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Hi Folks, With torso done and legs done, it was only a matter of (little) time for these to part to be united in the holy forges of Mars. The big boy is now standing, only missing some finiching touches. While heraldry guide for Freeblades (or Dreadblades) leave a lot of room to the pilot to customize its steed, some stuffs can be seen as usual features: - No or low amout Imperium marks - the 2 headed eagle is seldom in general - No household marks, of course, and instead a persomnal heraldy usually repeated on both leg and front paultrons - No or little battle honours - except on Canis Rex which bears a lot Issues: - Never notices up to now than there is not so much Imperium symbol on decals... - I do not have much decals at the correct size(s) to be repeated as a distinctive Freeblade icon. And most are anyway SM chapters icons and, frankly it would be a shame... - Mechanicum decals are msotly Skitarii and, let´s say, not especifically opus mechanicum tainted. There are cogs but... So, what to do? I tried painting some decals with a freeware mimicking .pptx and paint softwares. Awful experience. Preparing my own decals requires a dedication I cannot afford these days. Let´s see what I can do with my pile of decals. - ooP Cadian sheet gave some nice skulls for kill marks, numbers and a codebar. Just like on the example of the banner. - SM (BA) decal sheet have an imperial eagle spitting lighting and ready to be parted in 2. - Skitarii decals gets skuls in cogs, both white and black. let´s cut and use them on paultrons. And here is the result: It will be enough atm. Shall I (finally) one day draw some own decals, I have enough spare place to add some extra customized stuff. Such as a personal freeblade icon. But it will have to wait. Cheers.

Hi Folks, The W.E. (stands for Week-End, not World Eaters), has been calm enough to complete the lower part (a.k.a. legs) of the Styrix. After some tape masking and one or two small corretions, the armoured legs of the Styrix were maked-up in the same combination of Eshin Grey and Wraithbone as the paultrons. Plus some added red stripes, as on the illustration taken as a guiding model. Main difference is that panel colours are inverted in order to fit to the Heraldry guide for Questoris Mechanicum: Black (grey in my case) on the inside and White (bone in my case) on the outside. For the rest, it is mostly free style. One of the advantages of going Freeblade... Here is the resulting true crime, before panel glueing: The base is made to be a mid rocky reg, using the usual bark (maritime pine from my last holidays) suspect for modelling rock platforms. The legs have been painted following the Citadel colour tutorial on Youtube. at least for jacks and hydraulics. Next step will be final assembly and Decals. See you once done.

Hi Folks, Asmall update as a third installment of this WIP series of posts. The upper part of the Styrix is now close to completion. Paultrons have been painted and I only have left their mounting into place, or rather their glueing as they can be fairly easily be mounted "dry". The wepons, carapace... are alredy assemblied and fixed. I planned getting this torso unglued to the legs, in order to get transport easier, but it will not happen: the mini is too heavy to set in place without superglue. I am starting thinking about more details through decals. I have some extensive amount of decals and I will rpobably get enough to personalize at a sufficient level, yet both paultrons and armoured legs of this model have "unusual" dimensions that makes that most decals are too big to fit. And I do not want to go free hand. I do not have the minimun required talent for that. It might be the moment to try printing my own decals finally. I have all the material for 2 or 3 years, just waiting for an opportunity... While I am thinking about it, here are some pics: The big boy´s upper torso in dangerous position... Detail of the bended power cable - my wife´s hair dryer proved to be a very valuable tool to recover the proper bending angle. Another close up of the knight´s front view More to come soon, with lower part maybe? Cheers.

Hi Folks, As a second installment of this WIP journey, let´s talk paint scheme a little bit. I planned to use this Freeblade mainly as a boost for my Skitarii. From here comes the selection of the model, based on its look and not on its rules. I wanted something AdMechiest to be integrated into the overall vibe of the force. The Styrix had a better touch to my taste, even if I find its head a little bit disapointing - the Maegara one is better. While thinking AdMech affiliated knight, red patrons tend to prevail. Yet I did not like these too much. Sure it would contrast with my mostly grey Skitarii, but, no, I wasn´t convinced. Then I saw this: Ok, it is an heretic, but its link to the Raven Household (Questoris Mechanicum) made its journey in my mind. And came the idea of a Reignited or reforged knight from the remain of a fallen machine, looking to restore its honour in a frantic and individual crusade, fighting along not to regarding Imperium forces... Ok, fuzzy stuff. But I like the balance of colours and the contrast of these whitish panels with red stripes on a mostly dark grey beast. So, here we go, trying to adapt this to a mostly imperial knight. So far I made carapace and some parts of the armour, plus main weapons: Some more detailed views inc a prepositioning of the head: The contrast will be brought, I hope, by the paultrons and the armoured legs. Main colour is Eshin Grey with panel lining in Mechanicus Standard Grey and some Dawnstone very very light edge ligthning. Rest is dry brushed of brass scorpion and retributor gold at various levels of pressure and on selected zones. almos no shading, even if recess were painted black at the beginning, paying attention not to fill them with grey. Let´s see you in a few days if there is some progress worth being reported. Cheers,

Stomp Stomp... Styrix incoming... This big guy was in my plans for a while, and some months passed since I listed its aquisition into the TITH thread (Today´s in the Hobby - See Amicus Aede sub-Forum). It was high time to strat working on this machine. I initially thought about enlisting it as a Plodding along, but I rather keep this pledge for some kitbashed vehicles waiting to be finished and painted for years (a quarter or 2 before I suscribed to this forum). And having to wait until the summer event is too much time. So here it comes as a multipart/Progress report style Blog entry. Today´s installment will be the chassis. Starting by the core stuff that support the whole robot yet the part which is probably going to be the easiest to paint. Afterall it is mainly dry brushing. I made so far 2 sub-assemblies: the legs and the torso. It is no rocket science as it is probably the most obvious construct if you do not stick too much to the assembly manual. They have a fiercy allure once set together, nope? I just hope I will not screw it all later with the armour plates... I will have to train into panel lining... Some details, starting with the power unit for the big volkite gun. This resin part was smaller than the place it is supposed to be clipped on, which led to some cutting job in order to get it in place. For the leg, I hesitate into painting the piston hydraulic part in a brighter colour, like a red for example, or keeping it just brushed. But a small test with red, it looked like more to a "pimp-my-ride" styled robot rather than to a venerable and respected Freeblade. I´ll let the bright coloured pistons to mekboyz. See you for next episode.