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Author Topic: A Miscellany of Ingenious Scratchbuilds & Kitbashes:  (Read 23932 times)

Offline Padrissimus

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A Miscellany of Ingenious Scratchbuilds & Kitbashes:
« on: October 28, 2019, 09:42:20 AM »
(Edited to to this properly instead of my previous half-bothered effort!)

1. Maestro Angelo da Leoni's Steam Carriage

Here it can be seen parading through the holy city of Remas, before the crowds and his Holiness the Arch-Lector of Morr:







Here are the scenes of the maestro's workshop yard during the engine's construction:

The maestro himself








And now the RW scratch-build modelling story ...

Already having made a carroccio (war altar), I was hankerin' after a steam tank. I had never had one before. What I was aiming for was a 'steam-tank-light', with stats reflecting less armour and (possibly) a weaker armament than the official model. In the end I decided I could mount the old helblaster model I had just bought second hand, as well as several smaller artillery pieces.

Here are some pictures of the early WIP stages of this (ambitious?) scratch-build project.



The innards were built out of bits of pens, a toy barrel, plastic rods, and engine wheels from some cheap plastic toys that came wrapped in chocolate! The wheels are metal, bought at a wargames’ convention way back assuming I'd find some future use. The rods sticking out of the bottom were supposed to have a chain wrapped around to connect the steering wheel with the little truck of wheels at the front, but once I realised none of it would be seen I wondered whether to bother (it would be a fiddly process).

Here it is sticky-tacked together to see if it would fit together properly  ...



Below is a guide to what is what, or at least what the various parts are supposed to do. I'm a low fantasy sort of guy, so I want this to look like it might (actually) work. A chain-loop would run from the steering column right back to the clump of four wheels. I knew it wasn’t as sleek as a whip-staff, but I'm not that clever. I built the mechanism without thinking about how I would add fighting platforms or weapons or armour. I decided to worry about that later, as if the machine had to be this way and so the designer/engineer would simply have to work out how to add the rest to it.



Some bits still needed clipping off, otherwise the movement of its mechanism would be hindered, but I'd learned from bitter experience when scratch-building (and sewing!) to make bits longer than I think they need to be, because too long can be corrected a lot easier than too short!

After completing the project I realised I had made a weird mistake. The final piece moved in entirely the opposite direction to that which I had intended. I had accidentally flipped its proposed direction of travel around in my addled mind.

The engine’s design is based on my Skaven warp-lightning cannon, which was actually built using an Airfix model kit of Trevithick's early 19th century engine. Here, I didn’t try to represent all the parts and pipes etc, however, as although I'm a low fantasy aficionado who wants things to look like they might work, I reckoned it already did look like it might work. So, I left the mechanism as is. Besides, I didn't know which pipes are meant to do what. And importantly, as I found out later, the engine wasn’t going to be particularly visible when the model was completed.

It was not easy to get hard polystyrene to stick to the annoyingly un-glueable waxy version that a lot of these scavenged toy bits are made of. Or any glue, for that matter! I have sewed things on to this sort of plastic in the past, but this model was too small and fiddly for sewing! So I scored criss-crossed lines with a scalpel to give a better surface on the waxy plastic for glue to hold onto. Also, when glueing wood to hard polystyrene, I put plastic glue on the plastic, PVA on the wood, then joined - thus mixing glues! It seemed to work. At least it hasn't fallen apart yet.

Here the pictures show the next stage. I was suffering many doubts about it at this stage, unsure I liked it at all. I quite like the engine and truck parts, even with the oddly angled wooden 'armour':







I hadn’t realised that the wooden side walls would lean outwards until I put my lollipop stick shields together, nor that the whole thing would be angled down towards the front, but it seemed ok (if a somewhat 'organic' design). The strange angles can't be seen much in the pictures. (I also wish I had modeled it to travel the other way, so that big piston type thing cam thrusting out the back and the crew could peer out through little windows to see where they were going.)

What I was really uncertain about was the WIP gun platform. It just didn't seem right - it looked ugly to me. And its supporting frame didn't look strong enough, not if there was to be a helblaster blasting away up there!







I was reluctant to start the platform again, making it all wooden instead of iron panels? In the end I decided it needed something in-between the lower section and the top sections – possibly more paneling or some sort of iron bars? Yes, bracing was most likely the way to go.

