Friday 16 August 2013

Tzeentch Doomwing scratchbuild complete (plus a bad-un)

Greetings folks.

My hobby room is officially a mess at the moment between painting projects taking up one surface and scratchbuilding daemon engines another. The good news is that the first of the scratchbuilds is complete. I give you the Tzeentch Doomwing:


Now, I appreciate that this modern take on the classic epic vehicle may not be to everyones tastes, but I'm very pleased with how she turned out. If you hadn't already guessed, the Doomwing will be a counts-as Heldrake as they basically pack the same weapon (and the bladed wings will be great for vector striking) This is what the original looked like for comparison:


My take on things is a bit wider but not as bulky, with the piping simplified and the bird-skull head both extended and melded more into the bodywork of the fighter. Also, I've done away with the cockpit - tis a daemon engine after all.

Materials:

Nivea deodorant lid
Glade wall spray casing
10mm ribbed tubing
7mm thick plasticard (4xA4) 
DAS modelling clay
sprue offcuts
Tzeentch banner top (CSM)
necron deathmark rifle and tesla carbine (immortals kit)
guitar wire
2 brass plumbing olives
sculpting tools
hobby knife
greenstuff
superglue
plastic glue
pencil compass and scissors




Now, that looks like an extensive list but considering many items on the list were items I already had it actually doesn't amount to that much money. The plastics I had spare anyway, the deodorant and glade spray are still usable items, the guitar wire and clay have numerous other hobby applications and the tubing/olives cost next to nothing. I estimate that the model cost no more than £10 (probably significantly less) to build and only lacks it's own flying base at present. Not too shabby.

Building:

So, first thing was to make some templates for the wings, which are actually multi-tiered and 7 sheets thick in total. The templates were reversible to make both wings. I cut slots for the wings into the  glade shell and also used some bits of sprue to rest the wings on, angling them down slightly. Before gluing the shell together I cut a slot for the flying base too. Once the shell was glued together with the wings in place, I stuck a length of sprue into the front end to reinforce where the head would go. and also a bit of plasticard to the underside to cover some holes in the shell. I cut the deodorant lid in half and stuck one half on each side of the wings for fuel pods. Now is also a good time to use green-stuff to cover all the tiered details on the wings and cover any gaps between the pods and wings.

When it came to sculpting the head, I did this in two stages: first one to bulk out the sprue and second to add the top layer. In retrospect, I would do it all in one go as the clay did not adhere well to itself and thus, despite longer drying times, I'd do it all in one go. I made sure there were sinuous strands attaching the bird-skull head to the body, reflecting the merger of organic and machine. before the clay dried I added in some guitar-wire tubes to the nostrils and behind the eye attaching to the body to aid with the techno-organic details. Same for the Tzeentch icon, which had the drapes cut off and reversed to make it look as it they were flapping backwards.

The tubing was quite tricky to get right. I kept the length as more than enough for what I wanted for now, and started with it in front of one of the fuel pods. I superglued it in place (there was a gap where the lumen-end joined the wing due to the tension but don't worry for now) over the fuel pod and held it in place til it was dry. I then contorted it around the back and under the wing, following the contour of the shell, again gluing and holding as I went. The tubing was actually very good at hiding any joins in the parts. I then did a loop with the tube at the front and retraced the tubing along the other side until I was in front of the other fuel pod. It was then a case of cutting the tube to length.(make sure you cut too long if anything as you can always retrim it but it'll be hard to extend if you cut too short)

Finishing touches were to glue 2 olives to the rear as engine exhausts and to construct a gun from necron parts, which I had several of spare and seemed to fit the bill. (anything goes though) Lastly just add in greestuff where needed, such as the join between gun/piping and piping/wing. And there we have it, one Doomwing. Again, very pleased with the result and hope to get painting ASAP - I also have enough parts to build two more should I feel adventurous - I hate triple Heldrake lists but then the originals did come in threes. Some comparison shots with a Heldrake below and also a custom Abaddon I made using parts from both Abaddon and the chaos terminator lord kit. 

Cheers






 

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