Iron Spartan revealed!
It's been a while since my last post and I suspect everyone thought I'd fallen down a hole. The truth is that I had fallen into a hole of sorts. Despite being busier than ever creatively, I either wasn't able or motivated to share what I was working on.
I decided that the Titan Owner's Club walk 2025 at the end of October would be my target to finish up some projects and start blogging again. And so dear reader, I present to you my (almost) finished Warlord Titan Iron Spartan!
You'll immediately notice that Iron Spartan sports several unique upgrades from the standard Warlord Titan kit, such as the arms, tilt shield replacements, head etc. I'll go through the build and painting process in my usual exhaustive* (*or exhausting) style, but I also wanted to mention that all of my engines have had a glow up to resolve some older niggles, repair damage and make some minor upgrades. I'll talk about these in a later post along with some exciting images from the Titan Owner's Club Walk 2025.
Initial Build
I must admit that opening those two large Forgeworld boxes was equal parts exciting and daunting. The sheer size and number of parts in the kit is pretty scary! I certainly wouldn't recommend a Warlord titan as your first resin kit build - it sits very firmly in the 'expert' category of kit based model makers!
This is the main kit with the mould gates removed and the parts sorted into two sub-assembly collections: body and legs. And speaking of mould gates...
...this bag is just mould gate garbage!! To put this into perspective, the gates alone weigh as much as a warhound titan!
The rest of the build was kind of uneventful, merely time consuming as the physical size of the kit means that reinforcing the joins is a must. I used a fair amount of JB Weld two part epoxy (24 hour cure) glue - you'll see in the pictures below that I used it to fill some gaps and spread it around the inside of the hollow body for some additional strength.
It was possibly overkill, but given that I was planning to scratch build both arms and wasn't sure about the final weight, I added screws through the shoulders and into the body as well as gluing them in place. Those shoulder are never coming off!
With the main body secure, I made sure that the shoulder braces (which hold the carapace plates and weapons) fit properly and then sanded down two Reaver Titan Apocalypse Missile Launcher stems to fit the slightly tighter socket on the Warlord. I wasn't a huge fan of the vertical versions and I already had a painted Reaver apoc that I wasn't using anymore due to a refit (more on this in a later post).
As you can see, the Reaver apocs fit very nicely once the posts have been sanded down. I also drilled and added some 20mm diameter magnets to hold them firmly in place.
The head
If you've visited my blog before to see my Imperator build logs, you will probably have noticed the head of Iron Spartan which I sculpted as a sort of prototype for Ira Metallum's gigantic noggin.
The base miniature was a Warhammer World exclusive Mars beta head which I extensively converted to resemble a MKII metal warlord titan from the 90's.
Despite having completed the sculpting a few years ago, I just wasn't 100% happy with the face as it had some asymmetry around the cheek bones and brow as well as really boggley looking eyes.
To bring Iron Spartan in line with my other engines, I decided that he needed green glass lenses and set to re-sculpting the eyes and fixing the facial feature issues at the same time.
These cosmetic changes may seem small, but they made a big difference to the overall model as his face was drawing the eye again.
Shoulder panels
From the beginning I knew I'd be replacing my Warlord's tilt shields with additional armour panels which fill in the insert space where the shields are normally located - the same as the Adeptus Mechanicus scale version never released in 28mm.
I much prefer this look as it makes the carapace a lot rounder and more like the original MKI 'beetleback' Warlords.
In order to make the inserts consistent with the rest of the miniature and get the curve right, I started by making a press mould of the underside of the shoulder plates and casting them in resin so I had something to build onto and act as a profile guide.
Press moulds are great for a quick and dirty copy of flat details like this, but be wary of warping. I would normally make a silicon mould, but as this was just a one-off and could be cleaned up later, I opted for the press mould as blue stuff (a thermo-plastic which becomes pliable in boiling water) is reusable and silicone is expensive!
With a fair amount of cleanup, sanding and reshaping, I was happy with both the angle and length of the plate bottom so glued it in place on each of the front shoulder panels.
It's also worth noting that I clipped off the shield nub and sanded the little locator arm flush with where the back of the new plate filler would need to go as it would act as a handy brace for the plate back.
The next step would be to create the curved rear plate. Anyone who has ever tried to sculpt compound curves by hand will know that they are a massive pain, so I tried to make the process as easy as possible using some scraps of my secret weapon - Worbla. It's another useful thermo-plastic which (prepare to be shocked) becomes pliable when heated and can be re-used. I gently heated the Worbla and used it to map out the size of the rear panel. Using paper or a flat piece of styrene would have worked, but I wouldn't have captured the extra millimetres needed to accommodate the curvature.
This meant that when pressed flat and used as a template, my styrene back plate would be the perfect size.
Black styrene was the best choice here as I find it to be slightly softer and less brittle than its white counterpart, meaning that I could gently heat bend the part to fit but retain its strength once it cooled.
Next I packed the gap with tinfoil to speed up the sculpting (and use less epoxy putty) then sculpted over this with a mix of Milliput and greenstuff. The majority of this was done with gloves so I could smooth the surface and not leave fingerprints. I used minimal tools here to avoid any deep marks in the surface.
The sheen on the surface is Vaseline which helps create a smooth finish
During this step, I also took off the circular cut-out at the corner of the plates. I could have done this at the start, but I wanted to see if I preferred it with a sharp corner. I didn't.
I deliberately finished the first plate before starting the second so that I could use the first as a guide for symmetry.
Once both plates had fully cured, I sanded them to a nice smooth finish. I then added more putty over any dents in the surface, using a ball stylus to gently blend it into the surface. I then repeated the sanding and when I was happy with the finish started the process of adding trim to the plates.
A good tip for making the trim corner cut-outs consistent is to use an empty ballpoint pen case as a punch - it's the perfect size! Once the trim had cured, I sanded them evenly and filled any imperfections with more putty. After the final cure, I added 1mm ball bearings for the rivets - this involves drilling a little guide hole then using a magnet attached to a knife blade to pick up a single bearing, dip it in superglue and apply to the tiny hole. Once all of the rivets have been added, I paint matt mod-podge over the whole plate to seal it and stop the bearings from coming away.
Stay tuned for part II where I'll go through the rest of the build, decorative chain links, arms and painting!