The kit has a number of swappable weapons - it comes with a rotary cannon and a large sword. I didn't want those, and so purchased the Mauler Claw (basically a power fist) and the Nova Cannon (which looks very much like a huge melta weapon).
As you can see in this video and those that follow, the Leviathan kit has almost limitless poseabilty (and even comes with little weeny screws!) and can be assembled with swappable weapons and points of articulation. I did not want to do that - I always consider wargaming miniatures to be models, not toys, and such things can easily break. But I also wanted to customize the model significantly, and that would interfere with articulation.
This is the initially assembly. The major change I made was to leave the carapace plate off the top of the torso and replace it with the cap from a fruit-juice bottle (the orange component). I also cut a section out of the chest plate, allowing it to be moved flatter against the torso. This allowed me to move the head (cut down and with a curved rear made from a plumbing piece) from being sunk between the shoulders and instead mount it where a human's head would be, using the bottle-cap as a gorget.
The next images I have jump quite a bit ahead in the process. The weapons have been assembled and attached and I started building the backpack (from spare vehicle armor plates). In these pictures, the armor plates are just taped in place to see what they look like. The tubes leading from the "arc reactor" in the chest (and the backpack pipes) are Lego components. The power fist has been assembled pointing in a meaningful manner - the "Mauler Claw" has virtually all the articulation of a human hand, so this was very easy to do. As the articulating components were all plastic, I fused all the joints with some thin polycement drawn into the gaps by capillary action, and a couple of strategic pins superglued in place.
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| Maxmini Gothic Backpacks |
The inspiration for the backpack came from the Maxmini Gothic Backpacks rather than the Sisters of Battle armor (although I was drawing on that for other armor elements). These are a popular third-party component for Sisters, although perhaps a little overscaled for Sisters' infantry. I kitbashed the original components to make the new exhaust stacks.
She is based on an old terrain piece I had kicking about in my bitz box - the Aquila lander from "Battle for Macragge". I filled the underside with resin and drilled holes for multiple pins.
A brief discussion of what I am trying to achieve seems apropos. While Knight-Titans in 40K have a very distinctive look - quasi-humanoid "beetle-backed" forms with their heads slung between their shoulders, often with structures rising above them - I wanted Magdalena to look different. Specifically, I wanted her to look as much like a Sister of Battle as possible. This is why I moved the head inside a gorget on top of the shoulders. In addition to adding the backpack, I modified the chest - moving it backwards to close-up the over-large void left by removal of the head, but also adding in pipes leading from a central circular detail (rather than a skull icon, I created something that looks a little like an Iron Man "arc reactor"!) I also placed curved armor plates within the void, intended to suggest cleavage revealed by a low-cut neckline (as I have mentioned before, the hyper-femininity of the Sisters' armor is not only justified by essential).
A couple of images which I drew heavily on for various details are reproduced here.
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| "The Sister of Battle" by LordHannu |
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| "Sisters of Battle Katrina" by Haxiaowei |
Both of these are fan-art pieces, and so differ from the classic Sisters armor - but they each had elements I really liked. The curved hip armor of the upper image was attractive (and worked well with the armor of the Leviathan, which left the hip joint vulnerable). The fleur-de-lis over the belly and the large fleurs on the thigh plates (as well as the sculpted elements on other plates) we something I wanted to reproduce too.
The above images show the next stage of design - and debate about what I was going to do. Initially, I was considering something rising from the center of the backpack (hence the mounting point) but that did not work with the vents. The mounting point was later removed. Similarly, you can see the debate about what weapons she should have mounted in her chest. The heavy-bolters were too large. The missile launchers seemed more visually appropriate. In the end, I used some plastic tube to scratch-build hurricane bolters inspired by Centurions.
The curved hip armor was built by cutting three identical pieces of thin plasticard (from a paper template) and then laminating them together with plastic cement, holding them in a jig to preserve the curve while they dried. I've used this method before, and it works very well indeed. They were simply then glued in place.
Here is the final assembly with base-coats on (the base has been pretty much painted in a dull red with weathering, while she is simply sprayed silver). A lot of components - her head and all the armor - are left off for painting (and, in fact, many of them aren't even finished). You can see where the mounting point on the rear of the backpack has been removed and replaced with a simple "fence"-style ram from the Sisters of Battle sprue.
Painting has got a bit further than this (although not much!) and so there will be further posts. But, for now, let me know what you think!
=][= Danforth Laertes
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