paulson games Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 As I landed a very cheap motherload of foamboard at the local craft store I've been toying with the idea of starting a titan. I'm torn between building a warlord or going for an emperor class just for sheer absurdity. While not "practical" the warlord is certainly the more sane option for building if for nothing other than it being a smaller size. However there's a huge wow factor that comes with the emperor, and I find myself thinking if I'm aiming big why not aim for the biggest? My one reservation about the project is the sheer size of it, I have no clue where I'll put such a monsterous model, and my thunderhawk project still sits idle as I didn't see that through all the way. I don't want to get half way into a titan only to abandon it. Part of the problem with teh thunderhawk was my obsession with having it to exact scale with the FW one, and as there's no exact plan or look for titans I may not get so ensnared and burned out over making the fine details match perfectly. Cost isn't actually that high, the foam core I got 20 sheets for just under $20 which will be more than enough for the project, I have an ample amount of styrene left over from the thunderhawk and can pick up mor ein bulk fairly cheap. I just purchased a scribing tool and a punch set so I won't be stuck cutting individual panels of armor saving a huge amount of time vs the thunderhawk style. The only major exspense would be is I use a good amount city fight terrain, or actual GW bits for weaponry, even with city fight pieces that I think the project will be in the maximum range of $200-300 it could cost less. Cost is relatively minor, what will make or break the project is the time factor. I know it's going to take a huge amount of time, and I can't even begin to guess at actual hours it'll take. I'd seen dreamforge's leviathan crusader/blockhead models some time ago and would have been happy buying those but sadly GW shut them down and they aren't available. A select few managed to get out before they were cancelled but they are impossible to find and nobody would part with them even if they had them. Somebody had made 3-d paper templates, but the site and links were all dead as they were the better part of 5 years old. I spent a lot of time searching the web and finally ran across a set which I'm debating about using. The designs works well for an emperor class, but will need to redesign to fit extra hull weapons onto it. I think it'd also need to be increased in size, which will take work but I'm capable of doing on photoshop. The template would only serve as a loose framework, I want the weapons to look better and need to change up the castle a bit. I'd want to give it slightly more templarish look, or make it a mix of templar and mechanicus. I'd also have to figure out what weapon load out would work best depending on if it's a warlord or a emperor. Anyways here's concept pics for reference: crusader http://www.paulsongames.instantecom.net/i/warhammer/titan1.jpg blockhead http://www.paulsongames.instantecom.net/i/warhammer/titan2.jpg cardstock blockhead made from templates http://www.paulsongames.instantecom.net/i/warhammer/titan3.jpg Any thoughts? Too big of a project? Thoughts on what design changes chould be made? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marek Grimfang Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 Im speachless. Pure sexy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grik Friox Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 :) That looks great! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kickme829 Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 now to paint... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulson games Posted April 3, 2009 Author Share Posted April 3, 2009 Sorry guys, didn't mean to throw you but those are strictly for reference , not one's I've actually built (yet) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrotherDamascus Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 if you've got the foamboard and the will to do it then hey - go for it :) i personally like your first reference picture - definatly the best looking one, and the head looks alot more sensible / do-able ;) as for design changes well...none if you can help it - the familiarity to the old model / concepts would be a nice feature :) that said, its an enomous project and has many spaces for you to fill in your own creativity and come up with a few cool little features to make it truely unique, and tie in with the force your building it for :P as a man who loves the building side of the hobby the most i'd really like...hell, i'd LOVE to see the old model done justice, and your one of the best to do it :P at any rate, i've rambled to much and helped too little, so ill finish by wishing the best of luck to you with the Project - ill keep my eye on it and help where i can Cheers, <<Damascus>> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulson games Posted April 3, 2009 Author Share Posted April 3, 2009 I like the head design on the first pic better (crusader) but I think the castle design on the second (blockhead) is a bit better looking so many a blend between the two plus some of my personal flair. I love the giant claw/powerfist, but not sure if it'd be a good option for the model as having arm mounted weapon would be highly needed due to the minimum range on the carapace guns. It looks sexy as hell though, maybe I'd have to do a switchable arm, hand for display and then siwtch to gun for gameplay. I think city fight wall sections would be just about perfect for the castle sections. If I scale it up to an emperor then I'll need to make some modifications to allow for additional turrets so I can add the carapace weapons. I'd also skip the whole catherdral feet look of the epic emperor, a machine that big I'm sure could house tons of troops inside but it just looks retarded to me. I might add some troop acess doors but I'd leave the steps and church windows out of the leg design. When I first saw the model years ago I didn't like the concept castle on top of the emperor, but as I've gotten more into the fluffy bits of the 40k setting and particuarly the templars I gotten say having a mobile chapel fortress on top has a definate appeal. Thanks for the vote of confidence :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BulldogUK Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 I used the very same templates to create my Chaplain Titan with little change to the main structure. Even cheaper than foam board too as I built the lot from standard cardstock, goes together well. have fun ;) http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v429/BulldogUK/chaplaintitan1.