Fortress of Arrogance

This was actually the first Super-Heavy conversion that I undertook.  My wife loved the Fortress of Arrogance in the Apocalypse book and made me promise to build one.  The FoA is basically a Baneblade with a command deck on top of the turret and some extra bling distributed about the hull.  The command deck is pretty easily constructed using the balcony bits from the Basilica Administratum kit and some Plastruct tread plate.

The sea-of-skulls mural on the sides was a bit trickier -- the original in the book used a painted mural, I'm not sure that I have the patience to paint that many tiny skulls and I decided that a bas-relief was more appropriate for a Hero of the Imperium such as Yarrick.  The Basilica kit has several panels that feature a field of skulls, but the panels are quite thick --I didn't relish filing the panels down enough to use them as is, so I decided to make castings instead.

 The framing of the murals was another thing; orignally I used some bits from the basilica kit to make the frames -- it looked OK, just OK.  When I went on to do something similar for the Ecclesiarch, I used 0.10 inch C-channel and added some rivets to make the frames.  Ultimately, it looked better, so... I ended up pulling the murals off of the fortress and re-doing the frames in the same manner.

I realized late in the game that the command pulpit needs to have a book holder or something from which Yarrick reads his stirring oratory (Guardsmen's Uplifting Primer -- Armageddon Edition)  -- and a teleprompter just doesn't fit the 40K aesthetic.  The book is a bit from the WFB Empire hellblaster volley gun.  The lectern is just some styrene tubing, sheet styrene, plastic rod and an eagle from the tank accessory sprue.

Once I had the lectern in, I realized that I would need to build the left hatch flat so that Yarrick could stand there, just used a standard hatch with some rod around it for a coaming.

For paint, well it's basic black with a tin-bitz dry-brush to bring out the edges.

Lastly, painting this beast, not too bad except for the fact that I decided to paint every rivet gold... every single one.  How many rivets are on a Baneblade?  I have no idea.