Guard Knight Resin Kits: Unpainted Figures for Collectors

Search for a guard knight and you get two very different things. One is a stat block: a low-level armoured NPC standing outside a gate, waiting to be talked past or fought through. The other is the figure on the shelf, a knight in full plate holding a position, and that is the one collectors are usually after. This guide is about the second kind. What the archetype actually covers, which unpainted resin kits fit it, how to pick a scale, and what happens between clicking order and the box arriving.

Every kit mentioned here is printed to order in the Netherlands and ships unpainted. That is the point of the format. You are buying the sculpt and the surface, and the colour scheme stays yours to decide.

What "Guard Knight" Actually Means

There is no single character called the Guard Knight, which is exactly why the term is useful. It describes a posture rather than a person: armoured, planted, on duty. Once you look at it that way, the archetype splits into a handful of recognisable flavours, and each one leads to a different kind of figure.

• The gate guardian. Standing watch, weapon grounded, shield forward. Symmetrical, calm, and the purest reading of the phrase. A figure like this rewards a static pose because the stillness is the character.
• The royal guard or knight captain. Same armour, more rank. Tabards, plumes, heraldry, a cloak that says this one gives the orders. More surface for freehand work if you want somewhere to show off.
• The oathbound paladin. A guardian by conviction rather than by roster. Usually more ornate, often winged or haloed in the design language, and almost always the one people paint in gold.
• The fallen knight. The guardian who kept the post too long. Darker palettes, cracked plate, cold light. This is where a lot of the best-selling sculpts live, because the silhouette is dramatic.
• The historical man-at-arms. No magic at all. Mail, a helm, an arming sword, mud on the boots. A different painting challenge entirely, since realism means restraint.

Key takeaways:

• Guard knight is an archetype, not a licence. Pick the flavour first and the kit second.
• The pose does most of the storytelling. A grounded weapon reads as duty, a raised one reads as combat.

Guard Knight Kits Worth Looking At

The Remerlinds catalogue does not have a shelf labelled "guard knight", so here is the honest version: these are the kits that genuinely fit the archetype, sorted from the most literal reading outward. Prices shown are the starting Bronze price at the time of writing, and scales are as listed on each product page.

Kit	Archetype	Scale	Sculptor	From
Solaire of Astora	Gate guardian	1/8	NomNom Figures	€40,99
Steiner	Knight captain	1/10	NomNom Figures	€47,49
Artorias	Fallen knight	1/10	NomNom Figures	€49,99
Dame Aylin	Oathbound paladin	1/6	Bulkamancer	€60,99
Hulkenberg	Royal guard	1/7	Bulkamancer	€48,99
Skull Knight	Fallen knight	1/10	NomNom Figures	€96,99
Henry	Man-at-arms	1/7	Bulkamancer	€51,99
Leona	Shield guardian	1/7	Bulkamancer	€63,99
Arthas	Fallen knight	1/8	Wicked	€121,99
Witch King of Angmar	Fallen knight	1/6	Bulkamancer	€119,99
Avacyn the Purifier	Oathbound paladin	1/6	Bulkamancer	€70,99
Chibi Black Knight	Gate guardian, mostly	Chibi, 8.5 cm	NomNom Figures	€20,99

A few of these deserve a closer look

Solaire of Astora is the closest thing to a textbook guard knight in the catalogue. Full plate, a tabard with a sun on it, sword and shield, and a stance that reads as steady rather than aggressive. At 1/8 it is a substantial shelf piece without being a two-hander to move, and the flat tabard is the single best freehand surface on this list.

Steiner is the knight captain reading. Heavy plate, formal bearing, the sort of figure that looks like it has a rank rather than a shift. The armour has a lot of large panels, which makes it forgiving for anyone practising metallics for the first time.

Artorias and Skull Knight are both the fallen version, and they demonstrate two ways of doing it. Artorias is worn and functional, a knight who has been fighting for a long time. Skull Knight is closer to a symbol than a soldier, with the kind of ornate silhouette that eats brush hours in the best way. Skull Knight is the more expensive kit and the more demanding paint job.

Henry is the odd one out and worth it for that reason. No enchantment, no glow, just mail and a helm and the plainest sword on the page. If everything on your shelf is currently gold and lightning, a grounded man-at-arms in browns and steel is the piece that makes the rest of the display look intentional.

Dame Aylin and Avacyn are the paladin end of the archetype, both winged, both designed to be painted bright. They are also the two most likely to convince someone to try their first non-metallic metal attempt, because the sculpts already carry the light.

The Chibi Black Knight is a joke figure with a real function. It is the cheapest way to test a colour scheme, a metallic recipe or a basing idea before committing it to a kit that costs five times as much. It also holds a doorway better than anything else in the shop.

Picking a Scale

Scale is the decision people most often get wrong, usually by ordering something bigger than the shelf they had in mind. Display kits are measured as a fraction of life size, so a smaller number on the bottom means a larger figure.

Scale	Rough finished height	What it suits
1/6	28 to 32 cm	A centrepiece. One per shelf, and it will dominate the room it is in.
1/7	24 to 27 cm	Large display standard. Detail is generous, painting is comfortable.
1/8	21 to 24 cm	The sweet spot for most collectors. Impressive without needing a dedicated cabinet.
1/10	17 to 19 cm	Easy to group. Several guard knights at 1/10 make a coherent display.
1/12	14 to 16 cm	Compact display scale. Good for a crowded shelf or a first resin kit.
Chibi	8 to 12 cm	Stylised proportions rather than a true scale. Fast to paint, cheerful to own.

Those heights are approximate on purpose. A kneeling or crouched figure at 1/8 can finish shorter than a standing figure at 1/10, and a scenic base can add several centimetres. Check the height on the individual product page before you measure the shelf. If you want the longer version of this argument, the article on scale versus proportion explains why two kits labelled 1/10 can look nothing alike.

Finish Levels: How Much Prep You Want to Do

Every kit is offered at three levels of preparation. This is the single biggest factor in both price and how long the order takes, so it is worth understanding before you choose.

Finish	What you get	Production time
Bronze	Supports removed, washed and cured, QC'd. You sand, fill and prime.	2 to 5 business days
Silver	Bronze plus support marks sanded and visible holes filled.	4 to 8 business days
Gold	Silver plus all gaps filled and primed in your colour.	6 to 14 business days

Production time is bench time, not delivery time. Shipping is on top, and it depends on where you are. The reason Gold takes longer is not that it sits in a queue: filling and priming a large armoured figure properly is genuinely several sessions of work, with curing time between them.

Which one to pick depends less on skill than on what you enjoy. If prep work is the part of the hobby you like, Bronze is the honest choice and the cheapest. If you want to open the box and start painting the same evening, Gold exists for exactly that. Silver is the middle, and it is what most people order once they have done the sanding on a large figure by hand once. There is a fuller breakdown in the finish levels guide.

What Arrives in the Box

A guard knight kit is not a single lump of resin. Large armoured figures are split into parts so the printer can put the detail where it belongs, which means shields, weapons, capes, plumes and often the head arrive separately.

• Every part in its own bag. Small pieces do not travel loose. A spear tip rolling around a box is a spear tip that arrives in two pieces.
• Supports already removed. You are not clipping a print off a raft. That work is done before the kit is packed.
• Washed and fully UV cured. There is no liquid resin anywhere in the box and no chemistry for you to handle.
• Test fitted before packing. The parts have been put together once already, so you find out at the workshop rather than at your bench if something does not seat.
• Quality checked. Every kit is inspected before it goes out.
• No foam. Packaging is recycled paper and bubble wrap. It protects just as well and it does not commit anyone to disposing of a box of polystyrene.

One thing that surprises people coming from cast resin garage kits: a 3D printed part has never touched a mould, so there are no mould lines to scrape. The seam you are looking for on a cast kit simply does not exist here. What you may find instead are faint support marks on the underside surfaces, which are a different problem with a different fix, and which Silver and Gold kits arrive with already dealt with.

Preparing a Guard Knight for Paint

Armoured figures are, in one specific way, the easiest thing to prepare: large flat plates sand cleanly and show a primer coat honestly. In another way they are the hardest, because those same plates show every flaw you left behind.

1. Wash the parts. Warm water, a drop of dish soap, a soft brush. This lifts any handling residue and gives the primer a clean surface. Let everything dry completely.
2. Dry fit before any glue. Hold each joint together without adhesive and look at it from several angles. Shields and weapon arms are the usual culprits for a gap, and it is much easier to plan for one now than to fix it after the glue sets.
3. Deal with support marks. Sand them back progressively rather than attacking them with one coarse grit. Work up through the grades until the patch reflects light the same way as the surface around it. Bronze kits are where this matters; Silver and Gold arrive with it done.
4. Pin the heavy parts. A shield arm or a large weapon on a display-scale figure is worth a length of brass rod and a pin vice. Glue alone on a small contact patch is a repair waiting to happen.
   
   
5. Fill and smooth the seams. A little putty, sanded flush once cured, then checked under a strong light at a shallow angle. Seams hide from you under direct light and appear the moment the figure is on a shelf near a window.
6. Prime thin. Several light passes beat one heavy one. Primer that pools fills the detail you paid for, and armour is exactly where that shows. Grey primer is the neutral default; a dark primer makes metallics look deeper; a white or pale primer makes bright heraldry sing.

The assembly walkthrough covers the dry fit and pinning steps in more detail, and there is a separate primer guide if the colour choice is the part you are stuck on.

