assault Marines (jump)

20 x Vanguard Marines (jump)

23 x Sternguard

21 x Terminators

35 x Devestator Marines

10 x Bikes

8 x Dreadnoughts + 1 unpainted with extra arms

2 x Razorbacks

5 x Rhinos / 3 of which have interchangeable part to make more Razorbacks 

3 x Whirlwinds (old school)

3 x Predators

6 x Land Raiders

3 x Drop Pods

1 x Stormraven Gunship

2 x Stormtalon Gunship

KR Multi Case and extra bits

I have broken it down into sections as there are many, many images and this is to just to wet your appetite.  I will post more images shortly and the link to buy, enjoy . 

Press here to view the ebay auction