Friday 3 December 2010

Medusa Conversion (1)

Hi all and welcome to my first post.  As I mentioned yesterday I will be showing you my first Medusa conversion.  First of all, I’ll explain a bit about my army.  While most imperial guard regiments are very, well, regimented, mine is the exact opposite.  The army represents a veteran regiment made up of the survivors of numerous deployments of troops from a wide variety of planets.  I’ll show you some of them over the next few weeks, but for now, I just wanted to mention that almost all the armoured vehicles are non standard.  My seven completed chimeras are all different patterns (most of my own devising), for example.  

As for the Medusa, I intend to do two of these but I am undecided as to whether to make them look the same or not.  I have actually been thinking about how to create these for about four months now and I’ll just explain a bit about the thought processes as I think they are very important when attempting a scratch build or extensive conversion.  The Medusa is either a direct fire siege cannon or a self propelled anti-tank gun and therefore it never made sense to me that it had such a high profile and open platform.  I wanted mine to be much lower, and have an enclosed roof.  Not only will this help in game terms, it will (hopefully) echo some of the German tank destroyers of WW2.


Finally, i should mention that 90% of my tanks tart life as crappy Basilisks bought from ebay for not a great deal of money.  i just rip the guns off, replace the tracks and any other bits, and add plasticard.

The pictures below represent how far I have come on the conversion so far.  I am still considering what kind of detailing to put on the roof, sides, and rear, and how to mount the heavy flamer.  Suggestions are appreciated. Of course, i'll post when its finished and let you know how it turned out.  

this is what i started with.  this is after i ripped the gun off and replaced the tracks.



i then took a risk and cut a large section out of the hull.  this was where i intended to mount the gun (which i had not yet built, probably not clever, but it worked out)



then i lined it with plasticard.  rivets will be added later.


i then made the gun.  i may add more thin plasticard to the end to cover up the holes, making it look less like a battle cannon.



two shots showing the gun mounted and the rear built.  to mount the gun i sliced up the normal earthshaker mounts so that they would fit and not get in the way of the roof.  as you can see, i wanted the gun to be able to elevate for siege work, even though it is a direct fire weapon.




here are three shots showng the completed sides of the hull and some of the interior details.  although the roof will be glued in place you can still see inside around the middle of the gun.  i used sections cut from the hull of the valkyrie kit because they have some nice details on (you will see why i have these when i show you my vendettas) could have used bits of plasticard with random bits stuck to them just as easily.  



at this point i realised i'd screwed up.  ther was nowhere for the driver to see out! i was forced to slice off the mounting for the hull heavy flamer and replace it with a vision slit for the driver.


i then built the roof.  this was very challenging as it involved small circles and curves.  it was especially important to enable the gun to elevate and therefore the gap needed to extend far back enough in the roof.  it will have a few more details and the entire thing will have a raised rim.  i am pretty sure it will be glued in place.


this is how far i have got.  as i said earlier, suggestions on where to put the heavy flamer would be appreciated.  

till next time!

9 comments:

  1. Nice. I like the idea of a non-uniform IG force; look forward to seeing it.

    As for the driver/HF, I think you could go a couple of ways.

    -mount it under the driver
    -mount it over the driver, where his current top hatch (on the painted part) is (he'll just have to scamper in and out through the back)
    -mount it in the normal spot, where the vision port is now. Put a small vision port/hatch with viewport where the top hatch (on the painted part) is now
    -take the viewport off, flatten out that section of the tank, remount the viewport towards the gun and put the HF immediately to the left of the viewport.

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  2. I just wet myself.
    That's sweet bro, great first post!

    HHF - What about using a searchlight housing on the underside of the chimera hull on the slope...the piece is perfect for it.

    So that you are not 'gaming for advantage' it'd only be roughly the same in terms of extension from the hull...

    Just to the right (as I look at it) of the Imperial Eagle on that panel?

    Just a thought... fantastic post

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  3. I really love the conversion, can't wait to see the finished product!!

    Personally I wouldn't get rid of the drivers viewport as I think is fits in really nicely with the detail already on the tank's hull, if there's any way to mount the flamer under the hull I would do in it that way as if you place it on top of the tank all you are doing is increasing the profile of the tank.

    Another thought would be to perhaps place the flamer on the drivers side of the channel that's there for the main gun. Maybe as a kind of vertical stacked thing....

    Anyway hope my ramblings were of some use ;)

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  4. This looks really nice. I can tell you are very meticulous in your work and all the effort you put in shows in the model.

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  5. thanks for the comments guys. the problem with placing the HF below the vision port on the lower edge is that no imperial vehicle does this. it would look 'tacked on' and unnatural. i think the only option is to stick above the vision port, in front of the painted hatch, so that it can be fired from there. its not ideal i think i can make it work.

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  6. I just had another thought, could you make it "pintle mounted"? then is would look less out of place?

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  7. What a fantastic conversion, it looks much better than the original model! Have you considered extending the commanders side of the canopy to reach the front of the body and then have the HF in it's normal position and have the driver and commander hatches one behind the other? Sorry I have to say it again, that sir is a fantastic conversion! :-)

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    Replies
    1. wow, this is a late reply, but welcome none-the-less! thanks for the kind words, and that is a really great idea regarding the hatch. i wish i'd thought of it before i finished and painted the thing!

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  8. Wow, I just now found this..and I am amazed. I have been waffling on doing a Guard/Traitor army up and was looking around for conversion ideas. This is one of the best I've seen. I am going to try and steel it.

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