Thunderbolt Fighter, Part V

Okay, engines, canopy, tail, and wings.

As a last step before I launched into the big assembly, I added a crosspiece to the canopy in the back, right under the knot of my added  bow tie.  It’s about 7/8" across—the same width as the front of the canopy—and hopefully it’ll make the whole piece a bit more solid.  There are two small tabs on it as well.  None of it has to be really precise or esthetically pleasing as this is all interior/ structural stuff.  As long as it does the job, it’s good.

This Is Important – Okay y’know that tab at the front of the canopy?  The one I decorated with small card discs?  Because of the pieces I had to add to fill the gaps in the cockpit, this tab is too wide to fit now.  Rather than spreading out, its sides need to run straight down.  Depending on how you placed things, it could even angle in a bit.

I coated my little interior bracket with glue, and the inside edges of the fuselage as well.  The rear engine slid in, and I worked it into place by reaching through the cockpit and keeping one finger inside the engine itself.  It took a bit of wiggling but I got it in place.  Then I held the whole thing solid for a minute, letting the glue dry as much as possible.

As soon as I was sure the engine wasn’t going to slide or pop out of position, I grabbed the canopy.  I folded the front tab up under the canopy and then glued the underside (the one I didn’t decorate).  I also glued

In a perfect world the canopy should’ve fit down between those two gap-filling pieces.  Alas, this is not a perfect world, or a perfect template.  So the canopy sits a little high, which means it has to sit a bit more forward (so the tab stays flush against the front of the cockpit).

I slid a pencil through the top of the canopy to press the tab against the front of the cockpit.  I also kept checking the postion from different angles to make sure the canopy stayed lined up.  If it’s in the right position, there should be a thin gap between the edges of the canopy and that section of the tail behind it (yes, this gap’s supposed to be there).

So all that’s done.  Finally.

Next I cut out all the fins and braces.  Like the wings, the big question was how to get these solid on the fuselage.  Because of the braces, I couldn’t do tabs this time. What I decided on was lengths of trim to widen the fins and tail a bit.

I cut a 1/4” strip and ran it along both sides of the tail along the base, cut to shape on the front edge.  Then I did the same thing on the fins, top and bottom.  To make sure these stayed straight, I wrapped them in wax paper and let them dry under a few copies of 14 (how’s that for a shameless plug?).

Helpful Hint – If you just give it a minute to dry, the base of the tail is wide enough at three layers thick that it will stand very well on the brace.

Another Helpful Hint – It’s tough to get a perfectly straight tail because all of these fuselages are a bit warped one way or another.  Rather than measure it, I eyeballed the tail from a few different angles.  It’s more important that it looks right than it is right, if that makes sense.

I did the same on the fins.  Keep in mind these run off the back edge, so be careful with the glue.  Again, I eyeballed the level.  Another few minutes and these were done.

As a final bit of detail there, I added a few purity seals.  With the high risk being a fighter pilot involves, it’s not too hard to believe the Ecclesiasty would bless those brave souls.  And it’s really easy to believe the Mechanicus would bless their flying machines a hundred times over.  I just put a couple on the two basic squaddies, but our fighter ace got a quartet of them.  Placed carefully, they hide some flaws and also help sell movement.

This made the main fuselage pretty much complete (except for the lascannons in the nose).  Now it was time to move onto the secondary fuselage.  As before, I decided to do a bit of quick detail first.

Looking at the Forge World model, there are two circles on either side of the secondary fuselage which look suspiciously like gas tanks.  I made two 1/4” circles with my hole punch and added those on. 

There’s also a scoop on top of this section, right in front of the canopy.  I didn’t want to build the whole scoop, but I still wanted the idea of it.  I cut a piece of card 1” by 3/8” and centered in that panel of the fuselage.

Now for the engines.  The next big element here are the side engines.  On each one, one section’s going to fit inside the secondary fuselage and extend just a bit out the front.  The other section goes inside the first one and extends back past the cockpit.  I need to scratchbuild them, but it’s not like I haven’t done it a few times (LINK) here before.  The real challenge is making them match the exact size of the holes in the secondary fuselage.

For each engine, I cut a piece of card 3 3/8” x 2”.  This got scored at 3/8” wide x 2” long sections.  The last piece, as usual, is the tab, and I trimmed the edges on it a bit.  We’ll call this piece the front.

This piece turned out to be a hair too big, though.  Just enough that it wouldn’t fit without significant reshaping of the hole or bending of the cylinder.  After careful re-measurement, it turns out this piece actually needs to have sides that are 11/32” wide for the cylinder to fit.  And I can be honest--I was not looking forward to making eight measurements and cuts on that scale for six different engine components.

