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So after doing the math I came to the conclusion I would feel like I had wasted money on buying the forge-world Vulture. Not to say that it isn't a great kit. I'm sure its wonderful and from the pictures it looks good, but for what its worth I figured I could make my own for a little over half the price. And this is the end result:





So it's a little rough around the edges and after finishing it I discovered the tail booms were off ever so slightly, but regardless I'm happy with the end result. I think once I'm done with the cockpit and painting, it will look far better. I plan on magnetizing the punisher cannon of my Demolisher tank to the nose and placing one of the sponson bolters underneath behind the nose skid.

Suggestions? Comments?

Looks sharp, make sure to get some rivets and detailing on the turbofan housing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
What did you use for the turbofan?

It looks great, although the first picture makes me feel like I'm about to get bombed by a 44 oz soda. =-)

person person:
Looks sharp, make sure to get some rivets and detailing on the turbofan housing.

Thanks for the reminder. I was going to tell myself to do that, but I had forgotten until now.

Heffling:
It looks great, although the first picture makes me feel like I'm about to get bombed by a 44 oz soda. =-)

Haha, yeah, hopefully that will change once I get the cockpit finished and some paint on the sucker.

So I added some detail including exhaust vents near the thrusters and turbo-fan housing, some rivets and reinforcing, a fuel line and landing lights on the bottom, and (the cherry on top) the Punisher cannon. I did my best trying to make in flush with the nose without altering it too much since I want to be able to detach and use it on the tank if I ever want to so I ended up building around it with bits to fill in the gaps and gave it a targeting reticle just above it.





Next up is the paint and cockpit! Update to come in a few days.

Cool

Awesome.

Sweet conversion. Great work on the turbofan too!

Valk

Its a good way to keep those cowards from using their ejector seats!

how did you do the turbofan blades? did you use a PVC plumbing fixture for the giant fan behind the cockpit? it's looking great so far and i may steal the idea.

Yup, PVC piping as the turbofan and engine. The measurements were something like 2.5-3 inches in diameter. I just kinda eyeballed the picture from forgeworld and assumed the top of the fan was about 1.5 centimeters taller than the cockpit. As for the blades I used some plasticard (paper-thin styrene I think?). You can probably find it at any hobby store in the model rocket or diorama aisle. But I took a wooden dowel and carved a groove in it with enough width that I could angle the blades I made into it and just superglued them in and used accelerator to speed up the process. The middle near the dowel came out a bit messy but that gets (will get) hidden with more plasticard anyway so I didn't care too much. Then I took one of the reflective funnels from a flash light, sanded out the hole so the dowel fit (and to reinforce the blades) and slid that into my PVC housing where I glued it in. The most difficult part was fitting the tail booms in so that they were level and straight, which is hard to do on a curved surface.

Word of advice though, sand EVERYTHING otherwise glue and paint won't stick as well.

So after taking the pictures, I realized I forgot the Aquila on the nose and I'm gonna need to touch up some of my wash a bit, but other than that this is pretty much the final product. The paint really brought it together and I'm pretty content with the outcome despite some of my green stuff flaws. I suppose I can always smooth out those areas later if I need to, but for now I'm just glad it's battle ready!



Couldn't help throwing a group photo in here


Thanks for viewing!

Looking good. The paintjob could use a tad more work, but it's a very nice conversion!

lookin' sweet! does the valk kit come with any decals? i think a few numbers/locations (cadia, etc) as well as an aquilla or two decal would be cool.

Yeah, I'll probably throw those on and touch it up a bit later. Maybe if I build up the courage I'll freehand that stereotypical shark mouth on front. I'm just happy to have a playable version though. I rarely play with an unpainted model. It's like sailing an unchristened ship.

WOW... =O thats got to be one of the best conversions iv ever seen. id love to know how you did it so i can make one.

Wow, that conversion is really, really awesome.... loving the huge engine remember, bigga is betta!

Looks really awesome.

That's awesome stuff, creative and very well done. The additional detail around the turbofan nacelle really ties everything together. Kudos!

Come to think of it, a how-to on this project would go over like gangbusters in the Tutorial section...

Thanks for the comments all!

I wish I would have remembered to have taken more pics during the building process, but what I put up is all I have here so a tutorial might be difficult to do seeing as I don't plan on doing another one of these for awhile. However, the actual build is fairly easy and I could write out some instructions with some MS-paint schematics-ish on how to get the basic frame down and the exact materials I used (sizes and such for the PVC). As for detail, the sky is the limit. The only non-valk parts I used on this from other kits were the two track guards from an old Chimera kit on the turbofan housing. The only real instructional thing would be the turbofan blades, the engine body, mounting the wings, and the cockpit (which is actually pretty straightforward as well since it just fits onto the PVC so well). Give me a week and I should have something up.

You did a great job on the Vulture..

Have you ever realised the valkrie is better than the vulture. :|

Good God, that fan is huge. All I can say that I hope Captain Sully is flying that and you have a huge river to land in. Holy flock of geese Batman!

Other the size of the fan it is a good conversion.

Great job man, I will try to replicate this later on.

@ -=Scar=-: Well, I look at it this way. The vulture is meant to be a weapons platform, while the Valk (more-so the Vendetta) is some sort of pseudo transport/offensive unit. I like the Vulture b/c I can have either the twin-linked Punisher cannon or the 4 MRPs, which is nasty. Granted that's 25 pts more than a Valk that can carry troops with 2 MRP. It really depends on how you use it in my opinion. I use my vulture as a sole anti-infantry killer, while my Vendettas are my tank killers. The vulture has been staying around longer than the Vendettas since most opponents I've played are heavy to medium mech so they focus on those instead. Granted, I do wish it had scout and deepstrike like the valks in case I don't get first turn, but I make do with what its got. That and I like the idea of having an apache-equivalent come in and weaken an enemy unit before my flamer/GL/melta vets/stormtroopers shoot/assault.

@Pipboy101: Haha, yeah Sully's the one with the bionic eye btw I did notice that the fan was bigger than the one from FW, but it's all I could find that came close and fit well without making it look too ridiculous. Personally I kinda like it. Gives it a more clunky/structurally sound feel, which I've kind of attributed to guard lately.

Don't get me wrong I do like it. A power plant that size could lift a baneblade or power a warhound titan.

Haha! Now there's a conversion: Flying Baneblade!

I like it. the gun on the front makes me think of an A10 Warthog

Fantastic conversion.

Serious thread necro so closing at this point.