Building a better Nemesis Dreadknight

Towards the end of 2019, a friend from the local gaming club send me a link and wanted to know if I could print something like that for him. The link went to an ArtStation page:
Nemesis DreadKnight Conversion Parts for 3D Print, Antonis Bouras

While the page didn't offer a download for the 3D models of the cool parts visible in the rendered pictures, I pointed out the option to just ask nicely. It turns out that Antonis was kind enough to provide my friend with a link for the model, so that maybe turned into a YES!

I really like robot models. Objectively too many Iyanden, Adeptus Mechanicus, Adeptus Titanicus and Imperial Knight models in my display case are testament to that. So while I don't play Grey Knights, I long lamented the baby carrier design of the dreadknight. Fixing that seemed a worthwhile fun project.

The project was made more interesting by the fact, that Antonis had made the models for a friend of his, but didn't have the chance to test their fit to the plastic kit. As a result there is a bit of work needed to make the parts mesh on the hobby bench. More on that below.

Unfortunately, my friend had some delay in providing the dreadknight kits. So my first steps were to print the chestpiece to a size approximated from the render mockups made by Antonis and hold an assembled dreadknight model of another friend - who's not ready to make that change - next to it and eyeball it to get an idea. That resulted in a firm go-ahead.

A while later I got the plastic kits in my hand. Key was to make the upgrade chestarmour sit well on the plastic torso. With the clear guideline that losses are acceptable, I got my drill, dremel, clippers, hobby knife, sanding sticks and sanding paper ready and carefully approached the fit.

As it turns out, there is a fair bit of changes needed to the front half of the plastic torso. To make it easier for anyone else who wants to take a shot at this conversion, I took some pictures of two torsos next to each other. The left one has the bits that need to go maked in blue and the cutout for the head marked in black, while the one on the right has already endured the procedure.

Note: Please watch out for your fingers while laying waste to offending protusions of the torso. Blood for the bloodgod was the opposing team.

In addition to the hole and the trimming on the torso, the protuding lip on the torsos bottom and the matching lip on the hips need to be trimmed back. Also, the stirrups on the legs need to go.



Some notes on printing the parts. 
I printed the parts using one of the popular DLP resin printers, more specifically the Anycubic Photon, using the Anycubic green resin and a 0.025mm layer height. In other words, nothing special as hobby resin printers go.


I used Chitubox to set up the kit for the build-plate of the Photon, choosing the orientation of the parts manually and placing the supports manually. The skull decoration on the parts needs to be considered when chosing the orientation, since the wrong orientation may start the teeth in thin air.

For me the parts appeared very tiny sized both in MeshMixer and in Chitubox, but that's just real world dimensions missing as far as I can tell. The meshes look good and clean. So it is only a matter of setting absolute size using Meshmixer or the scaling functions of the slicer software.

For me, that was 854% of the size set in the files for all parts, except the loincloth, tight plates and iron halo. In case Antonis changes the files, that means I end up with the following dimensions for the chestplate: 32,91mm x 23,24mm x 24,07mm.
I scaled the loincloth to 5,11mm thick, 41,53mm long and 17.02mm wide.
The tight plates are 24,88mm high, 18mm wide and 4,13mm deep.

The pauldrons look great, but they need to go further out or collide with the exhaust-backpack the model carries. If they are moved out far enough apart to leave space for the backpack they are floating in thin air. Also, that exposes the recesses in the model's roof that is meant to take the goofy arm support mechanics. 

I made covers for the roof recesses and attached a support for the pauldrons to them.The placement also creates a gap between the chestplate and the pauldrons. That kinda problem with armour is typically sorted with a little floating plate inbetween the bigger pieces. I made simple shields to take those places. You can see both pieces below and I posted them to Thingiverse.

That brought me to the combination of the original kit, Antonis' parts and my own humble parts:

I repositioned the legs slightly, using pins for stability. The sword/hammer and ranged weapon noses are magnetized for flexibility.

The next step was blocking in some colours with the airbrush.

Then a bit of gold and shade.

To do are water transfers and basing.