Reaver Update #2

I don’t have much to say, so here’s a bunch of photos:

Here’s one of the titan crew on foot, He came out of the blister with a little lean, which needed fixing:



Here’s the Tech-Priest, who I magnetised so he can go inside the titan’s torso, or on his own base:



Here’s the assembled legs, compared to the Leviathan:



Completion of the legs and armour (everything is still in pieces as I still need to do varnishing and priming):



Work on the base:



Miscellaneous photos:


The Reaver Titan Hype Cycle

hype_cycleThe consulting firm Gartner is famous for its eponymous Hype cycle which tracks the development of new technology.

I’ve come to realise the my project to build and paint a Reaver titan also fits onto this graph. This time last week, I was definitely in the Trough of Disillusionment, as my frustration with the complexity of the leg assemblies (pistons! So many pistons!) overcame my enthusiasm.

Now, however, I have started working on the torso, head and weapons, I feel like my determination to get the bloody thing finished so I can get on with other things is reasserting itself, and I’m approaching the Plateau of Productivity, at which point, the Reaver will probably end up being finished fairly quickly.

Here’s hoping the hype cycle holds true this time!

Reaver Update #1

As you might imagine, the Reaver is a big project, hence the lack of updates. I won’t bother giving you a blow-by-blow account of how I have been working on it; instead I’ll just point to the blog posts that I’ve been working from instead:

As with the Leviathan, the legs are definitely the trickiest part of the model, and you need to take a lot of time testing out positioning. The general procedure is: measure twice, then measure again, then check on the Internet to see if anyone else has done it the same way, then measure again, then cut!

One innovation that I haven’t seen anyone else write about is the magnetisation of the “helmet”, or the roof of the Titan’s head. I did this by drilling holes in the appropriate places (you’ll notice that I had to do this a couple of times before i got it right) and inserting 3mm magnets that I bought from Gladius Game Arts.

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Most of the leg and pelvis of the Titan has now been primed black, and the superstructure will then be sprayed using Army Painter chain mail. I tried a variety of white metal Vallejo model air paints but decided that none of them looked right over a black primer.

I’ve finished some of the interior parts: here are the wall panels that will sit inside the Titan’s body:

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I also have plans to give the Titan a base, although it would probably be fairly impractical to use it for gaming, so it’s probably just going to be for display purposes. I found a 36cm-diameter cake base which looks like it will do the trick:

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As I should probably have expected, I’ve made a few mistakes along the way, the most annoying of which was the realisation that I’d glued this plasticard logo onto the knee pad upside-down!

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In the process of removing it I caused a fair bit of damage to the surface of the knee pad which I then made worse through clumsy application of a rotary tool. So exactly how I fix that will be the subject of a future post.

More to follow!

MCCCXLVI

The nice man from UPS dropped by today and delivered my Reaver titan! Here is the certificate that came with the enormous pile of resin that’s now sitting in a box under my desk:

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Mine is the 1,346th Reaver Titan to roll of the Forge World production line, so I’m going to be using MCCCXLVI as part of the decoration of the model.

Now, if you excuse me, I have a lot of resin to wash and several pages of instructions to read…

Finally…

After years of dithering, I have finally taken the plunge and ordered one:

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After the success of last year’s Leviathan I finally decided that I had the painting and modelling skills to take on the ultimate hobby project: a Forge World Reaver titan. I have bought the body only for now: I’ll pick up the weapons when I’ve finished the body. And of course, I’ll be blogging my progress. I plan on painting it in the same colour scheme as my Epic Titans, but obviously the level of detail will be far higher. I’m very excited!