Friends of Queen Bee: Armiger leg pose coming together

[JeffTibbetts]

Made a bit of progress during lunch today. Now that poses are getting settled, I'm working towards the other little tweaks and details that will define the two as individuals and drive the narrative. If you didn't catch it, House Tibbetts is in the midst of deciding whether they should remain Imperial-aligned or succumb to the too-good-to-be-true offers of the forge world Kal'koplos and change their alliegence to the Adeptus Mechanicus. This sort of thing has precedence in the novel, and I like the storyline because it highlights that the Knight Houses are essentially allies of the Imperium as opposed to a proper part of it. Due to the connection to the thrones mechanicum and the reinforcement of duty and loyalty that comes with it, however, they often appear to be the "most loyal of the loyal" on the outside. So, some nobles within the house support maintaining the thousands-of-years' connection to the Imperium and honor their oaths and tithes, whilst others see the AdMech as a valuable ally and catalyst for a new era of power and dominance. There are machinations, lines drawn, and a little bit of bad blood brewing. Now, these two Knights Armiger are piloted by a pair of lesser nobles and they're on opposite sides of this division. One of them is very outwardly loyal to the Imperium, whilst the other is low-key in support of the Ad Mech claim. It's mostly an excuse for a bit of fun accessorizing and conversion work, but I like the story as well.

Now, I also enjoy the background that talks about these smaller Knights being outriders, doing recon work, and scouting ahead. To that end I collected some gubbinz that I'd like to add. I started today with a radar array, underslung on a thermal lance.

The base is from the Dark Angels Ravenwind accessory sprue (intended for a Land Speeder) and a regular Space Marine dish. I trimmed off half the base bolts, removed two roundels from the bottom of the weapon, and slapped it on. Looks clunky and unwieldy. I love it.

Next up, I wanted to play with adding an antenna (or aerial for the brits) that doubles as a pennant pole, and also added a small icon I think from a Space Marine standard finial, trimmed down to sit right on the carapace weapon.

Oh, and I also started removing the crenelations from the pauldron as you can see. Not sure if I'm going to add something else or just clean it up at this point. That simple change does really alter the overall look and makes it feel much more Imperial.

The back of the carapace has a nice little notch, just begging for the pole. I used the back of a SM vehicle spotlight as the base, and for now I just popped the banner thing from a SM bike in the hole. I'll make that look a bit more intentional later, but I like how it turns a pennant thing into a radio device if you look at the back. It's big and clunky, but again I think that's appropriate.

I may do some tweaking to that but for now I think it works. Thoughts?

[Biohazard]

The additions look great, I especially love the banner and radar array. :tu:

[Battybattybats]

Loving the lot. Pose with that twist looks great, the banner, radar, eagles, all excellent. As for the former cog edge, I'd suggest just cleaning it and not replacing the height of the cog-edge as it'd change the silhouettes a bit which will help emphasise the differences.

[JeffTibbetts]

Thanks, you two. And Bats I think you’re right. It still looks “right” without the height so that seems the way to go.

[MrKnify]

Looks great, I just picked up a warglaive.

 

For a painting competition, next is resin for water....