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I wouldnt want to make any assumptions on your mental stability.

This is all very impressive, particularly as you've very successfully conceived a new body shape despite the limitations of having to fit it to the unmodified Mars Pattern underneath and keep it interchangeable.

I'm not sure I've commented on any of your titans before, but they've been both useful and inspiring (particularly your Warhound) to me in my own scratchbuild project, imploring me to push further than I perhaps would have otherwise (although I will admit I've gone Mars Pattern).

Do please continue!

Thanks for the insightful critique MarcoSkoll I'd not even considered consciously that I was working within the confines you so aptly delineated to tell the truth and since you phrased it so succinctly frankly I'm pretty amazed myself. if I'm allowed to have the perspicacity to appraise my own work



Generator Vents

I spent quite a lot of time on these Reavers this past week and there is darn little to show for it, mainly cleaning up some of the recent work and duplicating parts for the other beastie.

So mainly all I have to display is the installed Vents which didn't turn out too shabby but I can see by the photo one of the slates is askew which should be hard to adjust.

http://i.imgur.com/SEB4vJH.jpg



Now that the vents are installed I can fill the gap under the generator housings so the upper and lower louvers form a continuous line.

Next on the to-do list is to finish off the center rocket pod housing and the rear of the adjacent superstructure housings...........

http://i.imgur.com/sOUGszg.jpg

Very impressed, by both the modeling (the precision of your builds is impeccable) and your plastic set up (green with envy...).

It's always a pleasure looking at your threads!

You're talking about my strip styrene inventory display? it's the accumulation of about seven years of buying 'Evergreen' styrene products perhaps about 80 packs of different sizes totaling maybe $400 bucks worth of styrene strips. A big outlay in one shot but over the course of seven years not so much. To keep my stock replenished requires an outlay of about $20 bucks a month including glue and incidentals. Really cheap compared to other forms of recreation.

Once every year or two I make a sheet styrene run to the local styrene wholesale distributor and buy a few sheets of various thickness 0.020, 0.030, 0.040 inch industrial sheet styrene all included in the above mentioned $20 bucks a month The quarter sheets of styrene run about $13 bucks a 8 sq ft sheet and is enough to last me several years.........

Those vents look awesome. You always scratch build, correct? Have you ever considered making molds of your designs? I'm aware it's costly and you'd be unlikely to sell any of it considering it's GW IP, but it's just a thought. I'm not sure if this is a labor or love or a commission-based endeavor on your part.

Even casting original work based on FW/GW concepts would probably be considered copyright infringements plus I would need to find a suitable resin caster willing to work for a piece of the speculative profits if any as I couldn't afford to pay up front for the moulds and casting equipment; all highly dubious prospects.

You're running outta ideas Blackadder.

I put this together this morning when it dawned on me it looks reminiscent of a Cylon Raider.

http://i.imgur.com/IUw6Knz.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/Wai1JAI.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/Aodm14X.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/upEbsfC.jpg


What's a Cylon Raider you ask?

That's what google is for...........

Done:

God knows how many bits and pieces of styrene went into replicating the interior framework of the Mars Reaver so the parts fit to a paper's thickness tolerance but it's finally done.

http://i.imgur.com/eULUl0c.jpg


All the pieces fit exactly and the front upper and lower components lock together with just two pins.

http://i.imgur.com/GiBJScB.jpg


Below is the front top and bottom sections connected with the two styrene pins

http://i.imgur.com/HNbJcjn.jpg


And the front assembly with the forward bulkhead in place

http://i.imgur.com/PjS661X.jpg


Whew!

Cylon Raider? That would make a cool scratch-build.

Also, this bit of info may be of interest: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/2910/508854.page#7726160

Love the colon reference.

Next project must be a battlestar

Colon????????????

Greaves and Lower Legs:

I was never satisfied how the greaves and lower legs swapped out, the whole assembly was too flimsy and looked amateurish.

http://i.imgur.com/zNxT8pX.jpg


Whilst finishing up the greave armour I came up with a better solution that will allow the lower leg to be build up completely as a Mars pattern and the new Lucius lower leg and greave likewise.

Below is the greave as a single self contained lower leg assembly albeit without the upper shank/knee joint installed

http://i.imgur.com/llJfnqh.jpg


The image below shows where the ankle hemisphere will attach.

The asymmetry is because of how the Reaver legs are constructed. I have studied the anatomy of the Reaver and found it ill conceived as far as functionality. That is why the classic Reaver stance is with the legs sprawled; it cannot do otherwise.

The Reaver actually as designed could never walk so much as waddle like a toddler the top hamper weaving side to side in a severe dead man's roll rocking motion like a boat broadside to the waves as the legs spraddle and are incapable of being put one behind the other in a true biped gait. On the whole, Reavers moving across a battlefield would be a comical sight.

http://i.imgur.com/YmudIJY.jpg


Finally the shank of the upper leg being built up

http://i.imgur.com/Y53Iik9.jpg


Right the core is in fact a one inch section of a broomstick.

