Call me crazy? Wait until you hear the Omnissiah rant!

Update more often is starting to sound like 'paint all my models before getting more'. In other words: crazy ideas that have no place in the hobby ;). Speaking of crazy ideas, I thought it might be fun to write about this mad project while large chunks of it are still rolling of the printer. Rolling? More like slowly sauntering towards completion. Let's get this crazy train rolling (queue Ozzy Osbourne) 

Quick! Start chanting to the Omissiah! Another Warlord is about to walk!!!

As a quick recap, last year in a moment of extreme insanity I printed a Warhound Titan unsing a 3D-printer with a very small print volume (102.4 x 57.6 x 165 mm). It took weeks to print, a weekend to paint, and only seconds for mr. Gravity to destroy it. It still functions as - very - eye catching terrain, so no complaints there. In the meantime I've gotten a second printer with a larger print volume (298 x 164 x 300 mm). I really wanted it because on acquiring my first printer I rather quickly got my hands on STL files for a Warlord titan and a Thunderhawk gunship. My attempts at the Thuderhawk failed rather miserably with the small printer. On seeing the amounts of cuts needed to make the Warlord, I abandoned the project. 

I can't quite get over the amount of detail the rather run of the mill 3D printers I own manage to print. 

Enough background bla, bla. I quite recently re-printed a Warhound titan. This time using the skills I learned (i.e. the mistakes and blunders I collected) printing the first one. It came out looking better and I used about one third of the resin of the first version (and cheaper resin too :D). While assembling the parts I started wondering how much time and effort the Warlord would taken. One thing led to another and before I knew it, I had printed the head. According to the Rules of Madness (stored somewhere off in the webway) I had to continue.

Sometime a stupid link says more than a silly caption. This link seems appropriate here.

Skip ahead a lot of printing and I had feet and legs. I could also send this cheeky picture to a friend who responded to the photo of the heads with 'It doesn't look much bigger, are you sure it's a titan?'

At this point I needed a reference file to check out which bit most likely went where. Also (for those of you wondering) I made the holes in the print files because I hollowed these parts out. The holes allow cleaning fluid on the inside of the print, to take off all uncured resin. That stops the model from leaking paint destroying gunk or exploding at a later point in time. 

Skip ahead a few more days. For those of you wondering, each part need anywhere between 4 and 12 hours to print. The worst offenders so far are the upper legs, but as I'm writing the center part of the right shield generator shoulder is being printed, and it will probably take closer to 13 hours. 

There are these magic moments in model building where a lot of random bits and bobs suddenly start forming an actual model. This was one of those moments. That door is just so cool (and it's also on the modern epic scale Warlord titans by GW). 

I think I've commented a few times on my decided lack of patience. It came to the fore here. I had to see what I was making. So when the final bits of the torso where finished I decided to call the shield generators a separate thing, giving me ample excuse to apply glue (and a jeweler's saw, because a lot of resin calibration helped most things fit, but not all things). 

Knock, kock who's there. Der Kommissar. (I'll never stop spawning superfluous links (and now my commissar has his own theme song).

My devout chanting of canticles to the Omnissiah quickly attracted attention of the local commissariat. I think mr. Power Axe approves of my construction. 

The top arch was actually too large for the build volume of my large printer. I had to cut it in two with software before printing. 

With the torso assembled as far as it would go, I decided to see if I could get the legs in some sort of shape as well. 

Oh dear I've made that stupid ZZ-top joke a bit higher up in this article, didn't I?

I spent a few joyful minutes supergluing toes and armor plates to the feet (and sticking my fingers together for the millionth time (I never knew there was a special ceremony and a prize (more superglue), but I do wonder how the people from the zap-a-gap gained entry to my house (the fumes from glue are healthy, no? (and enough nonsensical twatter))). To be honest, on positioning the legs I had to call my wife for assistance as there was no way I could keep everything in position and apply superglue. 

This thing is silly big. I have no clue where to store it (not on a rickety plank, I've already learned that lesson).

It all worked out so far and (being impatient) I fitted the torso onto the legs without giving the glue enough time to dry. Luckily it all held. It'll be a number of days before I'm done printing the rest of this model. I've decided to focus on printing the entire 'skeleton' first and printing the armor plates when the skeleton stands. There are a lot of armor plates. Many times many. Ah well, all in good fun, it'll give me time to slap fresh paint on 'Phoenix' the Warhound titan in the back. I'll throw up more updates as the resin coagulates. 

On a completely unrelated side note: does anyone have some inspiring links or other references showing interesting takes on Iron Warriors? I dig the silver and the hazard striping, but it all gets very metallic, very fast and I can't seem to find many (any) creative additions to the theme. I'd be much obliged for some inspiration there as I plan on adding some of these cantankerous Space Marines in my collection (check out the metal guy staring at you from between the Warhound's legs for a small preview).