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Well as an ork player i have enjoyed the endless options of creating ork vehicles, but a few days ago i got the urge and creative spark to begin the ever coveted Thunderhawk. I have held off for so many years on any attempt due to the large scale and amount of detail needed, but now i place my heretical fears behind me and plunge into the project for the glory of my Ultramarines and the Emperor himself.

Step 1: Find as many photos and drawings of a Thunderhawk as possible. Study them and ponder and brainstorm. Lose sleep thinking about it.

Step 2: Search forums for downloadable plans or make your own plans. I did both due to the variety of plans online. Here are a few posts or websites with plans - http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/242372.page#747008
http://www.grafstar.com/wh40k/resources.html

Step 3: Gather supplies and tools. Now for this i have, thus far, used items i have found in the garbage or just sitting around.

a. For the main frame of the hawk i found a small sheet of 3/16 pressed board. It looks like the stuff used on the back of a dresser or tv stand but thicker.

b. So far ive been using wood glue and small brass rods to hold it together.

c. I also ordered a Anakin Podracer for the side mounted engines, but it has not arrived yet, but believe it or not I found an old 1970's X-Wing in the garbage (I work
on a garbage truck by the way.... an ork players dream job.) I'm not sure if I'm going to use them, but they will look great with a few mods.

d. I have tons of plasicard lying around so I'm using some of them for detail work.

e. The best part is a buddy of mine, Antonius on DakkaDakka, had a ton of extra bits from an ebay order and he kindly donated them to the cause. So I know have
the lascannons, the heavy bolters and even a few doors and the crew.

Here are a few photos so far.

It looks pretty awesome so far, I think you have the scale just right.

However, I don't think this is in the right place, I think it should be in P&M or P&M blogs, so it would be cool if someone
*cough*a mod*cough* could put in the place they feel is appropriate.

S_P

Looks great! keep up the good work.

Thanks for the correction and getting this moved over to the right forum. I really need to learn to read the forum guidelines. LOL. Anyhow I just got back from a trip to a local hobby store and I could not help myself from buying some more plasticard items. I purchased a few rods to make the rivets when the time is right and a few square rods for bordering the cockpit and a few other items. Hope to get some more work done tomorrow.

This is looking great so far. Very clean and the scale is great.

I'll be watching with much interest...

Looks nice, looking forward till it´s finished..

I have that x-wing model in my bits box.

Very nice! Can't wait to see more!

And PS. BANG, I was a outlaw

looks great so far .....

Update!

Well I spent about an hour or so today working on the cockpit.

For the cockpit I used some plasticard and some cheap clear plastic from some old toy package. Everything comes with clear plastic nowadays.

The upper cannon section....this is good. I'm not sure if I like it or not, but I had completely forgotten about a couple boxes of WWII Model tanks one of my gaming buddies hooked me up with a year or so ago. One of the tank sections fits perfect on the top and actually has some of the characteristics of the actual section. Anyhow let me know what you think.

MORE PHOTOS:




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nyyman wrote:Very nice! Can't wait to see more!

And PS. BANG, I was a outlaw

nyyman.... you make me wonder if I know you or something. My buddies and I have been playing BANG lately and well... it was funny to see your P.S. Are you messing with me? :-)

Looks good, can't wait to see it finished.

I likes it boss...but, it sure is a big'un.

Is that a Panther Tank I see there, good job.

LANDING PADS!!!!!

Finally......i got some more time to work on the project. Last night I decided to work on the landings pads. I just used some plastic rods and a few bits i had lying around. I found some nice hydrolic rams from a Basilisk tank blade and did a little modification to them with an exacto knife. I then just cut out my pieces and went at it. I really didn't have any plans I just winged it.... i probably could have made them look more realistic, but I'm getting in a hurry to start detailing the outside of the entire ship. I placed atleast some homemade hydrolic rams of my own. I used some round plastic rod and searched my very messy garage and found a pen! Yes the pen is mightier than the sword when it comes to miniature hydrolic rams. I pulled the pen apart and used the inside tubing for my ram. For those pen lovers out there, don't worry, the pen was nearly completely dried up, so i didn't waste any ink.


