No Skin off my Nose

Well, back to the build.  I have used the Dremel to rout out a "notch" to place the rear cockpit in behind the Pilot.  This was a point of much consternation for me as I debated to place it in the same manner as the original on the Forgeworld version of find some way to have the second crew member face forward.

I came to the conclusion I would have to create a huge "bump" on the back of the Vampire to accomplish a forward facing second canopy.  I "cleaned up" the canopy section of a Eldar Vyper fast weapons platform (no longer a jetbike the last few codices, Grrrr) and nestled it into position through numerous test fits and gentle trimming.

The next stage is the "skin" for the fuselage.  I fell back to old methods of scratch building by using "comic backing board" (thick single layer cardboard - ask your comic retailer if they throw it out when their shipments come in.  It is invaluable for saving the amount of sheet plastic you waste with mistakes.)  You can get exact shapes with the cardboard and then trace them onto plastic sheet for minimal "fixing" of problems later on.

I also finished placing plastic strip along the fuselage fore to aft to have an anchor point for the plastic sheet "skin when I apply it.

With the cardboard sections cut, I will be making sheet skin and applying it.  Next post you will see the fitting of the flying base hole on the bottom of the fuselage.  I will be using 1/2" clear plastic acrylic rod for the "flying stem" of the base.  this only ran about $2.50 a foot from my local plastic/acrylic fabrication store downtown (found in the phone book under "Plastics" - who woulda thunk it)

Having problems uploading pictures today, so I will try and get caught up next time.

Around the Workshop

Well as promised I have snapped some shots of the Chaos that is my workshop.  I am currently painting and assembling a Forgeworld Chaos Warhound Titan for a friend, working on the Eldar Vampire Raider, sculpting alternate heads for my Armorcast Phantom Titan which I am doing a "Mid-level" modification from the classic and not as modern as the upcoming forgeworld project, painting about 150 guardsmen and contemplating a "Dragonship" (Avatar Movie) variant from Valkyrie bitz.  I am also stalled on my "Arch-Angels" (flex army that can use either the Blood or Dark Angels Codexes.

Too much in vasrious stages of completion.  My completed armie are in in travel cases in my Office and blocks of those are in various stages of completion (or incompletion in some cases) needeing attention too.
My current drivers are Eldar and IG.

here are a few pics and I hopefully will have more to show you on the Eldar Vampire project soon.

Over 100 1/72 and 1/48 scale planes (WWII - Present) over 40 Sci-fi (Starwars / Star Trek) models and about 20 boxes of Warhammer 40k (various) that need to be built and painted.

There is not enough time in the day to get at everything, but I am making headway!

'till next time!  Cheers!

Getting Pushy

Well here is the next step in the engine housings.  I cut Exhaust nozzles from the Falcon kit's lower and center pieces.  I removed them at the forward most point they connect to the falcon hull.

I then removed the exhaust nozzles from some land speeder I had saved from nearly 10 years ago (Pic #1, Row 2, piece 1) when I built speeder for my Rock Badgers Space Marines without them.  I built the speeders as 4-wheeler Jeep-style speeders instead (but that's another story all together)  By themselves they are way too wide to fit inside the Eldar engines so I cut off the outer edges making them only the size of the inner ring (Started in Pic #1, row 2, on the left side of the 3rd piece.  When cleaned up, it fits nicely into the Eldar engine halves in row 3.  They end up looking like the finished pieces in Pic #1 row 1.

I have blu-taced the finished nozzles onto the wooden dowels to show a rough assembly before I add plastic card details.

Next time I will snap some pics of the Workshop and you can get a idea where I am operating from. 
I have at least 3-4 projects in the works at any given time and when the mood strikes I bury myself down there and like to keep working while inspired, so as on thing dries I move onto the next. 

My real limitation is motivation at times and how much charge my Dremel can hold.  I would be lost without it on scratch builds and conversions!

Plastic cartiledge for a wooden Skeleton

Well this installment finds me having to get new batteries for my digital camera so I can continue to update my construction of the Eldar Vampire Hunter.  That is why I haven't posted in a few.

I spent about 4 hours making sure the "Ribs" of the fuselage we able to match up evenly when a sheet of plastic will be glued onto the body.  This consisted of using a dremel to take thin layers off of the plywood ribs so that when I looked down the length of the body from fore to aft, it was uniform and no rib was out any further than the rest.

I am going to refer to areas of construction from here on out, in reference to a bird's anatomy as it is, in effect, a bird emulating structure.  The body will be the central construction and require the second most attention following of coarse the head/neck assembly.

As circled in red in Pic #1, I have dremeled out notches to fit a piece of plastic beam that, when married to the ribs, will form a uniform surface to glue the sheet plastic forming the skin of the "body." You will also see the plastic beam has corresponding notches to interlock with the rib notches.  Also notice to the right the Dowels glued together to form the basis of the "Tri-nozzle" exhaust system  Each is 5/8th" diameter (the diameter of a Falcon/Wave serpent exhaust nozzle which is used in the forge world kit and will be used in my variant.

In Pic #2 is the plastic beam is in place.  I added blue lines at the joins to show that the surface of the plastic beam should be even with the flat surface of the ribs where the "skin" of plastic sheet will be glued.  Also a third piece of dowel is added to the exhaust to show the general configuration.

My next post will be pics of all the plastic beams in place and address the adding of the "skin" to the body.

