BCK's Thread of Stuff: Super Heavy

[Olis]

And down the rabbit hole he goes... :P

[DuskRaider]

Oh cool, you're completely mad.

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

"Hmmm, I'm starting to feel a little bit out of my depth... let me get rid of this feeling by making the conversion even more complex". 

 

Great problem solving skills there, BCK. I'm quite confident in your already well-established abilities that this will turn out to be great. Also, you're insane. Also also, I love your updates. Also⋅3: That tank is looking killer! Carry on, good sir.

 

Oh cool, you're completely mad.

 

 

I have, on multiple occasions, said that if we don't constantly push ourselves in the hobby, we will never improve. Maybe the internal critic decided I need to finally have a go at some serious scratchbuilding.

 

And down the rabbit hole he goes...

 

Indeed!

 

http://i.imgur.com/CbMIvqR.gif

 

I am going to borrow bits here and there that I can, and in my tank bits box, I happened across something that looks like the breech (removed and not in the pic) and gun cradle from a Nashorn.

 

http://i.imgur.com/EKqgoaK.png

 

I had to do a ton of filing on the back end of the gun where it tapered out wider because I didn't have any tubing that would fit it snugly, and my local hobby store hasn't been on top of restocking their sheet plastic and tubing lately. It's already a much sleeker improvement over the original clunky monster.

 

http://i.imgur.com/q4fiyFN.png

 

I think I can use the breech block and then build the struts and everything else.

[DuskRaider]

Serious scratch building is an understatement... sounds like most of the model is being completely rebuilt. This is definitely pushing yourself, but after seeing what you did with the Macharius, I'm confident you'll pull off something great. I'll be watching this with anticipation.

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

And the new form of the tank destroyer begins to take shape.

 

http://i.imgur.com/4aL0W8Y.png

 

I think the end result will look a lot like the Nashorn, especially the crew compartment. On the Nashorn, the armored walls are much wider - the full width of the body and the tracks. I found a pic of an in-progress Nashorn model to show you what I mean.

 

http://i.imgur.com/f9jaeZQ.png

 

The gun itself has its own shield around it that fills that large gap in front, so I'll be cutting up the top of the crew compartment to widen it, and it will be higher than it is in my little mock up shown here.

 

Edit: Here's a front view since I haven't done one yet.

 

http://i.imgur.com/09NAAIu.png

Edited August 25, 2016 by Brother Chaplain Kage

[Brother Aiwass]

Promising, but the rear section is far too long. It wouldn't be able to take on rugged terrain or climb hills I'm afraid.

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

Yeah, I didn't realize how long it was until I put the tracks back on. Or I could make the tracks longer.

[Brother Aiwass]

My suggestion is that you move the crew compartment forward a bit, enough to make 1/3 of the gun hang out of the chassis, then extend the rear tracks if necessary. Cheers.

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

A lot of progress since last night, at least for me; got the front shape of the body nailed down and trying out a driver's compartment.

 

http://i.imgur.com/yqfzCmS.png

 

http://i.imgur.com/7HHJBXf.png

 

http://i.imgur.com/YQsFijF.png

 

The hatch on top of the driver's area is one of those things that looked OK until I saw the pictures of it, but it's just blue tacked down for the moment.

[Brother Aiwass]

Perfect brother!

[DeathbyWes]

Man that Macharius with the vulcan bolters just looks so ace.  Nice detailing on it.  I've always wanted one of those, I might just have to get one from the old FW after seeing yours!  Looking forward to the next update.

 

-W

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

Adding detail to the front of the body.

 

http://i.imgur.com/cLUuakR.png

 

Next up is finishing the track sections so I can finish building the rest of the body, and then get back to the crew compartment and gun.

 

 

 

[Hrolf the Cunning]

That crew compartment position is spot on. Looks great, can't wait for more.

[Olis]

I love scratch-builds for tanks. Sometimes I visit the WIP forums (a separate forum, not B&C's WIP subforum) to look at the plasticard wonders there. This project reminds me of that place. Loving it. :tu:

[lionofjudah]

Rivets and bolt heads are spot on! Your measuring and gluing skillz are mad good sir

[Dosjetka]

Looking good, BCK. Can't wait to see more progress. :)

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

I love scratch-builds for tanks. Sometimes I visit the WIP forums (a separate forum, not B&C's WIP subforum) to look at the plasticard wonders there. This project reminds me of that place. Loving it.

 

Thanks! I'm going to push myself as hard as I can on this, while still using as many bits from other models I can. ;)

 

Rivets and bolt heads are spot on! Your measuring and gluing skillz are mad good sir

 

Well... if you look down the length of the rivets from the side, they're not perfectly lined up. I'm not going to cover it in rivets like most 40k stuff, but there will be more.

