Sunday, July 28, 2013

Breathing Life into an Amorcast Warhound: Canis Messorem

Greetings once again InterWebs!!!!! I had some time this weekend to spend in the hobby room and with a possible trip to the Feast of Blades to take part in the massive apocalypse 3-day game I thought I should work on something big for us in the game. After a quick chat with my good buddy Mordian 7th  it was decided that I should work on my old Armorcast Warhound which I picked up some time ago in England. My friend who I picked it up from was kind enough to do a custom Dark Mechanicus 'Soul Forge' Icon on the top carapace; the mind-blowing thing about it all was he did it in a Pub (Bar) while we had a drink. Here are the shots of Canis Messorem (Reaper)  from the Legio Mortem Sectatorem (Death Stalkers):

The pieces gathered:


Close-ups of the 'Soul Forge' Icon:
 Done in about an hour and half............


The old Armorcast models (Armorcast was the forgeworld before GW's Forgeworld existed) from the late 80's were not the best cast models. To give them credit resin casting at this size/scale was still in its infancy. There were a fair amount of surface defects and air bubbles that I felt needed to be fixed so it was GW's Liquid Greenstuff to the rescue!!!




With the legs sanded smooth I went ahead and glued them together:


At this point with the legs drying I went ahead and worked on the other parts:

I pierced his ears and put a large ring in his nose. Chaos Warhounds are notoriously feral and I think this helps show that:

A Legio Death Stalker Icon on one of the weapon arms (at least what I am going with for the icon):
I scratched together a rear coolant area to cover some defects on the back end of the weapon array:

On the other weapon arm I duplicated the 'Soul Forge' icon in a smaller scale:


To further convey the Feral aspect of this particular Warhound I thought it would be nice to show some chains that were used to chain it up while it is not on the battlefield. I dug around in the bits boxes and found some chain and mounts that I think work rather well.

 Here are some shots of the work on the rear of the legs:

Close-up of the chain mounts:
  All chained up:

I also added several chains to the top carapace which I arranged to also look like a leash:


Here is a view of the rear of Canis Messorem with its chains:


A front side view of the beast (note another Death Stalker icon on his groin):
 With the weapon arms shown:


This is were Canis Messorem sits at the moment. I am thinking about some Dark Mechanicus banners but I am not sure. I also am not happy with the way the top carapace was cast, it sits a little crooked on the main body so I may look into fixing that. Thanks for stopping by and taking a look! Comments are always welcome! What do you think.....banners....no banners.....??? Take care!

6 comments:

  1. yes to the banners!
    Some tattered banners with more chains would look great.
    I love the work you've done so far, the care you've shown the model really shows.

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    1. Thanks! I am leaning towards using some tattered banners but I am not sure about more chains. I don't want the model to become to 'busy'. Thanks for stopping by and taking a look! Much appreciated!

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  2. Not into the piercings and chains, but that's more of a personal thing - far too Slaaneshi in my mind. Still, what you've done, especially that Dark Mech symbol is pretty cool indeed.

    So wish I had grabbed one of these back in the day.....

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    1. I was going back and forth about the chains and piercings but I think it helps sets it apart from a Loyalist Titan a little bit. Thanks for stopping by and taking a look! Much appreciated!

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  3. Nice to see one of these old dogs ;) getting some upgrades!

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    1. Thanks! This is one of the few really old models that I still care for. The old dog really did need some love. This project has of course inspired me to work on some other Chaos stuff afterwards. Thanks for stopping by and taking a look!

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