Brass Scorpion & Defense Laser

[Aidoneus]

Gearing up for a big Apoc game in 3 weeks. It's only my second, and I want to bring some shiny new toys to play with. My plan is to have 2 Imperial Defense Lasers and a Brass Scorpion for my 6000pts of Chaos. I didn't use any plans. Please please please leave comments. I'm open to criticism as long as it's constructive. I want these to look as good as possible. Thanks!

 

For the Brass Scorpion, at the moment none of the legs or the two claws are glued into their ball joints, but I plan to do that once I get the pose just right. I have enough trouble keeping my Defiler together on the tabletop. The tail does have two working joints, and can move from touching the scorpion's back to pointing straight up in the air. The demolisher cannon joint works, as do the elbow and knuckle joints for the two claws. I'd love to keep the shoulder joints on the claws working, but they're really lose in their sockets, and I'll probably have to glue them to keep them in place. Any suggestions?

 

Also, does the model look beefy enough to be a superheavy? It is only 2 structure points, so it doesn't need to be all that big, but I'd like it to look like it could seriously mess up someone's day. Does it need something more, or is it suitably imposing as it is?

 

Lastly, I was wondering about a face. That sensor isn't glued in yet, so I could swap it out. I definitely do not want to use a defiler face, as that just isn't imposing enough for the scorpion. Is it all right faceless, or does it need something? If it does, what could I use?

 

Brass Scorpion, Side

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j88/Aidoneus42/Photo33.jpg

 

Brass Scorpion with Defiler (the defiler is actually a bit closer than the scorpion, so the size difference is actually slightly greater than it looks)

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j88/Aidoneus42/Photo32.jpg

 

Brass Scorpion, Front

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j88/Aidoneus42/Photo34.jpg

 

Brass Scorpion, Tail

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j88/Aidoneus42/Photo35.jpg

 

The Defense Laser is made mostly out of foamboard and cardstock. I hope to get some greenstuff and make little rivets to put around all the plates. I tried giving it some detail, but it still seems a bit plain to me. Is it all right, or does it need something more to catch the eye?

 

Imperial Defense Laser

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j88/Aidoneus42/Photo36.jpg

[blackblade68]

Try putting some Gothic architecture on it. Not sure how to do this... But it'd definatley help with the 40k theme.

[DuskRaider]

I'm not a fan of the scratch-built Defiler Brass Scorpions, but yours is definitely nice. I'm especially glad to see you went anatomically correct and gave them 8 legs PLUS their pedipalps. I only wish Forge World did the same... Nice Defense Laser too! Will definitely come in handy in Apocalypse and Planetstrike!

[Commander Draaken]

I like the defense laser. Reminds me a little of the Ion Cannon on Empire Strikes Back. I'd just add a few doors, hatches and access panels and I think it will look pretty smart. Any ideas on colour scheme?

[blood_raven_240]

Nice Brass Scorpion! Was it hard to convert? Any chance of a tutorial?

 

On the other hand, the Defence Laser... it's pretty... meh. You could make it more interesting by making it an 'Orkified Defence Laser' that's been re-captured? (Orks took it from its owners, Orkified it, then Owners took it back). In other words, just throw random armour plates at random angles all over the thing, and add some GW Resin Ork Barricades at the base. It'd look AWESOME!

[Baragash]

I think the Defence Laser is almost there. If you could decorate it a bit more....

 

Perhaps thicken the corners/edges of each of the three panels on the sides (maybe arching in at the top, GW do that on a lot of the bunkers they make).

 

Maybe you can bling it up a bit with spare bits from vehicle sprues or any CoD sprues you may own?

 

Nice Scorp :tu:

[LEGION3000]

Very Nice scorpion! IMO people don't really pay much attention to the scenery even if it does mount a big ass cannon. Drop a few Aquilas on it, texture it, and call it a day.

[The Toxic]

I love brass scorpions they have so much flavor keep it up.

[odinswolf]

defence laser needs a big scanner/radar dish

[Hubernator]

That Brass Scorpion is a work of genius, congrats on making such a beast :devil:

 

The defense laser looks like something a an evil hamster would create :P Attack of the Evil Hamsters!

