WarriorFish's AdMech and Knight House Blog

[WarriorFish]

I have my paints! Can't wait for the weekend so I can get some real progress with the lighting and some paint :D

[WarriorFish]

I've finished the first bit of background, only a little bit to start with but if it goes ok it will lead into more detail, such as the Forge World they are associated with and the further political scheming. Let me know what you think:

 

 

Knight House/world: Brunen
Elector Family: Saigfrid
Allegiance: Imperial

Hidden Content

The families, or clans, of House Brunen are headed by their eldest and most seasoned warrior, called the Ritter Meister. He rules the clan absolutely in much the same way as a monarch of ancients times would. The structure and hierarchy of the family is strictly controlled, with the eldest Ritter being heir. The leader of the all the Ritter families and of House Brunen itself is called the Elector and is voted for in a very serious and rigorously policed election. Each clan presents a Ritter for duelling and the family's Meister presents his case for his family's claim. So does a family demonstrate it's skill and valour, complemented by its wisdom and foresight before their peers.

The act of swearing a Ritter to a person or cause is common, and these oaths will last an agreed length - usually a time period or successful resolution respectively. Such Ritter are called Jaegers, in honour of their task of hunting the Emperor's foes outside of House Brunen's area of control. This is done not only for the honour and glory accrued, but also for potential gains in trophies, spoils and gifts - all that might raise the profile and prospects of the clan for the next election. These gifts are also sent to the Forge World to curry favour in hopes of winning new suits with which to bolster the military might of the family, not to mention the considerable prestige from having more active Ritter.

Jaeger Ritter Calistiria Saigfrid
Eldest child of Elector Ritter Meister Julius Saigfrid and his heir, her skill at Ritter Kunst is said to be second only to her beauty. She is called the jewel in the Elector's crown for without her Julius would surely not have won the Electorship, let alone the historic second consecutive term. Her skill and grace from the courts, to ballrooms and combat fields were well known before she took the ritual of becoming.

Taking her mother's suit, she avenged her death at the hands of the Ork Warboss Bonecrumpa and routed his horde almost single-handedly, destroying two Stompas and countless green skin war machines on her bloody path to confront the warlord. Since then she has won many more battles and slain the mightiest of foes with a finesse others could never hope to match, her name becoming known even to the insular Tech Priests of their parent Forge World. Heralded as a paragon of a Ritter she is a formidable part of the Saigfrid clan's firm grip on the position of Elector. This was not to last long as her task was to change once her father forged an alliance with a powerful Inquisitor, prompted to do so after the Tech Priests made their own similar pledge.

Rumour among the courts is that Calistiria was sworn to the mysterious Inquisitor Lord as a hostage to prove (or some say force) House Brunen's loyalty in the new alliance. Others claim this was Julius claiming the greater glory and rewards for himself. There is perhaps truth in both of these statements but Calistiria went willingly, keen to serve and claim greater glory across the galaxy. Word of her exploits are eagerly consumed by the peoples of Brunen, and the spoils and gifts sent back further bolster the status and power of clan Saigfrid. It is whispered however that she may have spent too long away from Brunen and enjoys the company of the Inquisitor's allies too much, to the point of adopting some of their customs. When - or if - she returns she might not be the political boon to Saigfrid she once was...

Whatever the truth, one way or another the future of Saigfrid family and perhaps even House Brunen itself are likely to be decided by Calistiria - directly or otherwise.

[JeffTibbetts]

Yay! Another fine lady-pilot joins the fray. 

[WarriorFish]

Hopefully sooner rather than later; progress is good so far today I've managed to get two left red lenses in:

I didn't think I'd do the smaller one but I had a bit of filter left over from the first and gave it a shot. I've got lots of colours to choose for the other two, I'm thinking green or blue - leaning towards the latter.

I did have a moment of hesitation when I was worried the super glue might mess up the light until I realised that this is the perfect solution to the strong light that comes directly from the end of the fibres! A bit of glue to pass through should "blur" it out nicely :D

[WarriorFish]

Here we go, apologies in advance as there's a few pictures in this post. I thought I was mad for doing the smaller eye pieces too and it turns out I was right Blue set went faster as I knew what I was doing:

Preparation for the optics, plan is to have the sleeves preventing light from escaping at the neck joint:

Here we go cut down a bit more to size, most of the length was removed:

All nicely sits inside the torso, no need to position or fix anything:

All glued...

... and all turned on!