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v429/BulldogUK/Chaplaindetail6.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v429/BulldogUK/chaplainhires16.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v429/BulldogUK/chaplainhires2.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v429/BulldogUK/chaplainhires12.jpg Lots more pics on th webpage Brother Humongus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
im terrible at painting Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 any Templates for one of these monsers (see my sig) Edit: speling Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulson games Posted April 3, 2009 Author Share Posted April 3, 2009 Yep I'd seen that one before and I love how that chaplain titan turned out. Couple questions, Did you change any of the scale or just build straight from the template? The vertical rows of skulls you have lining the castle, are those are taken from the city fight walls or did you use something else for them? Soem of teh parts are white did you press mold cast them? What's the final height measurement? I'm thinking for an emperor I'll have to scale it up quite a bit. If you went with straight card stock for the base layer did you just add styrene over it? or did you add additional interior structure pieces to help with the weight? BTW the changes to the feet look very good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sons of Horus Posted April 4, 2009 Share Posted April 4, 2009 just so you know that isn't an Emperor class titan :devil: that's not 40k at all :devil: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BulldogUK Posted April 4, 2009 Share Posted April 4, 2009 They were made by a company called Dreamforge, personally I could never see the problem. I mean its like saying Warmachine Warjacks look 'like' 40K dreadnoughts in the sense they have 2 legs, 2 arms and are machines piloted by a dude :eek These things looked awesome, I would have gladly parted with the folding stuff I would say it's too small for a Imperator as is but then again I am looking from the perspective that it only comes up to the waste of Warbringer Odin so most things are skewed a little for me when it comes to scale! Stands approx 23 inches high Paulson, yes majority of parts come from city sets with molds taken of a few bits which reapeated a lot (strictly personal use of course) LOL, you know I had forgot I had even changed the leg design over until you just reminded me! Was toying with the idea of building a 'scale' Reaver from this model to sit alongside Odin but I really don't think I can be bothered! Btw, I think your idea of a mobile Templar church would be very nice, especially with all the correct iconography etc...thumbs up from me for that one! I simply filled the larger voids with expanding foam to give it some strength, if you do this remember to create an exit hole or the whole thing will look like the michelin man ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulson games Posted April 4, 2009 Author Share Posted April 4, 2009 Interesting, based on the silouette profiles provided with the datasheets there's not a huge differance in height between a warlord and a emperor, a warhound comes up aproximately to the knee in both pics. I don't have the epic models to compair side by side but from pics I've seen online it's about the same ratio. The emperor looks bigger due to the spires and extra bulkiness of the castle. When using the datasheet the emperor looks like he's about 2 1/2 times the size of a warhound, which would put him somewherebetween 25-30 inches. With all the goofy spires of the epic model he'd be at most 35 inches tall. I don't know if those pics are to correct scale, but based on what's in the datasheets the stock leviathan is pretty close if he measures in around 25 inches. He is pretty huge in the pics, but definately much smaller than Odin. I'm not versed enough on the story fluff to know what the actual heights fo these things are supposed to be, and I don't want to get too huge as it'll make actually fielding it on the table difficult. Between 3 to 3 1/2 feet seems like a manageable size, larger than that is going to be very tough to transport. There's no way in heck I'm going to house this baby at the local bunker. (grubby kids) I've seen a few rare emperor's and they look like they are between 4-6 ft which is positively huge but they also take up the entire table and dominate the entire room, as they are already elevated an extra 3ft by being ontop of the table. If anyone has a better idea of what the titans are supposed to measure height wise in the fluff by all means let me know. Is the Emperor titan the same as an Imperitor titan? Or is that an even bigger class of titan? I don't think the epic titans aret set to a proper scale with each other, they probably just said eh that looks big and intimidating and fits on a titan base so that'll work. Or alternately it could be said that the differance between the warlord and emperor isn't so much the size, but more a factor of the resources and engineering that went into it. Kinda like the original rogue trader rhinos & landriaders, they aren't that much differant in size but the landraider was way tougher and better armed. Epic titans were made back in that era of very loose scale. Anyways I've been giving the various titans of you legion a closer examination, in some of the close up pics I can see the cardstock build, but only because I knew what to look for after it was mentioned. They look incredibly impressive particuarly with the paint jobs, I would have had a very hard time trying to reverse engineer this type of project without knowing it'd come