[Artwork] This is my rifle, this is my gun...

[Don the Oiler]

Made a quick one, a standard Space Marine combat knife.

Some fluff describes it as a "monomolecular" blade, but i prefer to say it's just very sharp.

Might add some more details to the sheath some time.

 

http://www.deviantart.com/download/271572067/warhammer_40k_combat_knife_by_clairegrube-d4hoqcj.png

[Don the Oiler]

Google Gallery seems to delete any model that has an Aquila on it, probably on GW's behalf.

Instead i'll try and make some of my models playable in the Space Marine game. Here's a quick WIP:

 

http://img848.imageshack.us/img848/9813/fwboltpistol.jpg

 

Unfortunately i'll have to learn a lot about UV mapping and texturing first.

[Colrouphobic]

Marvelous stuff. Inspiring even.

[Don the Oiler]

Saw the new Forgeworld twinlinked bolters that come with their Cataphract terminators. To be honest, i've got this mesh lying around my harddisk for quite some time, i had the idea of glueing two Phobos bolters together before but i thought it looked really cheap. I was pretty surprised when i saw Forgeworld did just that - glue two Phobos bolters together!

But i have to say it doesn't look that bad with a doubledrum, so i modified my model a little.

 

http://www.deviantart.com/download/328430607/warhammer_40k_combi_bolter_by_clairegrube-d5fjeof.png

[Captain Artemis]

Please do more, love your work.

Gives me some inspiration for my drawing. :)

[usmabmass]

How many of those bolts can you fit into your bolter magazines?

[usmabmass]

Hey, first up great work all round, i only have 1 small issue, and that is with the first pic, the iron sights would be obscuring theview through the telescopic sight, something I always correct on my minis.

 

Either way, keep 'em coming

 

cheers,

Jono

 

I know this is a super old post, but this is a common thing - the front sight post on an M4, for example, is visible through your ACOG or CCO sights - it doesn't obscure your vision (except for a line from the middle of the optic straight down),a nd gives you a bit of frame of reference when you are aiming, while allowing you to have a backup sight system in case the optic goes down/bad.

[Don the Oiler]

How many of those bolts can you fit into your bolter magazines?

 

My Godwyn and Phobos magazines were modeled with 16 rounds, the Umbra pattern with 20. All the others were just modeled with 2 or 3 cartridges at the top, because you can't see the rest anyway. The twinlinked bolter double drum would probably hold 50-60 rounds.

But they're really just for looks, i used the original miniature proportions as reference, and those simply weren't designed with every part in mind. I could fit more rounds in to make it more "realistic", but there's a few problems:

The way it is now, the bolt rounds fit perfectly into their magazines. To fit in more, i'd have to make them smaller, but if i do so proportionally, there's too much space in the front and back, which would make them rattle around and create some serious feeding problems. On the other hand if i make them longer at the same time for better fit, they wouldn't look like bolt rounds at all.

There's a simple reason for that: GW modeled the bolters roughly after existing rifles, but existing rifles with long bottleneck cartridges. On the other hand, all the reference material i found shows bolt rounds as being quite short and thick, like pistol rounds. Mine already are a little longer than these references, else i wouldn't be able to make double-stack magazines (which would mean EVEN LESS rounds). I also cheated by leaving out the feeding springs, i only modeled it for the empty Phobos magazine.

So, "realistically", either bolter magazines or rounds would need completely different proportions. A thinner, longer magazine like that of a submachinegun (imagine MP5 instead of M16) would work, but it would also look just stupid. As for the big Godwyn box magazine, i don't even have the slightest idea how the feeding mechanism is supposed to work. It looks like it's designed for ammo-belts, but belt-feeding would just add a ANOTHER whole new pile of problems.

 

Long story short, i couldn't find a common denominator for bolt, magazine and tactical plausibility, so it is as it is.

[usmabmass]

I appreciate the response!

 

It seems like the easiest path would be to simply lengthen the cartridges themselves, but i was really more concerned with the diameter of the bolts and not so much the length. In my fluffy universe, it doesn't really matter what cartoon drawings GW has come up with for the ammunition itself, i'd rather keep the design of the weapon and adjust the ammunition design to fit it. Seeing as bolter ammunition can be manufactured specific to a Chapter's need, I can have my Chapter's ammunition be as long as desired to make it "real."

