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Well, with things being as they have been for the past four months (becoming a father and starting new studies), I have had even less time than usual for gaming and modeling. I have gotten some stuff done, but sadly, the “posting updates part" has been entirely dormant for far too long.

With this post, that changes.


Somewhat.

I´ve been looking at the bits in my bits-box a lot lately, but having so little time, meant that it´s taken me ages to get working on anything with them. However, yesterday I finally got started on something new. And it´s an interesting thing, I think. I suddenly noticed that some bits that were randomly lying around could be combined into an Imperial looking Jetbike.
It would be rough and boxy, but with a sleek look to it. Like a pursuit bike, or the lovechild of a Pod Racer and a Harley Davidson.

Now I should state quickly that it´s early days yet, so this is very much a work in progress. But I think I may be onto something.



As you can probably see, the main parts are a Marine scout Bike and the engine block from an Ork Trukk.


I´ve done some plasticard work on the front, to make a jet intake.


After a lot of searching through my bits box, I added a Stormboy jetpack as the jet nozzle. Other than that, most of what I´ve done so far is some trimming of the bits to make them fit.


Some things are still going to change, for example I think I´m going to lose the supercharger, since it seems a bit wrong on a jet engine. And I need to do some GS work to bring the top of the bike more together. But all in all, I´m pretty excited about this.

What do you guys think? Is it a horrible idea that should never have been conceived? Or another “Kroot shoulderpad” stroke of genius?

Hrm, I like it!

Its a bit front heavy, tho I dont really mind that to be honest.... packed full of anti-grav gismos I take!

Handle bars need something, not quite sure what them steer, just stop before the engine box.

I love it. All the parts fit together brilliantly, it looks like it's actually been designed, rather than cobbled together.

Xanthos wrote:Some things are still going to change, for example I think I´m going to lose the supercharger, since it seems a bit wrong on a jet engine.

Although it doesn't make much sense, it is still visually interesting. What would you replace it with?

Eagerly awaiting more!

One of the few plastic jetbikes I've seen out there that looks convincingly Imperial!

good looking start. will you be using the front piece of the sm bike? don´t know how it´s called, but that would let the handle bars seem not so lonely in the construct.
do you have a colorscheme already in your vision?

good luck with your work, vik

@Tortured-Robot: The shape of the bike actually appealed to me as well, front heavy and brutish.
The handle bars will be better integrated into the body. I´m considering several options at the moment, one of them is using the remains of the front fork as a cable trunk, with a bunch of cables snaking out from each side, to various locations on the engine.
Not practical in operation, but then that´s imperial tech for you...

@Medium of Death: Thanks a lot, as I mentioned it kind of happened by accident, but yeah the parts look as if they fit together.
I´m not sure what I´d want on the hood instead of the intake for the charger. Possibly some sensor array?

@Malika2: Thank you, glad you like it. As ever, your comments are appreciated.

@Viktor von Domm: The handle bars are one of my concerns at the moment. I think the answer will lie in some GS work between the upper engine bits and the handle bars. Make it seem as if they´re intended to stay still, more of a thing to hold on to, while the actual steering side-to-side is done via the foot pedals.

Maybe I should have talked a bit more about my plans for this bike. It will hopefully end up being used by my Ash Wastes crew, as an outrider for their Waste Crawler.
As such, it will have a paintjob and final design that shows a lot of wear and tear, as well as some bits that will have been cobbled on.

Color wise, I´m considering either a faded red, or possibly industrial yellow...

Xanthos wrote:@Tortured-Robot: The shape of the bike actually appealed to me as well, front heavy and brutish.
The handle bars will be better integrated into the body. I´m considering several options at the moment, one of them is using the remains of the front fork as a cable trunk, with a bunch of cables snaking out from each side, to various locations on the engine.
Not practical in operation, but then that´s imperial tech for you...

@Medium of Death: Thanks a lot, as I mentioned it kind of happened by accident, but yeah the parts look as if they fit together.
I´m not sure what I´d want on the hood instead of the intake for the charger. Possibly some sensor array?

@Malika2: Thank you, glad you like it. As ever, your comments are appreciated.

@Viktor von Domm: The handle bars are one of my concerns at the moment. I think the answer will lie in some GS work between the upper engine bits and the handle bars. Make it seem as if they´re intended to stay still, more of a thing to hold on to, while the actual steering side-to-side is done via the foot pedals.

Maybe I should have talked a bit more about my plans for this bike. It will hopefully end up being used by my Ash Wastes crew, as an outrider for their Waste Crawler.
As such, it will have a paintjob and final design that shows a lot of wear and tear, as well as some bits that will have been cobbled on.

