Grgobart's Repressor Conversion

[Naminé]

Very nice, it looks all tron-ish too

[Anjetto]

That's amazing

[vonny]

That does look stunning. Very ornamental gothic 40k ecclessiarchy like

[Sororita Katya]

I love it, please give a step by step as to how to achieve this! I must have one in my army!

[Grgobart]

First of all thanks, I feel quite honoured that someone is interested in rebuilding my work.
And sorry it took some time to finish, I'm just a little busy at the moment.

But here is the Step-by-Step for my Repressor Conversion:


A few general things up front

Like I mentioned before, most of this is made up from thick "sheets" of plastic I made by gluing together bits of plastic frame. Most decorative bits I didn't have available I just carved from suitable bits of plastic. So I won't be mentioning these things every time they're used.

The Model I built was a prototype, so this will be how I would build a second one of these (cause you wouldn't want any of the "...saw that bit off, then build one that looks exactly alike and glue it back on..." sections!!!). One major difference though, I used a Razorback-top to base my Repressor-Cabin on (like you can see in the photos), but I reckon it isn't necessary, so I'll leave it out.

Any details and decorative bits should be applied as late as possible, so they won't get in the way and you don't have to tip-toe around them in further working processes.

And finally some naming things.
Going by the second picture of the first post I shall name the pieces from left to right: Roof (far left), Cabin(top middle), Cockpit(bottom middle), Turret-Ring(bottom right) and Front(far right).


Step-by-Step

Starting with a Rhino-Chassis, I remove all rivets and other obstacles from the roof, which will not be visible anymore*, as to minimise need of recesses/cavities for the parts to be placed atop. You might want to cut away the rivets carefully and keep them, in order to reuse them on your build later.

* for me, that's anything not visible under the Immolator top (which both my Immolators and Rhinos use) and the later Repressor-top. You could remove even more rivets and even all the antenna-bits, if you want to use the model exclusively as Repressor, or less to nothing if you want to be able to field them as (SM-style) Rhinos.

The first parts to create are the earlobe-things of the Cabin, that go on either side of the back-hatch. Just take some appropriately sized sheets of plastic (same thickness for both sides, obviously) and file/cut them till they fit in place and align with the bare Rhino roof and back.
Now you'll have exact width of your future Cabin.

Next up is the main body of the Cabin. A little mention on the angles first. The angles you see top-down should be obvious 90° and 45°, but the tilt of the Cabin-walls is somewhere around 65° (the same as the tilt on the back of an Immolator-top). The only exception is the back-wall, which has a tilt of around 82.5° instead for optical reasons (looking from the side, the edges of the side-walls are symmetrical this way, otherwise the edge on the back would tilt twice as much toward the front, which would look silly, if you know what I mean).
Anyway, the Cabin without the roof will be (as with all following measurements approximately) 11.5mm high (a result of three outer Frame-pieces from the Immolator-spure glued together and the aforementioned angle). Starting with one of the Sidewalls (bottom length 45mm), apply the necessary bottom angle for the wall to have the correct tilt and glue on at least two pieces of frame, so you can glue on the opposite side-wall in a properly aligned way, to get the correct width for the cabin(sounds easy, but may need some patients!)
Next up is the back-wall and the 45°-front-side-walls (which I would dimension on the more generous side and cut away from when later needed).
Now I hope you know how to put together angled pieces correctly, as I feel my technical English isn't up to the task of explaining THAT, sorry!

When the Cabin-body is glued together, it's time to make all the recesses/cavities neccessary to put the Cabin onto the Rhino without any gaps. Once that is achieved, you can also glue the earlobes to the Cabin-body.

Next we'll start with the Front, but before that it might be a good time to butcher a Razorback-top. We need the flat side for our Roof and the ring-bit sticking out the other side, for the Front. So separate them whichever way you see fit (I carefully cut it off by knife, certainly not the fasted way, but it worked). With the Ring it might be easier to get a sense of where things are going to be.
We need some thin sheet(s) of plastic for the bit of Front that goes on top of the elevated part of the Rhino-roof (I filed mine down to align with a thick sheets set on the non-elevated part). With it create the afore-mentioned part of the Front. Before creating the angles (again resembling the Immolator-top angles) in detail, I found it wise to glue pieces of frame on the underside, to fit in the twin hatches of the Rhino, as a means to have a fixed position to work from.

