Dr Argos Tripod(pic heavy!)

[Andym]

Hi all! I wasn't sure where to post this. Tripods generally come under VSF but Dr Argo's reign of terror is set in the 70's.

I was asked a wee while back to do an adapted tripod model that's supposed to have been modified by Dr Argo himself. The Crooked Dice team had some ideas and we finally settled on this design...



It uses some of the same design aesthetics as the tripods from the old BBC series for the body(minus the front grill area for Argo to stand in!) and a more modern legs.

I started off building the legs, seen as that was going to be the hardest part of it to do. All I did was just cut some plastic card with some unmeasured curves and drilled some holes down the centre. I used Green Stuff to pack out the shin armour and scored some panel lines in it before it dried. The hip joint is just half a ping pong ball with a plastic card disc cover. There's some GS in there to strengthen it a bit too. The knee joints are plastic tube with GS ends......



I felt the legs were a bit weak so I supported them by sticking them on a base. I, later on, redone the upper legs and made them of thicker material to give even more support! The body is built using blue foam as a basis. I used plastic card (roughly) discs and glued foam on top, then shaped the foam to give me the rough 3D shape of the body. I then covers it it in GS, a panel at a time. I later on found out it was better to do the whole half on one go, it made a smoother finish....

[Andym]

I covered the hip discs in GS to make it look more mechanical...



Once that was done I started to do the cockpit. I made a ledge, again, from plastic card and some embossed stuff I had to give it texture. I also started detailing the sides, making it look like the side of Star Wars Star Destroyers, just using wee cuttings of plastic tube and card all the way around.





Underneath, I had some plastic conduit and solder to make the pipes and stuff...



The tentacles are wire covered in plastic tube, GS balls cut in half for the wrists and plastic card for the claws....

 

The smoke launcher is just GS....

[Dr.Falkenhayn]

bloody nice 

[Slayer]

very very sexy

i loved the ol tri-pod series, own it on DVD

[Andym]

At this point I was trying colours to see what worked. I wanted to keep the same colours as the Argonauts....





And this is the finished beastie....

[Andym]

And this is one of the professional pics by Kev Dallimore in the new Crooked Dice Argonauts programme guide...

[Overlord]

Absolutely cracking!   Top quality scratch-building and painting Andy. 

[Gun bunny]

Beautiful,Very nice work.

[Heldrak]

Effing brilliant!!   

[von Lucky]

Really, really cracking. (I now also have a better idea of what you sound like in real life. )

[Bobble]

That is unbelievably beautiful!!! 
You are a complete git,sir.
 How can you produce so many amazing things so fast? Is there anything that you are crap at? (Please say yes!)
Its just not fair that one person can be so bloody talented! 

[cheetor]

Fantastic!  I just started reading the Argonaut programe guide this morning and was wondering how I could get to see more of the tripod.

Thanks for the step-by-step too, very interesting.

[oxiana]

 

You don't hang around, do you Andy?! 

[Vanvlak]

Oh good grief, that's unbelievable - grand! 

[OSHIROmodels]

That's fucking awesome mate 

cheers

James