Knights of House Cydonia, Taghmata Omnissiah and Skitarii

[Battybattybats]

Oh it's always good to hear the thoughts of others, it can help crystallize my own or make unconscious things more clear to the conscious mind or inspire new ideas that resolve the obstacle. So thankyou for your input Jeff, it helps a lot!

Two, no three, thoughts now occur to me...
I could use this as an excuse to get another knight and build a Gallant and give it the half-skull mask.
Or.
I could add extra sensors onto the Crusader to make up for putting the half-skull mask on it, that way each of my 'standard' low-ranking knights will use at least half of the same stylized skull faceplate (the Styrix is of course something special) and that way every knight has a skull or half-skull faceplate or head.
Or.
I could cut away part of the stylised skull half of the half-skull head and use it on The Betrayed.

[JeffTibbetts]

I was going to offer an opinion about which option I prefer, but then I changed my mind. Then I was going to say 'either this or that' and I changed my mind again because I didn't want to rule one out. They're all good options... 

 

Of course, money may be a factor so that could rule out the first option. 

[Battybattybats]

Please give your opinions Jeff, i won't just automatically follow what you say but it will be good to add to the mix of thoughts running through my own head.

And yeah, money is distinctly a factor currently on the Gallant front (especially with all the Forgeworld stuff i also want).

I'll try and get a better pic soon (i'm at my girlfriends place at the moment), and this phone pic is terrible, but i am super happy with the weathered industrial striping on what may well be the base for my leader when running Skitarii-only forces.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/striped%20base.jpg

[JeffTibbetts]

Oh that is nice! One of my big problems with the hazard striping I usually see is that it's way too bright. This is perfect. Yellow pigment fades quickly in real life, and yellow obviously shows dirt and wear way faster than many other colors. I think this looks super realistic, and frankly I never really thought of it before. Now I think ALL hazard stripes should be more like this. :D 

[Battybattybats]

Got a better pic with my camera.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0001%204.jpg

[JeffTibbetts]

Yup. Still love that mutes hazard striping.

[Battybattybats]

I'll post my how-to:

Base dark reaper (as in this case it's on stone), then it got hit with the agrax earthshade wash the whole base got, then mechanicus standard grey (again cause stone) wetbrush scratches scuff and wear marks. (if on metal instead of stone it'd be leadbelcher, nuln oil, leadbelcher (or runefang in the scuff for a few of the edge scratches on things like chainblades where the scratches would be polished and refreshed a lot))

The next key bit is a single (sorry Duncan) thin coat of Averland Sunset applied deliberately quite unevenly in thickness edging around the scuffs a little over some and a little back from others so patches of both shades of grey show through. I then pencil in with a ruler where the black lines will be. Then it was chaos black, thinned a bit, to do the edges of the stripes but deliberately rough edges slightly over the pencil lines for a rough worn uneven edge that still fits nice even parallel shapes and of course broken by the scuff marks and some of the thinner yellow and a little solid yellow. I then fill in much of the black with a single thin coat, though in this case i thinned it more than usual, and it worked sublimely.

[JeffTibbetts]

Very nice! I like the pencil idea. I've started Cawl and I've only done two cables with the black and yellow spiral. I normally avoid this style but I want to stay true to character. They're such a pain! Maybe I'll try the pencil trick to start and then fill them in with paint. I'll give that a shot. 

 

Anyway, great effect on that for sure. Wouldn't have occurred to me to do scratches first as opposed to adding them in later. 

[Battybattybats]

Scratches first is the way i do all my scuffed and worn paintwork.

For cables on my vanguard and rangers that i put stripes on, i striped them horizontally rather than spiraled and by eye rather than pencil (too fragile for the pencil! The one i tried a pencil on snapped so that wasn't attempted again) trying to make the stripes a brush-width wide and a brush width apart to make it easier, i tried making a thin line of black with a fine detail brush to mark the end of the yellow stripe then thickened it then moved again, but the result was still pretty rough and they are the weakest part of my skitarii, but i like the effect anyway.

For Cawl i think i'll go with my own scheme rather than the standard Mars scheme, not that i'm entirely sure on that decision yet, but when i use him I'm thinking he'll have attached himself to an Explorator fleet that launched from St Hoagland and so uses the St Hoagland scheme and that he'd have coloured himself in the trappings of the fleet... but then maybe not. I think the info in the book, which i hope to get in a couple weeks, may help me decide.

