paulson games Posted February 6, 2009 Share Posted February 6, 2009 http://www.paulsongames.instantecom.net/i/warhammer/thawk6.jpghttp://www.paulsongames.instantecom.net/i/warhammer/thawk7.jpg http://www.paulsongames.instantecom.net/i/warhammer/thawk9.jpg http://www.paulsongames.instantecom.net/i/warhammer/thawk12.jpg http://www.paulsongames.instantecom.net/i/warhammer/thawk13.jpghttp://www.paulsongames.instantecom.net/i/warhammer/thawk14.jpg http://www.paulsongames.instantecom.net/i/warhammer/thawk15.jpg http://www.paulsongames.instantecom.net/i/warhammer/thawk10.jpghttp://www.paulsongames.instantecom.net/i/warhammer/thawk11.jpg http://www.paulsongames.instantecom.net/i/warhammer/thawk1.jpg http://www.paulsongames.instantecom.net/i/warhammer/thawk8.jpg http://www.paulsongames.instantecom.net/i/warhammer/thawk16.jpghttp://www.paulsongames.instantecom.net/i/warhammer/thawk17.jpg About a year and a half ago I got the thunderhawk itch, I kept telling myself that I didn't need one, and certainly couldn't afford it, yet it was so darn cool that the dream just refused to die. (at leats at first) I estimated that it'd probably cost somewhere between $100-200 to build which seemed like a mere pitance of the cost of a forge world version. I surfed around online for reference ideas as nobody I knew ever had seen one outside of games day much less owned one, but I hit on the idea that I could use the ultra detailed drawings in the imperial armor books as a reference guide. I borrowed my borthers book scanned it into photoshop and adjusted it to the proper scale I printed out the re-sized drawing which required printing in sections which I reassembled and taped down to a piece of board. I did this with the side view, the partial overhead view and the line drawing of the front view. Unfortunately there was no bottom view available so I was going to have to wing it based on what few details I could see from the side. Ocne I had the 3 point reference together (which was a lot of work already) I started building the body with foam core board. It's great for making buildings and other hobby aspects but quickly came to the realization that it was a royal pain to cut straight on even when using a metal edged rule. Due to the multiple layers and differant density of the board the exacto wants to go all over the place and keep sliding off the mark. Resulting in a lot of almost straight pieces, additionall every time I tried to cut a piece with a nice clean flat edge that failed as well one side was always higher than the other giving each piece a slight pitch to it. That combined with the ragged edges made lining things up squarely very difficult and aggrivating Using a L shaped metal square edge I lined things up as best as possible, initally I was trying to use elmers glue which not only took forever to dry but was also prone to letting go as it just soaked into the foam core and didn't hang onto the paper when trying to make a 90 degree angle, argh! Then I tried rubber cement which didn't work any better, another trip to the craft store and I found the correct tool which was a low heat glue gun which was awesome as it literally cost me $1. It goes through glue fast and likes to leave little glue strings everywhere but that stuff was giving me an incredible hold and the model started taking shape pretty fast. The better part of the afternoon was spent measuring and corss checking the various body angles and measuremenst to get the foam core into the right design. The nose was particularly problematic as it tapers with a some what odd and frustrating shape to re-create. The hull itself went together quickly, but I had to rebuild the nose 3 times before I got the porportions correct the first build was way too large the second came out oddly shaped and the angle was completely off on the left side. I felt like ripping hair out but finally got it right on the third build. I let the bird sit overnight as I had more than enough frustration for the time being. I went by the chicago battle bunker the next day to bits order the various heavy bolters and the forge world missles. Then it was finally time to start applying styrene! and thus my tireless chore began. I laid down a thin base layer of styrene on top of the foam core using the low temp glue gun, once that was done then I could switch over to using regular plastic glue. Then began the maddening process of adding multiple sections of styrene which included a wide array of thicknesses depending on the piece I was trying to replicate. Rather than scoring lines into the model (like I should have) I decided to cut each armor plate out seperately and glue it down leaving the thin gap between each plate, using the back of my exacto blade as a spacer. Don't be a retard like me, if you want lines on your model just get a scoring knife that eteches a nice clean line. I however seem to subconciously enjoy tormenting myself with overly time consuming methods that really don't look any better despite the excess of work required. This path of madness leads to days of using a tiny T square trying to get pieces square and cutting lots of little sheets of