Horus Heresy - Shattered Legion WIP #2

I hate Contemptor class Dreadnoughts. Or more precisely I hate building them. Somehow I always manage to screw up the build at the glue-together stage. So instead of having a cool 'powerful' pose, they end up looking like dancing jezebels or like they have something large rammed up their rectum.

If you hadn't guessed (the picture is a bit of a give away isn't it,) I've been building a Contemptor this week, and despite my best efforts the pose came out terrible once I started to apply glue to the model. Typical.

So how does one go about breaking the infuriatingly strong bond that superglue seems to have on resin? Acetone apparently works, but can potentially melt resin. Hmm... Freezing weakens the bonds as well allegedly. I thought I'd be trying out one of these methods this week, but as it turns out brute force and ignorance does a reasonable job as well.

I suspect my inability to successfully pose a Contemptor probably comes down to insufficient cleaning off of mould release, as the blu tack has nothing to grip on to when building. Likewise it probably ensured that the bond was quite weak and therefore allowed me to utilise said brute force in breaking things apart.

So, lesson #1, clean your models properly!

Being that a lot of the contact points are very smooth as well I decided to give them all a bit of a file to give the blu tack (and later super glue) something to grip on to. At the same time once I had positioned everything I made sure to drill and place a pin to ensure that when I glued everything for the second time it would be where I wanted it to be, providing a bit of stability that simple tack would not do.



Various examples of the pin placement

So, lesson #2, pin everything to get the right pose and ensure stability during the build process.

I also decided to magnetise the arms, again to give me options moving forward in the future. I used a large drill bit and 4mm x 1mm magnets for this.

Magnetising the arms

So there we have it, one almost built Salamanders Contemptor.

Salamander Contemptor WIP #1

Also we have the finished troops for the Tactical Squad. Obviously they'll need backpacks and bolters attached, but this will be done post painting.



Tactical Legionnaires #1

Tactical Legionnaires #2

Edit: As per Grizz's request:

Iron Hand Legionnaire with Cable Face.