05.24.2007 » Concepts/Initial Progress

While looking around my spare parts bin for some solder I came across my old hovertank shell which I had started, but never finished, a few years ago. Looking at the shell it still has potential, especially now that my skills have improved, but I wasn't ready to go back to it just yet. Instead I found the wings from my PG Wing Zero Custom that I was using the frame of to create another mecha. I suddenly thought "hmmmm.... I wonder how these wings would look put together as a hovertank shell?". Well, that was two weeks ago and in that time I've used a LOT of Bondo and spare parts to create a very odd looking hovertank.

I didn't post my initial progress for this since there was a vote going on on my forum for what the next Group Build should be. Mars or Racing. I didn't want to influence votes one way or another so I kept this hush. I have many more Mars projects in my head though in case GB#5 is Mars themed.

To start out I glued the large wing parts of the PG WZC together to make the main body. I took other misc. parts and added them to flesh out the rough shape the tank would eventually take.

After I bulked it up with spare parts I used some plastic like a spatula and spread on some Bondo. I did this is several layers sanding it semi-smooth inbetween. This build-up approach worked much better than my prior hovertank attempt. The 3 circles underneath are for the main thruster fans.

After the Bondo was added I went ahead and added various detail bits and armor plating. The armor places are .04" styrene sheet that was rounded by immersing it in a bowl which was immersed in boiling water. The rivets were made from 1mm spheres a friend of mine sent me.

Once a rough-cast texture was applied I primed all the parts and started the painting. I went with a red-orange-brown color for the body. The stowage rolls are af various Mars-tones since greens and khaki wouldn't work well on Mars. You can see the parts for the fans in the 3rd pic below. The large fan housing is made from a discadred dust-filter cartridge!

05.30.2007 » Weathering Part 1

Next up on the hovertank progress is the paint chips and filters. After a satin coat of FFA, the chips were done with a round pointy brush using Tamiya German Gray and a Rusty color mix. You can see I left a couple of the armor plates "unpainted" as if they were recently replaced. I had painted them in the same base rusty color first, but then streaked on german gray to give it a slightly weathered look. Later the piece was drybrushed with some silver rub-n-buff then another satin coat of FFA was applied the effect gives it a similar look as rubbing with graphite or Mig Gunmetal pigment would have. After the chips were done I applied my 2 filters. The first was a yellow oarnge mixture of oils and turpenoid. The second done 6 hours later was the same filter, but with some red added to make it more orange. Next up is the fading/discoloration then some washes.

05.30.2007 » Weathering Part 2

After the filters I applied the discoloration. I did this in two stages. First I did the standard discolorarion with the dabs of oil and using clean thinner to blend it in. I used yellow, orange, burnt sienna, and white. That looked nice, but it needed more vertical streaking so I added streaks of burnt sienna and burnt umber and blended them with a dry 1/4" hoof shaped brush I used for stippling oils. I used some black and streaked that wround the exhausts and exposed engine parts. Below is the glossy results. Next up is a flat-coat then the wash or washes.

06.04.2007 » Final Update

The hovertank is all done, but I wanted to post up some final in-prog images to show part of the underside not readily visible in the final shots as well as the base construction.

The base started out by gluing some green floral foam onto a piece of wood for the base. Once the glue was dry I covered the foam with plaster and sprinkled talus, cat litter, and bits of petrified wood (larger rocks) onto the plaster. When dry I gave it a coat of primer and a few coats of leftover spraypaint. The spraypaint was to help seal down the rocks. Next I used 5 minute epoxy and glued balsa wood pieces to the outside edge of the base to make it look neat. I stained and finished the balsa. Once the polycrylic clearcoat was dry I filled in the tops of the balsa and any gaps with more plaster and rocks. I masked off the wood and gave the base another few coats of dark primer. When dry I gave it a few coats of martian-soil colored acrylic paint via airbrush. When that was dry I drybrushed the rocks with a brown/black mix of cheap acrylics. The final step was thinning a martian dust mixture of pigment powders (rust + beach sand + europe dust) with Tamiya thinner and spraying that over the base and rocks to get that nice dry dusty look. Below you cans ee that and the underside of the hovertank being constructed.

Finished pics can be seen here »