Project Eva – Part 1 – Here we go again…

What has it been, like four months since the last time I did anything 40k? Oh wait, I forgot, I did that one model for a friend, so I guess this is hardly a groundbreaking event then. Well, I guess I should introduce my new army and project: Project Eva!

As alluded to at the end of last week’s post, I picked up a Wraithknight for this new project, which is going to be a Renegade Knight army, based on Evangelions, made from Wraithkights, and styled similarly (but not identically) to my Gundam themed Necrons. Everyone keeping up?

Bizarrely for a very famous anime franchise, it is really difficult to find a regular profile image for the main mech in the series: Eva Unit 1. However, the general idea of the Eva does come across here, tall and gangly, with plenty of smooth armour plates, as well a bitchin purple and green colour scheme. With this in mind, here we go!

The main torso is essentially the standard Wraithknight body, but pitched forward so that the waist connects to the front, allowing for a more hunched posture befitting the Eva’s. I took a picture to show the basic internal structure before all the panels were put on.

At the end of the first day of building, I got the model to stand, and snapped a picture to send to a friend whilst I watched a movie (totally not panic justifying the terrible image). Here you can see that the lower body is pretty much just a straight build of the original Wraithknight kit, just with the skirting armour removed.

Day two, and we have one arm! Most of this build session was spent working out the gun, and the various magnetised options, but we will come to that later!

Mid day three, and both arms are on!

Like most conversions, the head really is the most difficult part for, since it is both a really small, complicated area, that carries a huge amount of focus for the finished model. I had to snap the evolution of the head, partly for the unintentionally hilarious googly eyes that it started with!

Day four comes to a close, and the ‘first draft’ is done! Now all that remains is plugging the gaps (the many, many, gaps) and finishing the base.

Fast forward to the weekend, and the mighty Unight 1 (geddit?) is completely constructed! Pictured here without any hands (what was I thinking?), because I know what people want to see.

Maybe I have been permanently changed by my addiction to Gunpla, or that there are a million variations of Knight I wanted to be able to use, I spared no expense to create a full compliment of optional parts to create any of the big 3 Knights that I want to use this model for, starting with…

…a generic Renegade Knight armed with two avenger gatling cannons, because power points are bent, and this configuration is the undisputed king of abusing that! Although there probably aren’t nearly enough barrels to truly represent these weapons, I like to imagine it fires a continuous beam that is swept back and forth rather than individual shots. Come on, they are alien super robots, use your imagination!

Next is the Atrapos, who is a total G. It really tears me up to make this, since the official model is so lovely. Out of all the ‘leggy Knights’ as I call them, the Atrapos is definitely the best, and I really cannot wait to try it out on the table!

Finally for the preset options is the Styrix, who I really overlooked for the first few reads of the IA: Chaos Index, but he is really a mighty monster who I can see either being a real beast, or comically useless. In the various anime representations of Eva’s, for long melee weapons they like to use various lance like things, but I didn’t want to risk mistaking it for a Lancer,so to represent the various -1 to hit options I settled on a giant battleaxe, because why should the Space Wolves hog all the huge-axes-held-by-death-metal-war-machine fun times?

For all these options, the little nubbins on the back can either represent missiles or just fancy vent thingies, because I didn’t want to use an entire pack of magnets for this model.

Speaking of magnets, it does split in half with the power of aforementioned magnetism, so that I stand at least some chance of transporting it without instant breakage.

Shifting attention to the base, I have had this miscast Dark Eldar (sorry, Drukhari or whatever) flyer knocking around for about 3 years, being spawned from my brother’s failed attempts to gyp GW out of like, two kits.

Happily, it is the perfect size to fit on the Knight’s surf board base, and created a nice little theme at the same time!

All decorated up, and ready for spraying!

Thanks for joining me on this new (and inevitably expensive…) project, and I am really excited to get painting! So tune in next time where I either do paint it, or give in and build some more Unights! Either way, good times are ahead, so like always, thanks for attending Antagonists Anonymous!