Dreadnaught Rylanor of the Emperor's Children Legion

So, things haven't really calmed down since getting back from Adepticon, but hey...it's been a lot of fun.

I managed to grab an hour or so to sort out the photos of Rylanor, and finally get them up here on the blog. You've seen the teaser pic before, but not these "completed" pics of the beast before painting. Let me begin by thanking the artists who painted nearly two dozen different Pre-Heresy Dreadnaughts for the Horus Heresy card game that were then featured in the Horus Heresy artbooks from Black Library. Each Dread looks a little different, and there are plenty of great styling cues. My second thanks must go to a modeler that goes by the handle of Insaniak. A while back he built a great Pre-Heresy Dreadnaught that he posted on his site and on his DakkaDakka blog.

And so on to Rylanor. There are a lot of parts to this guy and I'm not really sure where to start, but I'll forge ahead anyway. If you have any questions just drop them in a comment.

As you can see from the pics, there are five materials used in the construction. Obviously GW parts, plasticard, Greenstuff, Brownstuff, and cables from Jeff at Dragon Forge Design.

I built the Dreadnaught in four (well five) sections. First the legs, followed by the torso, then the two power fist arms, followed by the autocannon arm.

As you can see from the picture above, I kept most of the leg and torso assembly from a standard Space Marine Dreadnaught. That's because there are a lot of great parts there that could be replicated, but there's no real need. What I did, however, was cut up most of the leg assemblies so that I could lengthen the legs and poses them in a new stance (a long advancing stride). Plasticard rods and tubing were my friends in this case.

The feet were actually scratchbuilt early in the process. I cut out the basic shape, started building up the Brownstuff and Greenstuff, filed the putty down to the final shape, then added the detailing plasticard strips around the edges. Once I had the feet, I could then finalize the position of the legs and the lengths of the pistons etc. When they were all fixed I added the hoses back in using the DF power cables. The final two stages for the legs were a) the shin pads and b) the "waist".

For the shin pads I cut them from panels of plasticard. Originally I was thinking of angular pads, but as I went along I decided to add a curved front to them, adding more bulk and linking better to the Pre-Heresy aesthetic. To add this curve I pressed a lot of putty onto the flat panels and carefully burnished them to create the smooth surface. Oh, and the cod-piece was done the same way.

The "waist" was really just a matter of throwing down a chunk of Greenstuff onto the standard Dreadnaught waist, smoothing it out into a good sized cylinder, then carefully adding the ridges by running the blade end of my sculpting tool around the cylinder. Took a few tries, but I think it looks good once it's done.

The torso was a lot more trial and error. I built the standard Dread torso, then began hacking away all the front panels. I wanted to remove not only the flat panels of the sarcophagus and the panels on each side, but I also needed to cut enough away so that when I re-puttied everthing, I had enough room to do so. Fortunately for me, right in the middle of working on Rylanor, GW released the Venerable Dreadnaught. I was able to use one of the Ven Dread's curved sarcophagii for my version. Once the head and new sarcophagus were in place I started to build up layers of putty. I used Brownstuff almost exclusively for this stage, as I wanted to be able to file the putty as it dried. Brownstuff sets almost rock hard, so can take some pretty vigorous sanding and filing, and it holds a sharp edge.

Here's a shot of the bottom of the torso. I built a small "gut plate" using plasticard, that would cover the extended waist of the Dread. I then bulked it out and gave it a curved surface with Brownstuff and the burnishing end of my sculpting tool.

Here's a close-up of the rear of the legs, where you can see the extensions, the power cables, and the extended waist.

The arms are all based on plasticard tubing, cut at varying lengths and spliced together. I took a lot of cues here from Insaniak's Dreadnaught project (which I urge you to check out). Lots of plasticard cutting, gluing, and a bit of putty work where appropriate.

Its getting quite late, so I'll leave you with a few painted pictures that John Shaffer snapped for me while we were at Adepticon (I didn't have a chance to get my own shots before the show).

I'm quite happy with how he turned out. I hope you like him too.

Cheers

Dave