I had also forgotten about the smoke stack. There is one on my skaven steam engine, so now was the time to get looking in my bits-boxes. (Would all the smoke and steam make it more frightening,  lending 'soft cover' of a sort to the crew!)

I also wondered whether I should have some sort of canopy above the gun platform. I didn't want the guys getting sunstroke whilst being steamed and smoked and tending a hot gun. It would prettify it up a bit too. Or maybe just become a major fire hazard? I didn't think the gun deck on any fighting ship circa 1560 - 1860 was particularly comfortable, and WW1 tanks were ridiculous uncomfortable. My low fantasy mind could live with the idea of great discomfort, but a canopy might finish it off as a model. The figures I intended to use as engine crew were stripped down to their shirts so they look like they were adapting to conditions!

I added way more supports and braces, and snow I liked it again! I had yet to put a bigger stack on it, but here are some WIP pics of the more solid looking version.





I wanted to leave some gaps so that the innards could be seen. It would be madness, surely, to model and paint the workings so carefully to reflect a real engine, and then enclose them completely in armour!

The machine part (the inside) was already painted. I was thinking of leaving the wood as wood, especially now I have glued the case and so could not get to the innards. I used forums to discuss (and receive) ideas, and one great suggestion was some sort of prow. I did not want to go overboard as it is meant to be a slightly over-engineered low fantasy gun platform more than a regiment crushing beast. I thought I’d do something like those sweeping things on the front of old trains in the cowboy films.

It was also pointed out on forums that the front firing door could be much better, someone suggesting a double door version. Maybe (if I could work it out) this would have some sort of windlass or lever powered opening mechanism?

Here you can see the wooden prow, a mantlet, and a large smoke stack piercing up from the engine through the upper platform. Also, the front now had double doors of a symmetrical design.







I spent several days working out what to do about the doors. Maybe two cords attached to the outer edges that run back so that the door can be pulled open? But I was not sure that would work - pulling the cords would just tighten them rather than open the doors. Maybe a pole to push them open? And a hook to pull them closed? I decided to search the internet for 'scratch-built low fantasy steam-tank gun-port doors' to see what I could find. There was bound to be something. No?

Here it is very close to completion. Iron banding was added for strength, and a simple mechanism for opening the double firing doors was added (luckily, my obscure skill set included the art of 'lucetting' to make the tiny ropes).





The interior of the engine compartment was gonna be a squeeze, but ain't that often the case in the real world too?



Here it is finally complete, apart from the heraldic designs and pennants I intended for its inevitable parade through the streets of Remas to hearten the populace and lessen their fears concerning the evil enemy in the north.

I stained the last wooden bits, added an extra brace of swivels and glued the lower crew, and re-based the upper crewmen on timber.





Tell me you wouldn't be worried if you were standing in a rank and file body with that bearing down upon you.

The upper crew figures ...



And the lower crew stripped to their shirts. (Steamy!)



Here you can see the official base size in white. Why do I nearly always make the same mistake and make scratchbuilds bigger than they should be?



Finally, the ladder, and the start of some WIP barrels for powder and shot.



...

Next, another engine.


« Last Edit: March 15, 2023, 09:14:32 PM by Padrissimus »
My Tilean Campaign can be found at https://bigsmallworlds.com/

Offline Mason

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Re: Maestro Angelo da Leoni's Steam Carriage
« Reply #1 on: October 28, 2019, 09:53:37 AM »
That is a cracking build and a lovely collection of figures too.
 :-* :-*


Offline Padrissimus

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Re: A Miscellany of Ingenious Scratchbuilds
« Reply #2 on: October 28, 2019, 05:33:25 PM »
Thanks Mason. I would put some images of stone houses etc I have made here (just for you, master mason) but they wouldn't belong in this thread! Instead ...

2. Skaven Doom Wheel
Part ‘kit-bash’ / part scratch build


I love the idea of a doom wheel, but I wanted (as so often I do) to build my own version. And so I began the enjoyable odyssey that making such a mechanical model involves.

I wanted a machine with steam powered locomotion, not scuttling rats like the official model, using (of course) warpstone to heat the steam. I loved the idea that the locomotion itself then generates the power that sparks other warpstone shards to generate lightning. I also wanted a kind of ‘steam-punk’ look.