from a template or what it was made from. My natural assumption would be that it was styrene and foam probably with either an internal skeleton of pvc or plywood. For the size it's probably fairly light, being a card stock body with some foam would definately speed up the construction time, although I'm sure it's still quite labor intensive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BulldogUK Posted April 5, 2009 Share Posted April 5, 2009 I never really thought that there was room in 40k for exact scale Paulson so I say build it how you want it and make it how you like it :D This model as you say is a good gaming size, Odin can be a little 'tricky' to move! Saying that it's not often he has to, 9 out of 10 times if your fielding a titan he's just gonna sit there and lay down fire turn after turn! I think this chap would make a much better Imperator because IMHO the existing 40k model looks PANTS! Oh I forgot to mention, regarding transport and storage, Brother Humongus breaks into 4 parts, the body comes away from the torso and the two weapons are attached using strong magnets Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JekCromium Posted April 5, 2009 Share Posted April 5, 2009 I built one as well from the same templates paulson(sorry, no pics). Mine's all card and I got a bit distracted near the end when I was adding on additional card trim that it's been sitting on my shelf staring back at me for a while. Mine also breaks apart at the waist and the weapons come off, and I found the templates pretty easy to follow. If you've got the time to spare I don't think the initial construction would take you that long at all. The real dedication comes in when you finish initial construction and start working on the details :D And as for scale, the fluff sources differ wildly. On the tabletop, Some people say 2-3 times the height of a reaver, others say you should have a 6ft tall friend stand on the table wearing a sign reading: IMPERATOR. So long as it's the biggest thing on the table, I think you'll be fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peakey Posted April 5, 2009 Share Posted April 5, 2009 Those look really,really good. Keep up the good work!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Master Kashnizel Posted April 5, 2009 Share Posted April 5, 2009 Where do you get titan templates? Anyway, if you want to do it, then do it. I'll be watching this thread if you do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
im terrible at painting Posted April 5, 2009 Share Posted April 5, 2009 Where do you get titan templates? Anyway, if you want to do it, then do it. I'll be watching this thread if you do. yes i NEED Those templates! gimme!...please? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncle Mel Posted April 5, 2009 Share Posted April 5, 2009 google... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulson games Posted April 5, 2009 Author Share Posted April 5, 2009 In a moment of stupidty I didn't save the weblink and now I'm having a hard time locating them again, dang things were very buried in the search and I had tried several differant searches before I found it, I know I googled armorbimbo as that's the handle for the guy who made them, also checked leviathan, blockhead, crusader, gabriel knight. I found it on a page that also had a model plans for the ship from serenity, have no clue where the page is now. Edit: in a momentary pause of my normal mental retardation I realized I can just plug the file name into google and a multiple download results pop up... doh! Google for: Blockhead_upgrade_with_Crusader_full.zip Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sons of Horus Posted April 6, 2009 Share Posted April 6, 2009 Imperator is a kind of Emperor Titan :P models are at least 6ft tall sometimes even a bit bigger :P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
f74 Posted April 7, 2009 Share Posted April 7, 2009 When i built mine i lost the link, found it a few months later and saved all the templates onto my drive.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
im terrible at painting Posted April 7, 2009 Share Posted April 7, 2009 how long did it take you to make (total of hours) and with how much help (for how long)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulson games Posted April 7, 2009 Author Share Posted April 7, 2009 Just building the cardstock version will probably take at least a couple days, especially if it's the first time you've built a 3-d paper model. If you go with a foamboard or styrene version it'll probably take a heck of a lot longer as there's way more glueing. What is the biggest time factor is the level of detail and qulaity of painting you want to do, you could spend months adding details or working on the paint job, or you could spend a couple hours. It all depends on what you want the final look to be. Also if you make any changes to the design, or new weapons that'll add time to the total as well. I'll be working with styrene and foamboard so I'm figuring I'll be happy if I can get mine done in under two months, and that's without paint. My thunderhawk that I was building out of styrene took me over 3 months just to get half the body done, but the detail level is really high. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulson games Posted April 10, 2009 Author Share Posted April 10, 2009 http://www.paulsongames.instantecom.net/i/warhammer/leg2.jpghttp://www.paulsongames.instantecom.net/i/warhammer/leg3.jpg Put in about 4 hours and got the first leg pretty much roughed in with cardstock. Who would have figured cutting/folding/gluing card stock would be so time consuming :tu: Tomorrow I'll be overlaying it with a layer of styrene and hopefully getting to the point I can start scribing armor panels and adding bits. I decided to hold off on changing the scale until I have a run on the original build to see how well everything fits together. I've had to apply tabs where I thought they'd fit so that the various edges can be glued together, something that was lacking on the templates, otherwise it's been progressing quite smoothly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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