Fully Articulated Scratchbuilt Titans, Lucius Pattern Warhound and Warlord

I'm torn between offering this project as a WIP or as a "How to" article. Lucie is fully completed now and has been for the better part of a year. There are a few things I intend to add such as a full set of alternate weapons and a display base but the model itself is complete. I suppose the best thing is to show Lucie (Short for Lucius Pattern) as she is right now and get suggestions on how to proceed in the building dissertation.

Lucie took about a year and a half to build and no, I had no plans or templates so please don't ask for them I did everything by eye taking what information I could gather from images I found on the internet.

She has a very crude internal structure of foam filled posterboard and the main hull, head, and carapace is sheet styrene over that material. The legs are primarily PVC tubing with 5/8 inch dowels for the knee and ankle joints. They are fully movable and pose-able as are the toes, waist, neck and armament stanchions.

Enough said,

Here's Lucie:


The direction Mark's Gryphon logo faces always bothered me so I reversed mine to face left purely for asthetics mind you lest my political affiliation be misconstrued.




All well and good Blackadder you talk about fully pose-able but you give half a dozen images of all the same pose. Tsk, tsk,

Nice... looks good.. Plus I love how good it looks when you talk about what its made of.. dang then it is very good.

I tried a different approach this time as I think the titan will be too top heavy if I make it all from plastic and resin. I began with a basic hull shape as thats what I was most sure of as far as scale. I had put about a week of evenings into this so far and I was about to start on the head.

I used foam filled poster board 5mm and 13mm thick which works very well and will give the upper body lightness I needed for stability. The body will be covered with sheet styrene after I got all the proportions right.

I'm thinking 3/4" pine square stock for the leg segments and dowels for the round joints but that may be too massive when covered with styrene.

Anyway here the rough hull and carapace prototype for refining the measurements.

No responses to my rather tawdry effort thus far given the mediocrity of the images. I put a few hours in the next week resulting in this.

The hull and carapace required a lot more shaping and refining before the styrene was applied. Initially I was just using the foam hull as a mock up just to get the proportions and overall shape right but decided to jut go with it as the core for the finished model and not do the same work twice.

Blackadder

Here are my first effort on making the legs:


They are way too small and delicate but are fully articulated. Getting the mechanics down for full moveability was the primary purpose for building these prototypes and nothing is wasted as I used them as the core for the full sized legs later on.

Believe it or not I built the entire Warhound by eye. The only measurement was that which was provided by FW; that the model stands 10.5 inches tall. Lucie's average height is that 10.5 inches but she can crouch to 9.0 inches and stands 12.25 inches with her legs fully stretched. The hydraulic cylinders limit that height so with them installed she can only stand 11.5 inches tall which is just as well as she looks rather ridiculous in that pose.


http://i.imgur.com/cdjlG


http://i.imgur.com/VlSc7


http://i.imgur.com/0uUh5
Lucie employs wood dowels and PVC tubing for her major leg joints.


http://i.imgur.com/tSPBN
The dowels have to be tapped in with a small mallet and provide enough friction for her to hold any pose I position her in.


http://i.imgur.com/fIaL0
The hydraulic cylinders employ straight pins for the axles and thanks to the telescoping tubing from 'Evergreen' the pistons and cylinders are fully movable.


http://i.imgur.com/6mweF

Incidentally since these images were taken I shortened the middle segment of each toe as the toes appeared to be too long. I also replaced the toe joint cylinders with smaller diameter tubing.

The weapons sizes were purely guestimation on my part and only by a stroke of luck were they in the ballpark as far as compatible size.

]The waist cylinders are done and temporarily mounted. Except for the detail they are complete. The model has become too heavy to stand on it's own without suspension wires. Once the joints are glued I'm hoping it will and still be poseable. It's taken quite a beating in the past few days with assembling and disasembling to fit parts and I managed to break a few toes. Nothing serious and I'll be reworking the toes anyhow.



So here's the project as it stands at this moment and my appreciation to all for the support as I might have given up without your huzzahs.

I did a little 'Photoshopping' (Actually I use Photo Impact Pro #10 which I think is a better program than Photoshop.) since I've completed most of the detail on the head.



I still have the armor on the top of the head to do and the windows and windowframing replete with rivets need to be added after painting.

So I copied and pasted one of my images of a real Warhound head onto my recent image. I was greatly pleased and surprised how well it came out and would like to share it with all of you who have been so instrumental in keeping me on target in finishing this thing.

EB

I needed some 0.25mm material anyway so I did buy the plasticard clear styrene sheets. 'Way too expensive for the square inch of clear glass I'll need for the windows but I have other uses for it on this and other planned projects. Now I will experiment with india ink or a fine dusting of spray paint to achieve a grey tinge to the 'glass'.

I've come up with what I think will be ideal 'parking' lights and 'turnsignal' lights. After haunting the local craft shops looking for a cheap pack of assorted 1mm rhinestones I hit on the idea of the colored 'Non-pareils' sugar beads you sprinkle on ice cream and Christmas cookies. They come in assorted colors and vary in size from 1.0 to 1.5mm. They're hard as stone and virtually indestructible especially housed in the drilled recesses in the grill. I'm hoping that I can make the headlights out of Cyano acetate glue dots which should give me a slightly domed headlight shape.

I can see the WD news now. Scratchbuilt Warhound attacked by ants; film at eleven.

Blackadder

other assorted lights will be coming after I apply the paint.


I've got no idea what these massive tubes are for on the underside of the head but they are on the FW model but almost never seen by anyone but the fortunate few who own one.



The first bit of colour applied in the cooling compartment recess. I regret I didn't go for building interior detail but it's too late for that now, bugger!

