"Upgrade Your Titans..."

"...With these heavy weapon arms."

This 28mm scale resin model of a Titan is produced by “Crooked Dice Game Design Studio” and can be bought as SKU: MINI 93 Titan B (Standing) from their Villains and Monsters range. Despite the multi-piece kit containing two separate arms, I decided to 'field' the mechanical monstrosity carrying a Trident and net taken from the company's metal Titan Weapon Arms (SKU: DEAL 85) instead.

The 'conversion' actually required a surprising amount of drilling and filing so as to ensure a strong bond between the quite heavy hand-weapons and the figure's much lighter torso, as well as plenty of copper wire, green-stuff, and super-glue. Once assembled though, the large figure was quickly primed in "Vallejo" Heavy Sienna, layered with Bronze. positively drowned in “Citadel” Agrax Earthshade, and dry-brushed with (more) “Vallejo” Bronze.

"Crooked Dice Game Design Studio" WIPs - Three primed X-Commando figures

To help tie the miniature into the "living giant bronze statue" look I've used for Doctor Ulysses Argo’s other hefty robots, I then applied various amounts of “Citadel” Nihilakh Oxide in between the model's numerous joints and ridges. These areas were later roughly blended back in with the rest of the Titan using a (third) dry-brush of “Vallejo” Bronze. At this stage, I also considered 'picking out' the robot gladiator's trident and net in "Vallejo" Gunmetal. However, I liked the notion of the enormous effigy appearing to be a metal sculpture which had miraculously come to life.

Delightfully, I have now found the third Titan I bought from "Crooked Dice Game Design Studio" back in June 2022, and spent some time swapping out its empty hands with those holding a large hammer and shield. This figure will be pigmented during the Fourteenth Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, in order to collect some much-needed bonus points from the event's Library - as the archive's Rotunda Main Level contains a D.I.Y. section, where I can submit an entry (for an extra twenty points) that made me "glue our fingers together" - and this figure certainly did that.

"Alternative Armies" - This Black Adder Combat Lifter is slowly having its details 'picked out'

In addition, I've been busy assembling (and modifying) several more of the Lincolnshire-based company's X-Commandos, including a head-swap with one of the (Classic) Daughters of SHIVA to produce a Brigadier Winifred Bambera look-a-like. I've painted a few of these beret-wearing soldiers before as modern-day U.N.I.T. troopers, and plan to not only add some more firearm-waving infantrymen to their ranks. But also an Advanced Weapon Team, and a potential proxy for the spectacled Scientific Advisor Doctor Malcolm Taylor too - albeit he'll be a gun-toting grunt.

Lastly, another rummage around my somewhat dust-covered shelves has revealed a trio of Black Adder Combat Lifters from "The Ion Age" by "Alternative Armies". All three of the resin vehicles are fitted with metal Fretan Rail Guns in their turret mounts, and had been originally primed with "Vallejo" Heavy Red. However, whilst I intend to continue this colour scheme with two of the models, I thought I'd re-undercoat one of them, and try turning it into something the Sons of Horus space marine chapter might deploy during the Horus Heresy...