this article will be the first about a tank that i really enjoyed to build. maybe because it was my very first baneblade. preordered and send within time as apocalypse was released in oct.07. but than with the box in my hands i suddenly found myself unable to start building this verhicle on whichs’ release i was waiting for so long. the reason was that i had no idea how to convert it, that seemed to be worthy for such a model. further i wanted to integrate this model into my already existing army, that consisted of space wolves allied with more or less independent acting fractions of the imperial army.
some might say: “the original model is already impressing enough, why not simply keeping everything as it is ? – why does BobPanda always feel a necessity to do a conversion?”
what is the most important component of a tank without transport capacity ??? – the CANNON !!!!
of course i know, that there are different types of tanks existing. and depending on their function the cannon is not always that important as it is at a shadowsword.
in my humble opinion up to now the shadowsword is by far the best looking and coolest tank based on the baneblade chassis. and now that gw is about to release its’ own shadowsword i thought this would be my last chance to motivate myself to build my own version. the idea was to start this project, before being able to simply buy one. additional to that this gave me the chance to change some things i did not like about the existing patterns. i think FW’s design is quite perfect, but when standing right next to baneblade it seems like both tanks come from a completely differten age. well … i know that they really do, but now that i have the chance to chance that, i’ll at least try to do so.
as i announced before, here’s my new article dealing with the titans head.
up to now the head’s not finished, because i still haven’t had enough good ideas how to finish the heads sidestructure with including a ammo-feed for the integrated vulcan mega bolter. so i decided to leave the head as it is until the key-idea regarding this issue would have come. but anyway, i decided to share its’ current states creating process with you and simply update the article, as soon as the head will be finished. and now …- let’s get down to business! …
with the legs almost done, i finally was enabled to start thinking about the main body. – it’s shape, size, design, — the whole layout. as almost always, some ideas came to my head while i was working on another projects. i immediately picked the next pencil and started drawing on my desk. while drawing it became more and more clear, that the wolfhead integrated in the sw-backpack could give a perfect model of what i was searching for …. to give you an idea of what i’m talking about, here’s a pic showing the drawing on my desk. i also added some lines and colors with mspaint to it …
… so i realized that when using a physique like this, the head would become the torsos key-element. therefore it was very important that compared to the legs it it would neither become too big, nore too small. to ensure having met the perfect size, i cut the heads raw shape from foamboard and arranged it, together with the legs on my kitchentable.
as the title already says, in this article i’ll tell you how hard it can be to search for tracks fitting for a tank, based on the baneblade layout.
if you want to build a tank you need tracks. without tracks you won’t manage to build a tank running on tracks. – sounds quite logicaly, doesn’t it?
and everything could be so easy, if games workshops baneblade kit would already come on movable tracks and spinning wheels. but as all of us know gws’ tanks are from being realistic and so the tracks consist of some thick plasticplates with trackstructure on their surface. so there’s no chance to use the original ones. not even, by converting them heavily. further the wheels are even worse.
the baneblade i built before only got a pair of new high detailed plastic-treads but kept the old “wheels”. the result was a properly moving tank, with wheels fixed in position and the track sliding below. this was quick and easy. but now i wanted to do it better. so i decided to redesign the complete mechanism and install a spring-mounted running gear instead.
i chose a pershing 1:30 kit from torro that i bought for ~30€. first of all, of course i had to cut of the structure from the original tank and replace the baneblades with it.
As i’ve written in the previous article i started with the feet. there were some parts from the defiler left in my box and i decided to use them as toes, attached to the metatarsus that would consist of a leman russ turret. here’s a pic showing an early version that already gave me a good feeling of the size this titan could get:
in feb 2008 i had to tidy up my room, in which i’m using to work on my 40k-stuff. i decided to start sorting all of my bitz, spread in more than 10 boxes all over the room.
while sorting, i recognized the sheer amount of bitz that could be used to build bigger things than normal infantry.
well … to be honest, i expected something like that, because i knew that in 2005-2008 i was working on many vehicle-projects that caused a quite big amount of not needed bitz. espacialy bigger ones. there were projects using defilers, landraiders, etc, …
after a short while and with the fact in mind that the apocalypse addon was released a few months before i decided to build another titan. – def bigger than a warhound and maybe even bigger than a reaver, but most likely smaller than a warlord.
Now that i already gained some experience with my other quite simple rc-projects, i decided to start with something bigger, better, more detailed and with that also more expensive
.
the decission to build a shadowsword was more a practicle one, caused by the fact that i decided to integrate a real 6mm BB-gun. unfortunately the guns machanisms pure size forced me to choose one of the design without real turret on top, but with the maingun directly installed in tha tanks main body.
dear visitor,
meanwhile my space wolves are almost finished. so i decided to start a 2nd army. the final name for this army i not yet found, but i already created a gallery-tab for it. :-)
regards,
bobpanda. ........