styrene, ugh. I also do a lot of very delicate scraping and sanding as I go, mostly to remove roughness from cutting out pieces and also makes the edges of the armor slightly roughed both along the corners of the armor plates but also by the various gaps so they look to appropriate scale. Again just buy an engraving tool the $15-20 is well worth preserving your sanity and it'll make such perfect little lines... sigh. The pod racer I found on ebay for cheap eventually arrivees giving me a break from the styrene madness, as do the bolters. Star wars and gi joe toys are made from a near indestructable plastic that just loves to bind up saw blades. I hate working with it, and the harder I try to chop the piece off the less progress I make, it has a strange quality of partially bonding back together as you saw through it. I suspect it's caused by heat coming from the saw friction, and it never glues well, but I really don't feel like doing the engine from scratch. After about 10 minutes off careful sawing I finally give up on my hobby saw and grab a steak knife from the kitchen, I really don't recommend doing that, but it did work and in 30 seconds rips the engine free. The engine boasts a few nicks and digs along the side due to the hack job I did, but at least it's cut free. I throw little annie skywalker away wih a smile (I hate him soooo much) I realize at this point I'd made the substructure under the cannon too short and need to add another half inch of height, which also involves extending the slope. The angle of the slope is slightly off causing the top to be ever slightly narrower than the scematic drawing, a point that nobody will probably ever notice but really agrivates me. I can't go back and redo the whole panel at this point so I fudge it and keep going. At this point I've only finished half the body and I've been working on it obsessively for about two weeks, the detail is relaly good but it's become a complete chore and decide to give it a break maybe until the missles come in... which I keep checking back with thebunker about each week. Takes them 4 months to come in, :cuss??? In the meantime I keep looking at the progress from time to time but just feel overwhelmed and go back to building my core units and marines that I'll actually play the game with, stupid thunderhawk soooo cool but what good are you when I don't even have my troop choices built? Also the cost of the project had spiraled up considerably above what I'd initally projected, the main factor being the weapon sprues and the missles. It also eats through styrene at a frightening rate, by not using scored pieces and used plates it generated a lot of wasted styrene. While I have all teh stuff I need to finish off teh project at this point, I realize I'm up to about $250-300 for cost and nowhere near done. It's become a huge time sink, which gets even worse when I think about getting to the point where I'll be adding rivets and the fine details. That's what breaks the project for me, and I decide just to buy the forge world model. If I'd suck the hours I'd been slaving over it into working instead I'd have made up the differance in what I spent building the model and the forge world one. So I start saving some money over the next 4 months and buy the real one, which only takes me about 10 hours to slap together. I've since moved the my homemade thunderhawk to a box sitting on the shelf, I'll likely get back to it when the rest of my army is done and I can enjoy working on it when it's not a chore, getting the troops and vehicles done that I need to actually play is the new priority. There's a couple variations from the FW model, the cockpit and the heavy bolters on the nose, these are intentional. Most space vessels and tanks have tiny windows which is a protective element. The giant open canopy of the FW model has always looked a bit goofy to me and looks more at home on a WWII bomber, not a space going flying tank, thus I reduced them to tiny armored slits. The side sponson bolters are also about as aero-dynamic as a brick, and would probably shear off during descent into the atmosphere, I changed the design so it'd look like it was mounted more securely to the hull. I don't think it could stand up to those type of pressures either but it looks less flimsy IMO. Also sicne I've gotten the FW model I've noticed just how exact a lot of the details are, which is surprising considering I was working entirely from drawing with no model for scale refernce. Almsot everything is exact to within about a quarter inch, the only part that differs is the very rear end of of the thunderhawk, the correct angles were a nightmare to get from the drawings. I may fix it someday, or I may leave it as it, at the moment I think I can step away from teh super exacting detail insanity I'd been afflicted with when I started the project, and can take it a little less obsessively, but I won't know till I start work on it again ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pig Of Sparta Posted February 6, 2009 Share Posted February 6, 2009 Nice use of Anakin's Pod Racer Engines there ;). It's a shame after all that time, effort