Dementia:

Probably this titan will never see completion as I keep finding things with which to be to be dissatisfied. The latest is the lower legs which while somewhat workable with the FW model need modification for a Lucius Reaver especially since I want them at least engineeringly feasible dynamically as well as satisfactory in a static pose.

Below is the reconstruction as of this morning demonstrating the stages needed to effect the modification.

http://i.imgur.com/JxZGdD9.jpg


As usual I underestimated the time involved in the repair as I keep adding unnecessary details such as beveled edges and rivets and reinforcement strip decorations on pieces that will barely be seen or appreciated for their complexity.

http://i.imgur.com/9OgyJkMl.jpg


My goal today is to duplicate the detail on these drum shaped objects to match their FW counterparts, the resin piece on the right.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
How To Make Drums and Cylinders:

With the images in the above post sturdy cylinders for use as legs &etc compatible with styrene is simple an quick.

Evergreen Styrene makes tubes up to 13 MM (1/2 inch ) but sometimes you need a larger diameter.

Start with a wooden dowel slightly less than the requisite diameter of the part you want to make; in this case a leg so we'll say leg but it can be any cylindrical object.

If the part has flat ends that you want to glue to more styrene parts as I need to you'll want to glue on endcaps as well so use 0.020 inch ( 0.5 MM ) styrene sheets; cut the sheet slightly longer than the dowel and wide enough to wrap around the dowel slightly more than twice which will give you sufficient gluing surface to attach your end caps.

Wrap the plastic around the dowel and glue and clamp the seam. For larger diameters wrap wide widths of styrene sheet or use bigger dowels.

When the glue is dried bevel the edge you glued so the seam in relatively flat.

Sand off the ends flush with the wood dowel, put a drop of cyanoacrylate on the end of the dowel and glue on a sheet of 0.040 inch styrene for end caps. The cyliner is done, encased in styrene and strong enough to support any reasonable weight.

Next; installing bands and details........


Automatically Appended Next Post:
No 45° beveled stock!

What this country needs is a good supply of styrene beveled stock.

Now making beveled stock is fairly easy if you're doing short straight pieces but if you want 2 inch pieces to wrap around a drum it's gonna require a bit of work.

http://i.imgur.com/JH0thb9.jpg


I started with strips of 0.060 inch styrene strips and wrapped a layer around the drum and glued with Styrene thinset cement.

Holding the piece in place for a minute or two is sufficient.

Drawing the styrene strip between your thumbnail and the inner knuckle of your index finger will impart a nice curve to the strip so you won't have to fight with it to hold the curve.

Next I install 0.030 inch strips around the drum on top of the previous strips creating a shallow stepped appearance

http://i.imgur.com/JH0thb9.jpg


DAMN THIS AUTO APPEND..............

You can see what I mean; anyone reading this post earlier today isn't going to read it again or notice that something was added to it.

Why is it that forums with a tenth the readership and patrons don't need "Auto append" and Whoa! "Big Dakka" needs to ward off spammers............. it's nonsense!

Knee Prosthesis?

My wife who had to have her knee replaced (Time for a newer model?) says this looks remarkably like the one she had installed.........
The initial stages I used the upper leg knee joint for a moulding guide.....

http://i.imgur.com/PWH0LoX.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/LeZ3bN6.jpg


Built up of strips of plastic instead of casting required a bit if work especially since I want these to position in any reasonable pose although flexing will be out of the question given the nature of the resin model. I should have opted for doing the entire model from scratch.

http://i.imgur.com/769PueT.jpg


The knee joint sits perfectly in the lower knuckle guides.

http://i.imgur.com/tjzFlpO.jpg


Side view shows that it is a go to fabricate the other three

http://i.imgur.com/0xQynQ0.jpg

Thats pretty cool, as usual.

How are you planning to connect the knee to the socket though?

Glue.


Not Too Shoddy:

It was a week ago I decided that the lower legs and greaves were substandard and decided to rebuild them.

I was never happy with the greaves, everything was too flimsy and required too much fiddling to set up.

Here it is a week later; the reinforced greaves with thicker armour with an integral leg assembly and the new legs and foot pad attach point are re-designed, fabricated, and installed.

Not too shoddy if I do say so myself.

http://i.imgur.com/q5koQIq.jpg


The abomination on the right of these images is the way the old design looked, rather like a house of cards compared to these new very substantial pedal appendages.

http://i.imgur.com/RicWB5K.jpg


This thing just might fly after all .

FLY???
I know what you mean, but considering your other projects there's always a chance you build this giant a removable jet pack or something else truly awesome.

.......I always wanted to see one of their drop pods/ recovery vessels to get them back in orbit

No this will not be one of those hokey flying Transformers; (I tried watching one of those movies but couldn't, what's the attraction; they're awful!)

If you say that something will never fly, you are saying it will not succeed.

Ergo..............

This all makes me realize that my plan for a warlord with interchangeable Mars/Lucius armour 'apparel' is just as applicable on my Reaver designs as well. When my warlords are done I will be returning to the reavers.... thanks again for so many things, Black....