However, I realized if I just glued the 3/8” cylinder one panel smaller—making a seven-sided cylinder with a tab two panels long—it would fit fairly well.  I wrestled with this decision for a bit. I knew I was giving up some smoothness in that circle to keep from doing the extra, eye-stressing work.  In the end, I decided to make the seven-panel cylinder work, but either should fit if you choose to go with the finer detail.

Next was the inner section.  For each one, I cut a piece of card 2 1/4” x 4”.  This got scored into 1/4” wide x 4” long strips.  The last piece, as usual, is the tab, and I trimmed the edges on it a bit.  Because of their length, these were a bit more work to glue together.  I pushed my clothespins in as far as they'd go, then worked them out to make sure the seal was still tight at the ends.

Now that the front pieces were dry, I worked on them a little more.  I cut a few strips of card 1/4” wide and about 2 13/16” long.  I wrapped them tight around my hobby knife (you could also use a large marker or round pencil or something like that) so they got a good curve to them.  Then I wrapped one around the cylinder and trimmed it (if needed) to make a flush join between the ends.  The seam should be on the underside of the engine, if the cylinder looks better from one angle than another.

           

I cut one strip to fit just inside the cylinder, too.  That’ll give the sense of a thick, heavy case around the engine and help add to the illusion that it’s rounded.  If you decide to do this, make sure the seam where the strip comes together is towards the top of the cylinder.  This strip was 1/4” x 2 3/8”, trimming if needed.

And that’s a lot for now.  Next week, the secondary fuselage gets added and I build some weapons.

Thunderbolt Fighter, Part IV

An extra post to make up for the lack of post a few weeks back.

So,when we last left the men of Aquilla Squadron they were trying to fill in a huge gap around their canopies that would’ve all made them all decompress and explode... which would not serve the Emperor’s will.

I’d just filled in a bit in the front.  Now I needed to do the same thing on the sides.  I cut two strips of card 2” x 3/4” (one set for each plane), and then scored them so I had a 3/8” section, a 1/8” section, and a 1/4” section.  For the record, the 1/4” sections are the outside, and the 1/8” piece is the top.  I cut one end of both sides at about a 30 degree angle, giving me kind of a lopsided-arrowhead shape.  Once it was folded on the creases, it looked a bit like a narrow chisel.

This piece went on the inside of the cockpit on either side.  The outside of the chisel glues to the inside of the cockpit.  The chisel end sits against the sloped piece I put in last week.  I used a few patches to make sure these extentions met the slope and there weren’t any ugly gaps.

If I’d Known Then What I Know Now... – All of this could’ve been dodged right at the start just by leaving some extra material on the template around the cockpit.  I could’ve made the folds with that rather than trying to glue on pieces to extend it out.  I highly recommend it so your cockpits can be a lot cleaner than mine are.

At this point I also added some fine detail to the fuselage around the cockpit.  To be honest, figuring out all this gap-filling stuff was a bit frustrating and I just wanted to see some more progress.  The Forge World model has two large rivet-like shapes behind the canopy on either side, plus a large circle that looks suspiciously like a gas tank lid.  I used discs from the 1/4” and 1/8” hole punch to make these. 

Next, I wanted to put in a bracket to help hold the rear engine in position.  I wanted something that would have a little bit of play but be solid enough to support one end of the engine.  Once the canopy’s in place it’ll be very tough to work inside the fuselage, so I decided to add it now.  It’s just a 3/4” strip of card (some leftovers from above) cut at 3” long.  I scored it every half inch and folded it into sort of a chevron shape.  I glued the chevron into the tail of the plane, about an inch back from the rear opening.

Now I was in kind of a dilemma.  I wanted to be able to reach back through the cockpit to position the engine, but I needed to put the canopy in place to help shape the tail section.  This made for another pause while I considered options.  I decided to get everything ready to go so I could put the engine in place and then add the canopy while the glue was still wet in case I needed to adjust things.

And I’ll show you the results of that next time.

Thunderbolt Fighter, Part III

Very sorry I missed last week.  I had a deadline and my fun bar suffered for it.

In a related bit of self-promotion, I am completely stunned to announce that my book 14 has actually hit the top ten bestsellers over at Audible.com.  God knows how, but for the moment I’m beating out Dean Koontz, two of the Hunger Games books, and even Stephen King.  Please check out the free sample, if you’re so inclined.  Heck, feel free to buy it or spend a credit on it.  After all, audio books are just books you can read while you’re working on little toy soldiers...

Speaking of which... Okay, so the bulk of the template is done.

