Well, I did a really bad job showing the final steps on this thing, but the main idea is to keep layering. I basically used thick plasticard (0.8mm) to cover the side as skirting, and to cover the half water bottle lid tops. From there I did a series of corregated strips across the sides. I use a paper crimper to make my own, by rolling it through also make sure it is light weight plasticard.
Well, here are some final pictures….just before mailing it off to my santa.
Well, as the title suggests, I did something bad. I didn’t really document my progress all that well for this post. I do have a lot of pictures, and I will try to explain what I did.
First, I added the base of the tracks to the wheel areas. This is best achieved by making long strips, and then trimming them to fit at the various angles. I used 4 seperate peices for each side, to cover the various angles.
So, following this (and doing both sides) I decided to start adding some track guards to the front section of the tank. There are 2 ways I did this. First I used 3mm plasticard to make some rough sections. Those sections are acheived by taking a razor and cutting the plasticard to make it look all distressed. The other guard on the front is done by taking a thinner card, and cutting it into 3 equal sectionsso that it looks more like a shoulder pad. Here are some examples
As you can see in the above picture, I also took 3 more total of those Orange Juice pull tabs, and cut them in half, I then glued them in between the tracks to add more gear looking things.
Once you have the base in, you need to go back and make each individual shoe, or trackplate. This can again be done by cutting strips into approximate lengths. I like to make each one slightly different because I feel it makes it look more junky/ramshackle in the end, which is the look I like to go for.
Also, at this point I began adding depth to the sides of the tracks. Things like old vehicle parts, crimped plasticard and other bits.
Now, on the back I took my time and dremeled out the engine from the “Crashed Aquilla Lander Terrain” These things were dirt cheap, and I got one in a grab bag I bought a while back. Anyways, the engine was placed on the back end. I simply used some plasticard in an “L” shape to make a structure, then hung the engine off of the back.
So as you can see, I also added some verticle structure, this was done from old sprue. Again, I do not have pictures for where I got all of this stuff from, but the sprue was placed near the rear, and I began covering the top with some thicker structure.
The last thing I did during this update, was to add an engine block ontop of the aquilla lander engine.
As you can see too, I built a structure to hold a medicine bottle, which I envision as a fuel tank. I will likely fill all of this in some thicker card.
Well, the tank has been sitting for sometime, which means it is time to work on it again.
The first thing I wanted to do was to add a “floor” to the bottom of the tank.
I achieved this by making some grooves out of 3mm plasticard, on either side to “support” the lighter plasticard. This is a good idea, so you do not have to glue the thin card in a weird position onto the tracks directly. Unfortunatly I forgot to take pictures of this step, but here is the completed floor.
The next step is to make an area for the roller to hide into the body. This can be done simply by making an overhanging peice off of the front end.
Here too you can notice the roller. I added on some shields from the Warhammer Fantasy Goblin Regiment. The set is no longer sold through Games Workshop, however some gaming stores (like mine) still carried it. If you can find one, I would highly recommend it. Not only good shield peices, but the goblins inside are perfect for 40k grots. At any rate, I made a simple pattern, alternating spike shields and regular ones.
With that completed, I wanted to add a first structure where driver/gunners may sit. Simple enough, cut out
5inchesx3inches and do 2 of those (being the front and back and then a 5inchesx1.5inches that being the top. You will get a primative box that will set ontop of the overhanging peice we just added.
Don’t worry about the rough appearance so far, pretty much everything (in my style of building) will get covered sooner or later with trophies and superfulous things.
The last trick that I wanted to show was the addition of some orange juice pull caps to the interior of the front wheels. When you buy orange juice, there is a plastic ring that is attached to a disk. It looks like this
These work very well for spokes/hubcaps. And I decided I would trim away the ring part, and use the disk for the front wheel of the tank, the ones that are slightly exposed.
As you can see that still looks rough, so I will have to go back and add something to make it look less “free floating”.
Thanks for looking, more to come!
So after I constructed the main chasis area, I decided to add a deffrolla, as per my Santa’s request. There have been a significant ammount of tutorials on how to do this, but I think my way is the simplest.
You will need 6 total capps
2 total large
2 total medium
2 total small
My caps are orange juice lids, medical bottle caps, and the same type of cap (don’t know where the hell it came from) for the outer section.
I arranged them and glued them to look like this
Then I affixed the deffrolla to the chasis, as I want it embedded inside the main body.
More to come later
So, no one really reads this anyways, but this is the start of one of my how-to sections. This is going to be the future present given to another forum member for a secret santa exchange. Here I am going to highlight the way in which I build, which involves using a lot of different peices of junk. Who knows, it may even help someone.
So, the first thing I am going to say is that you should always collect every last peice of junk you have around the house. I for one like to collect medicine bottles (the kind perscriptions come in as well as over-the-counter variety) and caps/lids to various things. As such I have other people saving their junk for me too! This build would not be possible without the junk that other people have saved for me, so be creative and ask your friends/family to save junk for you too.
So first things first, you need about 10 round caps, preferably the kind that have a texture on the outer edge, like this one here.
I am not sure where these ones in particular came from. You will also need superglue and plasticard. I am using a 0.03″ thickness for this particular section, although a thicker plasticard would likely work a little better (I am just running low, so I need to use what I got).
I also used this handy-dandy template I found elsewhere for the outer structure of the body…you can use it too
You will need 4 total peices, as we need to have an outside and inside for each side
So, align the 5 caps on the oneside, arching over the main section of the track guard. I put mine near the top, but you could go all the way around the track guard as well. I figure I am going to have the bottom on the ground, so it doesn’t really matter to me. You could double the amount of caps you have to add more realistic look.
Next simply attach the portion that will overlap, to make the caps look more like a gear.
Make one side first, and then for the opposite side, remember to REVERSE the way that the caps face. This is because, the caps inside doesn’t have anyshape, and you want the top of the cap on the outside, hopefully that makes sense.
Here is what my tracks looked like afterwards
Thanks for looking so far.
More to come
I decided that I wanted to better document my construction process. This website is the result.
Thanks for looking.
