Monday 19 August 2013

Bowed but not broken

The Aliens Power Loader, sorry, Dreadknight customisation continues apace.  Its mostly blu-tacked together but I'm fairly happy with the positioning.  The legs were by far the most interesting part.  

His toes had surgery too

Unlike the sexy Wraithknight or the funky Riptide, you cannot bend the knee joints on a Dreadknight.  So I went medieval on them with a craft knife and a bone-saw.  It seemed easy enough at first but the pistons on the calves and heels actually prevent the leg from bending at a 90 degree angle.  I carefully cut them off/down and was finally able to get the oversized baby carrier into a kneeling position (the pistons and cabling were glued back on later.  Badly).

As an aside, I noticed that if you put the legs on backwards, you have the beginnings of an ED-209 model:

You have 20 seconds to comply.  Bzzt.
The torso wasn't modified. You can swivel it laterally to make the model twist at the hip.  However, putting baby in the baby carrier was a nightmare.  The Grey Knight pilot is basically in a straight-legged 'GI Joe', gung-ho pose and I needed his body position to reflect what the exoskeleton was doing.  So I had to chop him off at the knees as well.  Lots of fiddling around here since he no longer fit into the harness but I got an approximation of kneeling in the end.  I was careful not to cut off the poleyne (I had to look that word up since 'knee protector thingy' sounded stupid) so it hides the cut out parts behind it.

They don't like it up 'em


I straightened out the left arm as I wanted the machine to be reaching out for support, as if it had momentarily lost its footing.  I used green stuff for gap filling and more on the left hand of the mech where I opened up the doom fist to make it grab a bit of scenery.  I'll have to tidy up bits and pieces here and there but I'm pleased with the overall effect.

Reaching out. Touching me. Touching you.  Touch-ing-cloth!

I suppose I could be accused of modelling for advantage but I think it looks less like a child's action figure and more like a dynamic, monstrous combat chassis.

2 comments:

  1. Love the pose dude. want to do something like that with my dreadknight to add some dynamism.
    do you have any finished pics? cheers

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    Replies
    1. Never got round to finishing it and I don't play GK any more. Do you want to buy it? :)

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