Lightyear Armadillo repurposed - 2nd Armadillo finally finished

[Daeothar]

Ah, yes. It seems part of the rightmost venturi nozzle on the exhaust has partially broken off.

You'd think someone would catch that, right?

[mithril]

Though I will say between these and the fighters already released its all kinda flowing together now, they are al variants on the same theme right?

They're all iterations of basically the same craft. A test vehicle for a buggy FTL drive. Each time the test fails, they build a new one to try and fix the problems.

[Daeothar]

So, browsing my local marketplace during a bit of down time, I stumbled upon another one of the Lightspeed vehicles. In fact, it was a small utility truck, sharing a lot of characteristics with the green trucks I had previously bought. I figured it would look good as small truck on the streets, a cargo carrier, or maybe even an objective, so I picked it up.

Of course I first checked its price against other channels, to see if it was fair, and it was more than fair, so I pulled the trigger without hesitation. And today it arrived, so as soon as I had the opportunity, I opened up the package, and there it was.



It was just a bit more that what I had expected...



So; anyone doing 75mm scifi? 

[Freddy]

You can turn it into a landcrawler

[Storm Wolf]

Or a cybertank 

[zemjw]

It could become a fully crewed mega-truck on a construction site.

Mask out the original door and add in an appropriately sized door or two, with access ladder.

It'll probably never be much more than something to provide cover on the table, but it should be usable

[Inso]

Remove the cab and build a more "in scale" top for the chassis and it'll look great .

[dwbullock]

Just throw some Orks on it, paint it red, and call it a Battlewagon.  Orks don't care about SCALE, other than bigga iz betta!!

[Gunbird]

I know the feeling, i had the same with that dirt cheap big fighter from the series that turned out to be over 60cm when it arrived in the mail. Still sitting in the attic waiting to be put to use, someday.

[Daeothar]

You mean this one?



I've got one as well, IIRC it cost me €12,- including shipping... It's ridiculously large, but would make for a great bad guy ship in some scenario. I haven't started mine yet either, but there are plans... 

As an aside; because of the arrival of that sadly way too large truck, I decided to paint up the other two Armadillos I had, so expect some more pictures soon(ish)


I used an old model plane decal sheet for the first one and I want to make a sister ship in the same livery, so ideally, I'd have another one of those sheets. It's an incredible long shot, but if any of you has this sheet lying around and is willing to part with it, please drop me a PM.

It's the decal sheet that came with the 1/48 Esci kit of the Fiat G.91:

[Gunbird]

No, this one, 51cm long: https://www.amazon.nl/Ruimteschip-authentiek-verzamelvoorwerp-heldhaftig-filmmoment/dp/B09JX29KC7?__mk_nl_NL=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&crid=3771OM0EIW2NP&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.BTfJ8cpzCRkArTIz4195sxQYVwBgmU-2Dy3In2yvcfcG7If0WKGfTjdp2x2Ws0wINNXuvs-bvenjGlV6inRf5hDN2c2vwtMlPObVrweKXykxJ_vc2iqn_MZIORUhOEFgMiZcpz2Uf7fUMFHn98i4qX25IVY8dc8bKKPHdVt_p0szJuPElDHP7LZxDHHrgZI6z7BR9eJYWfy5jZXk0ZDmXewFmY4Jg7MSKF4E43VWYjZL93hzSqvSMttLw8KUxKfOU60BDp_M8FYyvw-V0H56HeuHDZF-Mk6t7DxwWIo1XweeFqkrlS-zjhGlnCNPoZMR4QIvm-FTkPaE8d1_baeTkmwRCPnsKew7lXu0esigWtvHKVC_EboyuYUPi6ueB0n92K0Gg1t5fpdadi9KoMRd2GJZjhDzbNlyDG2EZrARKL1SgbXmOhzvbCqb5xuv7Seb.QF0PsxV-k-LGHm7af1VniulhaI9bweVxqtlpzI7Ueuw&dib_tag=se&keywords=lightyear&qid=1741621685&sprefix=lightyear%2Caps%2C102&sr=8-20

Let me know what you exactly need from that sheet and what dimensions those decals are, I have tons of tons of sheets from days long gone. As I don't have that exact sheet, that is the best I can do for you.

[Daeothar]

Cheers; much appreciated   I have many, many decals from my time building scale model planes, but the vast majority of those were in 1/72. I have very few 1/48 decals, and how I came into possession of this sheet is beyond me; I know for a fact that I have never owned a Fiat G.91, let alone one in 1/48.

Nevertheless I have had this sheet for many years and it came in handy when I did the first Armadillo. I mostly used the German part of the sheet, using the big numbers, but I have enough to make another one on my sheet. What I now need is some warning labels; 'Beware of intake', 'Beware of blast', (both in English and German) 'Ejection seat triangles' and rescue arrows.

I do have several decals that come close, but they are still different in layout, colour and appearance. So Ideally, I'd have another copy of the sheet so I can nab just those few decals I need. And I know that in a pinch I could of course freehand them on, or create the decals in photoshop and print them on decal paper (still a good idea, that), but the easiest and most accurate would obviously be 'the sheet'.

So, if you, by any chance, have 1/48 iterations of the decals in the pics below, I would be extremely grateful! ( I can take measurements if required) I also included a better picture of the sheet, with the decals I'm after outlined in orange

And that fighter is indeed huge! Never saw that one, but it could convert nicely into something more approriately scaled with some minor modifications. I'm thinking something along the lines of the Normandy from Mass Effect maybe?


+++EDIT+++ Looks like I sourced the yellow rescue arrows elsewhere, as there are no mirrorred versions on this sheet, and the decal I pointed out in the lower right is still on mine, so those must come from somewhere else, but then again; they're quite ubiquitous, so should be easy to source...

[Rick]

I have to chip in here with a big 'thank you' to Daeothar here - I am also a fan of using toy starships and such as wargame ships or terrain. Whilst the big ships are interesting (another day, perhaps) my interest was caught by the small 'Zyclops & pods' set in the range - a very close proxy for 40k drop pods; a good size for my 15mm space marines! So thanks once again, Daeothar, for putting these toys out there as a possible resource! 

[Storm Wolf]

I have to chip in here with a big 'thank you' to Daeothar here - I am also a fan of using toy starships and such as wargame ships or terrain. Whilst the big ships are interesting (another day, perhaps) my interest was caught by the small 'Zyclops & pods' set in the range - a very close proxy for 40k drop pods; a good size for my 15mm space marines! So thanks once again, Daeothar, for putting these toys out there as a possible resource! 

Agreed on the Zyclops and pods, I think I have 6 pods and 8 of the zyclops, plus one giant zyclop. Just very sci-fi 

[Daeothar]

Many thanks for the thanks, but I feel I can hardly take credit for this; the vehicles were so obviously useful that others would have made the same suggestion sooner or later. Actually, I believe that I originally picked up the idea of using the Armadillo here on the LAF (memory's a bit hazy on that, TBH ).

But good to know that many others have gone down the same path. The designers really did a stellar job on the vehicles; all of them are great and the scale, while probably accidental, is just perfect of course. What struck me most about these is their utter sturdiness and the fact that even on the insides, which are rarely, if ever, visible, there is some really nice detailing.

And in these times of cheap, flimsy and under-par Chinese products flooding the markets, this utter over-engineering is a welcome breath of fresh air

I agree on the drop pods too btw: they're excellent, and I will eventually incorporate the one that I have in some capacity...