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Brian Mennenoh
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Warhammer 40KAcastus Knight Asterius

December 22, 2022 · in Sci-fi · 19 · 1.1K

One of the more elaborate projects I've ever worked on. This was a present for a friend I teach with. The other instructors and myself all chipped in to buy this stupidly expensive model kit, I ended up purchasing a bunch more parts from online sellers and about 20-25 LEDs. Almost everything is magnetized to allow the arms and body to be posed and optional weapons to be swapped out. The 'thing' on the base is actually a Bluetooth speaker, I added all the stuff around it to make it look like it could be a power generator of some kind.

Reader reactions:
7  Awesome

33 additional images. Click to enlarge.


19 responses

  1. Wow! This is really cool, Brian (@brithebuilder). The model would be cool by itself, but the lighting puts it over the top. This elevates modelbuilding to more of an art form.

  2. Thanks @gblair. I really appreciate that. Sorry for all the edits on the fly there, I'm still getting used to the image editor.

    This is definitely a show piece, It's hard to actually think about the number of hours I put into it...

  3. If anyone is ever interested, the entire build is on my YouTube channel as well. It's what started me on YouTube, so be warned the first 30 videos, (I think there's over 40 in the series), are unedited or terribly edited at best. It was initially meant for the owner to be able to see the process, but as I continued my kids told me it was unacceptable to continue that way.

  4. A tremendous amount of work and attention to detail in this build...Well done, Brian!

  5. I appreciate it @gwskat. It really pushed my abilities and forced me to try new things. I had never done anything of this scale before.

  6. Brian, that is a stellar and impressive build. I can appreciate all the hard work put into this, and amazing building and painting you did. Excellent Work all around!

  7. Amazing job, Brian! So much work, oozing quality!

  8. I love what your doing Brian. I'm fortunate enough to have hobby store near by and I can see a gradual shift in what is being put on the shelves with a whole isle being dedicated to kits with War Hammer, Gundam, and movie related themes. This what a lot of young people are familiar with in pop culture. Using technology such as lights, printing parts, magnets, and paints will appeal to kids. The WOW factor. It also, applies to old farts too.

    Love the model, some of it has a little steam punk touches and the painting has a little WWII themes with the black and yellow stripes and skulls. The pilot . . . kind of like having Alfred Hitchcock movie with the film maker briefly in a scene. Some of the Airfix instructions have a likeness of the designers face on the pilots so its all a nod and wink and good fun.

    Two thumbs up.

    Smashed the like button.

  9. @luftwaffe-birdman - Thanks, I appreciate it. It really was a ridiculous build.

    @fiveten - It was one of those projects that just kept getting bigger as I went. Every time my buddy Mike saw it, he thought of new things I could do. It was hard to say no since I was having so much fun.

    @stephen-w-towle - Thank you so much! I'm 52... Warhammer has been around since I was a teenager but I never really knew anything about it. Growing up in northern Wisconsin, there were no hobby stores to speak of. Just the model kits available in local retail stores. Friends who I teach with introduced me to it. They were playing with unpainted models and I gave one of them enough c**p that he offered to give me all his paint and buy new stuff for me so I could paint his army. I agreed immediately. The different factions are very cool. The scheme on this guy is a part of the Iron Warriors. Lots of metal and hazard stripes.

    • My introduction to Warhammer came about through my oldest son. While in high school he bought and collected the series and did some horse trading with kits and cash to buy a custom built computer. Didn't have a steady job but, he figured it out. He now is an adult and is into Star Wars . . . has tatt's with the theme.

      The young people are Digital Natives. Life with out batteries oh my? The hobby is no longer tube glue, plastic, paint and a hairy brush. My only lament with pop culture/and modeling Warhammer is that the history is all fiction.

      • Pretty impressive that your son was able to trade up to a custom PC. That's pretty cool.

        As a college teacher, I see that young people now are native to their phones. PC's are actually a different story. File management is horrendous due to the phone not forcing you to pay attention to any of that. They also seem to want to be able to operate a computer with one hand. Funny and challenging as a 3D instructor.

        The benefit of all of the Warhammer stuff being 40,000 years in our future is we can make up the story as we go. And, things like weathering are the same techniques. And, you never know, the history of that universe is now. 40K in the future, things could be only war with the galaxy. Let's hope not, but...

  10. This looks indeed really cool, Brian @brithebuilder
    Your painting skills are very good.
    A nice collection of paints in the background as well 😉

  11. @johnb - Thanks! I appreciate the compliment.

    I am slowly replacing all of my Citadel paints with Vallejo as I go. The citadel pots are a nuisance in a lot of ways. I love the quality of the paint, but the Vallejo paint is just as good and the bottle style is better IMO. The friend who got me into painting Warhammer in the first place spent a few hundred on paint to get me set up as a trade for my time to do the painting.

  12. I have no idea what this is, but you've done a great job on it,

  13. Thanks @roofrat. It's from a tabletop wargame called Warhammer 40K (takes place 40,000 years in the future). It's one of the game pieces that can annihilate an opponents entire army. Most of the characters are 35mm tall.

  14. Ha ha, Brian, so this character is roughly equivalent to the queen in chess, things don’t change they just evolve into something more sophisticated. Fantastic work on this, and the best thing is that you enjoy it. Merry Christmas, if that’s applicable in Warhammer.

    • @chinesegeorge, it's more like a queen with a bunch of rockets and the other guys still just have rocks to throw. Thanks, I do truly enjoy building.

      Merry Christmas to you as well!

      I don't think it's applicable to the Warhammer universe though, one of their slogans is that in the future there is only war. You never know though, the Orks, do have a couple Christmas characters actually.

  15. Dang, that's just completely amazing work Brian. A super result!

  16. Thanks @tcinla! Much appreciated. It's truly high praise coming from one of the original members of the forum!

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