As you may know, I’m working on my Minotaurs army to bring to Astronomi-con in July this year.
I’ve been worried about being unable to finish the army due to lack of time, so I’m attacking the rest of the build with gusto, and happy to
say that some more work is done!
That pile of boxes that I had sitting on my desk in a previous post (2 razorbacks, 2 tactical
squads, Sternguard squad, Storm Raven, Hekaton Aiakos Contemptor Dread, Chaplain
Enkomi, and Master Moloc) is now gone and has been mostly built. Everything is in sub-assemblies
ready for priming and painting interiors on the vehicles and hard to reach
places.
The most recent thing that I’ve been working on is to convert the Stormraven Gunship.
I've always felt it's a diamond in the rough, and that with the correction of a couple of poor design choices, it would look quite nice.
Forgeworld have shown that it can definitely look really nice with some work. So I chose to make those corrections. As a challenge to myself, I've decided to try to use as much of the kit as possible, with minimal bits from other kits.
First, I had to correct the turret. This is, in my opinion, the worst problem with this model. The turret has nothing in common with the Space Marine design aesthetic, and looks like a wart on the top of the gunship.
To correct his, I've converted it with two basic bits to make it look more like a machine spirit controlled gun turret that is more in line with the established Space Marine Aesthetic. I chopped the turret armour up, keeping the front piece, and the axle covers intact. I glued this on to the top mounting ring, which had the rear nub cut off. I then took the armour plate from a Razorback turret, and mounted on the front.
I got the Space Marine targeting bit from the Command Tank upgrade sprue, cleaned off the rectangular nib on the top, and then glued it onto the servitor hip joint on the bottom turret ring. With the lenses facing to the rear of the turret.
The most recent thing that I’ve been working on is to convert the Stormraven Gunship.
I've always felt it's a diamond in the rough, and that with the correction of a couple of poor design choices, it would look quite nice.
Forgeworld have shown that it can definitely look really nice with some work. So I chose to make those corrections. As a challenge to myself, I've decided to try to use as much of the kit as possible, with minimal bits from other kits.
First, I had to correct the turret. This is, in my opinion, the worst problem with this model. The turret has nothing in common with the Space Marine design aesthetic, and looks like a wart on the top of the gunship.
To correct his, I've converted it with two basic bits to make it look more like a machine spirit controlled gun turret that is more in line with the established Space Marine Aesthetic. I chopped the turret armour up, keeping the front piece, and the axle covers intact. I glued this on to the top mounting ring, which had the rear nub cut off. I then took the armour plate from a Razorback turret, and mounted on the front.
I got the Space Marine targeting bit from the Command Tank upgrade sprue, cleaned off the rectangular nib on the top, and then glued it onto the servitor hip joint on the bottom turret ring. With the lenses facing to the rear of the turret.
Once dry I then just snap the top half onto the bottom half, with the axle in
between. This can be magnetized for easy swapping of weapons. I just need to
glue the weapons onto some brass or plastic rod, and can easily use every
turret combination.
I need to clean it up a bit, and remove the top nib, and am going to add some additional detail to the bottom to make it look finished on the interior. But so far I'm satisfied with it.
Next up... The air intake with tiny exhaust nozzle makes it look hunch backed, and I think was added as an afterthought to try to hide the turret wart and blend it with the tail, which is too stubby, and the design flow is defeated by the opposing rake of the lift surface angles. So I will be eliminating the intake as a design element completely, and then remodelling the tail.
Here's a quick look at the gunship with the new turret.
And finally a quick dry fit snap shot showing how the tail will finally be
positioned.
I will need to do a bit of plasticard work and such to properly attach and detail it, but in my opinion it's far superior.
However, before I can do that, I actually have to paint the interior so that I can finish the hull assembly, so off to the air brush next.
Stay tuned!
Astronomi-con
ForgeWorld
Games Workshop
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