I wanted to put the tail section together and finish off the template, but after some thought I decided I needed to have the rear engine/ thruster in place before I assembled the tail fins.  I didn’t want to do the fins first and then wreck them trying to get the engine in place.  So first thing to do is build an engine.

I cut a piece of card 3 3/8” wide by 2” high.  Then I made a series of scores on it 3/8” apart, parallel to the long side, so when it’s done I had a piece of card with nine sections measuring 3/8” wide by 2” long.  Just like I’ve done before, yes?  The last one is going to be the gluing-tab, so I cut the corners to give me something to work with.  I folded it and glued the tab.  I did this three times (one for each engine).  This is going to be the outer cylinder. 

 

Then I cut a second piece (ready for this?) 2 13/16” wide by 1 1/4” high.  This one got scores 5/16” apart.  Same drill as above.  This was the inner element.  Also as above, I did this three times.

While those were drying I cut three strips 1/2” wide and about 3 1/4” long.  I say about because this is one of those measurements you may need to tweak a bit.  I wrapped them tight around my hobby knife (you could also use a large marker or round pencil or something like that) so they got a good curve to them.  Then I wrapped them around the edge of the outer cylinder(s), trimmed where/if appropriate, and glued them in place.  If the cylinder looked better from one angle than another, I made that the underside and put the seam over it.

After that I did two more strips—one at  2 3/4” wide by 1/2” high, the other one  2 3/4” wide by 1/4” high.  These got curled and glued on opposite ends of the inner element.  The 1/2” piece can be a bit messy because it’s going to be completely hidden (as you’ll see in a minute.

Helpful Hint—The lengths on all these wrapped strips is a bit vague because it’s a tricky measurement.  Depending on depth of scores or how a tab was placed, your cylinders may not be exactly the same size as mine.  Check it, mark it, cut it.  Always cut small- you can take off more, but you can’t add it back.

Once these pieces were dry, I used a little glue and slipped the inner element into the outer cylinder.  I used pictures of the Forge World model to get a placement that looked right to me.  You might go for a different one, or maybe change the width of a few strips to get different effects.  I also added a few rivets with the 1/16” hole punch because I knew they’d be a pain to place later.

Helpful Hint—I used the edges of the outer cylinder to line up the rivets.  Uneven rivets just look strange.  Except on Ork stuff...

This is Important -- I had a sudden realization as I was getting ready to install the engine.  The cockpit is a solid piece that will actually shape the rear section of the fuselage.  It’s going to need to go in before the engine. The moral of this story—don’t stop thinking.

So, the order is cockpit, engine, fins.

Now, here’s where things start to get a bit rough.  On Jeff Vaughn’s template the cockpit is pretty much free-floating.  It just hangs there and sort of shows off all the empty space inside the fuselage.  I wanted to make it a bit more solid and also add some detail at the same time. 

This took a bit of thought and work, and some more study of  those pictures on the Forge World site.  The canopy definitely sits “inside” the cockpit, but the cockpit also needs to be built up a bit so there aren’t big gaps.  As it turns out, all this can be fixed with just a few very simple additions.

First, I added a “bow tie” to the back of the template (because bow ties are cool).  The the tie’s “knot” is going to match up with that small 3/8" section right at the front of the tail.  The two “wings” of the bow tie lean down so they’ll fit in the downward-sloping tail.  I also added a little tab on the front by extending out the lines of the front.  This is going to serve a double purpose, and it should be scored on the outside so it bends in/ under the canopy.

None of these have to be exact, by the way.  They'll all be hidden once everything's assembled.

Helpful Hint—I’ve mentioned this a few times before.  If you need to do a lot of fine-detail cuts, always start with the smaller, inner ones first before cutting the whole piece out of the sheet.  It’ll give you a lot more stability.

Okay, now, to help keep things simple, from here on in I’m going to be referring to the template piece as the canopy and the open space in the fuselage as the cockpit.  That’s a little closer to the correct terms anyway, and it lets me keep them straight.

I put the canopy together with the patch method.  It took a little work, and it’s impossible to clamp, so I made sure I had a movie in (or an audio book to listen to—wink wink, nudge nudge).  Make sure all the scores are good and the creases deep for this.  I folded them against my straight edge to make sure I got a sharp edge that wasn’t bending the framework of the canopy.

Once it was together (although you could do it before and it won’t make a difference), I glued a few discs from the hole punches onto the forward tab.  I used a 1/4” one in the center, and then some 1/8” and 1/16” around it.  They should be on the inside of the canopy.

Next I needed to add a piece to the front of the actual cockpit.  There’s a forward-sloped trapezoid at the front of the cockpit.  I held a piece of card in place there and traced the edges.  It’s a bit awkward, but it’s easier and quicker than trying to do a lot of math and angle measurements, even if you have to do it twice.  Then I double-checked the lengths to be sure and added tabs to the top and sides.  This glued right into place.

