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Howdy Y'all!

I thought I'd start sharing my new project I have been working on for the past few days.

I absolutely love the Legiones Astartes Sicaran Battle Tank, its got gorgeous clean lines and a menacing appearance. To me it looks like a Preying mantis in armoured tank glory.

However I has limited pennies. So I thought I'd scratch build one from the plasticard and styrene rods kicking around my man cave.

So first thing I had to do was plan out the dimensions and angles for the model then cut out the desired pieces, build up thicknesses using rod and/or multiple layers of plasticard. At the end of the first build day I had the start of both side plates as seen in WIP One and Two.

The next available day I started work on the sponson mounts. These were built up in the same way as the rest of the side plates. The results can be seen in WIP Three and Four.

I have also built a rectangular block as the basis of the chassis. I haven't got a picture of this yet. Next step is building the front section of the Chassis and attach it.

I am going to build the sponsons separately and attach after I have painted the whole complete tank.

Because I feel on things like the Sicaran the main armament is akin to the tanks "face" I couldn't resit starting the accelerator cannons. Again I haven't got a pic yet but will post one when it is complete.

Hope you all like for now and I will keep this updated as I continue. But as a last wee thing, I have also begun to plan out how to scratch build a Fellblade. I quite enjoy having lots going on so why not eh?

Bye for now tinternet land!

Off to an impressive start!

Cheers Nevelon! Next time I get a chance to work on the tank is this weekend, I am hoping to do most of the chassis. Can't wait to get this done. It's just the prototype for now, gonna build a second one that will have more details and fix a couple of mistakes that I have made so far. That one I am going to cast so I can make a squadron of three resin tanks for me and my bro! should be a lot of fun :-)

Agree with Nevelon, this looks awesome so far, hope to see more!

Thanks very much Guardians! I am hoping to get into the man Cave this afternoon to continue work so I will post my progress. I am aiming to complete most of the tank by end of Sunday. How realistic that is I have no idea ;-)

Good luck with this, you seem to have made a solid start and have the skills to make it work

Thanks IGtR=! :-)

Where are you getting the dimensions from?
Are you just eyeballing pics and going on that or do you have the dimensions from somewhere?
I have a built sicaran and an unassembeled one if you need any help

Eyeballing overall size and using the Pics from Horus Heresy books for angles and relative sizes of lines. If you could tell me what the overall length and width of the FW model is that would be awesome help as I think I've made mine too small!

Looking good so far. Here are some pics of one next to a land raider and pred for comparison.
http://weemen.blogspot.com/2014/01/forgeworld-sicaran-battletank-size.html

FYI, there are papercraft versions of most 40K vehicles online that make excellent line plans for scratchbuilt vehicles.

Looks good. I want a scarian...

Thrte nice models.

Yeah I've seen them around, look pretty good. I like the challenge of figuring it all out though. I think for the Fellblade I may have to see if there are line plans as that's a bit bigger and a mistake on that would be far more annoying!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Jhe90 yeah they're gorgeous tanks definitely my favourite!

Thanks to everyone with the kind words, offers of help and advice. Here is what I've achieved this morning.

Started building the front end of the Chassis. Its a bloody complex part to build but I think it's getting here.

Almost finished the first gun barrel. Needs a little tweek and some final details but happy with how it is progressing.

That looks very good.

Its coming on.

Morning all!

After two hours of work I have got the tracks on one side of the tank attached. Fiddly work and now my fingers are even more caked in glue!!

After lunch I will do the other side then the up and over frontal armour.

Looking awesome man!

This continues to look awesome, those tracks are spot on!

Really nice work. Thanks for sharing.

So I haven't posted for a while since I got fairly stuck with a part of the tank. Turns out I screwed it up and what I was trying to build would never have worked! great

So in order to find a fix I started a second tank. Yeah I know, not the normal way of finding a fix!

So the new one is coming along nicely and has shown me how to fix the fault of the first. It also has better sized track width. My one issue with the second one was that I wasn't able to bulk out the armour as much as I had on the first due to a shortage of material and more importantly funds!

Howdy again world!

It's been a while but sadly I've been quite ill for a while now. But no sadness here!

I have borrowed a Dremel from my work and progress has kicked back up again. So here are two progress shots. They show the Second Sicaran and a new Predator (just started) as they are as of now.

I will be working on the two for the rest of the week and hopefully finish the Sicaran soon!

Hope you like!

Well I am really glad I always obey safety instructions! Whilst cutting a section of turret out the power drills disc shattered and a shard smashed into my safety goggles right in front of my right eye.

Safe to say I bricked it!

But anyway here is the tank as I finish for now.

Hope you like and ALWAYS WEAR SAFETY GOGGLES!!

Looks fantastic! Glad to hear you were wearing safety glasses. Otherwise, I'd have recommended getting used to pirate jokes.

Looking awesome! I'm glad to see you picking back up the progress.

I have safety goggles for chopping onions (full face mask with air filter - I hate onions) but funnily enough never wear any when using power tools...

cheers Guys!

Yeah the pirate jokes would have never ceased... well maybe I think my wife would have murdered me first for being stupid!

PossumCraft I have an image of you in a full chemical warfare gas mask!! :-D We grow our own onions and shallots and light be damned they're strong!!

I will hopefully be working on the turret later today which I am psyched about!

So today's work involved using greenstuff to fill gaps and also add the slope on the armour where the sponson sits.

Also added a little more to the turret which is going to take a lot of work!

Finally I added a LOT more rivets to the near completed side of the tank


Hope you're all enjoying, Still undecided about next tank (after the Predator that is!) Still tempted by a Fellblade! They're just so purty!

Finally the main body of the tank is complete. I am adding in sub assemblies like the engine block, heavy bolter and tracks to make painting a bit easier. AS you can see in the pics I have started to paint the main body. I have been itching to do this for AGES!

Next build job to do is finishing the turret. I am also working on a couple of other tanks as well.

Hope you're liking so far!

A wee update:

Got the structure of the turret done and waiting for the PVA to set before sanding and GS to complete the dome. After that will be the hatches, sensors and finishing the barrels.

Made a bit more progress on the painting of the hull as well, hope you like!