Needs more Imperial stuff on it to give it an Imperial look. Aquilas and so on

[Terminatorinhell]

finally, some one looked at their animal encyclopedia for kids and REALIZED that scorpions have 8 LEGS and 2 CLAWS! kudos to you mate, good job ^_^

[Aidoneus]

Wow, thanks for all the positive feedback guys! It's been a while since I did much conversion, and I've never done anything on this scale, so I figured I'd have a hard time of it. Nice to know I managed to do a decent job after all. :P

 

Defense Laser: I agree, this is the one I need to do the most work on. I like the idea of making it slightly more gothic-y, and also the idea of building up the edges of the panels. Why not combine them? Here's what I sketched out as a rough idea. For the middle panel, I might do roughly the same, or I might even do some sort of stained-glass pattern (if I'm feeling especially ambitious).

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j88/Aidoneus42/Photo2-2.jpg

 

One thing I should explain about the Defense Laser is that I plan for it to see battle with both my Chaos and Loyalist forces. My Inquisitorial units can swing both ways, either being loyalist puritans alongside Grey Knights, or being radical or even fallen and allied with chaos. Thus, the Defense Laser will be technically a part of my Inquisitorial forces. I'm not sure if I'll be painting it just building-colours (black, silver, details) or inquisition colours (red, brass, black, silver, details). Also, I can't exactly put either loyalist or chaotic symbols on it, because half the time it won't fit in. Any suggestions?

 

 

Brass Scorpion: Thanks so much for all the wonderful responses. I did indeed look at pictures of real scorpions before starting, to make sure everything was as close as I could get it. The number of legs bothers me on other people's scorpions too, as well as the tails. If you look closely at a scorpion tail, it curves around more than most people realize, and the scorpion actually stabs forward, not downward, with its barb. I'm not quite finished with the model, but I feel it's very close to being just the way I want it now. Unless I can find a good "face" to put on it, I pretty much just have a couple more armour plates and perhaps some spiky bits left. And gluing the legs+arms on, of course.

 

As requested, here's my first attempt at a tutorial. I promise nothing! :lol: I lost my camera cord, so all the pictures were taken with my laptop's built-in webcam, hence the poor quality. I also didn't take pictures while working, so all of these were taken since I finished the model. I did the best I could, and I hope it all makes sense. If you're confused about anything, just ask, and I'll do my best to clear things up.

 

Body

 

First thing's first: you will need 2 Defiler boxes for this. The only pieces I used that weren't from those kits weret he immolator flamers I used (as you'll see, flamestorm cannons would work too). I suppose you could use the heavy flamers from the Defiler kits, but those are a bit dinky for my tastes. Second, these sections can (for the most part) be done in any order. I'm not even writing them down in the order I did them (especially since I jumped around a lot).

 

Start with two standard Defiler bodies (the part the legs attach to). These are different from the Torso, that the arms attach to. That comes later.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j88/Aidoneus42/Photo1-2.jpg

 

What you need to do now is to chop the front end of the bodies off. The cut should go directly through the middle of the circle that the torso would mount to, right through the square hole in the middle. Here's the piece that will be left over. It's not scrap though, so make sure it stays intact!

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j88/Aidoneus42/Photo3-2.jpg

 

Once you've done that to both bodies, you should be able to put them together, with the cut ends touching. Because you cut halfway through the one circle on each, when you put them together it should look whole again.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j88/Aidoneus42/Photo4-1.jpg

 

Head

 

This will be made out of the torso of the standard Defiler. Go ahead and assemble one Defiler torso, but be sure to leave the back off (the part in the picture below). You should be gluing together both halves of the gun, the top, bottom, and both sides of the torso.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j88/Aidoneus42/Photo6.jpg

 

Now, for that back panel. Cut directly below the two vents, leaving the tubes/wires with the lower half. Here's a picture of what will be left over (this is scrap).