 

Another option would be to have some sort of arming/fuzing/some other small capsule-like device that sits behind or in front of the bolt itself as a way to explain the extra length of the magazine relative to the stubby bolts themselves. Something like what you see when you pull a mortar round out of its packaging - the extra "stuff" that gets discarded when chambering the bolts?

 

So yeah, the real purpose of my question was whether you could get 25-30 .75cal bolts to fit in the standard bolter magazines. Keeping the same proportions for the bolter, do you think it's possible? (ie can the model's representation be made to be a reasonably accurate fluffy depiction of the weapon) Or should I think about my Brothers using .60 or .50 cal high velocity bolts to meet my load requirements?

[Don the Oiler]

So yeah, the real purpose of my question was whether you could get 25-30 .75cal bolts to fit in the standard bolter magazines. Keeping the same proportions for the bolter, do you think it's possible? (ie can the model's representation be made to be a reasonably accurate fluffy depiction of the weapon) Or should I think about my Brothers using .60 or .50 cal high velocity bolts to meet my load requirements?

Actually GW miniature proportions are so screwed, it's always a bad idea to try to scale anything realistically to them. When i modeled my guns, i ignored things like hand- and bulletsize completely therefore, just scaled everything so it fits roughly.

But for the fun of it:

You have a .75 bolt round and don't care for cartridge length. You want to squeeze 30 of them in a magazine. If it's a double row mag, it would be approx. 11" long (disregarding curve, lips and magazine spring, don't want to overcomplicate things).

I adjusted my Godwyn model accordingly, that's what it looks like on an 8' Marine (couldn't find the official size in the short amount of time):

(Marine mesh is from the Space Marine game, with some small alterations by me)

So yeah, i'd say a 30rd, .75cal bolter mag isn't too far off.

[usmabmass]

Thats awesome to hear! Thanks a lot for the information, id been wondering about that for a while

[TheAngrySquig]

This is sooooooooo cool. What is sketchup?

[Don the Oiler]

This is sooooooooo cool. What is sketchup?

 

A free, easy to use modelling program by Google.

 

New model, and guess what, it's a bolter this time. The late Crusade and Heresy era Tigris pattern, designed by Will Hayes of the Forgeworld team.

 

http://www.deviantart.com/download/334667373/warhammer_40k_tigris_bolter_by_clairegrube-d5j92zx.png

[Dark Apostle Thirst]

I kinda love drawing bolters so I'm ok with you doing your versions for me to base my drawings off of :P

[Dinks]

Very nice work indeed!

[Don the Oiler]

Thanks. And now we have...

 

POWER WEAPONS!

 

Coughed this up in a little under 2 hours, the Power Maul that can be found in the Dark Angels upgrade pack.

 

http://www.deviantart.com/download/335201200/warhammer_40k_power_maul_by_clairegrube-d5jkiwg.png

[Don the Oiler]

And another one...

 

http://www.deviantart.com/download/335682775/warhammer_40k_tigris_bolter_sniper_variant_by_clairegrube-d5juuhj.png

 

The sniper variant of the Tigris pattern bolter, very popular with recon squads. Not truly effective beyond 500-800m, this precursor to the Stalker bolter finds its use in short- to midrange sniping in urban or densely vegetated terrain.

The difference to the standard Tigris is the addition of a flash- and sound suppressor and a multi-spectral scope with advanced targeting systems. These were mostly deactivated at the outbreak of the Heresy, because energy emission became a serious problem when fighting Legiones Astartes and their Auspices. Even deactivated it still worked as a hi-quality scope, and many officers added it to their standard bolters just for that extra precision.

The suppressor only muffled the kicker charge and had little effect when firing standard bolts, for the projectile's second stage still gave away the shooters position. Therefore a wide range of special purpose cartridges was developed, including bolts without own propellant, sabots without explosive charge and bolts with a compressed gas supply acting as propellant.

The magazines here are loaded with the latter type, as indicated by the blue tape. The gas doesn't provide enough energy to cycle the mechanism, so the tape serves as a reminder to always manually rack the charging handle to feed a new round after each shot.

The shooter usually replaced it with a magazine of standard rounds when changing position.