With all the different folds and angles in the fuselage, I had to do this individually for each Thunderbolt.  The variations are tiny, but they add up and make a difference.  Since this is the cockpit, it’s going to be the focus of attention (this and the weapons) so it need to look great.

Helpful Hint--If you want to (I didn’t) you could cut a piece of card to fit inside the fuselage between the two sides.  It would give some extra structure and make the cockpit seem much shallower.  The other advantage of this is you could take an Imperial Guard tank commander torso (one of the ones made to just be poking out of the hatch), slap a Cadian vox head on it, and you’d have a pretty passable pilot to set inside the cockpit under the canopy.  I did something similar back when I made the Hellblade.

And explaining all this has taken a little more space than I intended.  So I’m going to stop for now and maybe finish the cockpit and add some more details at the start of next week.

Thunderbolt Fighter, Part II

When we last left the men of Aquilla Squadron...

So, last week I got all three fuselage sections pretty solid.  This time I needed to build the other two major sections of each Thunderbolt—the weapons mount and the secondary fuselage (which also gets the wings).  Going in order with the templates, the mount is first.

  

This Is Important--The weapons mount is pretty simple, but it does have a number of backscored lines.  Some of them are pretty easy to do, but some you’ll either need to measure or do what I did...

Helpful Hint--  Get a ball point pen or fine-point Sharpie, preferably black.  Put a dot on each edge of the card, right where the line ends.  When you flip it over, you should just be able to see the two dots and run a straight edge between them.

Because this is a bit finer, I decided to use the patch method I used on the nose of the main fuselage.  It worked fine here, and all three of these took me about twenty-five minutes to assemble, from cutting out to final patch.

I decided to hold off installing this piece in the main fuselage because I think it’ll be easier to put weapons on it while it’s out.  More on those in the next two weeks.

The secondary fuselage got a quartet of tabs.  It also has two lines that need to be backscored. They lined up very easily with a straight edge.

I made sure the folds on the engine casing were very tight.  As I made each fold I tried to slide them into position and make sure everything was as snug as possible.  This took a little longer because I clamped them and double and triple-checked to make sure they didn’t slip or shift.  I gave them a little extra drying time between tabs, too.  It probably took close to half-an hour of work on each one, even though they’re pretty simple and straight-forward.

Next up was the wings.  These were going to be a little tougher.  At first, I wanted to do them double-thick to give them some stability and make them look solid.  I also needed a way to connect them to the fuselage that will be structural (since a single edge doesn’t give me much.  I studied the picture in the Apocalypse expansion book and tried to get a sense of the details and such.

In the end I decided to keep them single-thickness.  If I doubled them up I worried the cardstock would start to warp, plus I was just worried they’d look kind of funny and rough on the edges.

As for attaching them, after some thought and planning (and a few discarded ideas), I fell back on the oldest card-building idea there is.  Insert tab A into slot B.  In this case, slot B is that open space past the engine.

Tab A should fit right under that extended part of the engine casing.  Check your own measurements to be sure.  This tab should be backscored so it folds up.  I glued it in place, clamped it, and made sure the front of that edge was butted up against the engine casing, too.  A gap in the front will be far more noticeable than one in the back.

Helpful Hint—I found this was a great, simple way to get the wing to sit flush.  I let the secondary fuselage hang over the edge so the wing was upright.  Then I clipped a few clothespins to the front edge of the wing and let gravity do the rest.  A glue bottle helped keep it steady and perpendicular to the engine casing.

Now, believe it or not, at this point the template is about 90% done.  I just need the tail sections and the cockpit.  I wanted to add a few more details, though, and also fill in some Paperhammer alternatives for the engines and weapons.  I started with the wings, because these details could also help keep the whole thing structurally solid.

I cut four strips 2 1/8” long and 3/4” wide for detail work.  One of them went on the underside of each wing along the front edge, butted up against the fuselage.  It makes the wing look thicker and helps give a little extra structural support, too.

Then I measured out four more at 3 11/16” by 3/4” wide.  At first I thought about taking the 1/8” hole punch to them to create that circular pattern on the Forge World model, but a few attempts convinced me I wasn’t going to get them all to line up right (at least, not without a heck of a lot more effort than I was willing to put into this).  So for now I glued this strip on top of the wing.  As below, I butted it up against the fuselage for more support.  I had a light score in it that lined up with the score in the wing, and gluing them together helped hold the wing at the angle I’d created.  I clamped this down to keep it from warping.