Painting Armour Without Making It Look Like Grey Plastic

Metallic armour is the whole job on a guard knight, and it is where most first attempts go flat. A few principles that hold regardless of which paint range you use:

• Steel is not one colour. A single metallic coat over the whole figure reads as a toy. Vary it: cooler in the shadows, warmer where the light lands, and a slightly different tone on the mail than on the plate.
• Wash the recesses, then bring the edges back. A dark wash into the panel lines does the shadow work in one pass. Then a fine highlight along the top edge of each plate reintroduces the sharpness the wash softened.
• Decide about gold early. Gold trim on steel armour is the classic guard knight look, but it wants to be sparing. Trim, buckles, a helm crest, a heraldic device. Gold everywhere and the figure loses its structure.
• The tabard is the personality. Fabric is where a guard knight stops being a suit of armour and becomes a specific one. This is the place for freehand, for a strong single colour, or for the only saturated hue on the whole figure.
• Non-metallic metal is optional. Painting the impression of metal with ordinary paints gives beautiful results in photographs and takes considerably longer. It is a great technique and a terrible first project. Metallic paints on a first knight, NMM on a later one.
• Varnish when it is done. Thin coats, and let it cure properly before the figure goes anywhere near a shelf or a hand. Matte for realism, satin for a compromise, gloss only if you want the look.

Choose whichever acrylic range you already own or can buy locally. Any modern hobby acrylic works on cured resin over a proper primer coat, and the differences between ranges matter far less than thinning properly and building up in layers. There are more general techniques in the painting tips article.

Basing and Display

A guard knight is standing somewhere. Deciding where is a five minute decision that changes the whole piece.

• Flagstones suit the gate guardian. Scored lines in putty, a grey palette, a little grime in the joints, and the figure reads as posted at a keep.
• A plain dark plinth suits the ornate paladins. When the figure is already carrying wings and filigree, the base should get out of the way.
• Broken ground suits the fallen knight. Rubble, ash, a shattered banner. Restraint still applies: one story, not five.
• Mud and grass suit the man-at-arms, for the same reason his armour should be plain.

For the shelf itself, the rules are unglamorous and they work: out of direct sunlight, away from radiators and warm electronics, and stable room temperature. Cured resin is durable but UV is patient. There is a full breakdown in the storage guide, and some cabinet and shelving ideas in the display article.

Where These Designs Come From

Worth being straight about, because the answer is not obvious and a lot of shops are vague on it. Remerlinds does not sculpt these figures. Each design is bought as a commercial print licence from the digital sculptor who made it, and the kits in this article come from NomNom Figures, Bulkamancer and Wicked.

That licence is an agreement with the sculptor, not with the holder of the underlying character rights. Character sculpts of this kind are unofficial fan art, and the honest framing is that you are buying a sculptor's interpretation, printed and prepared properly, rather than an officially licensed product. The article on licensed resin kits goes through what that distinction does and does not cover.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there an actual kit called Guard Knight?
No, and anyone selling you one has picked the name themselves. Guard knight is an archetype covering gate guardians, royal guards, paladins, fallen knights and historical men-at-arms. The table above lists the kits that fit it.

Do these kits come painted?
No. Every kit ships unpainted. Gold finish arrives primed in a colour you choose, which is the closest option to ready to paint, but the paint job is yours.

How long until it arrives?
Production is 2 to 5 business days for Bronze, 4 to 8 for Silver and 6 to 14 for Gold, and shipping time is on top of that. Everything is printed to order, so nothing is sitting in a warehouse waiting to be picked.

Do I need to remove mould lines?
There are none. The parts are 3D printed, not cast, so there is no mould and no seam from one. You may find support marks on undersides instead, which sand out easily and which Silver and Gold kits arrive with already handled.

Is a guard knight a good first resin kit?
It is one of the better ones. Armour is made of large panels, which are more forgiving to base coat and highlight than skin or fabric, and the poses tend to be stable rather than acrobatic. Start at 1/10 or with a chibi if you want a short first project.

Can I get a kit at a scale that is not listed?
Some sculpts are available at more than one scale and some are not, depending on what the sculptor released. Check the individual product page, and if what you want is not there it is worth asking directly.

Do the parts need glue?
Yes, for anything multi part. Cyanoacrylate is the standard choice, used sparingly, and heavier parts like shields and weapon arms benefit from a brass pin as well.

What if a part arrives damaged?
Get in touch. Every kit is test fitted and inspected before packing, but shipping is shipping, and a broken part on a made to order kit is a printing problem rather than a stock problem.

Where to Start

If you want one figure that answers the phrase most directly, Solaire is it: plate armour, a tabard, sword and shield, standing his ground. If you want the archetype at its most dramatic, Artorias or Skull Knight. If you want to prove to yourself that plain steel and brown leather can outclass a gold paladin, Henry. And if you want to test a metallic recipe for twenty euros before committing it to a hundred euro sculpt, the Chibi Black Knight is genuinely the smart purchase.

The whole catalogue is at remerlinds.com, and if you are still deciding between two kits, the guide to choosing a kit is the one to read next.