and money that you're sidelining the project (temporarily?) but you're right there's not point doing something if it's not fun anymore. Good luck with your forge world one. James Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulson games Posted February 6, 2009 Author Share Posted February 6, 2009 The forge world one is pretty much done, the only thing left is mounting the attack wings, weapons, and canopy which will be done with magnets. I'm going to fill in the canopy windows with plastic with a silver or black backing as I don't want to paint the cockpit interior for the time being. It'll be mounted in there with white glue so I can remove them later without damaging the model. The canopy will be likewise left removeable with magnets should I later decide to tackle the interior. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pork Chop Express Posted February 6, 2009 Share Posted February 6, 2009 Your thunderhawk looks really good. I like what you have done. Did you recently purchase it from Forgeworld? I have heard that their thunderhawk castings are not very good as of late. You seem to pay very close attention to detail, aside from the usual warpage and such, how would you rate the quality of the model and casting? Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulson games Posted February 6, 2009 Author Share Posted February 6, 2009 I picked up the FW one right before christmas, but the one I got has been sitting in the bunker's back room probably for a year+ judging by the dust layer than was on the box. It was a royal b**ch to get the body pieces to fit right. I left the interior partition wall out completely as it was about 1/3rd an inch over sized to fit inside the hull and also the bolter rack was too tall to fit properly in the troop bay if it was paired up with the markings, it could be fit if I did some trimming but I didn't want to bother extra detail I didn't feel like painting. The attack wings are also entirely the wrong size for the bracket they are supposed to fit into, the studs put it at least half an inch wider than what the slot is made for. Caused a bit of :cuss factor when I was trying to add them on. I'm going to have to remove some of the round support rod and place a magnet in there. I could skip the magnet and just glue it in there immobile after I chopp all the extra material off, but I thought i'd be cooler if it were mobile still. A humorus thing we noticed is the pics that forge world uses in their catalog and the apoc book the front part of the attack wing isn't actually in the bracket and is hanging there loose. (the blue thunderhawk) Several of the rivets have been knocked off or crushed as it's been in the box so long, none of them are very prominant so once it's painted they probably won'tbe missed and I can fix them with bits of styrene or greenstuff. The canopy was also cracked in half, it's really fragile but the break was clean so when was glued back together the crack doesn't even show. The mount point for the wings is a terrible design and there's no way you can slide it in correctly, it hangs up on at least two points, I have no clue how you are suposed to get the wings in as built. I had to cut away and file down a lot of material to get them to fit and they aren't completely flush which will require some greenstuffing. My wings also have a slightly upturned angle they lift up at maybe a 5 degree angle from the body. They both have the same upward angle but I think they are supposed to be level from the pics I can see online. Not that noticalbe as they both have the angle but if you look close at it head on it's visable. There's also a lot of wavy-ness along the bottom of the cannon turrent, it has a sort of ripple effect along the edge I'll have to green stuff in there's also some rivets along that edge that I may end up having to replace as they'll be buried if I greenstuff everything level. Some of the hull pieces don't mesh up quite right but will be fixed with greenstuff, I actually have to try and spread the upper hull pieces wider wi they'd fit over the bottom ones, not easy as they were pretty thick. The landing gears are also rough to mount they are at a funny 30 degree angle and there's really not much material to them I'm very surprised they hold the weight of the model as they mount on little tabs instead of having slots or pins. In order to get the to hold I had to run a pin all the way through the foot pad and the base of the leg connection, and another one where the two pistons meet, while the leg is atached firmly I didn't glue the connection on the feet yet so they can pitch to the front and back at the moment. (they are held in place by the pins) One of the air brakes was warped pretty bad and I may have to scratch build a replacement or see if FW can send me a replacement. Even heating it in water it's warped so bad I can't get it back into shape. There were no air bubbles at all which is good, and hardly any flash. The only significant flash was on the inside lip of of the canopy windows. The surface details are amazing, particuarly the underside and the engines there are so many small details