Ok it's time for part two of the WIP log for the Dark Eldar Revenant Titan commission I've been working on for the last few months. This post should bring us just about up the the present point in the project.
Session 6:
At this point I started to seriously work on the legs. When The model was originally sent to me it was put together in a very strange pose. So first off I had to break them apart and remove the rediculous amount of glue from the joints.
The commissioner had left things open ended as to what kind of pose I could place the model in, so long as it looked cool. This led to a lot of test fitting and some sketches (which I couldn't find). In the fluff a Revenant Titan is supposed to be extremely fast and agile and it uses its jump jets almost continuously to evade return fire. Eventually I settled on a sprinting pose designed to capture the very moment the Titan ignites its jump jets to leap.
To achieve this kind of extreme movement in a static figure requires an understanding of how the human body moves and how to capture movements in static artwork. Boiled down to its simplest concept movement is most dramatically expressed at the very beginning and very end of a motion. So at the beginning of a sprinting leap one leg is at full extension behind the figure and the other is bent at full flexion with its foot planted on the ground about to push it off into the air. This is the pose I decided to achieve.
There were a number of challenges to achieve this look. First off this is a heavy resin model with very narrow limbs, so getting the model to stand while on one foot with the torso bent slightly forwards took a lot of pinning and slight adjustments. The second major issue is the reletive lack of posability of the Revenant kit itself. The Revenant is one of Forgeworld's oldest Titan kits, and it turned out to have a lot less joint mobility than I had expected it to. But eventually I had the pose I wanted.
Now for the details. I Dark Eldar-ified the kneecaps with some greenstuff and a blade and from a Raider. Dark Eldar models have a lot of sharp edges compared to their Craftworlds kin hence the crease in the knee.
The hip armor plate were based visually off of a similar part on the Incubi kit. The base was the Revenant's original shoulder armor with additional layers made from plasticard. This was my first time trying to make such an curved shape on a curved surface, and boy is it a lot harder than doing flat shapes!
The second hip armor piece I made a mistake on and had to fix it with greenstuff. It was a case of moving too fast without test fitting enough.
Session 7:
More detail work on the upper body this session. I used some bits from a Wraithknight kit to alter the shape and size of the shoulder socket. This was to help fix the lack of posability issue with the Revenant Kit due to its age.
I realized after altering the shoulder that I now was too wide for the torso. To make the extended shoulder socket visually fit in with the rest of the torso I widened the chest armor. Thankfully this turned out to be a lot simpler that I had originally thought it would be to do and so it didn't slow down the project.
Here you can see the initial first full mock up of the model in roughly the final pose. There was still a lot left to do, but at least I was able to send some pictures to keep my client happy.
The building was just a stand in for he actual base.
The pose was starting to come along but was still too static for my tastes.
Session 8:
At this point I started working on the Dark Pulsars, basing their look off of the infantry carried Dark Lance. The fluting on the barrel was rather straightforward if time consuming to make and fit right. It is actually surprisingly sturdy and hasn't broken off once! The "muzzle" is part of an Aethersail from the Raider Kit. The "antigravity stabilizers" we're made from Bright Lance barrels with some more Aethersail bits.
From the side you can see that I flipped the arms upside down, just because Ithought it looked better overall. You can also see that I finished extending the chest armor by this point.
Session 9:
There was about a two month gap between sessions 8 and 9, mostly due to my being busy with a lot of National Guard training over the summer (5 weeks). I'm now a certified Basic and Tactical Combatives Instructor though.
After doing a lot of work on the torso and breaking the model apart and reassembling it another two times (perfectionism sucks by the way) I finally had the desired action pose. Now the problem was how unstable and top heavy the model had become. For it to be able to stand it needed a big and heavy base, and it needed something to be leaping off of. After rummaging through my hits box I found the perfect thing, a Shadowsword Super Heavy tank...
Before the nerd rage of the internet strikes me down no, I did not purchase a Shadowsword just to make a base. It was an old chopped up model a friend gave me after he had tried to convert it into a Fellblade unsuccessfully.
As you can see the final pose is EPIC AS @&$#BALLS!!! And it can stand on its own, which is pretty important.
Here is a better angle to see the dynamic movement in all its glory. It is hard to tell from this photos but I converted the Shadowsword's tracks to make it look like the tank is being crushed by the weight of the Titan. Aside from looking cool this helped change the angel of the model so that it is more balanced weight wise,
Here you can see the rearward tilt of the Shadowsword a bit better. It is really important when creating a dynamic figure to ensure that it appears to be moving from every angle of view, hence the rear shot.
The left leg has to be almost entirely cored out and pinned with a copper clotheshanger.
The weapon arms weren't pointed quite the way I wanted them to be so I had to go back and fix them later.
Here you can see the entrance hole from the Dark Pulsar beam that knocked out the Shadowsword. I am not sure whether I want to enlarge it and make it blown out like the exit hole or not.
Here is the exit hole. For anyone who doesn't know the exit wound for any ballistic weapon is always larger than the entry wound as the mass of the struck object is sucked out by the vortex effect of the passage of the round. While a beam weapon would not have the same vortex effect I figured that the guts of the tank would explosively be chucked out of the exit hole anyways. Some artistic liscense is neccessary for visual awesomeness.
Session 10:
Sorry for the dark photos on this one.
The model is very nearly finished at this point and this is the current stage its in at the time of this post. As you can see the left Dark Pulsar is now finished and the right foot has been added. I also am almost finished with the Shadowsword, there is another layer of exploding wreckage in the exit wound too if you zoom in.
The pose is finished now. I had to fill the entire chest cavity with green stuff to ensure that the pose is consistently correct, and this has the added benefit of making it sturdier overall.
Otherwise I filled in a lot of holes and small gaps from pinning the model.
The next post should have the finished model. Unfortunately it won't be done until November or late October at the earliest as I have grad school midterms and a week of National Guard training between now and then.
I hope that you have enjoyed this step by step presentation of the project so far. As always let me know what you think of my work!
