Scratchbuild: Heavy Combat Armour for Tau, Zac starts a new adventure! Options

[Mangozac]

Hey people!

Well with the Superheavy Assault Walker all done (painted pictures will be available very soon!) it's time to turn my attention to my next epic project: A Heavy Combat Armour mecha for Tau. This time the project will be designed from the start to have a kit produced for Resin Addict when complete and seeing as I've already honed my scratchbuilding and casting skills on my first big project, this one will hopefully progress a bit faster!

This mecha is intended to fill the equivalent role of knight titans and stand at around 6-7" tall on the tabletop. It packs much more firepower than a tank but due to it's super agile frame it is much more potent. Whilst being too large for conventional jetpack or antigrav technology, it's long, powerful legs mean that it can travel and manoeuvre quite fast. These mecha are able to crouch right down for deployment in the tank bay of a Manta (only two can fit in this manner though).

I plan to make a few weapons options for the main arms, each of which will be available individually. The biggest point with the weapons on this project is that they will be all new types rather than alternates of standard Tau weapons (as awesome as they are, I'm a little sick of railguns).

I've been researching and planning this design for a while now but have just started mucking around with some clay tonight as the super wet, rainy weather is preventing me from doing any casting.

The design itself is based on a number of sources, the most notable of which being the work of Adinarr @ Deviantart. I then got LordDirk over at ATT to draw me a concept sketch based on a composite image I Photoshopped up. He came up with this little gem:


Whilst his sketch is good, its a little too stocky for my liking, especially in the leg area. One of my favourite aspects of the Tau XV8 concept artwork is their strong, athletic look, like shown in the 3rd Ed Tau Codex. That's no issue though - this will all be tuned during construction.

Due to the much smaller and tighter shape of this model compared to the Superheavy Assault Walker, the process of moving from 2D to 3D is a little different. In order to help get the scaling right and get a feel for the shape of the torso, I did a really quick and dirty sculpt with some modelling clay:





Please don't get too excited commenting about what you see so far - as I said, it's only a study of size and shape and not a very good indication of the final details.

So please join me on my next epic adventure as I once again jump into the deep end and do a brand new scratchbuild.

This post has been edited by Mangozac: Feb 9 2010, 06:33 AM

[wereweevil]

Good luck Zac - I'll be watching with great interest (again...)

[PlasmaDavid]

How come an Orca dropship isn't too heavy for conventional thrusters or antigrav? ;D

[dedhed]

what do you use instead of GS for the basic form?

[Mangozac]

How come an Orca dropship isn't too heavy for conventional thrusters or antigrav? ;D

If you'd completed your degree in 40k physics and technology you would be able to answer this yourself

what do you use instead of GS for the basic form?

The mockup you see there is just modelling clay (plasticine) but the actual model will be primarily Milliput over a styrene frame.

Always glad to hear how much enjoyment people get out of my project logs!

[Smorg]

If you'd completed your degree in 40k physics and technology you would be able to answer this yourself

unless it was an imperial degree

this looks very promising, can't wait to see some more

[DEBO]

Should be another cool project to watch.

This post has been edited by DEBO: Feb 9 2010, 02:13 PM

[jas]

Go Zac!

Nice concept. Look forward to seeing what you do.

[Comrade]

Sweet, look forward to another great diary. But this time REGULAR UPDATES!!! Please.

[Mangozac]

Sweet, look forward to another great diary. But this time REGULAR UPDATES!!! Please.

Unfortunately the initial stages of this will be kind of slow, as I'm still trying to pump out Superheavy Walker resin kits. Once things get rolling though the project should progress WAAAAYYY quicker than the previous project

Hey Jas it's great to see you're still around! We'll have to catch up again some time!

I've had a few people commenting about how much the pectoral armour plates look a bit too much like those of a Dreadnought and not Tau-esque enough. Looking at the pics again tonight I can see how it's a problem. I'm going to attack the clay sculpt again when I get a chance to see if I can correct it.

I want to refer to one of the original Tau XV8 artworks (the one with the 3 crisis suits) but since the GW website's revamp all of that stuff has disappeared. I've got the picture I'm after on my PC at work so I'll grab it from there tomorrow.

