Warhammer Imperator Titan Build

[93i]

Hello all! I'm very new to the forum and I'm working on a 3D printed Imperator Titan of my own design/pattern/forgeworld whatever you'd like to call it. Finally getting around to building one has been a dream of mine since I started watching Blackadders Warlord build years ago, and I've finally splahed out on a printer.

I'm hoping this thread'll serve nicely as a way to keep myself on track, get opinions and advice, and keep a documentation of how it goes!


A little bit about the project:

I've always loved titans, but I can't bring myself to like the rounded beetle look that the Mars pattern turned out to be. I much prefer the blocky, slab-armour look as in this artwork; https://i.imgur.com/nH4P1cO.png

It actually started out as something similar to those kinds of Warlords as I'm sure you can tell just from the looks. But I decided to go all-in and make it an imperator.

I'm in a bit of a quandary in that I don't want it to be too big to use on a table top at some point in the future, but at the moment it's slated to be around 1.7m tall. My not-very-thought-out idea so far is to just scale it down to half its current size. But then I don't know if it'd look strange then, for the likes of the Hydra batteries.

I'm a little way into the design process and I've already printed some 'test' parts to see about scale and fitting together, so this is how it is so far;

The Legs are just stand-ins for now for general shape and size.

And this is my test print(s)!

View attachment 82683

 

[Dudemeister]

Nice start. I'll be keeping and eye on this build. What printer are you using?

 

[93i]

I'm using an Anycubic Photon right now, but I'm eyeing up an Anycubic Mono, for the quicker print times if nothing else!

My progress over the last couple days has mostly consisted of modelling one of the shoulder 'macro cannons' in a printable arrangement. In theory it should be fine to print in the parts I've modelled it in, but practice and theory don't always work out.

I've got a bit of a quandry with the titan itself. As modelled it's about 1.7m tall. Which is taller than I am! And I'd like to be able to use this on the tabletop at some point in the future.

 

[Dudemeister]

I don't know how much experience you've had printing resin models, but from my personal experience, I can tell you this. IF you plan on printing the whole thing out of resin, you'll probably spend a grand or more in resin alone, on something that size, even if you print the parts hollow.

I have a thread here, where I printed a 1:8 scale Hulkbuster/Iron Man diorama, which is only 17" tall, and I used 3 bottles of resin. I also previously designed and printed an Imperial Knight at 1.5 time the size of the models from Games Workshop. He's only 10" tall, but weight about 2.5 ~3lb, and because I made him articulated, the joints could not hold up the upper body weight, so I had to resort to set screw inserts just to hold him up in a pose.

Something that will end up being 1.7m tall, will probably weight in the 100lb+ weight class, and will definitely not be able to stand on his own unless you glue all the joints.

I would definitely reconsider the choice of materials, or the size. The one that Black Adder is building, is made of light weight styrene sheets, and even that I'm sure weighs quite a bit.

 

[93i]

The plan is to make it mostly hollow, with a skeleton of carbon fibre tubes. Everything below the waist is realistically probably going to be locked together, but I'd like the upper body to swivel and the arms to be adjustable, probably with magnetic 'hold' points or locking pins. I'm considering scaling it down by about half, so it'll stand somewhere under 90cm tall, that's probably pretty likely.

 

[gorb]

Welcome to the forum!

First of all, this is a very ambitious project, and it looks awesome! I am very interested to see your progress on this.
I think Dudemeister is right, you will most likely have to end up using a skeleton of structural building material (like the PVC Blackadder is using), clad with the eye-candy that your printer spits out.
I think this is what you mean with "mostly hollow, with a skeleton of carbon fibre tubes", right?

90cm is going to look very impressive.

Keep going!

 

[93i]

After a few testing prints (and learning moments throughout) I've decided to scale it to about 66% of its original size.

View attachment 82757

This is where it'll come out at now, with the box on the right being 1m tall.

 

[93i]

Well! I've done a lot since i last posted I guess. Lots of disappointment, excitement, waiting, lots and lots of waiting.

I've finished a turret, re-built how the guns are mounted a few dozen times, and then assembled the whole thing. Only to find it's warped a fair bit (or parts of it have). Now I know how to stop them warping though amongst other things, so I'm going to pretty much start from scratch and re-design and re-print the whole thing, however, this one is turning out great for a test-bed for ideas.

I decided to screw the turret together for some reason, probably not going to do that with the Mk2, but I might, too, it makes it very rigid, so that's what these holes in the base are for. I'm also resting the whole thing on 5 very stiff foam washers on an M4 bolt and nut (and 3 washers) to act as runners, and it spins incredibly easily.



Here you can see the pivot for the guns, though I later changed the shaft to be square so that the gun-mounts would be kept in line with each other.



I made the guns in four parts, two bracing/mount parts, the weapon itself, and then a countweight that could fit m20 nuts to balance the weight of the gun. The first bracings were solid, the second hollow, and then the third were hollow with the square slot. These are the final ones.



And then finally a picture of the whole thing put together! You can see the gaps between the front and side plates, and the guns are very, very stiff to move up and down. (Tau Commander for scale!)

 

[gorb]

This looks absolutely kickass!