After around about 8 hours of cutting, filing and some gluing over the weekend, what I’m aiming for looks like it is possible. The right leg has been cut up into separate components and should give enough play to allow it to be hinged at the knee and hip so that it’s pressing down on a Chaos Marine’s chest. Facilitating a slope into the base and pushing the Marine into the ground should allow it to not look like it’s drunk.
Running Totals: Time – ~ 8 Hrs; Cost – £36.47
The sarcophagus block has been cut out from the front torso without any real problems and the remaining armour pieces glued on, along with the shoulder/arm mounts and the top panel. The close combat arm has tidied up well with a little overglueing and filing, what has become a common join line gap has cleaned up perfectly – don’t know why more people haven’t done it on their models as it wasn’t particularly arduous nor required much skill.
One thing that I am having problems with is the exhaust plant. The actual exhaust pipes on the back are molded with vent holes in. However due to limitations on plastic molding (in general, not specific to Games Workshop), the holes aren’t very crisp or square to the exhaust. Drilling them out has actually made the one pipe I’ve done it to, look bloody awful. Now I’ve a number of options I could take. The easiest and least hassle would be to purchase a Forge World resin Mark IV dreadnought. This would give me a dreadnought with a complete power plant (which looks nice with four exhausts rather than two) and in fact a head that I could use, it would also furnish me with a pair of spare feet should I cock the ones I have up. There are two downsides to this. Firstly the power plant may not fit. The resin model appears different in it’s shape. Secondly it would be another £21.55 – money that I’m not 100% sure I’ve got or want to spend, at least this month (though payday is on Thursday). Another option would be to fill the crappy holes in and hope that it doesn’t look too odd. A third option would be to replace just the exhaust pipe bits with different ones – I think that I have a land raider I could butcher. I’d love to custom build my own brass etched exhausts like you have on a lorry, but think that might be beyond the time scope and likely cost.
I think that I should be able to customise the lascannon arm into a fitting for the heavy bolters. If I can’t then I may order a left-hand close combat arm from Forge World, which would simplify things, but the mix of resin and plastic may be very obvious, as the corners on resin are normally much more sharp and crisp than plastic.
I’ve actually managed to order a pair of heavy bolters with drum magazines that come with a Sisters of Battle Immolator – will mean that I don’t have to convert any. I’ve also ordered some more plasti-card strip, which will be used to edge around various bits of the model. Although I could cut it myself from sheets of plasti-card, I really don’t see the point, when for a few quid I can get a pack of perfect width strips without risking fingers cutting off a slither and then have the knife slip and cocking it up. It’s also not as extravagent as it seems, 14 inch strips costs £3.39 per pack of ten – that’s almost 5 metres of strip
Tonights task (I think) is to further work on the legs of the model. I’ll mock up the slope on the base and use a marine model to get the positioning correct on the bent leg. This will also allow me to see if the left leg needs any modification in order to get it to look correct. I may also see how possible converting the lascannon into the weapon mount I’m after is. If this won’t work then I’ll be having to order a Forge World weapon and as they have a single postage rate may buy the dread body and not waste any time on fixing the plastic power plant.
Links of note:
GD 2007 40k Vehicle Winner – Ultramarine Dread – clever way of doing the pelvis joints
GD2005 40k Vehicle – Space Wolves Dread – battered armour works very well
CMoN SW Ironclad Conversion – quite clever conversion