[ragnarok14]

Looking forward to following the new project blog zac, i'm sure this will turn out even better than the walker (which will be no mean feat!).

[Mangozac]

OK so in a bid to refine the design to something more Tau-esque I started doing some serious clay sculpting. Not much more to comment really. I'm still trying to decide how those large, flat areas are going to pan out but I'm not too worried. The ball represents where the shoulder ball would be. Overall it does still feel a little too wide - I may shave a bit more off the width.





Oh yeah, and I do realise the right side of the picture is missing bits - I was feeling lazy

[Mangozac]

So I decided to do some more refining and shave a little more off the width. Much better I think. The pectoral areas aren't so massive and the overall geometry feel much more solid and Tau like. As Warhound has mentioned, the front panel will open up to reveal a fully detailed c0ckpit and pilot.

The sensor pod on the right shoulder will be more integrated into the pectoral armour plate. The missile pod will be a separate, optional piece.





All that's needed now is to work out what I want to do with the front of the waist area. I will probably just make it a continuation of the front (c0ckpit cover) panel. Overall though, I'm pretty happy with how it's looking, so the next step will be to start cutting up a card frame from which I will derive the final styrene frame. The final model will be an amalgam of styrene and Milliput.

Edit: the word filter really needs to be told to let c0ckpit through

This post has been edited by Mangozac: Feb 14 2010, 12:08 PM

[Mangozac]

Update time!

I was having trouble working out where to start with the torso build, so I decided to go with the ####pit. I had been throwing around a few ideas and settled on an "entry plug" style from Evangelion. Here's a pic of one: http://www.furuanimepanikku.com/2008/05/18...-01-entry-plug/

Obviously, the entry plug is quite massive so the implementation won't be too similar. Rather than being a self contained, removable module (the Eva entry plugs can be ejected and have thrusters for such an event), the ####pit will be a cylindrical design without any hatch or door of its own that lowers out from the abdominal armour plate area.

I didn't do any sketches worth showing, so I'll skip straight to the styrene implementation:



This will be filled and turned into a smooth cylinder with Milliput. The area where the pilot sits will be soft and padded, with just a couple of "manual" displays and control surfaces. The actual control of the Heavy Combat Armour is via neural interface. The pilot will be a separate sculpt (hopefully) by my good mate Warhound.

The reason why I settled on this design and the fact that the ####pit will extend out diagonally downwards is because when the mecha is rested (parked) on its knees, the ####pit will be very close to the ground so that the pilot can actually get in!

I've got a busy week ahead of me so don't expect to see any updates until at least next weekend.

[Dr.McNinja]

Oh my god an update.

Im so excited.

I liked your other tau gargantuan beast but it wasnt really my cup of tea. This one is. I hope it ends up being a 'spritual successor' to the crisis suit (in size). I hope it ends up more fluid and life-like than blocky crisis suits or anime mecha.

From that first sketch it looks like a higher-tech tau soldier wearing a corset.

[PlasmaDavid]

Bumheads, not fishheads.

[Mangozac]

I've been busy casting and with a BFG project I've been doing: http://www.resinaddict.com/blog/2010/02/pe...ect-zeus-prows/, but finally found a moment to dome some more work on the HCA, so I've got a little update today.

The puttying was done yesterday but some of it didn't mix properly and thus I had to gouge it off and redo some sections this morning after sanding things smooth and round. The two square holes on the left will have vents inside them and underneath there is a guide strip that contains more details.



Note that the front end is still rough as it will have the armour plate which forms the front of the torso, and thus won't be constructed until much later. The next step (which to be honest I'm having trouble deciding how to go about) is to start constructing the torso around the ####pit pod.

[BookKeeper]

And just when I thought Tau could hint anymore at evangellion! you have the capsule, needs to be filled with gel though

[luke james]

am i the only one whos thinking of a scaled down thor or madcat? Will be good to see these finished!

Luke

[Mangozac]

And just when I thought Tau could hint anymore at evangellion! you have the capsule, needs to be filled with gel though

Evangelion was my first giant mecha anime and I always have a soft spot for it

am i the only one whos thinking of a scaled down thor or madcat? Will be good to see these finished!

If any of my Tau stuff looks like a battlemech then I'm doing something seriously wrong - Tau mecha need to be fast and agile