Color wise, I´m considering either a faded red, or possibly industrial yellow...

sir excellent work! now if i could only get 4 dozen of those.... lol

that´s a shame mostly, when done with a conversiuon you seldom have enough parts/bits left to repeat the construct again and again...

Put some beefyer exhausts on it to balance it out... then you are golden.

Keep up the good work.

FTL

Who will ride the jetbike by the way? Will you make more of them?

Nice work, it does look neat & "realistic" (in a 40k kind of way - even though the grav technology is said to be lost for small devices - maybe the local AdMech Fabricator found a STC nearby / used Xenos tech / was bitten by a Vampire Mekboy & now develops strange things / used forbidden, warp technology to miniaturize the grav engine of a Land Speeder)

How about adding small winglets at the back of the bike (like on the Master of Ravenwing's jetbike, to make up for the front bulk?

Also, do you plan on mounting weapons on the bike, à la SM bike?

It looks sweet, id by them if that was a production model..

jim.

Good to have you back with us sir!
Looking good. Will the DKOK get some updates now?

@TyraelVladinhurst: Heheh, sadly I can´t and don´t recast, but I wish I could make loads of these...

@Viktor von Domm: Very true. However, I have fortunately secured parts to make at least two more, since I´ll need three for my crew.

@FTL: I´m not sure I want to beef up the exhausts, but I will at least change the side ones a bit. The rear portion of the bike will get some more work though, maybe some sort of fins or wings.
I just need to make sure I stay away from eldar territory with this thing...

@Malika2: The owners of these bikes will be the three outriders for my Ash Wastes Journeyman gang. I´ll need to sculpt at least one set of legs, as well as probably some other stuff.
I´ll try and get some fluff up for you guys as it´s ready.

How many of these are you planning to make? Guess the truck part is a costly addition?

If it's part of a gang, the other two could be slightly different. Did you see CELS design? LINK

Very nice stuff. Your old Ash Wastes Blog was one of my favourites. I was very upset when it stopped. Did you ever finish that Crawler? If not, are you going to? I can't wait to see more.

@Yggdrasil: The whole gravtech/imperium thing is apparently a matter of whom you ask...
The Eisenhorn series has several mentions of antigrav craft being publicly available (if expensive) transport, and also mentions quite small craft.
And even the IG originally had jetbikes, though the models are very rare now...

So I´m going with them being somewhat available, but old. And of course rebuilt so many times that they will be far from standardized.

Winglets of some sort are likely to happen, yes. Weapons are out, since the ruleset I´ll be working from doesn´t allow for fixed weapons on bikes.

@Jimmy72nd: Thanks a lot, maybe I should look into some sort of scratchbuilt engine block, so people could just add it to the front of a marine bike, along with an exhaust piece for the back end...

@Regnak: Thank you kindly, it´s good to be back! Rest assured that the Korps will be receiving reinforcements as well, in fact some parts have already been finished, but no pictures yet..

I´ll be making at least three, possibly more but we´ll have to see about that. The Trukk engine is the big thing here, so I want to find an alternative at some point...

@Malika2: The bikes will each have some modifications, I´m reading through the ruleset now, to find out what to put on each. Also, I´ll be making the engine sections slightly different, and possibly only keeping the supercharger on one bike.

The speeder design from CELS looks very nice indeed. It also raises an issue I´m still working on. Landing gear. I sort of want to use the bit of engine that´s sticking underneath the bike to build up an anchoring mechanism, so that the bikes simply fly onto the crawler and "anchor" themselves to landing pegs.
Now I´m not saying that I´ll be building the acttual mechanism for that to work, but that´s the fluff concept at least.

@Grimm: Thank you very much, I´m glad you like what I´m coming up with. I´ve had some major issues with the crawler, aminly in choosing plasticard that prove too flimsy, but I´m working on that at the moment. It is quite a way from being done, but I am certainly still on the project.

As a matter of fact I´m hoping to have the track units and lower carriage all done at the end of this month, if the remainder of my bits ever get here!


-----------------------

I have to say guys, that it feels great to be back, and it´s really cool to get such feedback on the stuff I´m working on.

Xanthos wrote:@Tortured-Robot: The shape of the bike actually appealed to me as well, front heavy and brutish.
The handle bars will be better integrated into the body. I´m considering several options at the moment, one of them is using the remains of the front fork as a cable trunk, with a bunch of cables snaking out from each side, to various locations on the engine.
Not practical in operation, but then that´s imperial tech for you...

As a biker myself, I think that this conversion will look good with a set of mid-level ape bars; possibly pulled back towards the rider.

looks good so far, i think a custom canopy made from plasticard would sit nice over the engine

Xanthos wrote:
@FTL: I´m not sure I want to beef up the exhausts, but I will at least change the side ones a bit. The rear portion of the bike will get some more work though, maybe some sort of fins or wings.
I just need to make sure I stay away from eldar territory with this thing...

