Imperial Knights, Part VIII

Hullo, there, and Happy New Year.  If you’re reading this, many thanks for about six months worth of patience.  You’re automatically a much better person than me.  For what that’s worth.

I have to admit... a large part of my absence has been a growing frustration with Games Workshop over how things are being run.  It really feels like their goal is to make the most expensive, needlessly complicated tabletop game on Earth.  And I have to admit... I’m just not into that.  It was sad when I realized I’ve gone a little over six months without playing a game of 40K, and even sadder when I realized I just didn’t care. I just feel like I’m being pushed out of the game as everything I like about is pared away in favor of maximum profits.

However, at about the same time I realized how much fun I still have building models and scenery.  I enjoy blogs and vlogs about the hobby aspects of the game.  I like digging through the bitz bins for cool conversion pieces. So I’m trying to have fun with it that way, and maybe save some of you a few bucks in the process.

Speaking of which... 

Since it’s been such a long time, I’m going to recap a little bit.  Let’s start with assembling the foot and work our way up.   Should be able to reach the torso with no real problem.

As I mentioned last time, I attached the toes front to back and side to side.  This takes a little bit of work because there are a lot of angles here between the toes and the heel.  One fold that’s a little off on either piece can make a very loose join.  Or a very odd one.  Five of the toes fit perfectly, but two of them needed a bit of pressure to sit tight and flat. 

The last one... well it was the worst.  As you can see, it’s a little raised up.  There was no other way to make it join.  I figure I’ll put some bit of scenery under it once the legs end up on a base and try to make it look more like dynamic action.

While the feet dried I attached the knees to the shin pieces (the leg section with the flat bottom on one end).  I made sure all the flaps and tabs were folded in, added some glue, and pushed the knee into place (making sure it was centered on the shin).  I held this for about three minutes to make sure it’d be solid—this was going to be a load bearing join, after all.

           

Helpful Hint—If you’ve detailed both sides of your knee cylinder, there’s nothing to worry about here as far as which way they glue in.  But it’ll be important with the hips—more on that in a bit.

Another Helpful Hint—You may have noticed that one side of the shin sits a little higher on the knee cylinder.  That’s not a mistake, so don’t worry about it.  In fact...

Once the shins were done, I attached them to the feet.  Now, that high side of the shin I just mentioned is the front.  It affects how the knee goes together with the thigh.  So I need to make sure the shins line up with the front of the foot, however I decided to assemble it.  All the little tabs got a blob of glue and these got attached.  Again, I held each one in place for a few minutes to make sure they were as solid as possible.

Next up was the thighs and hips.  This is going to be a bit more complicated.  On the hip cylinder, only the outside disc should have any sort of detail work—the inside disc should be bare. On the thigh, the uneven side is the knee (the bottom), and it’s set up just like the shin (the higher side if the front).  So the thigh piece only goes one way, and the hip only goes one way.  Make sure you’ve got everything straight before you start gluing.

Once I had all the parts sorted, I dabbed some glue on the tabs and pushed the hip into place.  As before, I held it in place for a few minutes while it dried.  And then I even poured a little more glue in through the knee-socket, swirled it around inside the thigh, and let that dry, too

Helpful Hint—When you push the hip cylinder into place, turn the seam down so it ends up inside the top of the thigh.  It’ll give the whole assembly a cleaner look.

Yet Another Helpful Hint—When putting these two assemblies together, remember that they’re for two different legs.  When they’re all done, they shouldn’t be identical—they should be mirrors.

Okay, next it’s time to connect the thighs to the knees and finish the legs.  I mentioned last time that I’d shifted the ankles to give myself a more dynamic pose.  Catch is the knight’s hips still need to be more or less even (for balance purposes if nothing else).  After a bit of adjustment, this is what I ended up with.  I held them in place for about ten minutes (this needs to be solid) and then let them dry for another twenty before moving on.

And moving on, at this point, meant attaching the legs to the hip/pelvic section.  It was pretty simple.  I glued and then squeezed for about fifteen minutes this time.  This will be holding most of the model’s weight, so I want it as solid as possible.

Now, with this much assembled, that chicken-leg quality I’d mentioned before is really clear.  The leg armor is going to help bulk this out a lot.  However, in an odd twist, the leg armor for this older Knight design is actually more ornate than the one on the plastic GW model.  So this might need a little bit of work.

Work I will show off next time.