Knight Titan Ankle Joints

My last post concerned repositioning of the Knight titan’s knees and uncovered an issue with his ankles as well.    The issue was that the knees on the model are static, and so are the ankles, so when you reposition one, you naturally need to reposition the other (and, to some degree, that’s also true with the hips).  I had no idea that this would be turning into a major conversion project, but I’d already started down the road and figured I might as well keep following it.

I won’t lie though–I did consider just putting the legs back together the way they were originally, but then I was out the $18 on the jeweler’s saw for nothing.

After sulking for a bit, I was back to scouring the internet for answers, which lead me to Adam B’s article at The Dice Abide.  His solution was quite simple: replace the ankle joints with beads of the right size (12mm apparently).  So, I was off to the local superstore and picked up some beads in the craft section for $.98, trying my best to eyeball their size (they didn’t have any measurements on the bag, but they looked about right when I lined them up on the ruler in the fabric section).

When I got home though, I quickly learned that the beads sold at Walmart are made out of unobtanium–or some other insanely dense material.  I took my 10k Dremel to them and managed to cut a faint line in the bead.

Well, cutting is not technically accurate.  It would be more appropriate to say that I melted a line into the bead.  Both the blade and the bead were glowing red, and the air started to fill with noxious gas.  Given some of my hobby experiences like this, I’m fairly certain that I’ve shaved a few years off of my life.  Between toxic smells and resin dust, I’m likely going to die well before I finish painting my armies.

I should mention that I do try to wear proper protective gear whenever I can: eye protection, masks, etc.  I just didn’t bother to wear a mask when cutting a bead because, c’mon, is it really necessary?

The answer is probably “yes.”

Anywho, with the bead not working, I had to come up with another solution.  The answer was to simply make a press mold of the bead and use that to shape green stuff to replace it.  I have a few sticks of the blue re-usable molding compound and it really works like a charm.  After heating it up and setting two beads in it to harden, I broke out the green stuff and filled it up.

Once that dried, I cut that down and sanded it off to act as the ankles.  It took a little bit of trial and error, but I think they look relatively accurate enough.  When doing it, I wasn’t following any specific guide, so the feet don’t sit perfectly level for either knight, but I’m planning on fixing that by giving him some unlevel basing materials to walk on.  That won’t be until after the Apoc game though, because I don’t think I have enough time to do it before…

EDIT: Jeff from Tibbs Forge was goodly enough to stop by and remind me of his blog as well.  During my research for this conversion, I did glean insights from him as well, but I just forgot to bookmark the link.  His blog contains perhaps the most detailed walkthrough available on how to convert and paint a Knight Titan–spread out over 37 posts.  If you’re looking for real insight on how to complete this conversion, you’re on the wrong blog.  You’ll want to go check out Jeff’s write-up: you’ll be glad you did.