Once that detail strip was kind of solid, I glued a line of 1/8” discs back in place.  I flipped them over so the beveled edge from the punch became a new level of detail.  This isn’t quite aerodynamic, yes, but how many things in the grim darkness of the future really are...?

Last but not least, I wanted to add something big and showy on one of them to mark out the squadron leader.  There’s no rules for him, but I’m hoping my gaming group would be fine with a flying ace who follows the same (well, slightly modified) rules and points of a tank ace (a.k.a. Commander Pask).  We can hammer out the fine details later, but if we can’t, well... hopefully it’ll still looks cool.

There are a bunch of Warhammer 40K fonts floating around the web, and you can probably find two or three of them with a simple Google search.  There’s Marines, Imperial, and ChaoSquat off the top of my head.  Many of these have a version or two of the Imperial Eagle.  Using my word processor, I opened up and created one that hit 6 1/2” long (I think it was about 185 points, size-wise).  Once it was printed up I essentially had a template for an Aquilla (an idea I’ve tossed out a few times but never shown here). 

It took a little under half an hour to cut out the claws, heads, and all the individual feather/pinions.  Once I had it, I lined it up on the cutting board and split it right down the middle.  Half went on each wing of the squadron commander’s Thunderbolt.  I think it looks fantastic.

Next time, some scratch-built engines, weapons, and a few more details.

Thunderbolt Fighter

Fliers.

Everyone’s talking about fliers.  Games Workshop released some gorgeous ones, and I’m lucky that it happened right around my birthday, so my Necron Overlord now has two Scythes at his beck and call (thanks to Marcus and my lovely lady).  I still wanted to try to make something, though, preferably on the Imperial side of things.

It turns out Jeff Vaughn--the guy behind the fantastic Malcador and Baneblade models I’ve worked on--also did a template for a Thunderbolt which is available over at the BWC Archives.  Like his previous stuff, it’s a very solid model that isn’t cluttered with details.  Easy to understand, easy to build.

And let’s be honest—after Dan Abnett’s Double Eagle a good chunk of us wanted to field a full squadron of fliers.  Not one or two models that we call a squadron, but a full-on group.  A squadron that can rain death down on the battlefield or take out Matt’s Warlord Titan with a few passes.

Did I say that last bit out loud...?

Anyway...

So, for this post, I’m building three Thunderbolts side by side.

Be aware right up front, this template makes a Thunderbolt that’s about 2/3 the size of the Forge World model (which is about 11” wide (wingspan) x 10” long).  You need to enlarge it to about 150%, which will give you something almost spot-on to the true model.  If your printer lets you go big, you can get most of it going corner to corner.

Helpful Hint – I took my templates to the local Fed Ex/ Kinkos and used the photocopiers there.  They have oversized 11”x17” paper (they call it “tabloid-sized”) which will fit these designs perfectly.  I got three sets of 150% sized templates for just $1.70.  So that’s sixty cents per Thunderbolt.

Alternately, you can build it at the existing scale and just tell your friends it’s very high up in the air.  Just remember you’re doing that while you follow along and cut all my custom measurements by a third.

Because of the size, I couldn’t paste these pages to one piece of cardstock, so I had to cut the different elements apart in advance.  Then it was just some basic work with a glue stick while Iron Man played in the background.  I found the main fuselage went well corner to corner on a pizza box, and the secondary fuselage goes side to side.  All the other elements could fit with no real problem.

Once they were in place, it was time to start cutting.  I started with the main fuselage.  It’s big, but it’s also about half of the work.

This is one of those templates that looks intimidating because it’s got a single piece with a lot of sections in it on it.  Well, first off, the Thunderbolt fuselage only has thirty or so scores that need to be cut.  Total.  That’s it.  Second thing is, they’re almost all on the same side.  Praise where praise is due, Jeff Vaughn made a phenomenal and very easy to use template.

Before I did anything, though, I added a few tabs to the template at key points around the fuselage.  These can be rough, quick things—they’re never going to be seen.  They just need to be wide enough to hold some glue.

I’m not putting tabs everywhere, like I have on some previous models.  The tabs do affect the thickness and the folds at points, and I’m worried how that could work on some of the fold-heavy places like the nose.  So I’m going to try something new there, which I’ll get to soon enough.

This is Important—Remember when I said the scores are almost all on the same side?  These are a couple of the ones that aren’t scattered through this template, and I’ll try to identify all of them.  On the main fuselage there’s two lines in the nose structure and two along the tail.  Make sure these lines get scored on the opposite side.

The bulk of this went together without any real problems.  It took me about thirty minutes each to cut out the main fuselage sections (making three of these at the same time, remember), and then another twenty for scoring.  So call it three hours to get all three sections ready for folding and gluing.  Then I worked through and glued the tabs, rotating my clothespins from one fuselage to the next as I went.

Helpful Hint – Make sure your creases are good and solid.  Because a lot of these are shallow folds, there’s an instinct to go easy on them.  Go deep with the folds, because the card is going to straighten out naturally and the actual shape of the assembled fuselage will hold it in place.  Better to go too deep and have to push it out than too shallow and have no way to fold it deeper

Once all three were dry, I took a good look at the nose section.  I knew it was going to take a bit of work because there are so many fine lines that a score just being a little off could make elements not line up right here.  This is also why I didn’t want to be dealing with tabs for this part.

Instead, I cut a few strips of white paper (plenty of it leftover from the templates) and started using them like patches, or even paper mache.  I’ve used a similar method a few times before to cover small gaps and imperfections in models.  I held the nose sections in position, added a drop of glue, and pushed the paper over it.  I used a hobby knife to make sure the paper sat flat on the card and went into the corners.

Helpful Hint –the paper soaks up glue a lot faster than the cardstock and becomes soft.  As a result, you need to wait longer so this can get drier or those little pieces will pop apart like... well, wet paper.  This requires a bit of patience, but the results are fantastic.

Rather than do one whole nose, I’d do the same patch on each fuselage and work my way through, giving them more time to dry.  Each nose needed about four pieces to make it solid.  This probably took close to an hour and a half altogether, but it was worth it.  This let me straighten a few pieces and make sure everything lined up well.  If there are a few gaps, they’ll end up getting hidden by the lascannons.

Once they were done I put the tail section together the same way.  I put down a bead of glue and ran a strip of paper along the inside.  The hobby knife let me work it into position.

That gave me three pretty solid main fuselage sections.  Next time I’m going to work on the weapons mount and the secondary fuselage, and hopefully get the wings attached.

The Doom Scythe 1.1

Hopefully everyone had a nice Thanksgiving weekend.  I’ve got one bit of shameless self-promotion and then we’ll get back to the Scythe.

My publisher’s doing a big sale for the holidays he’s calling Black December.  The ebook versions of ten best sellers and new releases are marked down to a mere $2.99 for the whole month.  That includes my own Ex-Heroes (available over in the right hand column here).  He’s also a couple ebooks for free.  No strings, no tricks, absolutely free.  Books he’s just giving away.  Go check it out. 

Oh, and the ebook version of The Eerie Adventures of the Lycanthrope Robinson Crusoe isn’t part of the sale, but it’s still marked down to half the paperback price.  Just saying...

Now, the Scythe.  Again, I’m not doing templates for this, so I may over-describe some steps a bit to make it easier to follow along.

I had the upper and lower hulls, and I needed to combine them.  The artwork shows a thin, recessed section between them.  I thought about foamcore, but that’s not something people necessarily have on hand and I wanted to keep this cheap and easy.  Then I thought about building an elaborate framework, kind of like the consummate Vs I sometimes recommend, but that seemed like a huge amount of work and not too stable.  What I finally hit on was plain old corrugated cardboard.

I cut up an old box and traced my crescent-hull on one piece.  Then I went over it and drew a second line 1/8” inside that outline.  I made about three or four dozen measurements and marked off the distance, then slowly and carefully connected the dots in a smooth arc.  Going 1/8” in makes up for any “enlargement” you get tracing around the crescents and also shrinks it enough so it will be recessed between the hull sections. 

Helpful Hint – Don’t use scissors when you cut this out.  The lever-action of the scissors will crush the corrugated board at the edges.  It takes a little longer, but just use a sharp hobby blade.  Take your time and plan on two passes—one to cut through each layer.  This gave me a much smoother edge to my shape.

I glued on the crescents one at a time so I could be sure they were positioned right.  It took a fair amount of glue and also a lot of fidgeting.  It took about five minutes to get the crescents-within-crescents lined up to a degree I felt comfortable with.  I used the front prongs as my main guideline, and I didn’t worry as much about the back.

Also, I didn’t use the gigantic books I usually do to hold things flat while they dry.  I didn’t want to crush the corrugated cardboard. 

While that was drying, I went to work on the rib for the hull.  The beveled look is very prominent in the artwork, and I wanted to bet it right.  At the same time, we’re talking about combining angles and curves which could lead to a lot of stress.  Mental stress, not structural stress.

I decided to only put the angled armor on the top of the Scythe, for three reasons.  One, more people will see the top than the bottom.  Two, the tesla destructors are going to draw a lot of the attention on the underside anyway (look at that picture up top).  Three, this is supposed to be fast and cheap.

