Thunderfire cannon and more

Here are the proper pictures of my Thunderfire cannon/Atlas Gun Carriage. I certainly find it pleasing, though to be fair, I'm quite obviously biased.

And now for something a bit different. As I am writing this, my Enforcer Space Marines army has existed as more than just a concept in my head for about one year and three months. I find it very fascinating to see how much my painting skills have changed in that short time.

The above two pictures show the point I am trying to make. Four assault cannons where I have attempted to paint the gun barrels with NMM, Non-Metallic Metal, techniques. The one to the left is the oldest one and one of my first attempts at NMM, while the one on the right is the most recent one, completed just a few of days ago. The difference is rather staggering. Not only has each attempt gotten darker and darker, the progression from dark to bright is better and the illusion of light reflection is far more pronounced.

While I'm certainly no NMM master, and will probably never be, it is satisfying to see that my time hasn't been a complete waste of time. Let that be a lesson to any painter out there that thinks you can't improve; Time and practice are your best friends no matter who you are!

Thunderfire Cannon

Time for an update! After reading the rules for the Thunderfire Cannon in the new Space Marine codex, I just knew I had to get one. 100 points for a reliable artillery piece is a bargain, especially when you consider the cost of the crew. A lone techmarine with the same equipment as the Thunderfire Cannon crew is 75 points, meaning that you only pay 25 points for the actual gun!

As for the build itself, it started with some sketches. This is something I consider everyone should do before starting a major build. It gives you a better understanding of what you are trying to accomplish and you can try out several ideas and concepts without wasting any plastikard. For instance, almost nothing of what can be seen in the above picture made it on to the build and yet all it cost me was a piece of paper.

My personal take on the Thunderfire Cannon started out with a boxlike shape. I may have little talent for sculpting a human body and dynamic, flowing shapes like hair and clothes makes me cry myself to sleep, but give me straight lines, angles and something I can measure, and I can make almost anything. Hence a box, because it is always a good start.

Before I finished the first box I added another inverted box on the top. This adds some extra dimension to the cannon instead of just making it a flat, boring surface. The guns are simple rectangular tubing that has had a groove cut in the middle and yet they look fairly high-tech. Later I will add some round tubing into that groove, again adding depth and dimension.

For the base of the gun I'm using a Puppets War Gatling turret platform. I bought this at the same time as the weapons for my IronRaider. The gatling gun won't be used here, instead it will later become the main weapon on my Iron Raider Crusader variant.

A word of caution however. Normally I'm very happy with the items I buy from Puppets War. Not so this time. While the main body was fairly decent, the tracks were quite badly cast, more specifically the sides. I had already planned to remove some of the moulded details to add my own touch but in this case it became an absolute necessity. Gone is almost all the detail, replaced by fairly simple plastikard plates.

The parts intended to hold the gatling gun ended up holding my Thunderfire cannon instead. Another, smaller box, was created to fit in the vacuum left by the gatling gun and the main body of the thunderfire cannon was fitted on top of this. At this stage I realised that the finished model would probably be quite big, but since I have no official model to compare it to it will just have to do.

Servitor

Just a quick update to show off the first finished Servitor. The techmarine is finished as well, but I just couldn't get a decent photo of it so this will have to do.

More Industrial claws

I've continued to work with the items I bought from Zinge Industries but the size of the things was a problem. As mentioned in the previous post, the robotic servo arms was quite a bit bigger than I had expected, and I faced the same problem with the track units. This was further complicated by the fact that the Deadzone sentry guns was smaller than I had envisioned. Mounting two tracks side by side with the gun platform on top would just look ridiculous, not to mention that a standard 25mm base wouldn't really be big enough.

Instead I cut one of the track units in half and manufactured a simple plastikard box in between them. Ah, what would I do without plastikard? After gluing the tracks to the box it was really a simple matter of smoothing out any flaws with liquid green stuff or similar substances and adding some details to the front and back of the 'box'.

In the picture above you can see the final assembly though at the time the picture was taken, I hadn't actually glued the top parts in place. I usually find it much easier to paint models if they are in manageable sub-assemblies.

Industrial claws and tools from Zinge Industries

I recently bought a number of items from Zinge Industries that I intended to use together with Mantics Enforcers, more specifically the Enforcer Engineer used in the Deadzone boardgame. My plan from the very beginning was to turn that model and his sentry guns into a Space Marine techmarine and Servitors.

Small track unit

Robotic Servo Arm - Arms only

Robotic Servo Arm - 1 Arm with Various Heads

Mechanical Fists

I must admit to being quite pleased with my purchase. All parts are cast in a light grey resin that is quite soft and easy to work with. The details are sharp, and apart from a fair amount of flash, doesn't need much cleaning. The only bubbles I could find in the resin was those that showed up from carving or cutting it so normally you wouldn't see them. If I wasn't so hell bent on converting everything I touch, I wouldn't have found them at all! Strangely though, some of the parts in the third picture looked like the mould had been misaligned slightly. Nothing that a proper knife and some carving couldn't fix so it is not much of a big deal.

 

The robotic arms are a treat to work with. By simply cutting away or adding links to the power cable on the back of it you can change the pose drastically and all the connectors and tools makes it very easy to add variety to them. 

I had however miscalculated the size of the robotic arms which meant that they would be too damned big for my Enforcer Engineer / Techmarine. Instead I chose to manufacture my own, slimmer version by using some of the add-on parts from the robotic arms and some plastikard.