BSC2025 Wirelizard's small dropship/shuttle

[Wirelizard]

I'm in, not sure what I'm doing.

Possibly a weird walking wizards tower for my toadstool brownie goblin folks.

Boat?

UPDATE, 21 Jan: Sci Fi shuttle, apparently. See a few posts down.

[Codsticker]

... my toadstool brownie goblin folks.

That's some serious fusion cooking.

[Wirelizard]

The Toadstool Brownies are the folks last seen in bare metal in the background of the photos here: http://www.warbard.ca/2021/12/14/deer-god-dear-god/

...and which I've apparently never taken painted photos of. They're a range of tiny weirdos from Fenris Games.

A couple/three years ago I built them a home base: http://www.warbard.ca/2022/02/21/a-trash-bash-tower/

...and now maybe they need a mobile base of operations...

Or I'll build the SF shuttle/landing craft that's been taking up space in my skull for a decade or so, finally.

[AKULA]

Hadn't seen those toadstool brownies before...a walking tower sounds interesting 

[has.been]

Looking forward to seeing what you produce.

[Wirelizard]

After a bit of mental back and forth and realizing that BSC limits on 3d printed stuff from STLs you don't make yourself won't allow for the walking goblin village on tortoise-back I've been considering (the 3d printed tortoise from a Thingiverse STL would be well over the 25% content limit) I'm joining the admittedly crowded shuttle/dropship part of the field.

I've been considering building a shuttle of some sort for ages and ages, a desire rekindled when I got into Infinity for a couple of years of fun skirmish gaming. I've since sold off pretty much all of my Infinity stuff but we now to occasional SF skirmish with other systems so an eye-candy shuttle that can fit on the tabletop without being the whole damn tabletop still appeals and has utility in our gaming!

I'm starting with the cargo area, which I want to be able to hold a half dozen figures on 25mm or 32mm (GW) bases, or more on smaller bases; which will also give us a cargo bay that could hold a small jeep-size vehicle or maybe a single cargo container of especially valuable cargo.

Having done some very basic standing of figures on a sheet of paper and measuring, something around 70mm wide by 110mm long looks good for a cargo bay. Planning a rear ramp and a removable roof so the thing's as playable as possible. I'll add detail to the walls to suggest that seats drop down from them, I think, to keep the interior clear.

That'll all get built first and then I'm basically going to drop completely into Make Sh*t Up mode for the actual outer shell of the thing. I own lots and lots of plastic sheet in a variety of thicknesses.

Aiming to keep the total length, nose to tail (with rear ramp closed) of about 11 inches so it'll be fairly easy to store - I use a lot of banker's boxes which are about 12" wide internally. Total width wingtip-to-wingtip will probably work out somewhere around 8-10" total, total height of... heh, no idea, we'll see.

Design inspiration is one part The Expanse, one part Chris Foss, and a large dose of Sublight Drive's mix of scratchbuilding and kitbashing: https://www.youtube.com/@Sublight_Drive

Also, Rob Turpin over on BSky: https://bsky.app/profile/thisnorthernboy.bsky.social/post/3lfx63zkmqk2h

If the thing gets far enough advanced to actually be painted, expect unsubtle colours.

We shall see.

[Ragnar]

Design inspiration is one part The Expanse, one part Chris Foss, and a large dose of Sublight Drive's mix of scratchbuilding and kitbashing: https://www.youtube.com/@Sublight_Drive

As a fan of The Expanse, I'm looking forward to seeing your results.  Good luck with the build!

[Wirelizard]

Planning! And organizing the bits box to find possibly useful stuff.

Laid a few figures out, realized that my cargo/pax bay needed to be about 70mm wide, 110mm long, and probably about 40mm tall internally.

Given I want the final beast to have roughly the footprint of a Letter or A4 piece of paper for reasons of storage, transport, and not utterly dominating the damn table, I cut a piece of card to 70x110mm and started fiddling on a piece of graph paper.



Also sorted the bits boxes and found a nice selection of stuff that might be useful, including four plastic hex bases 40mm point-to-point that I think will be the internal frames for my engines. Also dug up some old Antenociti viewscreens, a couple of which are likely to show up inside the cargo bay for details, and some old Infinity waterslide decals that should do for details all over the thing, and a selection of random plastic bits from kits, the dollar store, and scrap for possible detail work.



Bit more detail and verbiage over on the old blog:
http://www.warbard.ca/2025/01/26/the-workbench-this-weekend-jan-26-2025/

[Daeothar]

I'm always interested to see more shuttles/dropships; can't have enough of those 

The bits look promising, as does your roughing out. I see you're also a lucky owner of some Antenociti Infinity dropship decals. Too bad they never got to roll out ships for all factions; they were superb. But I'm sure your entry will rival them 

[Wirelizard]

And it is the 1st, therefore we are go!

First, I stopped by our Friendly Local Hobby Store and picked up that classic of the kitbasher's stash, a 1/72 armour kit. This one happens to be a modern French LeClerc MBT but nearly anything would have done. It's got an absolute cornucopia of useful bits.



I also picked up a bag of googly eyes in five or so sizes and a little sheet of half-dome plastic pearl beads, because you can never have enough dome/circular shaped thingies around the joint.

Then the shuttle got a cargo bay floor! I'm going to start with a few components - the cargo bay, landing gear bays, then engines, and then let the rest of the design fall into place around those bits as they exist. Hoping to get three walls done for the cargo bay today - both sides and the front. The rear wall/ramp will be built separately and installed later.



Yes, the grey bits of the floor are tank tracks.

[Wirelizard]

And we have... a shrubbery!

Wait, no, sorry, wrong script, wrong genre.

We have a cargo bay!



It came together rather nicely, I'm quite please especially with the floor and the front wall.



It needs at least one more round of greeblification, especially on the two long side walls, and a little bit of cleanup, but is together and we have progress!

Now, onward to figuring the rest of the damn thing out. Did I mention that beyond having some ideas of how individual components are going to look (I think...) I have no overall plan or even concept of a plan?

[Vanvlak]

I was happy with my progress until I saw this! 
It's looking great already. And you already know which end is the front, something I have not worked out yet for my own build!

[Lost Egg]

Every time I get a little bit further forward with mine, I look at lovely work like this and just think...bugger.

Well done sir.

[McMordain]

[quote author=Wirelizard link=topic=147888.msg1897838#msg1897838 date=1738462098
Now, onward to figuring the rest of the damn thing out. Did I mention that beyond having some ideas of how individual components are going to look (I think...) I have no overall plan or even concept of a plan?
[/quote]

I really like the floor as well. The use of the tracks is a great idea.
I usually have some plans before I start the build, but the end product rarely resembles those plans 

[Burgundavia]

Geez, my brother is outpacing me. This is no good.