I cut two strips of regular cardstock (not corrugated) 1” wide and 9” long.  I marked each one at the 2” mark, then drew a line from that point to the corner, giving me a long, thin triangle.  Make the two strips mirror each other when you do this, so the triangles are heading in opposite directions.

Next I used a small 1” x 4” piece to scab the two triangle strips together into a single 1” x 18” strip that tapered down on either side.  Make sure the long edge of this piece is as straight as possible.

I let this dry for a few minutes and cut some scrap into 1/2” strips.  Then I took the long piece and curved it around a soup can.  I want to give it a good bend but not crease it, if possible.  Because of the scab, it’s better to work in from each end.  If the double-thick section int he  middle doesn’t get much of a curve, that’s okay.

On which note I’m going to wrap this up.  I’ve actually got more done, but I’m waiting for stuff to dry before I take photos and the post is already overdue.  So I’m going to toss this up for now and do more—maybe even finish this thing—in a day or two.

The Doom Scythe

Well, fine.  If everyone else is going to scratch-build Night Scythes and Doom Scythes, I might as well, too...

First off, this isn’t going to be spectacular, so if you’re looking for something on par with the Plaguereaper or the Rhino fleet, I’m afraid this won’t be it.  It’s a safe bet that Games Workshop is going to put out an actual Doom/ Night Scythe model when the next big Necron release happens, and a few weeks after that there are going to be a ton of great templates by people much more skilled (and with more free time) than me.  I’m looking to make something that will be a quick, decent stand-in for now.

And, as usual, I want to do it cheap.

I’m not doing templates for this, so I may be over-describing things a bit to make it easier to follow along.  Also, for most of this post, I’m just going to call it a Scythe.  We can get particular next time when I do details.

Let’s start with the basics.  I decided the outside edge of the Scythe was probably close to an 8 1/2” circle.   How did I decide this size?  Well, someone over at the Bell of (LINK) Lost Souls cleverly pointed out that the Scythe sprues would have to fit in the existing boxes.  The inside of your standard Chimera/ Rhino/ Monolith box measures 11 1/4” x 8 7/8”.  I’m also going off the assumption that the hull is going to be mostly one piece (maybe a top and a bottom section).

I drew two diagonals to find the center of a frozen pizza box.  Then, using a compass, I drew out an 8 1/2” circle.  I also drew a line that went straight through the center point.  This is going to be a front-back reference line for the model.

Helpful Hint – The model is going to need four of these shapes.  I found it was easier to do all four at once for each step, because it meant less resetting the compass.  Your results may vary...

Next, I measured down 1 3/4” from the center point and made a second mark.  Off this, I used the compass to make a  4 1/2” circle inside the first one.  Note that they don’t quite touch.  I also marked the center point.  The compass leaves a mark, but I wanted it to be clear because I’m going to be using it as a reference point. It may seem obvious, but this is the empty space “inside” the Scythe or between its wings, depending on how you view it. 

Right at the front, I went out 1 1/4” from the centerline on either side.  I made a few measurements and then made two short front-to-back lines parallel to the center line.  These are marking off the end of the wings and the gap that stretches across the front of the scythe.

Now, going off the center point of the smaller circle, I drew lines extending out over the hull and wings at 45 degree angles.   These are going to help me place the sloped armor on the Scythe.  I just want to do all the marks while this is big, flat, and solid.  Cutting’s the last thing I’ll do.

I also did a pair of lines that were 30 degrees off the center line.  These are for the cockpit section and the smaller armor sections at the front. 

This Is Important – Remember, none of these angled/ radiating lines are cut lines.  They’re just a reference for later

Once I had all this, it was time to cut.  Also, I was careful to save the center sections—they might be useful for the cockpit.  You’ll notice the Necron Warrior gives us a good sense of scale, and you can compare him to the codex art-image of the pilot up above.

Helpful Hint – These circles are big enough that you can cut the whole thing out with a good pair of scissors.  I just took my time and went slow.  It took about three minutes for each one.

Once I had all four sections cut out, I checked which pairs lined up best and glued them together.  I double-checked that they were lined up right, wrapped them in wax paper, and set them under a hardcover copy of Under The Dome and a few other Stephen King epics to make sure they stayed flat.  I let them dry overnight.

And for now, that’ll be it. 

No post next week because of Thanksgiving, but I’ll probably do two the week after just to get this done.

The Hell Blade Pt. III

Very sorry for the delay. The real world keeps getting in the way of my little toy soldiers. I blame editors and publishers. Well, I would except they pay me to keep quiet and write...

Anyway, at this point, the Hell Blade only needs one more thing before you can yell “Death from above!!” The engine. This flyer needs something to convince your opponents it’s not hanging in the air with magic. Well, maybe it is, but you don’t want them to know that...

