Monster March 4 AT Warlord Titan - Crisis Take 2

So this happened.  I got the repaired panel all set and decided to dry fit it to see how the colors were going to look.  This was the only panel I had cut from the sprue so it was a perfect test piece.

Ugh.  Because I chose to leave the armor panels on the sprue during the build of this titan, I never did a dry fit while gluing and setting the pose.  It hadn't occurred to me that I could set a pose that the armor wouldn't accommodate - I completely forgot this process from the first build last year for my Legio Tempestus warlord. Well, I put things aside and slept on it for 24hrs or so...

In the end, there was nothing to do but break off the ankle armor bits and snap the foot off.  I use Testers liquid model cement and things get fused together very well and don't separate easily, if at all, particularly when there is good coverage like with these ball joints.  I pried a bit to try and separate things, but in the end bits just had to get broke (or cut).  After much cursing and care in equal measure, I ended up with this pose for the foot.  I couldn't effect the hip or knee angle without really getting serious (and likely break more of the leg) and I wanted to avoid wrecking the whole project to fix this single foot posing issue.

At least I now had a jaunty striding pose and simply needed a base to match.  The original pose had the Warlord striding down from a higher elevation to a lower elevation as shown in an older pic below.  This was going to be easy to correct.

The stepping down approach was totally not going to work with the new back foot angle.  So I removed some cork and reconfigured that portion of the base so the rear foot could maintain its angle while the titan's torso would remain level. This is important since a miss balanced titan looks awful to the eye, no matter how well it is painted.

I removed some cork with the x-acto knife, reshaped it a bit then glued it back down along with some additional new bits of cork and gravel mix.  My goal was for the result to look like a high point of land that has given way under the weight of the titan as it strides forward to do great harm to the Emperor's enemies.

Close up to illustrate new terrain angle for left foot

I reused the old cork lifted a bit as shown above to get the right angle to match the repaired left leg. Lots of wood glue and my usual ground cover along with some bits of cork helped fill things out as stated above.

The re-balanced titan now strides across the martian landscape, crushing all beneath its heavy tread. I'm going to paint the Legio Ignatum bases to match my Legio Tempestus titans. The Warlord looks a little off balance in this photo but I think the over all pose is fine.  With the shifting rock under foot, it's actually a good element in the pose.  And in person it doesn't seem unstable at all.

Above, we have a close up of the left leg crushing some rocky outcrop underfoot.  I'm optimistic that this will paint up well and close the loop on my second (and hopefully final) left leg armor crisis for this warlord. I can tell you with confidence that when I build the Warlord-sinister (or any future warlord), I'll stick to a more standard pose to avoid all of this foolishness.  And I'll watch more carefully when I paint the panels!

Check back Friday to see where the paint work gets to.  I've been adding trim to all the armor panels and hope to get back on track tonight and tomorrow night if all goes well.  No more redoing things for this project, I promise.  I hope this article gives hope to others when things don't go according to plan.  I find it very helpful to take a deep breath, remind myself that I'm in this for the hobby, then breathe out and get back to work hobbying.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!