As a side note, don't read Titanicus, it'll make you want to buy more Titans (friendly FYI).
In early December I saw that there was an Armorcast Reaver Titan on the fabled Ebay for a low price (under $300.00) and somehow managed to hit the "Buy Now" button. After an initial few weeks of holding off to finish off some commissions, I started up on the Titan's base before mustering up the courage to work on the model itself. After a few months of work and tedious edge highlighting (seriously) I have finally finished off painting the Reaver Titan!
Pictures!
I essentially wanted this project to look like an Epic 40k Titan jumped out of the book and started its' walk on the table. The colors closely mimicked the style and designs of the old Legio Metalica models from the Epic books. I looked online for some inspiration and I found a bit of information on the Bell of Lost Souls (BoLS) page, including the awesome Legio specific banners that I printed out and used on the model. Essentially I wanted the model to look like it was an up-sized version of the older Epic 40k model (hence zero weathering). I never added the top banner (I may later on?) as I was a little bit nervous about how the banner would look on the model.
The primary weapons are Turbo Lasers (3 Str D shots! Take that heretics!) that were converted with some plastic card tubes and strips to look like a hybrid of the Armorcast version and the Forge World version. The weapons were originally Flamethrowers, which while pretty awesome- are no Turbo Lasers (I also did not want to hunt on ebay for one endlessly or pay 150 dollars for the two weapons).
There is relatively little freehand on the Reaver itself. I did the big hazard bands in keeping with the Legio Metalica theme and some minor changes to the Imperial Knight Transfer sheet to make it match the Legio scheme (made the Eage/ Skull match a little bit more). I'm particularly happy with how the Princeps rank came out, with the Skull/ lighting icon. Overall I wanted to keep free hand and the transfers themselves somewhat minimal on the Reaver to be in keeping with the Epic 40k theme and a strong contrast to the base.
Speaking of the base... I wanted to do something similar to what I had done with my Knight-Titan Paladin as the Armorcast version of the Reaver is about four inches shorter than the Forge World version. A bigger base would help to prop up the Titan and make it look even bigger/ put an otherwise cartoony model into a battlefield setting.
This is the base I completed for the Knight-Titan. I drew inspiration from the prayer book section in the Infantrymen's Primer and I really liked the way it came out when compared to my Knight-Titan.
The base was inspired by several John Blanche battle scenes that he had completed for Epic 40k and were included in several White Dwarf battle reports. I really liked the idea of this Reaver moving over ruins that were dedicated to a previous hard fought victory and I decided on Orks as the Legio Metalica/ House Raven have a history of squaring off against Orks. I included a couple of little jokes on the Ork side (The stompa has a top hat/ monocle/ the warboss has his power klaw in the air in his battle wagon). The base was tough to finish and make look a bit muted (so it did not stand out/ over power the Reaver itself), but I'm very happy with the results.
Size Comparison:
I'm unsure of my next project at the moment (more guard, Mechanicus, Mechanicum?!) but I'll post up some more ideas/ general progress in a few days.
Thank you all for your time,
-Skip
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