With the thin bit ready its time to create the bit of the Front that connects it to the cabin (that's only the lower flat bit, not to be confused with Cockpit piece!). Create fitting pieces for the Front and remove excess from the Cabin if necessary. Glue together the Front piece (consisting of thin bit, connecting bit(s) and turret-base-ring) and ensure it still lays gap-less on top the Rhino-roof.

Note: I mentioned earlier that I made a mistake with the bit of the Cockpit that connects to the Cabin. I made it as wide as the Immolator-canopy-frame, which prevents the Heavy Flamer from pivoting the full 270° it was intended to. So keep in mind to make that part (below those beams I painted boltgun-metal, or whatever the colour is called now) less wide.

If you don't have a suitable piece already, you'll have to create a ring "to bind them all..." ahem..., I mean to fit the into the turret-base. Later we'll have to fit into that ring, the underside of the Cockpit. The heavy Flamer to be fitted to the ring, I'll trust won't be much of a problem to recreate or make even better, to anyone feeling fit to attempt this conversion (but as a guideline, I cut up a pair of Immolator heavy Flamers from one of my Exorcists and cut off and rearranged the nozzles for horizontal use).

Now for the Cockpit. This will be a section of work that'll involve a lot of: fitting a piece of plastic, glue it on and "Oh, I can't really go on here until it's completely dry!". So as a(nother) general note: This isn't a strict plan, you can start working on various pieces at once, while other are drying, in some cases to some degree at least.
Starting piece for the Cockpit is of course the Immolator-canopy-frame. Once tilted into the correct position (front just touching the Turret-Ring, back at the height you think it should later be), start gluing on pieces onto the underside to fill the gap between it and the Turret-Ring an file it into form.
And as mentioned before, glue at least a partial ring under the Cockpit, fitting into the Turret-Ring.
Those beams from canopy to Cabin are purely decorative and as such should be glued on much later. And remember, make anything beneath it narrower than I did, in order to allow greater turret traverse.

For the connection between Cockpit and Cabin. I did it with the first one and I intend to do it with the next one as well: the Cockpit will be removable, to retain accessibility to the Turret-Ring. So in order to get good fit for the Cockpit, I extend the bridge bit well into the Cabin and file the 45°-front-side-walls to match. Together with the fitting into the Turret-Ring, this should be enough to hold it in place well enough, even without glue.

The final piece you need is the Roof. The only reason for it to be a separate piece being the cavities for the pointy red arch-thingy-bits, that would've been a nightmare to create, otherwise.
Before starting with the roof though you might want to create flat areas on top of your Cabin piece, where they'll be needed later (on my prototype I might been a bit generous, as hadn't really thought about it before).
The Roof is mostly about decoration, so feel free to make alterations here (not that it's not allowed elsewhere!). As mentioned before center-piece here is the the flat side of a Razorback-top, from which I had cut away the hatch-bit (but used some of the opposite ventilation-slits to make the front ventilation-slits on my model). Fit aligning extensions of the Cabin's walls and piece together the rest in whichever fashion you like. Make suitable cavities wherever you want to put pointy red arch-thingy-bits (but, as with all decorative bits, put the pointy red arch-thingy-bits themselves there later).

It's time for the final assembly, make sure all five pieces fit together perfectly and perfectly on top of the Rhino. First glue the Roof to the Cabin, that way you'll be get a last chance to work on all five Cabin walls unobstructed, to make sure they're flat and smooth. Next glue together Front and Cabin, and ensure they properly align, so there'll no gaps when put onto the rhino together. Try again if the Turret-Ring and Cockpit still fit, if not make adjustments.
And NOW it's time to glue on all the decorative bits (and all the little rivets in the right places, to achieve the genuine imperial look).

Then paint it and you'll have your very own converted Repressor!


I hope this understandable and helpful. If there are questions or anything not detailed enough, don't hesitate to ask!