Disclaimer: This is my first project, first conversion, first time using plasticard and all that. Please be gentle.
I recently re-discovered the hobby after a 10+ year break. I have a small, outdated Imperial Guard army. I've never actually played the game, only collected models and painted them. I want to start playing, so I've started to buy and paint the models I need for an army.
A key piece of that army is a Techpriest, to be accompanied by some Servitors. I'm very unimpressed with the actual
GW servitor models - mostly because they generally come with weapons and not servo-arms, which is what makes them useful.
I also don't really like the idea of having zombies in my army. I think my conversions fit with the fluff and stuff. So I decided to build some from scratch, and I also thought I'd post here to show you my progress so far.
I found some small tracked vehicles from Anvil Industries. (
http://www.anvilindustry.co.uk/AFTERLIFE/Republic/Taurus-Gun-Tractors) I actually thought they'd be much bigger than they actually are, but they're incredibly detailed and I'm actually pleased with the size of them in the end: (scalpel blade for reference)
My first thought was to also buy some of the weapons and then cut things away and sculpt what I wanted with
GS. The biggest flaw in this is that I am not a very good sculptor.
So I did some research and bought some plasticard. I got a sheet of 2mm, a sheet of 1.5m, a 3mm tube and a 3mm square section.
The basic premise is that each vehicle (there are 5) have a utility crane of some form.
Each is made as the above, two pieces with a round piece as a joint. This is then attached to a plate, which in turn attaches to the vehicle (with magnets so that they can rotate).
On the end of each crane is a removable tool as you'll see below.
I spent a LONG time trying to see if I could figure out how to make the joints in the crane arm moveable, but after a few different attempts I gave up and just stuck them together. If anyone has any ideas, I'm all ears.
So far, I have three "tools" - an excavator bucket, a drill and a sort of pointy thing (I made that one first). If anyone is interested, I'll go through how I made each one (but it's fairly obvious).
I also have a plow or dozer blade to attach to one or more of them.
The Excavator:
The Drill:
The Dozer Blade:
The Pointy Thing:
The Magnets: