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I just wanted to share a couple of tank types i am working on.
The chassis for Chimera-style tanks and Leman Russ is the same, artillery like the Armageddon-pattern Basilisk has a slightly modified version of the same chassis and then there is a larger one representing a Macharius.
Maybe the design reminds you of something - it is based on artwork of Ben Wotton for a Halo-Movie that was never realized.

Macharius Vulcan


Armageddon Basilisk


Chimera


reconfigured as Leman Russ

Somewhere i also have a photo with attached sponsons...



All made of paper and cardboard at 95%. Don't ask for the time... tooo long.
95% is also the degree of completion (not the Macharius - that one is at 85%).
Painting comes later.
Oh... all weapons are magnetized. I just need too many.

The goal is to make 3 LRs, 3 Chimeras, 2 Artillerie Tanks.
Thats just what templates i made so far.
The next template will be a small armored reconnaissance vehicle (Warthog).
After that, a few flyers- but for those, i will use existing designs for a Halo Pelicn (Valkyrie, Vendetta, Vulture) and Stargte F-302 (Lightning, Thunderbolt)

Awesome mate I live the one that looks like an as90!

Thanks.
I assume most self propelled guns look similar. It does indeed resemble a AS-90, but the actual inspiration was a Panzerhaubitze-2000.

I saw your first tank and thought of this thing...

http://www.military-today.com/tanks/expeditionary_tank.htm


I have to admit, your design intrigues me. I would love to get a copy of your templates, if you feel like sharing your elegant designs.

I have found another shot of the Chimera turret with a better angle - the first shot is a bit misleading.
And another one with an attached sponson - and a heavy flamer attached to that.



@Sauragnmon: i have sent you a PM
Publishing the templates is complicated due to possible copyright issues and the quality of the templates. They are not self explanatory in several points, i have been really sloppy regarding standards for indication of cuts, folds and marks and the templates are missing all parts that i did not need a template for or that i make with another material

I'm sure I can improvise where necessary, the outline and general hull shape are what interested me in the long run.

Love it!

No, this project is NOT dead.
The Macharius has joined the other two tanks on the paint-bench (only priming so far...) and the 4th vehicle-type is in the test-build phase.
"Test build phase" means that i am building the 3rd prototype now... the 4th if i include the first attempt which was... slightly out of scale. Meaning: that one turned out to be the size of a chimera.
The 3rd version does not look that crappy any more, but keep in mind that this is just the level-0 structure ... in some parts not even that. Let's say... a rough shape.


In the mean time, the Macharius had received a couple of details.

While technically very good, I wasn't sold on the first post. They looked really neat but incredibly "non-Warhammer". The latest post looks much more inline with the silliness that is the Imperium. Much closer to the aesthetic.

Now if you think the tanks look "non-Warhammer", wait until you see my infantry :-)
No, the Kasrkin is not part of it (that's the only miniature in the whole IG-history i really like)

I am building an IG army ... but without the silly WW1-design, without "heroic-scale" stupidity - and yet a consistent design for all vehicles in a faction. Actually, my army consists of two factions with a different design. The three tank types are part of the first faction and the Recon Vehicle belongs to the second faction.

The weapon-design is still "40k" for the most part, which ties the army in the universe to a certain degree. The Macharius is a hybrid between my design and the original Macharius - no surprise that it turned out much closer to the typical GW-look.

And if all fails... the extensive use of rivets cry out "40k" loud enough for me :-)

Looks a whole lot like a starcraft siege tank

which is not a bad thing at all.

very cool.

I always liked the starcraft siege tank- but actually, that was not the Inspiration.
Neither was the Command and Conquer Mammoth.
It was this here:

Somewhere on the net are concept artworks for that tank - it is a design for the Scorpion Tank intended for a never made Halo Movie.

Obviously, the design for all my tanks is based on that concept.
Stolen with pride

Interesting how we can all have different perspectives on things - personally I love the WWi aesthetic and it doesn't really feel like the Guard any more if they have any more modern-looking tech.

But having said that, you've clearly got a lot of skill and put a lot of effort into these scratchbuilds. They're looking great!

Yep, that's kinda where I'm at. The work is excellent, the execution looks really well done. However, I play 40K because I like its aesthetic. It's not a particularly tremendous game itself, so if I was going to go through the effort of using 100% alternate models I'd just play another game. The vehicles I see above scream FASA/Battletech to me. While I love Battletech it would take me out of the game a bit in a 40K game.

I'd like to see them painted up and finished though, for sure.

I wonder why the stylistic range of imperial infantry covers a range of WW1, Vietnam, 19th century up to the near future... and the vehicles are for the most part stuck in WW1 aesthetics.

Anyway, there was only one type of miniatures in the IG range that i really liked - and that were the Kasrkin.

My vehicle design is just the third step - the beginning was my selection of infantry models and the thought, how the heck those could possibly appear in 40k.
In short, i am using Dreamforge Eisenkern infantry and Mantic GCPS Rangers/Marines - and with the bachground story i imagined (and wrote in the meantime - that was fun as well, but had some impact on the design as well), it would not have made any sense to base the vehicles on imperial technology.