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j88/Aidoneus42/Photo7-1.jpg

 

Tthe lower half of the panel you just cut will go where it belongs on the Defiler torso. Don't glue it just yet though. At this point, your scorpion body will not quite fit into the back of the defiler torso. Trim it down so that it can fit in well once the lower half of the back panel is on. I wish I had a better picture of where to chop. There was one tiny bit in the middle of the top, and one bit on each side of the body that needed to be trimmed, plus just a little bit on the bottom to fit the curve of the defiler's back panel. You'll have to figure it out from there, or just do what works for you. Once you've sorted that out, go ahead and glue on both the back panel and the scorpion body, like so.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j88/Aidoneus42/Photo8-1.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j88/Aidoneus42/Photo9-2.jpg

[Aidoneus]

Shoulders

 

By this point, perhaps you'll have noticed that defiler torso's shoulder sockets are not the same on the right and left. This will have to be rectified before we can move on. Cut out some card to fit in the hole of the larger socket (the model's right). I used regular craft glue every time I attached card to plastic, and it seems to have worked well. Then, get out the second left side panel from the other defiler kit. Turn it so the outside is face down, and use the interior wall to guide your knife as you cut out the circular panel. Here's what will be left over (this is scrap). Glue the piece you just cut out onto the card in the right shoulder.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j88/Aidoneus42/Photo11-1.jpg

 

After that, you'll need to get two of the hatch openings from the chaos vehicle sprues you were given. You need the one that is missing in the picture below. These should fit perfectly into the two shoulder sockets. You'll need to cut and glue card to fit in the holes, so you'll have something there to glue to later. Once you've done that, go ahead and glue them in.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j88/Aidoneus42/Photo10-1.jpg

 

Finally, you'll need the actual literal sockets for the arms' ball joints to fit into. Remember when I said earlier to keep a piece of seemingly scrap material? Specifically, the one pictured below? Well, at this point cut off both ends, so you have just the two sockets without the bit in the middle.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j88/Aidoneus42/Photo12-1.jpg

 

Now just glue those into the shoulders, like so.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j88/Aidoneus42/Photo14-1.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j88/Aidoneus42/Photo13-1.jpg

 

Arms

 

These are a piece of cake. Just assemble two regular Defiler claws, and then chop off the big blades on the back of the wrists. If you have the immolator flamers like I did, they fit right onto the back of the wrists with absolutely no work, like so.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j88/Aidoneus42/Photo15-1.jpg

 

Honestly, I wanted to use Flamestorm Cannons. They're just so much more bad-a$$. I even have spares from the Crusader I made! But I searched and searched and searched (and then a couple more times. seriously), but could only find 1 of my 2. So I had to go with the immolator guns. If you have access to them though, I recommend Flamestorms. You'll need to heat up and bend the tubing that would normally connect them to the fuel tank (which you don't use), so that it lies flush with the armour on the back of the arm. You'll also need to file down to of the spikes on the side of the arm's armour panel where the tubes will connect, in order for them to lie flush. You'll see what I mean if you try it. Here's what it would look (something) like.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j88/Aidoneus42/Photo16-1.jpg

 

Tail

 

This is probably the hardest part. It's certainly the most complicated. Still, it's not all that bad once you've gotten things figured out. First off, don't glue ANYTHING until I say to. Now, you'll need all the pieces for the remaining two Defiler arms. The way things are going to go is that the two smaller upper-arm pieces will be the base of the tail, and the two larger wrist pieces will be the upper parts of the tail. You should be able to get the rough idea from the picture below. For easy reference, there are 7 joints involved (counting the connection to the body as joint 1 and the connection to the gun as joint 7, and including the solid "joints" in the wrist pieces), and therefore 6 segments in between those joints.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j88/Aidoneus42/Photo17-1.jpg

 

Take the two halves of one upper-arm segment. What you need to do is to carve out the sphere part of the ball joint that would normally attach to the defiler's body. Make sure the cavity that's left in the end of the segment will fit around the ball joint on the same end of the other upper-arm segment. Here's a picture of the part you're cutting off (scrap) next to the segment it comes from.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j88/Aidoneus42/Photo18-1.jpg