[Battybattybats]

Speaking of Paint Chipping here's the most recent stage of my 1st Onager Dunecrawler.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0004%203_1.jpg

The base detailing is currently far from certain at this point, merely sitting in place.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0006%202_3.jpg

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0010_7.jpg

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0016_4.jpg

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0024_2.jpg

[JeffTibbetts]

Man that looks good. It's way more realistic than most of what I see. I dare say it's unique in effect! It works well with your realistic style of painting in general.

[Battybattybats]

Wow! Thanks! That's some pretty amazing praise.

 

And here was I wondering if it was a little too painted looking.

[Sgt. Blank]

I agree with JeffT - this is a very nice rendition of the Onager and the bases are also great. I appreciate the way you're experimenting with techniques and pushing yourself - the results are nice and the process is inspiring.

[Battybattybats]

A small acquisitions update, i have placed an order for some things from Forgeworld. The knight head, a mechanicum decal sheet, something to spice up a bit of terrain and finally at long last some Scyllax. It's always hard with a small budget and a lot of things i want deciding on a forgeworld order and i still don't have the Red Book for the updated Mechanicum list but i'm not getting many games in currently and when i do it'll be finally getting my 40k mech back on the table and while the Scyllax are far from the most well regarded unit in the 30k list it's aesthetically been a must-have for me since the first glimpses of them showed up.

[Battybattybats]

Some more on the Onager

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0001%204_1.jpg

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0019%202.jpg

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0017%202_2.jpg

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0024%202_1.jpg

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0025%202_1.jpg

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0012%203_3.jpg

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0007%203_2.jpg

When putting my squad alphas together i felt bad i wasn't using the excellent pointing arm, and so i've put one on my first Onager's pilot. While i magentised the gunner i decided i'd rather glue the hatch in place than hinge it so the arm holding the stubber is magnetised at the shoulder, i'll do the same with a Radium pistol for when i can't afford a stubber or when the stubber get's destroyed i can swap them over.

In other news i've carefully removed the eagle-heads from my first Knight Quod Erat Demonstrandum so i can swap them with some spare mechanicus-knight emblems to go on instead. I've got enough of those now that all my Knights will have those except for the Errant The Betrayed (i must look up the Latin for that!) who is showing his loyalist position in the heresy with eagle heads on one side and the skulls of his sons on the other.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Excellent work on the Onager.

[Battybattybats]

I finally got round to a key alteration on my first Knight Quod Erat Demonstrandum

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0004_7.jpg.

Swapping out the eagle heads (other than on the banner) for the mechanicus icons that were released with the Warden sprues.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0017_4.jpg

Once the Forgeworld order arrives I'll begin returning to work on the Errant and Styrix as well as commencing work on the Warden and Crusader. At my usual whimsical way of flitting between projects but still getting them done.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Excellent work on Quod Erat Demonstrandum. What does the name mean?

[Battybattybats]

Quod Erat Demonstrandum means that which needed to be shown, and it or the abbreviation Q.E.D. Is used in classical academia usually in maths or logic papers after posting a proof. It's also used as a kind of declaration like checkmate for an argument.

[Battybattybats]

So my Forgeworld order arrived today and i'll share some images.

Firstly the Imperial Knight head VII with the Mechadendrites

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/WP_20170227_001.jpg

I was expecting the head to come in a whole piece like the Styrix head. (and was worried the mechadendrites could snap in the post) but no the head is much better than i expected!

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/WP_20170227_012.jpg

The Mechadendrites are all separate, attaching to ports on the head. Which means much more freedom in posing them than i expected.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/WP_20170227_021.jpg

Being in halves the head will use the plastic attachment peg and so should have a little more option of verticle angle allowing this head to look down. I'm thinking this will have to go on my Warden for sure now!

Next we have the Zone Mortalis Containment Tanks, based on the earlier Anphelion Containment Tanks i have.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/WP_20170227_024.jpg

I do like having clear resin instead of the thin frame and a sheet of bent styrene for glass that the Anphelion ones had, though it may be a challenge to paint neatly.

Now i hope that the clear resin can be heated and bent like the opaque stuff as there's a bit of a gap...

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/WP_20170227_032.jpg

Though i don't plan to assemble this as per the instructions. Instead i'll have to find some other use for the back part as i'll use the clear pieces together (after cutting some tabs to fit)...