Thats actually what i meant...

Small fins is also a good idea.

FTL

Its like an futuristic image of a hovering jet bike from like 60 years ago. Its cool, to me it just looks like a 50's cadillac. Like something out of Fallout 3

Oh man, would that ever fit in with my post-Apocalyptic Crimson Fists...that thing's superb. I say keep the turbocharger. In fact, I'm stealing that idea and putting that Ork turbocharger on one of my landspeeders...

Personally, I think that the bike could stand to be even a little more front-heavy. For landing gear, give it a single Valkyrie landing foot on a semi-articulated leg coming down from the front.

This is pretty cool!

You're right on the fluff bit though Xan, Eisenhorn mentions loads of anti-grav and he also uses speeder-bikes on more than one occassion (though i always thought them to be a bit more like scooter things than actual motorcycles.)

Does this mean you'll be doing more work on your crawler, i'd love to see that project again....

OMG that is so cool! i want one to rip up the ash wastes in style, think you should add wavy flags to the finished product for that sense of speed.

@Sturmtruppe: Cool thought. The ape bars actually sound interesting, but I may save them for one of the other bikes, as a distinguishing feature.
At the very least, I´ll change the handlebars for one of the bikes, to make those non standard as well.

@Calibanite Lion: Well I think I almost have to make some sort of windscreen or canopy. I mean, this thing zooms along at breakneck speed, through junkyards and desert wastelands. Just about anything might come flying at him...

@FTL: Sorry I misunderstood your previous post, I´ll try to get some pictures of early fin detailing out later today.

@Element206: I´m glad that my inspiration sources are coming through so well. I´ve been heavily inspired by Fallout 3 graphics, as well as a few very good pieces of post-apoc artwork on the web.

@Death by Monkeys: I figured out tonight that about two thirds of the bike´s length is in front of the driver...
Good call on the landing gear idea. I actually have some of those lying about, so I´ll do some tests today.
Oh, and I definitely want to see the turbocharged speeder!

@VitruvianXVII: Thanks a lot! The speeder bikes were exactly what I was thinking. I´ve been considering jetbikes for my ash wastes crew for a while, but just couldn´t find the right look for the bikes.
The Crawler is still in the works, and I´ve recently bought the last bits that I needed to finish the track and undercarriage section. So some pictures of that should be up, hopefully by the end of this month.

@neil101: Thank you. The design actually isn´t that difficult to pull off, so if you do make one, please share the pictures with us. Wavy flags might be a bit too fancy for these guys, they´re living in the middle of the desert after all. But I do think it would be cool with something to convey the speed of the thing... Hmm, will have to think about that.

Okay then, here´s some pictures of what I got done last night and today.

I´ve started on some GS work, mostly to bring the two main pieces together. The engine block has gotten some cabling.


The GS cables look a little rough actually, so I may need to switch them for some plastic ones.. Hmm....


This side turned out even less like I wanted, so it´ll need a fix in any case.
I did manage to get the intake vent tied better in with the engine block by adding the cooling plates down the side. I did this to both sides where possible.


This image shows off the front of the engine as it is now. The exhausts were mostly a test, and will be replaced with something more stripped back later.


And finally, a picture showing the state of the bike right now, with a rider blue tacked on for size comparison. As you can see, very front heavy.


The second bit of news, is that I recently managed to get a hold of a second set of the original Necromunda terrain.


An exciting box of goodies on my doorstep.

http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2010/10/23/149882_md-Necromunda%2C%20Terrain%2C%20Warhammer%2040%2C000.JPG
It is in less than perfect shape, but then this is fifteen years old stuff, half of which is cardboard...
Also, I think some of it may have been knocked about on the way from the US to europe. When I took the lid off the box it came in, I found out that all the builldings had been shipped in built condition, instead of flat.


This puzzled me, until I found out that everything had been glued together with Elmers glue, and parts of it were nearly impossible to get apart.

Eventually though, I did manage to get everything taken apart, and all the bulkheads, which were my main reason for getting the set, are entirely intact!

So now, I also need to grab some good hard cardboard and a load of plasticard and make some fancy 3D terrain pieces. More on that as it develops.

Yay! You're reviving the 3D 'munda terrain!!

Love the look of the bike, really chunky, has a flying brick look that is so Imperium

Yup, the terrain project is coming back out of the box as well.

Heheh, flying brick does kinda describe it, yeah.

Congratulations Xanthos!

I totally know what you mean about time for updates Our's is 8 months.

Nice start. Some of the fine detail work could be a little sharper, but overall, I really like the bike.