 

Once that's done, you can glue the two halves of that segment together. That will be segment 1 later. Set them aside. Next, take the two halves of one wrist segment. This will be the end of the tail, where the gun attaches (segments 5 and 6, because of the solid "joint" in the middle of the piece). Cut off the gears on the end that the fingers would attach to, so they leave a flush surface for the gun to attach to.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j88/Aidoneus42/Photo21.jpg

 

Next, take two of your remaining finger pieces, and chop off the actual finger part (scrap), leaving just the circular joint where they would attach to the wrist. You're going to use these joints to attach the two wrist segments to each other.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j88/Aidoneus42/Photo20.jpg

 

Go ahead and glue the two halves of your other wrist segment together. That is segment 3 and 4. Now, I don't have a good picture for this, but what you need to do now is take the wrist segment you were working on earlier (for the gun to attach to, segments 5-6). Take the half with the gear for the upper-arm to attach to. This is going to fit in where the fingers usually go in the other wrist segment, that you just glued together. However, the gear-looking joint at the base of segment 5 needs to be trimmed down significantly to fit in the space the fingers would normally go on segment 4.

 

After all of this, take all your tail pieces except for segment 1, and glue them together. There should essentially be a regular defiler arm (upper arm and then wrist piece), but instead of fingers there will be another wrist piece on the end. Make sure to keep glue away from the movable joints (there are 2 of them). After that's together, attach segment 1 to the bottom. You'll want to pin this joint, as it's not all that solid, and there is a lot of weight on it, and not at the best angle either. Pinning solves all.

 

Finally, it's time to attach the whole thing to the scorpion's body. Here, you might want to pin the pieces in place as well. I didn't, but I somewhat regret not doing so. Now, you need to cut the end of segment 1 so that it fits flush against the very back of the body. Pick the angle you want it to come out at, and slice straight through the center of the circular joint. If you can, try to save the peg going through the center of the joint there, as it will give you that much more surface area for glue to stick to. I then slapped a couple armour plates on the back of the tail for good measure.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j88/Aidoneus42/Photo26.jpg

 

Gun

 

Last, but certainly not least, the Scorpion Cannon. The way i did this was to basically make a twin-linked autocannon, but then shove a third autocannon in the middle. First, cut the ammo feeds off 3 autocannons.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j88/Aidoneus42/Photo22.jpg

 

You're going to end up fitting these into the armour plate that normally covers the linked autocannon on the defiler. The middle gun will be slightly forward of the other two, giving the whole contraption the appearance of being very pointy, like a scorpion's barb. You'll need to trim everything down a decent amount for things to fit together. Then just glue the guns into the armour plate, and glue the armour plate to the end of the tail. Last, there's a little armour plate that will fit perfectly underneath the gun, connection to the edges of the armour plate on top, and nicely encasing the back ends of the barrels.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j88/Aidoneus42/Photo23.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j88/Aidoneus42/Photo25.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j88/Aidoneus42/Photo24.jpg

 

And you're done! Add some panels to cover the holes in the back of the body, put something in the top of the torso as a head (or just eyes if you think, like I do, that the torso itself makes a good head), and sprinkle with armour plates and spiky bits to taste. I hope that's helpful.

[sonofwaranddeath]

Good work on both bro! THE D-LASER IS SHUWEET!!! A TUTORIAL on that would be awesome :P good luck I hope they work well for ya

[Aidoneus]

Good work on both bro! THE D-LASER IS SHUWEET!!! A TUTORIAL on that would be awesome :P good luck I hope they work well for ya

Actually, that one was almost embarrassingly easy. You saw that picture I posted in post #12? That's the template! I drew it myself, with naught but a ruler. It's 8.5" at the base and 7.5" at the top. What I did was to print 4 of those and spray-glue them to a sheet of foamboard. Cut out the outermost outline to get the basic wall shapes. Then you peel the paper off of the foamboard and re-glue it to some cardstock, and then cut out the panels. Again, remove the paper, re-glue to cardstock again, and cut out the window slits. I have another, even simpler, template for the supports, and then the roof is merely a 7.5x7.5 inch square. The hardest part is that all the edges need to be cut at a 45 degree angle to fit together without gaps.