Special bonus mask shot

Though it went better than I expected it was still a fair amount of work. I ended up positioning the ends a bit back and letting them shine through. Putting them up/in the eye pieces would have been too fiddly as well as probably blast away the filters so overall I think it went very well for my first attempt

With this I can finally concentrate on the painting, starting tomorrow. The Omnissiah was with me today

[Arkaniss]

That is incredible! I'm impressed, it looks amazing. I can't wait to see the Knight finished - especially a shot of it in the dark with the lights on :D

 

I like the house fluff too - I've been watching footage of Total Warhammer lately so I strongly approve!

[HackedDuck]

Wow that is amazing all the hard work definitely payed off so far!

[WarriorFish]

Thanks guys, it has felt like a long time coming but all the careful planning paid off I still have another addition/idea to do later on but for now the focus is on painting.

 

I plan on having the blue/grey and white as the main colours, the red/tan as an accent to that. I've not found any details on exact colour styles etc required for the heraldic parts (e.g. shoulders, shins) so I'll just take some inspiration from GW's models

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Impressive lighting effects.

[JeffTibbetts]

Looks so cool! I do wish you had maybe swapped the colors on the small ones, but actually it kind of makes sense that they'd be alternate versions of the larger ones anyway. 

[Seahawk]

Very nice! In the last one he looks oddly happy. :D

[WarriorFish]

Thanks :D I was originally going to go with alternating smaller lights but it didn't feel right. They're only about 3mm in diameter so seemed a little lost next to the larger alternate colour. I reckon it would have been ok painted, but with the lights I think it was better to have them complementary :)

[WarriorFish]

Quick test of the greys I got:

On the left is wish a blue wash and normal, the right has a black wash. Not quite as planned unfortunately. They'll make for a great lighter grey and highlight colour but not the darker grey I needed, not quite sure how I messed this up! I'll need to sort that colour soon but it won't hold up progress today - there's a lot of metallics that still need doing. More positively Rakarth Flesh is perfect for the slightly creamy white I was after :)

Looking at the colours again:

The blue-grey starts looking more like the old Space Wolves colour so that sounds like a good start as any.

[WarriorFish]

Got almost all the basing done for the bronze and off gold. Bit of a pain but saves time later with metallic paints liking the colour :)

Toying with the idea of having the weapon housings the white too, but it might be a bit much with having it on the shoulders and shins.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

The Knight looks good so far.

[Arkaniss]

Awesome! I recently got myself a Knight and this is inspiring stuff, though I don't think I'll make it an ETL vow it looks far too much work :P

[WarriorFish]

It's a big project even without the extras, so it takes some time - depends how much you plan to do and how much free time you have to do it! I can see it coming together but I'm on the boring preparatory work it seems at the moment Hopefully next update will have some more to it, plan is to finish the metals on the legs at least before moving on to the bronze.

 

At this pace it'll take a little while but that is fine as I need to source the main colour as well as the final additions I have planned... ETL or not a Knight it a fantastic kit and a lot of fun

[Arkaniss]

I plan on magnetising it so I can have my choice of weapons* but I won't give it glowing lights so I'll save some time there :P It's a matter of if I work on it next for Vow 2 or other models I had already earmarked for the ETL.

 

Sadly I'm away for 6 days this week so that's precious ETL time lost!

 

*Do you have a tutorial for your Knight magnetising all handy in one place? I guess it's all spread out in this thread?

[WarriorFish]

The magnets are relatively time consuming if you want to do the whole lot as I did, a Dremel is a time saver as you'd expect. All my magnetising stuff is in this topic, but only across a couple of pages if I remember right. It's not that complicated so a couple of read throughs and you'll know what to do :)

[Vel'Cona]

I love it! I think a dark paint scheme will really make the lighting stand out. Awesome stuff!

[WarriorFish]

The scheme won't be too dark when done, main colour will be the grey/blue. I'm not sure how much I'll do with the lighter greys, might think of a pattern of a sort. Otherwise the only finished colour is the cowl, though it hasn't been highlighted yet. The brown is a base for a lighter bronze colour :)

[WarriorFish]

Today was a busy day indeed, but I managed to slip into GW before it closed to pick up a couple of paints:

I'm not sure which one, I'm leaning towards Eshin Grey? Or perhaps I can make use of both? I have a few paints now, just need to decide which one Maybe I should paint a few tester areas on once I've got the bronze finished and see.

I might not get as much time as I had hoped tomorrow, but I'll definitely get something done

[Vel'Cona]

Still voting for darker colour!  

[WarriorFish]

I think I'll experiment a bit on a shoulder pad, do the bronze and that on it so I can see how it looks. My progress today has been limited by other things but finishing the metal legs is good:

Only a little more on the legs and I can start the bronze - I'll probably leave the weapons until last.

[GhostMalone]

Dude loving it great stuff