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edit: this model has been broken down and rebuilt as a chaos cultist vindicator counts as
Hey guys, long time lurker.

After a wave of nostalgia and browsing the internet I decided to attempt a vehicle scratch build. Something ork was the obvious choice and the Gobsmasha style tank seemed like it would be an easy start. My main deviation from the design was have front wheels that are able to steer, but I used some large wheel arches to keep the classic gobsmasha silhouette.

As my first attempt at scratch building a vehicle in maybe 15 years I decided to keep my materials cheap rather than make mistakes with more expensive supplies. I've sprayed my work so far black and gave it a quick brush of silver to pick out the details.





So, any good?

Suggestions for extra details, especially detailing the wheels, please!?

(Edited to re-source images from DD Gallery. Stoopid Flikka!)

Pictures dont show up for me. may want to check that.

Flickr doesn't play nicely with a lot of other sites, Dakka included. You may want to consider uploading the images to the Gallery. Most folks don't want to bother with the roundabout viewing method (right click>copy image location>paste url into new tab to view image).

Thanks to oadie, I did take a look. How big is it? If its vaguely 40k tank-sized I would say it definitely needs more gubbins.

Maybe more rivets to break up the large smooth area over the front wheels, and the back wheel needs something. I'll leave it to someone else to figure out what, but too much flat space showing (especially for orcs).

Its a good start though

Whoopsie!

Didn't realise Dakka and Flikka had a tiff :p

Fortunately I managed to grab 5 mins before work to get this sorted. So, as suggested here are the pics sourced from gallery, and with a beaten up old vindicator for the sake of comparison.







I agree detailing needs to be added to the rear wheels, I am unsure as to how I am going to accomplish that though.

I'm also not sure if I am happy with the front wheel arches. Should I smoothe them out with filler to get that classic boy racer look (Gobsmashas are a cult of speed tank, right?)


PS Thanks for taking the time to follow the URLs to the first images guys, I appreciate the time and replies

I like the bacis shape of it - the hybrid of a racer and a tankhunter. Strange and orky. But i have to agree that it needs a lot of additional details. For once i think the back weels need a lot of work. It might sound harsh but i would replace them entirely. You could use part of the wheels for armor for the actuall wheel.
The wheel itself i'd try to build more realistically with wheel rim and stuff like that. Maybe cou can look for cheap toy wheels to use there instead.

Also if you look at orkish vehicles most of them have random plates bolted all over them.You could try something like that on the areas that are currently to flat and missing details.

Also i think you should try to add something to the vehicle to the hide the fact that the main body is just a simple box. Maybe add some gun emplacements between the wheels. Just a simple roundish platform with a bit of protection and a grot or ork wilding a gun of some sort. Something similar to those emplacements on top of these bugies, just on both side of the tank between and above the wheels.

Thanks, btldoomhammer,

I must admit I have considered replacing the wheels, but I'll try building up some details on the rims first and see what I can accomplish with the ideas I've had since my last post. I'll add some tread riveted on to the plating of the back wheels if it isn't too tedious. If it these things don't work out great I can always build a second gobsmasher with the lessons learnt from the first!


I've bolted on a couple of plates to the vehicle so far, I was thinking maybe adding some more vision slits or panels between the wheels. As you say that spot is lacking in detail. The classic gob smashas didn't have any turrets on them, however. I don't want to deviate too much from that silhouette.

Perhaps I can have some snozt crawling over it and some banner poles to make the shape a little more interesting?

It's looking good so far, although as mentioned it does lack detail. Just add random plating and rivets and it'll look orky as hell.

The model has been reimagined as a chaos cultist Vindicator counts as

Looks effective, and the track units seem to be well constructed. For detailing surfaces, especially those of the tracks themselves, I recomment strip stock. A couple of widths and thicknesses of styrene strips and profiles give you a big variety of details you can make easily. I think the big rivets let your work down a bit. Personally I prefer to slice some extra ones off other plastic parts, and use those.

Even for orks, I would not go over 1.5 mil in width, rivet-wise.

Thanks for the thoughts Aga,

I think you're right, the chunky rivets might have worked when the model was orky, but now it is chaos those rivets need down sizing.

Apologies for the poor picture quality by the way, I think I need to invest in more equipment, at the very least a stand for my camera.

Do you know anything about casting? I think it could be handy if I build one piece of track and then create replicas to maintain a certain level of uniformity.

Nope, sorry. For my last tank scratch build I used a set of plastic tracks and metal drive sprockets from a Russian KV-2. Making one or a couple of prototypes from plastic and then casting them up would be a good shortcut, though, definitely. You wouldn't even necessarily need a complicated mould, a one-piece open one might suffice.

A friend of mine is wanting to get in to casting as a hobby. He knows I enjoy scratchbuilding for 40k and he reckons my scratchbuilds would be a fun thing for him to try create copies of.

As such I'm currently constructing parts for a new orky tank that would lend themselves to being cast. Following your suggestion I'm trying to keep the details arranged in such a way that it will lend itself to simple casting techniques.

Building on your further feedback I've come up with a new technique for rivets in cardstock vehicles; pressing a ball point pen into the reverse side of the card, creating an embossed 'rivet' on the other side. Everything is still half assembled, so I will be interested in seeing if the technique holds up to the painting stages.

I've been trying to think how to incorporate these models in an existing collection. I was reading the RT era freebooter orks supplement the other day and it described how imperial guard would pose as human mercenaries to the blood axe clan in order to cause civil war among the orks.

I think I've found a purpose for my vehicles and a paint scheme for my half assembled IG!