But again, this is only half the story. In the past, my scratchbuilt vehicles were just copies and slight modifications of existing vehicles - and now i make something different.

Since both the Eisenkern models and the GCPS-troopers are near-future models, it made sense to pick that thought up for the vehicles as well. Something important was the remark about personal attitudes - i certainly do not like the WW1 aesthetics, but that is no reason for me NOT to build an army similar to the guard.

It may very well feel for some not very IG-ish... but 40k has enough room for it i believe.
But after the reaction i received for the background story on B&C, a certain degree of irritation regarding the design is something i am happy with :-)

Thanks for the open feedback on the design - i hope to get better on the technical side while i build more of them (but hell... it takes me weeks to build one of the small tanks, but at least now i have working prototypes)

A few finishing touches - and of course the interchangeable main weapon on the roof - are still missing.

But essentially, it is done.

For the moment, i call it "bullfrog".

These are great, thanks for sharing!

Thanks for the appreciation!

Alas, i encountered a major fuc*up during painting preparations for the tanks.
Priming with a rattle can in 3 sessions - done!
Applying the base color with a rattle can ...
First two sessions went nice and smooth. After the third and last session, all models turned out to have developed a dense texture of tiny blobs.
Maybe those have built up during the three steps or some circumstances during the last session have been very wrong.
Anyway... the paintjob can't get good any more.

If only i had done only the two small tanke before i went on to the Macharius...

Learning of the week: don't use a spray color you have not used before for something important.

A small snippet from the army background:
Contact with the Empire of man -and actually the "reality" of the 40th millennium had occured only a few months ago.
Until then, the homeworld was a human colony founded only 150 (subjective) years ago.
The last 100 years saw an escalating war between the first and the second wave of settlers.
A most important keyword is "subjective", because a couple of circumstances affected the passage of time on the trip to the homeworld and the world itself (or rather, the respective region in space). The settlers left earth in the early 23nd century.

This is the extremely short outline - there is also a much longer version.

Why bother? Just because i wanted an answer on the question how the heck the two miniature ranges fit in my army and why they look the way they look.

More photos coming soon.
The last weeks saw me trying to rescue the early stage of paintjob.
Applying this specific color (Montana) was definitely a VERY bad idea. Besides the structure in many places, the paint also ... built up somehow and ruined a couple of details as well. Mistakes add up... several rivets do look rather crappy as well.

The next catastrophe happened while painting the camo pattern. Maybe it was this specific masking tape, maybe me being just clumsy or masking tape an brush do not work well together... anyway, it took me a couple of days to repair a totally messed pattern.
As of now, the camo on basilisk and LemanRuss is more or less done and i moved on to a pin wash. It works far better with some water applied prior to the actual wash.
Still, the result was messy enough to require extensive tidying up again.
It does not really look good... but it begins to approach „sufficient“. But still a long way to go... (almost) no painted details yet and it became apparent that i will need to work with edge highlights. So far i thought washes might suffice. Wrong.

After the testing phase on the first tanks (better to think of it that way) i started with the camo pattern on the Macharius.

Photos!
First, the Macharius. The least messed up tank. Camo pattern done, no washes yet:



And the other two. In reality, it looks worse than on the photos.

Some pin washes, some drybrushing, much cleaning up the mess i made... and a few more steps later.
And still some way to go before i even start weathering.



Suggestions on improvement prior to weathering?

You thought I was done?
No, I just took a break and am in the middle of experimenting with oil paints.
Left side of Macharius done, right side for a „before“ impression.

Almost done with the oils on the three tanks, I still have a couple of details to work on before I try out pigments as my last step.
A family shot with a WIP buggy from the workbench (2nd sub-faction, hence different design) and an ugly original Leman Russ for size comparison.
Funny coincidence: with the spiked dozer blade, the Leman Russ is only 1cm shorter than my counts-as Keman Russ/Chimera

(Top: Counts-as Leman Russ/Chimera equipped as Chimera with light turret
Below: same tank with Leman Russ turret, punisher cannon, Sponsons and Heavy Bolters. All magnetized (even while all weapons are scratch-built...)

So, last post with Tank-updates for a while.
A First experiment with pigments did not really turn out well...

Ravengrove wrote:
A few finishing touches - and of course the interchangeable main weapon on the roof - are still missing.

But essentially, it is done.

For the moment, i call it "bullfrog".

This is gorgeous. I want 10 of them.

No progress on the bullfrog - and no mass production in sight.
But something else is 75% completed by now.
This "something" is what is supposed to bring the bullfrog where it is needed.
And also 10 infanterists.

It is also larger than the Macharius.
And yes - if you recognize the design: you are right.

prior to assembling the hull - "mockup-stage"



Hull assembly completed - on to more surface details!

Some impressions of the finished tanks:





The bullfrog finally got a gun:


Painting on the Pelican is at 40%




It needs some tidying up on the camo before i turn to details. Too blurry, not enough contrast - and the drybrushing was no good idea at all.

Ooh. I don't necessarily vibe with all of these insofar as they fit within 40k, but these are cracking pieces.