I needed some bits for the big wheel, so I started with three plastic Pringles' tops. Having hoarded a ridiculous amount of ‘rubbish’ (mostly plastic) in many a bits-box, I found a circular thing which fitted neatly inside the lids, which had kind of gear wheel teeth all around it - once part of a VHS video tape. As the Pringle lids are waxy and averse to glue of any almost kind, I decided to sew the new component in. Oh, and this was a clever bit - I used masking tape (the paper kind) around the edge of the lids, so that there would be a paper surface to glue wood bits onto and not a waxy plastic ‘unstickable’ surface.



Now I hunted in bits boxes for anything like wheels, gears and any sort of appropriate looking component parts. I cut four sections out of one of the lids, taped up the four rungs thus created, and glued lollipop sticks on. I also began making a boiler type affair out of old lids from water bottles (milliputting the holes) and a funnel out of a GW cannon barrel. I used some wheels to make the main driving wheels that would carry a chain to make the doom wheel trundle round.



I fashioned a rear-platform for the operator to stand on, with the boiler and some control levers. For 45p I bought a thin strip of wood to cut to make the wheel rim, and I got extravagant and bought brass pins from the same modellers shop - that way they could be glued and pinned to the rim (the latter more for appearance’s sake). I made some kind of inner workings by cutting bits of plastic tube and stick, this being the machinery that turns motion into a generating spark for the warpstone to crackle its lightning.

Wood stain is great for lolly sticks and bits of wood, so I didn’t have to paint these sections. It also works well on the brass pin heads.



One warpstone shard was mounted on a rod extending out from between the two wheel sections, with a tube going to it to carry whatever it is skaven send down such tubes to light their warpstone (i.e. haven’t worked out the fluff for this part yet - just like the look of it).

Then I began the mounting for the blades that will stick out in front of the wheel, a frame which will attach to the axle and have two more pieces of warpstone at the sides. (Old skaven sprues provided this - a kind of claw and stone thing that was really to go on the top of standards).

I undercoated the workings and added inner (wood-stained) spokes. Wood-stained cardboard had to do for the outer rim of the non-gear-riddled wheel, as I could not be bothered carving wood to the same effect. Nor have I the skill. (I’d already cut myself once with a scalpel on this project - there’s a limit to how far I am prepared to suffer for my toy soldiers’ hobby!)



Here it is completed (well, almost – I intended to ‘tune it up’ later).

Here is a side view showing the flank with the drive chain. There is a wheel on the engine housing behind the boiler, and from this a chain runs to the gear wheel on the axis of the big doom-wheel wheel. (I’m writing a bit like a skaven too, and it is not even deliberate.)



My Warpstone shards were not to everyone’s liking, nor my general approach to painting, but I’d been doing ‘cartoon’-style for so long I didn’t want to stop now. Besides it would fit in with my army better if it was painted like them.

From the front you can see it’s an unforgiving war machine. This should account for the impact hits. As for the S2 attacks, as this is not from giant rat driven but steam powered, bit instead when the lightning is not flaring out there is still a relatively weak warp-static dancing and flickering around between the three shards (thus in the forward arc) – shocks strong enough to deliver these weak-ish attacks.



Here is the other flank. Like I said before, steam (heated by warpstone dust) generates motive power via a boiler and an engine, but then internal gears inside the large wheel generate enough energy to spark the three shards of warpstone to life. The driver stands (as expected) on the steerage deck.



This rear(ish) view shows the two controls. A wheel allows the engineer to alter the steam power, and thus the speed. Well, it’s supposed to, but it’s all a bit random in truth (as per the rules). He can at least frantically try to reduce it by spinning it when it is going a bit too fast, and then when it is going too slow, he can spin wildly in the other direction. The lever at the side jolts the rear wheel and thus changes the engine’s direction.

(When I took the above photos I noticed I had forgotten to paint some bits, like the wheels on the end of the arms. But here they are painted.)



Finally, here are a couple of shots of it in battle from an old bat rep of skaven vs. ogres …






Offline CookAndrewB

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Re: A Miscellany of Ingenious Scratchbuilds
« Reply #3 on: October 28, 2019, 06:53:56 PM »
Those are pretty sweet.

Offline Padrissimus

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Re: A Miscellany of Ingenious Scratchbuilds
« Reply #4 on: October 28, 2019, 09:06:21 PM »
Thanks. There are a lot more yet to come, as and when I can upload and shuffle pics to Imgur and re-edit them into corrected text. Stupid Photobucket!!!!!!

