Rogue Trader Mentor Legion - Grav-Attack Vehicle WIP3

[NotifyGrout]

I'm really loving this. I've been itching to get my old Warzone stuff out of storage, and those models share a case with my RT marine collection.

[Daeothar]

Ah, you mean these an elliptical oval cross-section, rather than a round-ended flat oval? I see - I couldn't tell that from the images of the products I found, but I'll take your word for it.
Also, nothing wrong with being fastidious! 

Your wording is a lot better than mine, but yes; it's all about the cross section! 

[Daeothar]

While still waiting for the spoons to arrive, I've taken to slowly prepping the bottle/vehicle for the final placing of the rest of the bits.

This means that I've now finished sanding the surface smooth and ironing out any faceting on the curves. Remaining is the rounding off of the bottom/rear edge, which I will probably do today.



I've placed the rear/bottom gapfillers, and puttied over the gaps in the hull sections, and sanded those flush with the surface as well. Some I had to do twice, since the Apoxy Sculpt did not grip the underlying surface as well as it should. I did the second attempt with ProCreate, heavy on the dark component, and this took much better. And because it was harder  due to me going heavy on the gray, it cut and sanded just as well as the Apoxy.



Then I drilled holes for the pins to hold both hull halves together, so they can now be dryfitted.



A good thing, because I had to go in and file/sand down one part of the recessed area between the two halves because it almost sat flush with the front part of the hull there. But this too worked  out pretty well in the end.

A lot of effort just to reproduce what in essence was just a piece of trash, but here we are... 

Then I started on the decals, but for some reason Photoshop crashed just as I was finishing up (of course without saving progress along the way). Three hours of work down the drain, and I've not built up the courage and motivation to start on that chore again... 

So the only thing still left to do before I can proceed with assembly was the prepping of the Zoids bits by removing the mould lines from all components and filling several hollow areas, which were probably moulded like that to save some material/weight.

I have not bothered with the parts that get glued flush to the hull, but the two tanks(?) flanking the turret did have those unsightly gaps on the undersides, so those were filled and shaped. Just like a couple of attachment holes (for pegs on other parts on the Zoids constructs) on the other parts.

The magnets for the bottom are also still en-route, so until I receive those, I will have to be patient now. Luckily, the mail man dropped off another couple of Marines just now, so I might perhaps start on the second squad

Then again; I start a new job next Monday, so hobby time might end up to be so limited that there won't even be time for that...

And just because I can, here's a shot of the assembled hull. The slanted nose section can now be seen well:



Oh, and then there's this thing I've been pondering on for quite some time: the original has panel lines painted on, but I have the opportunity to actually scribe them. Should I go that route, or should I stay 100% true to the original? I'm leaning towards scribing them, as it will look better, and I've already gone ahead and drilled the main gun's barrel and filled holes and gaps in the Zoids parts. Both things Rick did not do on his original... 

[OSHIROmodels]

As it’s an updated version, I’d scribe them on (it’ll make it easier to paint as well).

[BeneathALeadMountain]

Definitely scribe them on if you have the patience- a homage can be better (thought out and executed) than the original.

BALM

[Curis]

I'm watching this with eager eyes!  Your dedication to the right type of spoon, and gathering up the Zoid parts is inspirational.

[Daeothar]

Cheers

The project is a bit on hiatus at the moment because of starting a new job, getting hit with COVID Delta and also because I'm pondering what to do with my (first) grav vehicle after a series of mishaps during scribing the panel lines.

See; I'm used to the relative softness of polystyrene when scribing, and the ABS-like resin I used for the print is rock hard. So there were many, many slips and other accidents during the scribing process, which stalled halfway through, disgusted as I was with the very sub-par results.

Also, because it's harder, I broke one of my finer scriber points, so I took to using a more heavy duty one. This worked (bar the slippage), but I fear the resulting lines are way too broad now.

So I'm contemplating re-doing the entire design, scaled up quite a bit (according to YPU's suggestion), and then adding the panel lines into the design. This way they will be uniform on both vehicles (I'm still planning to do two), and I can control just how deep and wide they get. Also; making them across complex curves may be a bit less difficult this way (this is where I struggled the most).

But I'm still gathering up courage to restart the entire design from scratch (no pun intended ).

As an aside; the spoons have finally arrived I've already prepped/split one to be used as both the turret and the cockpit.

In the meantime though, I've started painting the second squad of six and having fun with them. Pics to follow shortly.

[Curis]

Not that I'm delighting in your misery, but I saw you were going to scribe and felt envious because I don't have any of the tools to do that.  So secretly glad that reworking the 3D model is the way you're going there.

And get well soon!

[Dr Mathias]

Cool project

Always liked the Mentors.