on it and it really helps make it look like a proper machine, no large empty areas just lots of well placed details. It does make handling it kinda hard, no easy way to pick it up. The wings can probably come loose easy, and some of the vent ports on the under side are quite delicate. I already damaged one when I was rubber banding the body to hold parts in place, repairable but I have to pay attention to how I pick it up or I could knock off other ones. Any kid that tries to touch it at the store will get his hand broke. Definately one of their more assembly intensive models, glad I own it and that it's pretty much all together but wouldn't reccomend it unless you were very serious about resin models. Probably one of their best models in regard to the detailing, but the little things will drive you nuts. I still have a lot of minor correction work to do before I can get to paint although at a distance it looks great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marshal Rohr Posted February 6, 2009 Share Posted February 6, 2009 Crazy Model Paulson. If you want to finish the Scratch built one, BoLS has one that somebody else did almost the exact same way you did, so it may give you some kind of help to drive on and have TWO Thunderhawks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulson games Posted February 6, 2009 Author Share Posted February 6, 2009 Sorry if this sounds dumb but what's BoLS ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jester_prince Posted February 6, 2009 Share Posted February 6, 2009 Bell of Lost souls i think, nice work, your plasticard work still seems alot smarter then mine does, would be a waste to see it just sit there on a shelf. Ive taken your advice and bid for a pod racer off ebay. A while to go but hopefully ill win them and ill have two very nice looking engines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ignatius Posted February 6, 2009 Share Posted February 6, 2009 The attack wings, the nose and the tail are the most annoying bits on a t-hawk, I had to space the main wings out with plasti-card then put three tough pins through each wing to hold it to the body and trim the rotation points to get the attack wings to fit. Worked well thought! The interior bulk head needed a little trimming but it wasn't as bad as yours, the nose and tail require some pretty heavy pinning to hold the main top and bottom fuselage parts together, both the nose and tail don't fit particularly well! :P The kit was a mix of frustration and joy to make and paint though, glad I have one. Your kit bash t-hawk is amazing, I admire your patience and skill. When I first saw the post I though oh no another crappy kit bash but yours is the best I've seen even in it's uncompleted state, the accurateness and detail is what sets it apart, I hope you do finish it. I Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marshal Rohr Posted February 6, 2009 Share Posted February 6, 2009 BoLS=Bell of Lost Souls, the GW Blog on the net. Followed by FtW(From the Warp) and if you enjoy campaigns and modeling ideas hit up the Tempus Fugitives. A gaming group so cool it makes me want to ex-patriate (at least I think thats the word for moving to another country, or maybe thats becoming a citizen in a new country...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ignatius Posted February 6, 2009 Share Posted February 6, 2009 and if you enjoy campaigns and modeling ideas hit up the Tempus Fugitives. A gaming group so cool it makes me want to ex-patriate (at least I think thats the word for moving to another country, or maybe thats becoming a citizen in a new country...) Thanks for saying so! :) I Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulson games Posted February 6, 2009 Author Share Posted February 6, 2009 Thanks for the comments guys, and I'll also make sure to check out the other blogs. After posting last night I was thinking about the thunderhawk a lot last night and I decided it will get finished at some point. I really hate leaving things unfinished, especially something I did sink a lot of work into. It'll be on the back burner for a bit so I can concentrate on painting my army. Now that I have the FW model I can pretty much quit working from the drawing and it gives me a reference for the underside. There's no way I can come close to the under side detail if the FW model but I can get the major details copied fairly close. Also I forgot the FW assault ramp required a lot of filing in order to get the teeth to fit right, they were oversized and like the attack wings they didn't pair up with the hull as designed. I'm not sure if maybe there's two differant molds with a slightly differant scale that they work from? Maybe they mixed parts from them which would result in them being incompatable without lots of extra modification. Due to the hull warp it fit together very tightly and I didn't need to pin it together, but I also won't grab it by the top either in case it decides to let go. If you look very closely you can see that the roof flexes inwards ever so slightly and isn't perfectly level, also the point where the roof piece slides under the main body was very rough for me to get in place and I had to rubber band the heck out of it in order for the glue to dry, it hasn't popped up but there's a gap between the armor plates on the side as a result which will require touching up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peakey Posted February 6, 2009 Share Posted February 6, 2009 WOW!!! Nice work on the DIY T-hawk.You should finish it because two thunderhawks is just too good to be true! Has anyone got any confirmation on the plastic thunderhawk kit from GW? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassarus Posted February 6, 2009 Share Posted February 6, 2009 looks really good so far! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulson games Posted February 6, 2009 Author Share Posted February 6, 2009 The guys at the bunker tend to give us some advance info "without saying so" the company like to keep people hanging and guessing for a very long time. I've asked them and got a maybe answer, offically nothing is on the release scedual, but what they said was if you look at the pics from gamesday both US and UK some of the company provided thunderhawks don't seem to match the forge world design exactly. Which implies that they might be test models for a production kit, the same thing happened with the stompas, they were rumored to be coming out for several years and they didn't come out til now. At the time my brother was working for them the stompa rumors were going around quite strongly at the time but that was almost two years ago at this point, so it took a while for it to see reality. I'd suspect the same would eventually happen with the thunderhawk, the difficulty with the thunderhawk is that it will be the biggest kit made by far and they have to consider the price point very carefully. They don't want plastic models much above $100 cause they want them to sell, but they also have to make sure they can turn around enough models to make their set cost back as well as a profit. I'd think a realistic price for a plastic thunderhawk could range upwards to $200, which isn't unreasonable when you look at the price of model planes and cars they sell at that size scale. But that might not be something they want, while there's tons of adults playing 40k that drop a lot of money on their armies the majority of the players are kids to early college age and they don't always have that type of money. GW wants/needs to move volume in order to turn profit that's why the big kits have been a dicey gamble for them, the baneblade was the test bed that proved that a model of that size and price will sell, the stompa and baneblade variant kits were greenlit due to the baneblade sucess. I think they'll be watching to see how those sell before they commit to a larger kit like the thunderhawk, but it's something they more than likely have in the testing phase. The hanging question is how long that'll be, I suspect they may have another big kit or two before they get to that point, possibly timing it with another apocalypse release. Once you see a test model offically previewed at a gamesday then a release will be coming up within 6 months to a year, til then you are guessing like everyone else. When the time comes, if they are in the range of $150-250 I will have a wing of thunderhawks B) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marshal Rohr Posted February 6, 2009 Share Posted February 6, 2009 @ Ignatius: No problem @ Paulson: I think the thunderhawks mishapeness may come from being kept in a dingy store room for so long. You certainly have soldiered on though and I think now you will be able to build the Thunderhawk with little to no problem. To bad they dont make those Pod Racers anymore... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulson games Posted February 6, 2009 Author Share Posted February 6, 2009 They stopped making the racers several years back but that's where ebay is your friend. I ran a search and there's about 30 differant auctions going on right now, it was pretty much the same back when I started the project. That's the upside to gi joe and star wars toys they made millions and you can still find them. Some of the auctions are as low as $5 especially if you go for one that's out of the box. I picked up two racers at the time, so I have another set of engine should I need them, I'll likely use one of those for the rear center engine. As a second scratch built hawk is out of the question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stargazer Posted February 6, 2009 Share Posted February 6, 2009 On the plastic T'hawk I'm pretty certain that they are making one speaking to the manager of my local GW store. They reckon they'll be between £80-100 I suspect they'll come out not with the next Apocalypse release but the one after that so the one after the Stompa and Baneblade variant are released Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Mick Posted February 6, 2009 Share Posted February 6, 2009 Looks very good already, good job :D. Keep up the good work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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