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

Taking a little break from the tank destroyer, I had a little fun with turning Lysander into a Deathwatch marine.

 

http://i.imgur.com/G3LTbI9.png

 

Gotta love that Dremel for cutting heads out of metal terminator figures. Why the change to the Fist of Dorn? The hammer head and the spike were both bent a little on mine, plus I wanted to change up the position of the arm. The left arm I couldn't find at all, and I might make him a new shield 'cause that one looks too small and I could put the =][= icon on it. If I can find them, I have some of the resin FW Fist terminator shoulder pads to put the cherry on top of this guy.

[Soldier of Dorn]

I like him, Kage. Overall the composition of the model works really well. Especially the change to the Fist of Dorn. Looks much improved over the original version, in my opinion.

 

That being said, is it possible we could get a quick shot of his right side? I think it's just the angle of the photos, but his hammer arm looks a little bit long to my eyes.

Edited August 30, 2016 by The Psycho

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

It's a standard termie t-hammer arm, but sure, here ya go.

 

http://i.imgur.com/PlMb45X.png

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

On most Sundays, me, my brother, and a friend get together for our little gaming group. Usually it's RPGs, but sometimes its Magic, table top games, video games, maybe a movie, or sometimes it's just hanging out and doing nothing at all. Once upon a time some years ago when the group had a few more members, we tried out the Rogue Trader RPG and while I enjoyed it, some of the other members didn't, mostly because they felt overwhelmed by their lack of knowledge of the setting and my abundance of it. Recently, my brother and friend (who know about the setting and weren't the crybabies previously mentioned) wanted to have another go at it and this time I would be running it. The reason for all this blather is that right off the bat I'm having the party find a derelict ship that will become a campaign in and of itself to procure, restore, and claim for their own. That ship would be a Repulsive-class Grand Cruiser...

 

http://i.imgur.com/Sn2Iqpa.png

 

...which I happen to have a model of.

 

http://i.imgur.com/IAzt4M2.png

 

I'd always admired the design, mostly from the artwork for BFG and some spectacularly potato photos of the model online until I picked up one off of eBay a while back. Even then, I hadn't really messed with it much until today and started to notice that the model wasn't really matching up to the artwork as much as I'd like. First and foremost is some bad fit and alignment problems as you can see above, and this is after I removed any alignment tabs and evened out a bunch of uneven mating surfaces. Second is how weedy the model looks in comparison to the art. I was really disappointed to see how that section with the honeycomb decoration just below the bridge in the artwork is a flat plane on the model and not even visible at all in profile. The prow armor section is also much taller and more pronounced in the art, the dorsal (spine) section is a lot different on the model and the turrets look really bad, and most of the dimensions are completely different between the two.

 

And to give an idea of how the dimensions of the two compare, here's an overlay with the bridges at the same size.

 

http://i.imgur.com/eHwTVfN.png

 

Those ridiculous antennae or whatever are gonna have to go, too. The connections are just begging to bend and snap off and that was always the one thing I didn't like about the design.

 

Another showing them the same length.

 

http://i.imgur.com/zDbqMIS.png

 

And with the prow approximately the same size.

 

http://i.imgur.com/RDOo9Og.png

 

Considering how much I paid for the model and how difficult they can be to find in the first place, I'm not going to go crazy trying to make it look more like the art work, but I have a few subtle ideas in mind to at least bulk it up a little, which might also allow me to add a broadside macrobattery more like the imperial ships to make it look meaner.

 

Oh yeah, I've also been nominated to make figures for our characters, so there might be some of that coming up soon.

[Andvarr A]

Damn Kage...

 

...you are a technical master... Someone give him the title of Master Of The Forge

[Mechanist]

Painted Up with some chaos plastic gun batteries it's not a bad ship, I wanted one for years and did manage to get an order in when the wife got me some vouchers a couple of years back, Just before they went unavailable. Than picked up two more off ebay in a couple of lucky bids they didn't cost to much.

Still I'm sure you'll do some stellar changes and make me look twice at mine. 

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

Thanks, Andvarr.

 

Mechanist, 3 Repulsive's? I'm green with envy!

 

So I had a little go at making some changes to mine by adding a 3mm plastic spacer between the lower hull and the upper and re-aligning the nose section.

 

http://i.imgur.com/h3hTEwV.png

 

The original for comparison.

 

http://i.imgur.com/IAzt4M2.png

 

And an overlay of the spaced hull on the art.

 

http://i.imgur.com/pirx9Ju.png

 

It's not a huge change, but I think that goes a long way toward correcting not only some of the awkward fit problems built into the model, but brings it more in line with the art. Now I just have to fill in those blank spots.

 

Which should be easy.

 

 

Right?

[Andvarr A]

Amazing what a little bit of plasticard can do for a model...nice