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Oh, a bit more on the Storm tank/ Cerberus count-as: It was not an easy model to assemble and clean up, but it was certainly enjoyable just seeing it come together. The only thing I changed was that I swapped out the lascannons it came with for a pair of FW heavy bolters I had left over from another kit.The back hatch is for a havoc launcher, which I will put there once it arrives in the mail! If anyone is interested in getting this kit, its creator will eventually open up his own webstore, which looks like it will have some cool stuff for sale once its up and running, here: http://www.plastikkrak.com/

Ooh he is going to be selling them huh? May have to look into that once he gets round to making the molds!

Hopefully, and they'll be retooled as well, so they'll be easier to assemble!

Once again it has been a long time. I've reached a brief lull in my thesis writing and found a bit of time and motivation to do some scratch-building and other model-related hobby work.
Thinking upon all of Forge World's Horus Heresy/ Legion releases, I'm a bit excited to see what the next HH book will bring. I like a lot of the new models, and I certainly got a kick out of the Proteus when it was released a while back, which as we all know is an homage to GW's original Land Raider plastic kit. Before the Proteus was released, I always considered the original plastic LR to be the LR Mk.I, but now I feel that it is better suited as being the Proteus Mk.I, and the FW Proteus being a mk.II possibly, and the armoured one being an upgrade or even mk.III. As we know, the current LR plastic kit is often labeled a Mk.III LR, and FW's upgrade kit being the Mk.IIb, which left me wondering if there was anything left to suggest the existence of an actual Mk.I LR that wasn't in the same linneage as the Proteus/RT kit? As many of you who have followed my thread may have noticed, I tend to like to go back to the old Epic scale models for inspiration. As many of you know, FW's Mk.IIb was made so one could convert the current plastic LR into an older version that resembled an older Epic styling of the LR. The earliest versions of the LR in Epic were based off the RT plastic kit (now the Proteus), but later the design was shifted to a more updated look. Now, I may be wrong in the order of things, but I assume this first change took place before the current LR kit came out, and then afterwards, new Epic LRs were released to look more like this kit, and thus FW made there Mk.IIb as an homage to the in-between LR design. However, upon a closer look at the Epic models in question (you could get one in plastic, as well as a command version in metal), there are still several clear differences between it and FW's Mk.IIb, thus I figured that this Epic model was probably the best candidate for an actual Mk.I LR, and the FW Mk.IIb (as its name suggests) was more of a transitional design. Whew, sorry for all the text, I'm actually procrastinating from grading right now!

Anyways, I've modded a FW Mk.IIb to be more in line with the original Epic model it was based on, here's the Epic model I have been writing about:



And here is my mod:





As you can see, the main differences are found in the front, as well as some small differences on the hull and side sponsons, not to mention the old-style treads (thanks Machinator) that go further up the hull than on the plastic kit.

Here's another blast from the past, at one point GW had a special set of RT Space Marines that could be used as passangers or crewman for your old-style Rhinos, as well as a special metal hatch that allowed you to have the hatch opened with a marine sticking out. Enjoy:

That's a nice representation of the epic land raider!

Thanks Mythos, it was a fun side project. Oh, and I've also got more done on my second T-hawk, but it still has a long ways to go!

Nice stuff! I think I saw another LR conversion using Machinator's tracks somewhere on the web, think I prefer yours though!

I notice you don't have a 40k scale Hunter in your collection yet, any chance that it will show up one day?

Thanks Commander Cain! I've seen several really great conversions using Machinator's tracks. I know Machinator himself did-up a landraider using his Baneblade sized tracks, and I've seen others that borrow from Machinator's idea, which is to make the Land Raider more closely resemble a British WWI tank, which as we know was the original inspiration for the Land Raider in the first place.

By 40k scale Hunter, do you mean this:

Oh darn, you did already make one! And there's me thinking you had missed out on one of the random, unheard of vehicles...

Hehe, at this point the only things I wouldn't know about would be all the various vehicles named in the new HH novels and still being invented at FW. There are really obscure things in Rogue Trader and old WDs, but I think I've covered all the stuff that personally interests me. After I finish the MkII T-hawk I'm slowly working on, I do plan to start the SM Landing Craft, I even have the Epic model as a reference, but this is not for a while.

Ooh a landing craft huh? If you need more inspiration when that time comes around there is a blog on dakka where someone was building one (though it seems to have gone quiet as of late).

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/468618.page

Yes, I've seen that thread, it's pretty cool, I wonder if he completely finished it. Well, I know how it goes when life catches up with you. If I ever get around to it I'm probably going to try and stay as true to the Epic model as possible.