Offline Aesthete

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Re: A Miscellany of Ingenious Scratchbuilds
« Reply #5 on: October 28, 2019, 11:03:29 PM »
Spectacular!

Obviously the scratch built models are wonderful. Your photo staging and narrative presentation is a delight too. Nice work!
Dispatches from the Miniature Front - my occasionally updated blog

Offline mweaver

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Re: A Miscellany of Ingenious Scratchbuilds
« Reply #6 on: October 28, 2019, 11:28:21 PM »
Those builds are awesome!!

-Michael

Offline Padrissimus

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Re: A Miscellany of Ingenious Scratchbuilds
« Reply #7 on: October 28, 2019, 11:33:11 PM »
Thanks kind fellows. I will try to put some more up ASAP.

Offline gamer Mac

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Re: A Miscellany of Ingenious Scratchbuilds
« Reply #8 on: October 28, 2019, 11:42:18 PM »
Very nice scratch builds :-* :-* :-* :-* :-* :-*
Keep up the good work

Offline Blackwolf

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Re: A Miscellany of Ingenious Scratchbuilds
« Reply #9 on: October 29, 2019, 12:41:13 AM »
Brilliant! 'Tis a Frazer Nash  ;)
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Online OSHIROmodels

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Re: A Miscellany of Ingenious Scratchbuilds
« Reply #10 on: October 29, 2019, 02:46:18 AM »
Great stuff  8)
cheers

James

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Offline Gallahad

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Re: A Miscellany of Ingenious Scratchbuilds
« Reply #11 on: October 29, 2019, 02:20:27 PM »
Thank you for sharing. Love the steam wheel, attention to detail and staging.

Offline joekano

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Re: A Miscellany of Ingenious Scratchbuilds
« Reply #12 on: October 29, 2019, 03:16:45 PM »
Really well done!  Looking forward to seeing what else you come up with
"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the war room." -President Merkin Muffley
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Offline Padrissimus

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Re: A Miscellany of Ingenious Scratchbuilds
« Reply #13 on: October 29, 2019, 10:32:44 PM »
Thank you all. You are giving confidence, and motivation, so here is another ...

3. Scratchbuilt Ironblaster

I wanted an ironblaster that would 'go with' my scratchbuilt Scraplauncher, so once again I used a toy rhino.

For the gun I used a pen, parts of a broken torch and milliput. I was actually very unconvinced by my efforts, but I am stubborn, don’t like redoing, and so I just hoped it would be transformed by a paint job!



Here are all the main pieces (minus the crewman) - balsa, card, and broken bits of toys.



I was getting the idea how it would all to go together.



I always like things to look like they might work and reckoned that a beast as big as this could actually carry the barrel on its back rather than just pull it along like the official model. Also I put big fur-filled sacks on its back to mount the gun on - the idea being this would 'cushion' the violent jolting when the gun fired!





I was still not sure about it, but at least it seemed fun if not necessarily 'cool', and it certainly complemented my similarly made scrap-launcher.

I then took some advice from some WFBers who said it ought to have a platform for the loading gnoblar to run about on and the rhino should look like it's been damaged by the muzzle blast of the cannon. Also dirtied up the cannon a bit.





I was proud (an odd way to put it, I know) of the dried blood which had dribbled out of the poor beast's ears as a consequence of the blasts.

Once I put a crew-ogre on it, it grew on me a bit, even though it is, as all my scratch-builds tend to be, bigger than the official model.



The crewman holds rope reigns which are fastened to a chain around the beast's neck.



The special loading platform has four powder barrels on it.

Once based (in my usual, very basic style) and with a gnoblar attached, it was done!





When I looked at the final result I saw the the gun was still just wrong. What kind of shot would you load such an irregular barrel with? And how would it achieve even the vaguest accuracy?

I might replace the barrel one day. Maybe if the tyrant Razger Boulderguts ever returns to Tilea?

Offline gibby64

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Re: A Miscellany of Ingenious Scratchbuilds
« Reply #14 on: October 30, 2019, 12:46:16 PM »
You should be working for the companies coming up with this stuff... your stuff looks much cooler and more innovative then a lot of stuff I see coming out of these big shops! Great work.
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