Project: Chaos Knight of Blood Part 1

So I'm embarking on a big project. Well okay, another big project. This is a little different then my normal 'big projects' like the Epyon project for instance, which I need to get back to now that I think about it. Anyway, this project is for my Chaos Space Marine forces, I want to add something big to it. Like Lord of Skulls big, 'cept I hate the Lord of Skulls model. I really want a Knight titan, but I don't want to deal with the allies chart. I want something that I can have right next to my regular Chaos Marines and I don't have to worry about both of them standing around for a turn. So what's a converter to do? Oh right, he converts. In all honestly, my interest in under taking this project was truly sparked when I saw Virtual Strangers scratch built paper hammer Knight Titan over on In The Grim Cheapness. He did a really outstanding job on it and it's inspired me to add something on that scale to my own army.
 
So short version, I'm going to convert a Knight Titan into a Counts-as Lord of Skulls. This is a bit more involved then my normal projects so I really need to start out by getting some kind of visual approach down on paper for it. One thing I knew I wanted to do with was I wanted to have it's leg crushing down on something, something is normally fearsome and dangerous. A Carnifex seems to fit that bill. I also wanted the finished model to have the same number of weapons as the Lord of Skulls. This was a little tricky since the Knight titan has 2 big weapons while the Lord of Skulls has 3. I also knew I wanted to have this model mounted on one of the Goth Tech bases from Dragon Forge designs, so that it would fit the base themes with the rest of my army.

So the first thing I needed to do was to put some digital pen to paper and get a better idea of what I was going to do. With a $115 for the basic kit before I get anything else this would be an expensive project to have an "Oh, that won't work that way" result come up. So went to the Games Workshop website and grabbed a couple images of the Knight Titan and the Carnifex and dropped them into Photoshop. After a little tinkering and moving around, I came up with this:

So I'm going to convert 2 weapon arms, one will be the Hades Gatling cannon while the other will be the Gorestorm cannon. Mounting a Chain Saber under each gun will allow the pair of them to count as the Great Cleaver of Khorne. The other thing I want to do is I want to wire up some lights in this thing so it's eyes will glow red. But there's a sub-point to that statement: I want the eyes to glow, but I don't want them to have lights in them. There is a difference though it is a subtle difference. I don't want to have a pair of LEDs sitting behind the mask putting the light out. I want to have the light glowing from back in the head. So to accomplish this I'm going to pass segments of fiber optics up into the back of the head. I'm hoping this will allow the light be brought up to the head, but disperse in the eye sockets giving it a more sinister look. Now powering an LED requires... well power. Which in this case means a battery. So I will need to add a spacer of some form to the bottom of the base to provide space for the battery pack and switch.

Stay tunes for updates.

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revamping the StormTater... er StormTalon

Okay so I've been experimenting with the Storm Talon in my army lately. I still hate the model but it's performance has been really good, too good to ignore so I'm going to build a squadron of three of these birdies. But I hate the model. So what am I going to do? What any sensible converter would do: Re-make it!

Here's why I'm posting. Feed back and suggestions for where and how to go about accomplishing this. I'm leaning toward something more like a cross between the Apache helocopter and the Banshee Bomber from StarCraft II.

Visual references for those who do not know what I am talking about:

Banshee Bomber from StarCraft 2

So, those are the two craft I like parts and pieces of and want to draw from to craft a new version of the Storm Talon. So I went into Photoshop and started working on it. I began with the Banshee, thinking I could take the paper-craft models I've seen around the net and modify them as needed.

Version 1 for a revamped Storm Talon

So I extended the tail rotor, and added the Talon's engines. It's an OK start but I feel like I'm loosing too much of the Space Marine in this approach.

So I started working with the Talon itself:

Version 2 for a revamped Storm Talon

 And did the first obvious thing: Extended the tail. Okay that helps a fair amount, but there's still more to accomplish with it. So I continued working and came up with what I'm calling Version 2.1:

Version 2.1

 I like the smaller assault cannon and pairing it with some sort of scanner array, I think I can get away with calling it Twin-linked. But this didn't work for me. So I went to the Apache for reference and started looking at a couple things.

Version 2.2

Which gives rise to Version 2.2. Still keeping the smaller assault cannon but and mounting it more or less where the huge clucky Twin-linked one was. I'm going to build a better mount for it, one that will allow the entire weapon to rotate and elevate more like what's on the Apache. I want to build the nose so it has the 2-axis rotational sensor array in it like the apache but I wasn't sure how to accomplish that with the drawings. Definitely getting closer to that "attack chopper" feet with it but still not there so I went back to Photoshop and continued working on it.

Version 2.3

I fixed the tail so it wasn't so massively huge and re-designed the nose to accommodate a different style of sensor array. I added the landing skids but I'm not sold on them. I could also just have the skids in a retracted fashion, like the mounting arms retract up into the main body when the Talon's in flight.

But that's roughly where I am now with my design work on it. Thoughts? Post 'em in the comment.

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