{"id":2878,"date":"2009-10-08T10:01:17","date_gmt":"2009-10-08T15:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fichtenfoo.net\/blog\/?p=2878"},"modified":"2009-10-08T10:04:36","modified_gmt":"2009-10-08T15:04:36","slug":"in-progress-%c2%bb-martian-light-hovertank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fichtenfoo.net\/blog\/in-progress-%c2%bb-martian-light-hovertank\/","title":{"rendered":"In Progress \u00c2\u00bb Martian Light Hovertank"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ht2-finaltack-01\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For a while now I’ve been mentioning that I had another secret project master sold to Mig Productions<\/a>, but didn’t have the go-ahead to post about it publicly until now since’ it’s in production.\u00c2\u00a0 I present to you, the Martian Light Hovertank!<\/p>\n

When I made my last Martian Hovertank<\/a>, Mig really liked it and mentioned he’d love to have one to paint-up. That got me thinking about doing another, but much smaller than the last one which is just plain huge. This time I decided to make a smaller light tank used for raiding and fast attack. I actually finished this over a year ago and sat on it for a bit while waiting to see how my KV-X2 worked out with my original bad caster. When Mig decided to take on the KV, he bought this master as well.<\/p>\n

This just went into production and should be available sometime before December. I should be getting my first copy in a few weeks which I’ll be painting up for the box art. Adam is very jealous as he also likes the design a lot.<\/p>\n

To start this long overdue progress thread off however, I’ll post up my progress images. This started out with a “bean” as we called them. They were part of a trade show booth from the first company I worked for. A few years ago, while visiting my old art director for some freelance she gave me one. It’s been gathering dust, but with a slathering of Vaseline and some bondo, it made the perfect shell mold for this tank’s base.<\/p>\n

Over the bondo I added Aves Apoxie sculpy, armor kit bits and plenty of scratchbuilt details. I wanted it to have an insect or trilobite\/crustation appearance and I think I got that. Looks like a cross between War of the Worlds tripods and modern armor to me. The front landing legs have large armor plates and look crab-like while the 4 rear legs fold up under the rear armor when the tank is on the move. I imagine the tank could also walk on these legs when necessary.<\/p>\n

The engine\/fan-ducts was inspired by my friend Luca Z’s<\/a> work on the Briegel internals. What’s exciting for me is that that I was able to use photo-etch for the fans and covering grilles. There will also be tubing on the positron cannon which runs to the mount and the tank hull.<\/p>\n

Anyway, here’s pics of the tacked-up tank before I sent it off to Mig and of the progress.\u00c2\u00a0 I think it’ll be a lot of fun to paint and hope you guys like it as well.<\/p>\n\n\t\t