Cut a piece of card 2 1/4” wide by 2” long. You want to do a series of scores on it 1/4” apart, parallel to the short side, so when it’s done your piece of card has nine sections measuring 1/4” wide by 2” long. That last section’s going to be a tab, so it’s probably better if you cut the corners down. Roll this piece, glue it on the tab, and clamp it so you’ve got an octagonal cylinder 2”long. With me so far?

Next, cut a few 1/4” and 1/8” strips that are three or four inches long. Wrap them tight around your X-acto knife, a round pencil, or something like that so they get a good curve to them. Now wrap them around your cylinder and cut where appropriate. Try to make all your seams on these strips line up, because you can hide them all under the Hellblade’s tail. One of these strips should be just over 1/4” from the end of the cylinder.

Now cut out six triangles as shown. Score them down the middle and fold. Glue each of these little “spikes” on the end of the engine (creased edge up), butted up against that one strip near the 1/4” mark so they end up with just a little bit hanging out over the end. Make sure you set them on the octagonal edges, not on the flat surface. This will help hide the angular nature of the jet exhaust. You only use six so you can leave a space at the top (where the seams line up) and make the whole thing fit under the tail better.

Helpful Hint-- If you need to cut out a bunch of triangles for spikes (for Chaos or Orks or whatever) try this. For the ones above, mark out a strip 1/2” wide, then break it down into 1/2” x 1/4” rectangles. Sketch alternate diagonals into the rectangles (left-to-right, right-to-left, left-to-right, and so on). Now you’ve got a row of triangles going both ways, top and bottom. Nothing gets wasted and each cut is effectively cutting a side on two different triangles. Make sense?

There’s your engine. It should butt up against the horizontal card inside the fuselage. I stacked up four discs from a 1/4” hole punch to make a set of spacers. These went from the top of the engine to the inside of the tail. Alas, unless you’ve got something really cool there’s no way to clamp this. So I just sat with it and watched an episode of The Simpsons while it dried.

The 1/16” hole punch gives me a few dozen rivets to scatter at key points. I’m a bit more conservative with them here than I would be on an Ork project. I found putting one every inch or so on the trim looks pretty nice. A few on the strips wrapping the engine look nice, too.

Helpful Hint-- If you’re ever in doubt about rivets, try marking where you want them with a pencil first. They’ll give you a good idea what things will look like, and one way or another the marks will be covered by paint.

I haven’t built it yet but the base is going to be the standard three CDs I’ve pushed a few times. Turns out this is pretty close to the same size as the Trygon/ Valkyrie base. Mount a 10” dowel on it, put some small stones on the base for scenery/ weight/ to stabilize the dowel, a bit of sand or grass and voila.

One bit of pure geekery. Glue a rare earth magnet inside the lower fuselage. You should be able to slip it in behind the guns, under the pilot. Get it as close to the Hell Blade’s center of gravity as possible (mine fit right between the port autocannons and that wooden toothpick). Glue a matching magnet on top of the base’s dowel, but triple check polarities before putting down one drop of glue! Now your flier can come off the base for transport or to be a wreck on the tabletop.

Two last little bits. First, I took a strip of cardboard that was about 1” x 6” long, rolled it up into a tight little cylinder, and slid it down into the engine. When the cardboard unrolled, it held itself in place. This gave the back end of the fuselage a bit more weight to balance it on the stand, and also made the engine and the cockpit look a bit more solid.

Second, I had a few small gaps in the canopy that were nagging at me. It hadn’t gone together quite right. Normally I wouldn’t mind the gap, so to speak, but the cockpit is the focus of attention so I decided to patch them and hide the work with a few more rivets.

Helpful Hint-- If you need to do a quick patch on a paperhammer project, just use plain old white paper. Trim it to the right size, make any folds you might need, and glue it in place with a generous helping of white glue. It’s not structural, but it’s more than sturdy enough for painting and general use.

Looks like explaining the details took longer than explaining how to build the flier itself, but that’s about it. If you want an air fleet for your Chaos army (and God knows dedicated Chaos players need all the help they can get these days), this is a nice inexpensive way to go. Two cereal boxes, some white glue, a few old CDs, a marble of green stuff and some bitz you can find cheap if you or one of your friends doesn’t have them already. Count in the magnets and the total cost is three and a half, maybe four bucks. When you figure in drying time for the wings, you could probably build one every weekend if you put your mind to it (much faster than I made it look here).

It’s still a work in progress, but there’s enough paint on it to give you a passable idea what it can look like. And remember, all cardboard except for the pilot and the autocannons.