Pictures

 This is the gathered sub assemblies at the current stage now begins the "Clean-up" of the Cockpit area (move the pilot back about 1/4") and construction of the "Neck"

 The underside of the port side wing showing the application of the oversized vanes prior to "shave-down" with a dremmel

Vanes after shavedown so shapes are now true.  Epoxie putty (the medium gray stuff in the notch on the wing in the upper left) will now bee added between the vanes, to not fully fill, but get a clearer shape to the vane assembly.

This gives a very rough basis on which I will continue to build.  I have the ambitious goal to build a Vampire Raider that, from above, is barely distinguishable from the forgeworld kit except to the trained eye for detail who is familiar with the forgeworld kit.  I am not going to build a "carbon copy," as I will change some things that I feel are more in keeping with the Eldar design esthetic.

Until next time...

Deception or Diversity?

As the project of the Scratch built Vampire Raider progresses, I should point out I did not do a Complete job researching the project before jumping in with both feet.  I only recently got to view the 40K scale version of the Vampire hunter in person and was struck with a few marginal and a few rather noticeable differences.

In my possession at the start of the project was a copy of Aeronautica Imperalis (AI) and one each of the ForgeWorld Vampire Raider and Vampire Hunter Kits.  The AI book does not provide drawings of the underside of the craft.  Referring to the AI models, which are roughly 1/285th scale I assumed the model was a direct downsized copy of the 40K scale kit.  I was wrong.

As it turns out there are a few significant differences. 

One can be attributed to scale.  The thin width of the "vent" structures under the front and outer edges of the wings cannot be accurately sculpted and cast in the smaller scale, so on the AI version there are fewer of them and they are, to scale, thicker.  I constructed a direct upscale from the AI version to my 40K scale scratch build.  As compared to the 40K scale model they look big. 

The second is wing thickness.  I was surprised that the thickness of the wing of the AI version scaled up to be roughly twice the thickness of the 40K scale model.  I doubt I would have been comfortable trying to construct the wings as thin as they are cast and am glad I used modelling plywood for an inner structure.

The third is the Engine and forward Engine housing.  The Vampire has a trapezoidal shaped housing under the wing representing the front of the engines. There is a distinctly longer edge to the housing which, on the AI version is closer to the center line axis.  This is the exact opposite of the 40K model which has the longer side toward the outer portion of the wing.  This is visually different, but structurally, it leads to some major differences in relationship to the attachment of other structures.  The tri-engine cluster which forms the exhaust(s) of the main powerplant(s) is one nozzle atop two others on each side in the AI version.  In the 40K version it is two nozzles over one.  This is another large visual change.  I am hard pressed to find a logical explanation for the change in the two versions exhaust configurations.  The AI version lends a more "bulky" look to the vehicle.

The Fourth is the weapons mounts beneath the wings.  In the AI Version there is a bubble shaped housing with the weapons choices molded into it and are designed to attach to the Wing proper below the center knuckle of the wing leading edge.  The leading edge is shaped like a lazy rounded "W" with the weapons located below the center point of the "W".  On the 40K version the weapons mount for the Hunter is attached to the front of the trapezoidal shaped engine housing.  The 40K raider has its weapons in both versions in this center wing position.  The weapons location in both the AI versions being at the center of the "W" makes sense in that more commonality and stability for mounting the raider's two twin linked pulse lasers into a one piece mounting would be structurally stronger once assembled.  

I have built the trapezoidal engine "boxes" and am about to build the tri-engine nozzle assemblies which are Falcon exhausts, with turbine exhausts fron Space marine Land Speeders that are reduced to the inner detail and placed inside the falcon nozzles. 

Will try and get pics taken by the weekend to show some of the ares I have discussed here.

Tomorrow is Veterans Day, If you see one thank them for their service!

  

First of the many already begun

I am working on a Scratch Built Eldar VAMPIRE RAIDER in 40K scale (28mm).

For those unfamiliar it is a sleek looking version of a Klingon Bird of Prey.  A bit smaller and carries about 30 troopers into combat at very high speeds. 

I am using modeling plywood (3/16" thick) and adding sheet plastic epoxied on as skin to ease the addition of plastic details and scribed panel lines.

I used an online DYI template as a starting point building a rough using foamcore.  Then upscaling the three view drawings found in "Aronautica Imperialis" so the size of the pilot's canopy was the same size as a canopy of a Falcon Grav-tank I knew I had the templates I needed.  I carefully cut out the shaped and made cardboard (cereal box thickness) templates to be transferred to the plywood and plastic.

I hope to have Pics up soon.

I will hopefully get pics taken and uploaded in a few days so you can take in what I have done so far.

Wings - basic outline and panel lines scribed in

Fuselage - plywood framework

Nose - cut and re-assembled Falcon Grav-Tank

Updates soon...

Onward and Upward - Ongoing projects

Here I am entering the blogosphere and I will be attempting to publish pictures with my digital camera and progress notes on all my Warhammer 40k, Warmachine and Models of anything that flies.

I have been building models since I was about 7 and am rapidly approaching my 43rd year in the hobby.

In 1989 I started building pewter and plastic war gaming figures and am well known in the Minnesota and Chicago areas for armies I won the "Best Army" trophies for from 1999-2001 in Chicago and 2002 in Minneapolis.  Grabbed a couple of "Demon" trophies (Silver and Bronze) at Games Workshop Games Days and help develop and keep running a small miniatures game club in Northern Minnesota.

Hopefully I can help entertain you, learn from you, inspire you and share my passion for creating plastic to play with.