I found some 1/2 inch springs 1 inch tall and set about modifying the disc stabilizing system to accept them. I have to admit it works rather well.

http://i.imgur.com/5948k.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/jXNRj.jpg

Not too much to show for this mornings work; the reinforcements for the diagonal stabilizers are installed and the second front toe mount hinge is drying. The stabilizers do not appear to interfere with the toe movement and they appear a close fit to the mounted disc, about a millimeter clearance. I should be starting on the shank of the leg this weekend if the holiday doesn't interfere too much.

http://i.imgur.com/7O5mp.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/brFeG.jpg

With the paranoia of machine shop precision I managed to drill and tap two perfect (with apologies to Werner Heisenberg) holes with a 10-32 tap for my axle shafts. Tack glue them in place and set aside to dry and for photos.

http://i.imgur.com/kGPog.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/eqVE9.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/v42fz.jpg

I pulled a virtual all nighter and managed to apply a bit of colour (gray is a colour) to the mechanical interior of the foot before final assembly. once the rear toe compartment is glued on it will require micro surgery to access the stabilizer components. I did a lot of reinforcing before I sealed it up. Its a good thing I took pictures because painted gray not much of the mechanics is visible.

http://i.imgur.com/7ez94.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/7W8iG.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/jYBJE.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/NzKR9.jpg

I cut the lower leg panels today, four rectangular pieces 8 inches by 3.5 inches nothing to show really but for dessert I installed some of the detail on the feet which has to be in place to check the clearance the when I bolt the lower knuckle to the foot.

I also got an idea for making the diagonal more flexible, note the right foot the diagonal toes may rotate in place to work with the front toes refer to the third image.

http://i.imgur.com/nu1GC.jpg



http://i.imgur.com/UqVgS.jpg



http://i.imgur.com/dAtnN.jpg

She's got legs, Er lower legs, Er well plastic rectangles and she knows how to move them, Er well you gotta move them for her.

Hmm sounds like my ex-wife.

Anyhow the pivots seem adequate and should easily support ten lbs each.
http://i.imgur.com/9BEx0.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/sDgm1.jpg

Patience, one must learn to savor the moment. Assembling these lower legs, as basic a structure as they are, teaches us how to build in strength with a minimum of material. I have assembled a box beam structure out of thin plastic and glue that can easily sustain for years if needs be a weight of 50 lbs or more. The ankle to leg joint likewise. There will be no need for buttresses as in the DS model (A problem he acknowledged in his sparse construction text.) except for decorative purposes plus the leg is moveable.

To quote the old carpenter's maxim, "Measure twice cut once." or the old Italian carpenter's lament, "Sunnva bitcha I cutta thisa two times and it'sa still too short!"

http://i.imgur.com/jZu28.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/jpEPm.jpg

excellent work!

btw, in german swabian dialect it's "scho zweumol abg'sägt und imm'r noch z'korz"

None of the translators I have can translate Swabian.

You know after I installed those slides I had an epiphany, What if I cut cogs in the slides and used a toothed gear to actuate the semicircle, how would that be? I'll have to redesign the slides a bit but it would make perfect sense to have that as the mechanism.

Meanwhile todays run not as much as I had hoped for but I had to repair the porch.
http://i.imgur.com/iWhNq.jpg


Stepping out

http://i.imgur.com/NfcAf.jpg


You'll have to imagine the rest but the picture height isn't as high as the shoulder mounted lascannons

I wasn't going to post this until I rectified the problem but then I thought, "Hey this is a good thing to demonstrate that even the Blackadder isn't infallible and has to go back to the drawing board now and again."

Seems I made the shanks too long by about an inch. measuring for the upper leg somehow the proportions just didn't look right so I remeasured and sure enough I managed to add an extra inch to the overall height.

So what's an inch you may say but to me it will change the look of the finished model from a hulking looming menace to a spindle shanked travesty ergo I shall be cutting the lower legs in half and removing the offending inch but not yet as I may have to do other things as well so might as well do all at once.


http://i.imgur.com/ZuPeb.jpg

This looks great so far! The design of the walking pylons is really close to the EPIC model and fantastic detailed.

I especially like, that all the parts are movable. It gives many options for a dynamic and realistic position on the base.

Okay Ladies and Germs, this is what separates the Blackadder from relatively sane individuals. To borrow a phrase from another Charlton Heston movie, "The Agony and the Ecstasy"; The wine is sour, so throw it out!

I'm not happy with the look. The legs are too thin. So I'm bringing out my second biggest Xacto blade and rending judgment on inferior work.

http://i.imgur.com/JzlII.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/BbjB1.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/NOnMO.jpg

BAAAAM! yay!

I spent the entire weekend revamping the lower legs making them wider and a half inch shorter. I cut down the radius of the hip and decreased the front to back measurement of the upper legs and and sheathed the whole all the while remodeling the bath which somehow takes precedence?

http://i.imgur.com/ZgFwu.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/m78Af.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/lhla6.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/0xoyh.jpg

You know I gotta ask: Will it have a kung-[Warning No Swearing] grip?

Edit: Wow, that's almost racist, autocensor.

Not SO insane. More like practical. It's not like you used gunpowder to model blast marks on your vehicles, like one individual I know...

Well I did have to cut the upper legs down again another 4MM all around. I installed the skin (AGAIN) and am working on the detail.

I made a couple of jigs to facilitate the assembly first a cutting jig so the zipper-like trim is homogeneous and equally spaced.

And a small aligning jig so the truncated pieces are aligned with their opposite number.

DS has 9 sets up the back of the leg but I got ten with approximately the same spacing so either his are larger or his legs are shorter or he isn't as anal about the spacing.



http://i.imgur.com/TxC3n.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/VS9QD.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/OXFmS.jpg

Cutting jig

http://i.imgur.com/F0DbE.jpg

Aligning jig