Here are couple of cool models I've been working on! The one on the right is Armorcast's high-detail Baneblade, probably their most-detailed and highest quality release before they lost their license from GW. On the left is FW's Spartan tank! It was a gift to myself for submitting my thesis on time, hehe! The tracks were a pain, but I did a better job this time around than on the Proteus kit I had initially tackled! If and when I get it back to NZ I'll get a pic of both the original and FW Spartans side by side!

Well that was a fun "Blast from the Past" 12 page read...

All hail Heliodor, Bicontinental Lord of the Old School!

Great job searching out all of the obscurest 40K vehicle and for having the guts to build the old flying brick Thunderhawk.

One small correction: The Whirlwind turret was from Epicast and was half of a two piece kit containing a Vindicator cannon and the Whirlwind turret.

Cheers,

Tim DuPertuis

PS. You may have been down under for too long. Right and left seem to have gotten mixed up in the post above....

Wow, that's great praise from one of the founding fathers of early 40k resin casting! I'm going to have to sig my newly bestowed title! Thanks for stopping by and taking a look!!

I don't know why, but there's something about the flying brick, I just couldn't get it out of my head! I started right at the end of 40k 2nd edition and have always seemed to gravitate towards the old beakies and their vehicles!

Yes, I've corrected both errors. Aargh, I knew that was made by Epicast, haha, hard to forget that orange resin! I think my spatial memory has gone down the crapper after spending the last 3 years typing a thesis! Thanks for the corrections!!!

Hello, it's been awhile, but for good reasons! My thesis is more or less done, passed my defence, just final revisions and making a hard bound copy for the university library and I can begin the process for graduating! During this time I've built a lot of cool stuff, mainly FW models for my Iron Hands Horus Heresy force, but not any scratchbuilds, save for the last week. Maybe it's due to Escalation being released, but really it's because I found myself with most of the needed bits for building it. It being the original Baneblade, sort of. White Dwarf 132 (late 1990 I believe) featured a scratch building tutorial by Tony Cottrell for making a 40k Baneblade! The Mike Biasi Baneblade, which would also be revamped and re-released by Forge World Models (USA) and Armorcast later on, premiered in 1991. As such, both are based on the Epic Baneblade of that era. The Tony Cottrell Baneblade required plasticard or cardboard to make the bulk of the model, with bits from the original Predator kit and other Citadel pieces, most prominantly, their large-sized Fantasy shields. I recently aquired a pile of bits that included some the most integral parts, like the old Pred side-sponson lascannons, and found a seller for the old shields. In the end I only missed out in using two original bits specified in the article: the Aquila hatch from the old Pred kit, and unsuprisingly, an old Citadel display base, which I have never seen in the flesh or for sale. After working with the templates for the first couple of stages, I quickly came to the realization that the templates were not perfect, and required a little elbow grease to make this fit and work. My finished product is pretty rough, and not perfectly aligned in places, but I'm ok with it. Here's a WIP:



The cool thing was that I got to work with brass rods for the first time, which as you can see, were used for the 2 main battle cannons. I pretty much added all the detail I could spot from the original article, although it pretty much says to do whatever you want in terms of detail. My only addition was the use of two old beaky bolters to make the "stormbolter" on the main hatch.



Here's a shot of the back, just for fun:



I'd say this was a pretty hard model to construct, and that the templates were more like guidelines, hehe, but my final product "looks" like an old style BB. As with many vehicles in the 40k world, the BB has grown in size from its original conception, so this guy is pretty small compared to all the BBs that would come after. Speaking of which, I recently aquired a job Forgeworld Mars-Pattern BB that I've refurbished, I'll show that off in a couple of days! As some of you may know, after Armorcast lost it's licence to make 40k vehicles GW, only a couple of years later, stepped in and founded Forgeworld in order to fill that void, or should I say to get a piece of the action! I believe they released their first all-resin BB in 2002, which was discontinued once the plastic kit came out in 2007! Fun times!


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The only thing left to make is the front heavy-bolter turret, which is the piece that originally required a Citadel display base, so unless someone has one they are willing to sell me, I'll be making it out of another display base that should hopefully fit, if not, I'll be sculping it.

Great work, All these builds are incredible!

Thank you and thanks for stopping by jeeb_sound!

Here's a pick of the FW Mars Pattern Baneblade that I've refurbished. I like FW's effort better than the current GW plastic kit. I also like FW's Mars Pattern better than its Lucius Pattern, although I think they're both pretty cool!



