This ain't no pansy GW armor, son

[shaso_iceborn]

nice I might buy a few from you to convert into Ork "Boom" tanks

[chaos0xomega]

Ah, I see what you're saying. That's easy enough to do, but I don't know how well that would look though, I did a rough mockup of a gw sized turret about 2 weeks ago, its ridiculously small. I'm sure someone will enjoy the look, but why bother when they can just use the awesome turret that I intend to supply. Likewise, I dont see why they would want to use GW sponsons when I already have that design feature covered (and damned nicely too!), but they should fit readily (although how they are crewed through the roadwheels is beyond me, but I actually have a set of LR sponsons that I raided from my bits box, they should be small enough, although some mods might be needed).

I'm not really doing this to make big bucks, thats never going to happen in this hobby, and anyone who thinks they can make a living that easily off plastic/resin model kits without some serious investor backing has to do a bit more research, I'm doing this mainly because I want to start an IG army, and I'm extremely unhappy with the GW tanks... and I was bored, so I figured why not, and then, as I was going along I realized, hey, other people hate GW armor almost as much as I do... and prototyping ain't exactly the cheapest thing in the world... why not produce them for sale to recuperate my losses?

But yeah, what you just said shouldn't be hard to accomplish at all.

And iceborn, glad you see orky potential in my work (I like to consider myself a close big mek...), if and when that happens, I will demand pictures (although you might have it a bit easy... I was consider making a steam roller instead of dozer blades... can you say "deff-rolla"?

[starlight]

If it works without distracting from the original goal, cool. If not, oh well.

That said, I like where you're going and will follow with interest. Let me know when you're ready to sell a few.

[chaos0xomega]

lol will do. and thank you for keepin my thread bumped

[ManusMarines]

Tank is coming together very, VERY nicely, Chaos.

Subscribed, and just might pick up at least one of these bad boys when you release them.

[Ironmonger]

Out of curiosity... what are the dimensions? Did I miss them earlier in the thread? These are gonna be... like... proxies for Russes, right?

I think (once again) that they're brill. I don't know why GW didn't do a redesign on their LR after they got their stuff together around end of 2nd/beginning of 3rd ed. I know that the original was based off of the rights they purchased for that one WWI tank kit, but even half an inch lower of a profile would have done wonders!

That's all right, though, because companies like Old Crow (and you!) have come about to pick up the slack. Nice!

[Bane_sword]

Really nice! I am looking forward to see the finished tank.

[chaos0xomega]

Ironmonger, yes, dimensions are posted earlier on. As of right now it's riding at just under 7 inches long, and 4 inches wide. Height wise its about 2" (without the turret).

[chaos0xomega]

Alright, so after much cussin' and fussin' and a couple of scares resulting from the instability of the program I've been using, here is where it stands now:





I think the replacement of the more elegant gothic arch with the more brutish square-ish arch-thing really changed the entire feel of the tank. If anything, I would say it was a big step up in making it look like a real afv.

[KiwiBoy]

I'm also working on something similar using Rapid Prototyping.

A little different in scale though. (But I'm not going to steal your thread)

May I ask where your gaining access to your PolyJet/Objet (I cant seem to find which one you said I know its there somewhere) Machines from? Do you own one yourself or are you accessing one through a commercial service?

One thing I have concerns about is that some of your details have holes (such as on the front "bumper" tow cable attachment points and the turbine intakes). Remember Its easy to rapid prototype complex shapes but if your making molds to produce extra copies after RP'ing the master, then your going to have to watch for under cut or drill the holes after you have cast the peices.

But I'm realy excited that someone else is working on using the RP technology for modeling and will be watching to see how it goes.

[chaos0xomega]

Yep, I'm pretty well versed in the art of mold tooling, those will probably end up as seperate pieces.

As for the Objet Polyjet (Objet is the manufactuer of the Polyjet ) I will be using a service, maybe someday down the line I can own my own machine, but that is far away yet (although I've been looking into solidscape machines as well, they seem to be capable of intense amounts of detail, but I'm having trouble finding the info I want on them).

I'd love to see what you're working on btw, feel free to post pics or a link, etc.