 

The top is, indeed, a 7" hamster ball, cut in half. The gun barrel is 1.25" dowel rod, that is 4" long. Around the base of that is a napkin ring I picked up at hobby lobby, with spaces sawed out for the .25" dowel re-enforcers. The barrel tip is the cap to an old-style GW paint pot. And that's all there is to it. Glad you like it though. If you're interested, PM me with your e-mail address (anyone can) and I can send you the "template" as a file.

[Mjolniir]

-oops-

[Sons of Horus]

they both look really great

[Gearhead]

I think there's two things the Defence laser needs. One is a tad more detail; radar arrays, hatches, dmage, etc. Another thing (and this is just my opinion) is a balcony. It looks to be at least two stories tall, if you're going to use something that big why not take advantage of the hieght?

 

The Scorp looks great, I like how the tail curls all the way down and then the gun sticks out at the end. The "extra" legs and that tail really make it look like its namesake.

 

My two cents.

[Baragash]

Defense Laser: I agree, this is the one I need to do the most work on. I like the idea of making it slightly more gothic-y, and also the idea of building up the edges of the panels. Why not combine them? Here's what I sketched out as a rough idea. For the middle panel, I might do roughly the same, or I might even do some sort of stained-glass pattern (if I'm feeling especially ambitious).

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j88/Aidoneus42/Photo2-2.jpg

 

That arch thing going on on the right hand side is exactly what I meant in my previous comment

[Aidoneus]

Progress report. I've completely finished adding the finishing touches on the Scorpion. There wasn't all that much more than when you saw him. The tail has a couple more armour plates (the ones that go on the backs of the wrists are there now, right where they belong), and he has a couple chains and spiky bits. There are also 3 symbols of Khorne from vehicle sprues that I stuck on him where they should be nice and visible. I primed him black, and am proceeding to start painting him. There's a lot of detail on the model, and I'm not the world's fastest painter, so it'll be a few more days, minimum, and possible more like a week or two. I'm working from front to back. When I get some real progress, I'll post a couple pictures.

 

Unfortunately, haven't done anything more with the Defense Laser yet. I'll get on that soon. When I do get around to it, I should be able to get all of the new panels on in only a couple hours, so hopefully I'll be able to show you some new shots of that in the next few days.

 

I'm not sure about the balcony thing. I think of it as more of a bunker than a building, and so would not expect people to hang around outside of it. It has all those vision slits so you can shoot from inside. In game terms, models can't actually get inside it to begin with, and they can't overlap with a vehicle, so that wouldn't even be legal. What I might do it make some battlements for the roof, but not glue them on. Then, in regular 40k games, I can simply replace the dome with the battlements and use it as an in-tact building. But that can wait until after I finish everything for my apoc game on the 19th.

[Aidoneus]

Here are the arches on the two side panels. I'm trying to decide what to do for the two middle panels. Any suggestions?

 

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j88/Aidoneus42/Photo1-3.jpg

[Aidoneus]

No comments at all? C'mon guys, these need to be done within two weeks, and I have no idea what to do for those middle two panels. I need advice!

[Hubernator]

Could do arches. That could add something to it. Turn the bottom one into a doorway maybe or like an extended exit

[Aidoneus]

I'm still trying to decide what to do for those defense lasers. Arches are a possibility. I also considered stained glass, although that might have to wait until later, since I'm not sure I'll have time before the game on the 19th. Each one (there are 2 now) does have a door on one side. I guess those haven't been in any of the pictures so far (although I think the picture of the template I posted had a door on it).

 

Brass Scorpion is coming along nicely. I'm probably somewhere between 1/2 and 2/3 done painting it. It's not especially Khornate, since I mostly want it to fit the paint scheme of my army, which is essentially Black Legion. Here are a couple in-progress pictures for your enjoyment.

 

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j88/Aidoneus42/Photo2-3.jpg

 

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j88/Aidoneus42/Photo3-3.jpg