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Brilliant stuff, that is looking the part nicely.

I like the hatches myself, look fine at mo. Only thing striking me is the flat face to the turret. But that's not really a biggy, from what I can see it all looks nicely tied together and really well laid out. It looks right matey, and rule of cool tops all. Cool with bells on bud.

reglacification. I think glacing is some fad thing hipsters do...

It looks much better now. Now, for a little more Tank Design 101... next tank needs a much bigger turret. Look at modern tanks and compare them to older stuff. The turrets are huge. Plus bigger is always better.

(Idiomatic note, better half= media naranja, not best half. And I never understood the why of that one. Half Orange but that is the nature of such things. They just are. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

Excellent skills. The turret looks wicked.

EDC

@Gits: Thanks a lot, , too kind.

@Cam: Agreed, actually. Missing rivets at least, maybe even some extra armour plates here and there, to add some "texture"" and, hopefully, making it look less flat.

@Red H: Agreeing with you too on the turret size issue. Taller, for sure, at least. Just 'cause, I wanted this one to have a recon/light look, and probably overdid it, specially on the turret. It doesn't requiere glue, so maybe in some distant future...

When it comes to halves, though, I'll have to disagree with you and stick with best half. Better just doesn't cut it.

I mean, she brought me THIS:



She tracked down a games shop and all! Not only she puts up with me, she enables me! And why those? Because they are so, so ugly - her words - that I'll surely enjoy painting them!

The best she is.

And the "media naranja", no I don't get it either. Never used it myself either. Google says, among other possibilities, it might come from one of the speeches in Plato's Symposium. Too far fetched for a fruit that wasn't even grown in Europe until the X Century, IMHO, . But we digress. Again.

@EDC: Thanks!

Cheers!

Wider and deeper, not necessarily taller. Tanks want a low profile. (I'm aware of the irony to that last sentence.) What you have there has a BMP look. Given its more modern look, more panels and fewer rivets? (yes, I typed that.)

Oranges are sweet, so there is that. Could have been medio limón. ( I suppose the equivalent there is 'ball and chain')

Back On Topic: The wracks should be fun to paint. The enabling... of course she does. As long as you are at the hobby, she knows where you are and what you are doing. Otherwise, you could be getting up to all sorts of mischief. It's like giving a puppy a chew toy so that it doesn't chew up your shoes

Looks good with the round front.

Some more details here and there and a bunch of rivets, and calling it done:



Finally, after an almost dead rattle-can primering, it's ready for painting. Sometime. If ever)

Repü Reconnaissance Light Tank



(Repü or Rëpü were the guardian spirits of trails and natural paths in traditional Mapuche lore. Digging into mythology is a long used resource for naming, and, with the Greek pantheon being well trodden already, I decided to try an alternative, and local, source instead)



Scale shots:



Same footprint as a Chimera, but not as tall. Fitting, IMHO, for a scout/reconnaissance vehicle.

Off-topic, on presents, enabling and reasons:

C&C are welcome, as always.

Thanks for stopping by.

Love it!

What big eyes your little tank has there!

Looks awesome, looks great next to the Chimera chassis.

EDC

Cute as a button. Love it!

That is pretty awesome!

Nice work

Looking good,

Superb job. Looks completely plausible and much more real than the Chimera. Great job.

Looks great LT

Awesome scratchbuild. All primed up it's hard to tell! Love the low profile of the tank.

Tank looks excellent. Great job.

Fantastic build, and the comparison to the chimera really sells it - highly prefer yours! Great job

Thanks for the positive comments, everyone! I am rather happy with how that last tank came out myself, too.

I guess I should be trying to put some paint on something, but...

Some time ago I got hold of an umpteenth hand, quite battered and incomplete chopper scale model. A 1/48 Bell Viper. Didn´t have an outright use for it, but it kind of remind me of an IG Valkyrie. The more I looked at it, the more it did.

I generally take a pretty relaxed, laissez faire approach to these builds, relaying on the general un-scaliness and heroic scale "poetic licences" to get away with little planning and even less adherence to reality, or even believability.

This time I'll try to actually make something that resembles the original model, so I'm taking a more serious, so to speak, approach. Even did some research and all. Turns out Valkyrie's dimensions are not that easily found, and only got one reference out of the interwebs. That, or my Google-fu got washed out by the neverending rain around here, but I digress. Again.

In short (bad pun intended), the Viper is too small, though the cockpit looked quite nice.

So, hands to task.

Original model (1/48 Bell AH1 Viper, AKA Zulu Cobra, unknown manufacturer):



Repurposing begins, cockpit secession:



(Modelling saw is a quite recent acquisition I was itching to try out. Love it)

Widening WIP:



Lots of curved shapes to follow. Lots of saw and sanding dust in the foreseeable future.

Workbench so far. Reference material in front, scaled printouts to the left, rulers and such all over:



Just starting.

Thanks for stopping by!

It's going to be a wonderful project. Can't wait!

For Valk dimensions, you could work from some of the papercraft files out there. If I had the links, I'd post them. I think the fellow who made them is named Eli Patoroch.

Also, I do have an unassembled Valk. So, PM me if you need particular dimensions.

Tank looks just right.

Yes - search for Eli Patoroch - that 's where I've got all my papercraft model plans from when I'm scratch builindg (such as my Thunderhawk an Thunderbolt) . They aren't perfect, but pretty damn close and when used in conjunction with photos of the actual model, they certainly fit the bill...

Thank you, Gents.

Indeed, I got Patoroch's templates too. Probably it'll end up as a three-part mix of the former Viper, original model "inspiration" and papercraft plans.

These are the dimensions I'm using for reference:

Wing span - 10 inches
Fuselage - 8.5 inches
Cargo bay - 5 inches
Total length - 11/11.5 (there's a little sticking out bit at the front)
Cockpit width - 1.5 (inc. side gun)
Cargo width - 3.2 inches
Height - 2.5 inches

Plus SketchUp rescaling and dimension tools. That, and some modelling "creative accounting".

Unglamorous progress on the cockpit resizing:



And start of the turbines:



Engines are 10 cm long, (outer) diameter is 2 cm. Cockpit is now 3 cm wide. Does that sound about right?

Comments, critiques and suggestions are, as always, appreciated.

Cheers.

Looking good, really like the idea of using modern helis for valkaryes, be interesting to see what you do with it.

Nice base model (I do really like the Cobra as a helicopter), and good work on sizing it up to heroic. Watching with interest.

@stonned_astartes: Me too. A bit of progress below.

@Dr H: The Viper has a nice, mean look indeed. Hope I can keep that when (trying to) turning it into a Valk.

Mid-week progress.

Resized cockpit needed a rebuilt interior too:



Main body beginnings:



Trying out the engines:



And so far (just dry-fitted for looks):



Still plenty to do.

C&C are welcome, as always.

Thanks for stopping by.

Looking mighty fine. Love the engines.

Looks good, very much like a valk so far, very similar. I tried it with a huey hog but there just wasn't the room.

Coming along nicely. I'll be interested to see how well that bubble cockpit works out. Normally Imperial stuff lacks curves... And everything is better with curves. (read into that what you will )