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/WP_20170227_035.jpg

A little trimming and this should sit a little lower down inside the Knight torso, and thus i will finally make progress on my Knight Styrix with born-for-purpose gene-altered pilot floating in a tank of liquid.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/WP_20170227_040.jpg

Yes this will surely please the Omnissiah!

Returning to the back piece it's worth noting a significant structural difference from the Anphelion version

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/WP_20170227_042.jpg

The back is quite hollow, which will make it more difficult to magnetise it the way i did the anphelion containment panels to use in my manufactorum ruins. I guess i'll be gluing in some big bits of sprue for that.. whatever i decide to do with the half-tanks panel. Certainly i plan to buy another of these in the future to assemble as instructed, the Magos Biologis cannot have too many samples of Xenos to dissect! And the containers make for great narrative gaming objectives.

But i could not help myself buying something strictly to ornament terrain while i was at it.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/WP_20170227_043.jpg

A Scriptorum for the Magos Biologis to record their dissection notes!

Note though it has a Very fragile piece at the bottom i'll be wanting to reinforce.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/WP_20170227_044.jpg

Here's the back.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/WP_20170227_048.jpg

This is designed to go into a corner, presenting even further challenge if i magentise it to make it removable from my manufactorum ruins pieces like i have the Anphelion containers, if worse comes to worse i might have to get another manufactorum and build it specifically for this piece, we'll see.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/WP_20170227_050.jpg

The scriptorum also comes with an Autoquil part for it, between that and the inactive servo skull on the shelf i think that this piece is superb.
On top of that there's also this smaller control panel.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/WP_20170227_052.jpg

Now this part could be useful for those building knight interiors or all manner of things. I may just use it for Manufactora Interior but then maybe not.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/WP_20170227_053.jpg

The back of the panel, much easier to magnetise.

Lastly we come to the Scyllax.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/WP_20170227_056.jpg

The mold lines/slip on the many mechadendrites and tubing is mostly fine as far as i can see, though some bits may be a challenge to neaten up it should be ok... however...

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/WP_20170227_058.jpg

some parts were missing!
4 clawed arms, 2 heads and 1 servo arm to be exact. I've emailed Forgeworld and hopefully they'll sort it out swiftly when they reply, especially with the annoying wait of postage from the UK to Australia!

While i wait i have of course much washing and trimming of resin in my future, and i still have tins of plastic to work on. But as they say The Great Work is Eternal!

[JeffTibbetts]

I can't wait for you to finally do your test-tube pilot! Seems like it's been ages since we chatted about how cool that would be. I'll be eagerly awaiting updates. 

[Battybattybats]

It really has been ages. I have a tendency to slow-boil projects, you don't want to know how many small jars and containers i looked at that were too big or too small! While the project was stalled i was still grinding away at sorting it out (and was too in love with the idea to build the Styrix without it). Then on a Facebook group someone used the containers on an abeyant and i asked them for the measurements for the zone mortalis version and realised it should fit! Though i'll need to do some alterations to the pilots frame to sit neatly and test a few things. And i still have to nail down my plans for the engine too.

It will be good to get some more of the Knights of House Cydonia built and painted. Now i've decided the Head VII will indeed go on the Warden i am most of the way decided to use the half-skull plastic faceplate from the Warden sprue on Prodita Sum (The Betrayed, my Knight Errant) and the same stylised skull as Quod Erat Demonstrandum i'm thinking might go on my Crusader. So i may end up working on several knights at once very soon.

[Battybattybats]

While i'm waiting on the missing Scyllax bits from Forgeworld to arrive and doing the usual resin soaks some space ships from Vanguard Miniatures arrived which will be part of my Battlefleet Gothic games. I'll get some pics and discuss these soon.

[Battybattybats]

While i'm slowly plodding along at a snails pace making gradual progress on the Onager's base, the void shield generator and gradually washing and scrubbing my forgeworld stuff this goes and happens at GW...

So of course i've already asked my trusty local store to preorder the new game for me and i guess i better hurry myself along a bit before the sprue pile towers over me. As that new terrain MUST be part of my collection and a new skirmish game with rules for Skitarii and campaign with experience? Yeah that's pretty perfect.

And you just know i'll need more than one terrain set when i can afford it because those parts... those parts.. and the spider-skull!

Much as i want a deathworld forest set too this... this... this is Glorious!

[deathspectersgt7]

I want 2 . Drooling over this release.