Warbringer Nemesis #6 - Leg Daze

When building a multipart model kit it is best to do some test poses with it before you start building to make sure your intended pose works right. 

I have no the hell idea how to do this with something like a titan.  It has so many pieces and many of them are heavy.  You can use sticky putty, but to deal with something as big and heavy as a titan you need to use enough of it that its volume interferes with your sense of how a final pose will look.  A few millimeters of putty here and there can really throw off your visual test run when compared to the final product.  Additionally, the putty is not really strong enough to hold the weight of a titan even when generously applied.

The upshot of all this is that you need to do some dry fitting, but a lot of posing is a matter of eyeballing smaller parts of the assembly section by section. 

That is how I built up the legs of #168.

The pictures above are not in the best layout, but they show roughly how I started building the feet into the legs.

My first step was to score the ball joint on the calf/ankle piece and the well in the foot so that my bonding epoxy would have a better surface to grip to.  You can score pieces with a hobby knife or a scribing tool.  It will wear out the blade on a hobby knife pretty fast though.

If your surface is too smooth, then it is possible for an impact to create a clean separation between the glue and the piece it is adhered to.   

There are design reasons, namely multiple points of distributed contact, why this is not as much of a problem in the finished Warbringer design.  But I am not taking any chances.  Also while I am building and painting it, it will probable only be attached by the main ankle joint.

Once that was done I mixed up some JB Weld, applied it to the ball joint (the ball, not the well) and put it in place at roughly the angle I wanted.

This was tricky because it is hard to gauge the exact angle that will work best for the finished titan and because JB Weld takes a long time to set.  I would say in my experience the better part of 8 hours.

I did a few things to help me achieve what I was going for here.

First, I dry fit the pistons into the leg armor.

Oh... shoot.  This reminds there was a whole other step in here.  I had to glue the piston covers on the armor.  Which covered up the etched part notifications as to which piece of armor was for which leg and where on that leg it was intended to go.  So I scribed "RF" for Right Front and so forth for each armor piece so I would not mix them up later.

I did this on the back of each piece so that when they are glued on the marks will not be visible.

The pistons themselves are part agnostic, so I just shoved them in.

Then I gently laid them on the assembly to make sure I was not gluing at angle which would render me incapable of attaching these pieces later on.  A real challenge with any titan larger than a Warhound at any scale.  I swear the toe piston armor pieces on this, Reavers, and Warlords just exist to ruin the most dynamic poses.  This part of the assembly makes me miss the hell out of T'au suit ankles.  Oh Ta'Unar... how I remember the simplicity of glueing your foot on.
 
This also sort of supported the ankle piece during its long drying time.  But not very well.  Because I was gluing at an angle where the calf was leaning back and inward, I was able to prop my handy Citadel Mouldline Remover up  against the piece to stabilize it and make sure it did slide further back than I wanted.

When that finally set I glued the pistons into place with Gorilla Epoxy.  This stuff is significantly weaker than JB Weld, but notably stronger than super glue.  It also sets much faster than JB Weld, at an advertised five minutes. (Although I find it often takes just a bit longer than that to be strong enough to safely handle).

This makes it perfect for gluing pieces that are not going to bear a lot of weight necessarily, but which require a little bit more setting time than super glue to position properly.

Also, if you overdo it you can clean off excess with a toothpick for a few hours application.

Just be sure to properly mix this stuff.  It can be hard to get a good 50/50 mix out the syringe type applicator.  I usually dispense it onto the top of a surplus plastic condiment cup and mix it with a popsicle stick or a bamboo party fork.  Then I will apply it with said stick or fork, and use a toothpick when I need more fine application control.
 
When that was finished I pinned the foot to the ankle with 1/4" brass rod.  You want to use brass here because it is not magnetic, does not corrode, and can actually be cut with wire cutters without breaking your hands and sending steel missiles hurtling across your living room.

I mention all those things because I used to pin with steel rod for the strength, but it is totally overkill and causes problems with each of those things.

Sometimes I use 1/4" rod and sometimes I use 1/8" rod, depending on how big a piece is and how much strength I need.  Generally I will use the 1/4" rod whenever I can physically drill that size of hole without messing up the model. 

I used to drill pinning holes before I glued pieces, but I have found that then I was sort of locked into a position that was based more on how well I drilled holes than how I actually wanted my model to be posed.

The method I use now, which I believe I based on a Forgeworld guide somewhere (possibly the working with resin pamphlet that comes in Forgeworld kits), is that I glue pieces first.  Then, once the glue is set, I drill a hole through those pieces in as much of an angle as I can get without marring any surface detail.

You want to either pick a totally flat panel to do this or a surface that is eventually going to be covered up another piece glued on top of it.  If neither of these is available then just choose the least obtrusive and visible spot on the final model.

I drill holes with either a pinning vise or a battery operated power drill, depending on what I am working on.  The pinning vise is usually preferable because it offers more control and avoids heating up resin.  If you start to screw something up with a pinning vise you can stop very quickly because chances are you were already going fairly slow.  This mitigates damage.
 
Sometimes, though, you need to drill a fairly long hole through big, solid resin pieces.  For example, when you are building a Titan.  And a pinning vice just feels like torture for this kind of work. 

I did use a power drill for the pins on the legs. I had to be very careful when I did so, using a variable speed drill on fairly low speed (it was a manual trigger pull) and removing the bit from the resin frequently to pull resin shavings from it and to prevent the resin from overheating due to the friction from the bit.  Otherwise you can get the bit stuck in the resin.  Sometimes they come out after that.  Sometimes. 

I know I usually like to link to the tools I am using, but I cannot do so for either the pinning vise or the power drill.  I have many pinning vices, and they are at least 6 years old.  Many of them are more than a decade old.  So... you know... you can probably find something better now.  And what I have probably is not on the market anymore.

My power drill I actually bought fairly recently, but I bought in *gasp* a real physical store.  I was at Home Depot and we bought it for home repair kind of jobs, not as a hobby tool.  It was only later that I discovered its applicability for this work.

The only reason I bought this particular drill was because it was the second cheapest drill Home Depot had, and they could not find an undamaged box of their cheapest drill in store.  My spouse was very displeased with that.  I know it is a Ryobi, and that is about it.

Anyway, I usually use a bit that is just slightly larger than the rod I intend to use in order to drill the hole so that I can insert a cut rod to full depth when it is covered in super glue.  Which also covers my next stage in the process.  I use either gorilla glue cyanoacrylate or Bob Smith Industries Maxi-Cure for this.  Honestly, I recommend the latter.  Not that there is anything wrong with the gorilla glue.  Just, man.. that Maxi-Cure is really good.


After that I will cover the hole in green stuff.  Wait for that to set.  Then sand it flush with the resin.

I repeat this process as I move up the leg.  Using epoxy to set the knee joint, then pinning it.  I follow this with the thigh piece and the hip.  For the connections between the knee and the calf, and the thigh and the knee I do not need to cover up my pins with green stuff because when I glue the following piece in the sequence it covers up my pinning hole.



Where possible, I use my Irwin quick grips to put pressure on the epoxy bond as it sets in order to strengthen it.

I also dry fit the armor pieces on as I move up section by section to make sure that the pose I am getting with the superstructure still looks good fully armored.  The contours and lines of the armor versus the superstructure are sometimes different enough that what looks good for the "skeleton" does not work for the final armored piece.  It can be subtle, but noticeable enough to drive you nuts.

There is a picture of the completed right leg, next to some Imperial Knights from House Chesapeake and a little Death Guard assault marine for scale.