Here's a size comparison between the FW BB and my recent scratch build of Tony Cottrell's WD article BB!



And just for fun a Deimos Vindi with the above two tanks for scale purposes!



Also, I'm still working on my second Thunderhawk gunship scratch build. I know I've been putting it off for some time, but I'll get it done eventually. Right now I still have some paneling to do and then mass riveting. The daunting parts will be the front hatch and the secondary wings!

I've missed your lewd brand of tank porn Heliodore. Very nice.

That's such a cool looking baneblade Heliodore, great stuff.

@Zuul: Hehe, thanks, I thinks that's a good way to sum up my work! I do have some other FW tanks that I've built or will build that I'll probably get to posting pics of at some point! With the release of HH Massacre and the 2nd edition of Imperial Armour 2, I'm getting pumped again!

@Commander Cain: And thanks as well, Baneblades are such fun tanks, even the current plastic one looks like a hoot to build, although I'll probably never get one.

Finally, after a long amount of time, I've been able to do more work on my Mk. II Thunderhawk gunship. So far, I've done all the major riveting, added the top hull plate, and the two side fins.



As we can see on the bottom, I've also added the third engine.



The next major steps are the assault ramp, cockpit hood, and the side "wings," which seem to just cover the engines from the looks of the Epic model I'm basing it off of, but more on that when I get to it.

More!? You just going crazy! When you come back to the states wanna help me with my ordinatus?

@aka_mythos: Yeah, I've gone a bit crazy with the Baneblades. It dawned on me one day that I don't have any early OOP Forgeworld stuff, and their early BBs were some of their best models, so I tracked one down!
Yeah, I always liked the Epic Ordinatus models. You gather the supplies and I'll totally help! Should be more fun than a Death Star Trench gaming board!


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All right! Got some more work done on my T-hawk! As we see here, I added the canopy and assault ramp. They both came out better than I thought they would. The ramp does open by the way!



I also got the landing gears on as well. As with mu first T-hawk I used the plastic landing gears from off the old Millennium Falcon toy. They are big and chunky and durable. I probably don't have the patience for building the landing gears from scratch!



The next part will be the two mini-wings that go over the engines. I'm still questioning how to go about building these parts. On the Epic model they look to be a solid piece that aren't so much wings, but extra armor for protecting the engines. However, this could just be the limitations of the original sculpt and mold, and they are meant to be seperatable wings, as we see with the current FW T-hawk. Clearly, there are now lascannons here, so do I add them or leave them off. I have a plan based on the T-hawks 2nd editions rules via Citadel Journal, but we'll see!

WOW, nice work dude. Always wanted a t'hawk, but storage is the issue.

Thanks Camkierhi! Yeah, I dread the day when I have to move out of my current flat!

Done more substantial work on my MkII T-hawk. I'll put this pic up again so people know that I'm basing the design of this T-hawk on the second Epic scale T-hawk made by Games Workshop. As such, it's clear that I'm not modeling this on the FW T-hawk or even the metal one, but something a bit different. Unlike the "MkI" or flying brick, the MkII demonstrates the earliest design concepts of what would eventually become GW/ FW's iconic T-hawk of today.



It's very much a proto-Thunderhawk! As of last time I was mulling over whether to make the mini-wings seperate or not. I decided to stay true to the Epic model and make it appear as if the mini-wings are built onto the main wings. There are clearly no lascannons on the Epic T-hawk as you would find on the movable mini-wings of FW's design.



As you can also see, I've started to add bits and pieces to the T-hawks exterior. All those bits and shapes are directly based on the exterior detail of the Epic model. I've taken artistic license on many of these details because the Epic model is very lacking in this department, but I think I've got the right idea! Here's the front side detail, which includes the driver side doors and twin-linked heavy bolters.



Here's a final shot. For the aquila I went ahead and used FW's brass etchings. I concluded it would save me a lot of pain and grief to avoid cutting the aquila from plasticard!



There's actually not much left. Just some detail on the top of the hull, the missles poking out of the wings and bomb bay doors, some piping on the side hull, the side hull aquilas, and finally the wing mounted twin-linked heavy bolters! I am probably going to mount a couple of lascannons on it, just not sure where and how!

I do love the design, something very solid about it, and great work on the details.

Thanks Camkierhi! Yeah, there is something robust about this particular design. Initially I thought the MkII was just a less detailed version of Epic's MkIII T-hawk, but after seeing both models it became clear that they are actually two separate, yet related, designs that demonstrates the T-hawk's design evolution. You have a great bunch of Orks and Orky vehicles by the way!