Let me know if you have any suggestions. I really appreciate the comments and suggestions thus far.

Sorry about the photo quality. I was taking these photos around 1 a.m.

Looking good so far. Are you doing a troop transport or one of the tank carrying variants?

Well I was making a troop transport, but it would be nice to use it for both if I wanted to. It seems the troop transport would be better. 30 troops behind enemy lines seems good.

Da Big Warboss wrote:
nyyman.... you make me wonder if I know you or something. My buddies and I have been playing BANG lately and well... it was funny to see your P.S. Are you messing with me? :-)

I'm pretty sure I don't know you, but I just love the game so much (even though I have played it only twice) and when I noticed it on your desk, couldn't hold enough to troll.

wow- thats very very nice! Can't wait to see it finished.

nyyman wrote:

Da Big Warboss wrote:
nyyman.... you make me wonder if I know you or something. My buddies and I have been playing BANG lately and well... it was funny to see your P.S. Are you messing with me? :-)

I'm pretty sure I don't know you, but I just love the game so much (even though I have played it only twice) and when I noticed it on your desk, couldn't hold enough to troll.

O.K. I get it now. Wow... you are observant. I guess i best becareful what i have in the background of my photos. I could have had my open mail or something with my bank account on it. LOL. Cool man! Ya we love Bang. It seems to be a good filler type of game. If we have a few minutes to mess around or if we just don't know what to do we play a couple games.

Thanks for the comments everyone! I believe the detail process is going to take me sometime... which time it seems is something i'm short of at the moment, but i will keep posting the progress.

That is the coolest thing. I would recommend painting it in Blood Angels colors - that way it wouldn't even have to land to deploy the Land Raider, it could just shoot right out of the front. pew pew pew, land raiders.

Ouze wrote:That is the coolest thing. I would recommend painting it in Blood Angels colors

Or not...


i think those look like Ultras coming down the ramp...

That looks HEAVY.. wood for the body?

It is massively cool, as well as massive in general. I would hate to see it on the table, partially cause I would be afraid, and partially, cause I wouldn't want it to fall on models. Mine OR yours....

-P

CT GAMER wrote:

Ouze wrote:That is the coolest thing. I would recommend painting it in Blood Angels colors

Or not...


i think those look like Ultras coming down the ramp...

I'm acutely aware of that, actually. In the second part of my quote which you omitted, you'd see my reference to shooting out land raiders mid flight to be a facetious references to the new BA codex.

porkuslime wrote:That looks HEAVY.. wood for the body?

It is massively cool, as well as massive in general. I would hate to see it on the table, partially cause I would be afraid, and partially, cause I wouldn't want it to fall on models. Mine OR yours....

-P

Thanks for the "cool" statement... i so can't wait to unleash this beast upon some xeno buttocks!

Actually the press board that i used is really not heavy at all. I would almost bet that once i'm finished with this it will not be much heavier than the Forge World Resin Model. Besides... do you see my skinny landing pads.... they are actually strong enough to hold the entire model up...and i'm not even an engineer.

Nice Work there Boss! Can't wait to see it painted up and ready to ROCK!

For The Emperor!

Nice, were those landing pads made out of plasticard?

MOAR pleez

cosmic pixie wrote:Nice, were those landing pads made out of plasticard?

MOAR pleez

They are plasticard. I shaved a small angle on each edge before i glued the front and back portions of the pads.

Some more photos and updates. I somehow managed to find some contour putty in my garage... unbelieveable! It was in a box of stuff that belonged to my late brother-in-law. He used to build model airplanes.... i just got to thinking about it and found it.







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My brother-in-law's name was Mel... and he was a great guy... he left a wife and two daughters due to a massive heart attack. Just thought I would add that note.

Did a little work on the front section of the Thunderhawk and I also added the first set of weapons.

DAMN Warboss, you SCARY.

Looks good, on a rules note, I would say that it was a vehicle transport because I would love to drop 2 Rhinos filled with devastators behind Enemy Lines but, hey, you should switch it around and see what you prefer playing with.