[KiwiBoy]

I'm actualy waiting for my new thread that I started to come up to post this and didn't want to hijack your thread but since you asked



That boy is going to be 54mm scale, Thats right an Inquisitor scale dreadnaught.

-Fully posable "hips", "ankles", "knees" and "waist" (or will be when I get the shoulder joints re worked).
-Interchangable weapons (Those are just the first 2 I've done in that pic).
-Head to Toe standing straight he'll be 15cm (Space marine is only 7.6cm) so he'll be just under twice the height of a marine.

I - unlike you - wont be selling these as they would be a big copywrite breach as mine is based heavily off GW IP. I'll probably make one for my self 2 or 3 for friends and 1 for each of the GW stores in my town if they want one. And I had planned on an SLS process personaly as thats the cheapest system (per CC of material) I can access.

He's still not finished, alot of work needs to be done on alternate arms as well as detailing (pipes, coils, ammo hoppers) on the arms and feet added. But detailing is going to be left sparse to allow people to detail how they want (like your project)

Out of interest what program are you using? Rhino? Solidworks?

[shabbadoo]

Looking pretty good so far, but I still think the side sponsons should be moved to a more forward position, and the side bits on the skirting still look like shell catchers. Better to leave them off methinks and just have some plated skirting with rivet/bolt detail.

[chaos0xomega]

Pretty good kiwiboy. Im using NX5. its an engineering package rather than an "art" package, but it's precise and simple to use.

Shabbadoo, thats not happening at this point. It would take a major redesign of the entire model for me to move the sponsons forward, easily set me back more than a few weeks, and with school fast approaching, I probably woulndnt be able to finish model for another 6 months if I were to do that.

As for the bits on the side skirting, they may find themselves gone after a while, still not sure, I'm exploring some possible uses for them, but they are going to stay until I find something better to replace them.

[chaos0xomega]

Well, update time, the back recieved a major detailing job, including some hinge detail (not shown is that the bottom of the once gothic arch section also has some hinging...)



And here is a closeup on the hinge:


I'm starting to think maybe theres a bit too many rivets on this thing... and my suspicions have been confirmed by others (in private conversations). Waddya ya'll think? Could it stand to lose some rivets? I kinda like them, because they break up otherwise flat surfaces, pretty nicely, but there are so many on this thing... I'm thinking after I'm done with the body, I'm going to back and conduct a minor rivet reduction crusade. I'm extremely happy with the look on certain parts of the vehicle, but others leave me wanting....

ALSO, I'm going to redo the entire tread section, including the suspension system etc. The tread section/road wheels were one of the first things I did on the design, and since then, my level of skill with the software has progressed greatly, I now feel my first attempt was rather juvenile. Additionally, if I am to use this for the game system I have planned as a German vehicle, I'd like it to have elements of German tank design, which I find it to be lacking heavily (especially in regards to the track area, the body itself I can see elements of other German vehicles in if they had a few hundred extra years to develop).

I also did away with the drivers hatch/cupola. It was stick up too far, going to redo that but with a lower profile.
Anyway, thoughts?

EDIT: You know what? Screw it, this is going to be a generic sci-fi tank. Screw the game concepts, I'll get around to those eventually, if I try to make this look like modern nazi armor, I'm never going to be happy, since it's only a half-assed attempt at it, and there is no way to make something like that and allow it to fulfill the goal of providing an alternative leman russ... I'm still redoing the tread section though...

[Arad]

Looks very great!

[ManusMarines]

Eh, there does seem to be a tad many rivets for my tastes, but to each his own.

You could probably stand to lose a few here and there (and there, and there), but the work still looks great!

[chaos0xomega]

Well, once everything else is done (not the turret), I'll start by slashing about 1/3 of them off, I think that will leave the GW rivet-punk look in tact, while not being ridiculously over the top.

[chaos0xomega]

And another update (slow day...). Waddya think of the new hatch?


Obviously still WIP.

I think it meshes with the rest of the tank a lot better, but it still feels wrong, maybe too techy?

[Azroth]

Not too techy, it's just not square enough, if that makes any sense to you. I don't think I can explain it any better than that. But keep up the good work man, it's looking great so far.