Drone Sniper (1/8th scale resin from Industria Mechanika)

[Will Vale]

Thanks for the kind comments, sorry I haven't got anything to show, I really need to get it done since it's soo close, I think I have finishing fear. Plus a week of too much work/caffeine withdrawal last week didn't help. Hopefully some progress soon!

This is looking really fantastic. I wouldn't mind putting this on the product page if you're up for it when it's done.

Ooh, that would be great! I'll try and get some proper quality pictures when I finish up - I used to do everything on a white cylcorama (even WIP pictures) but I've got lazy recently and have just been snapping them on my work table amid the piles of crap :p

Will

[Will Vale]

Sorry for the lack of progress folks, we had birthdays, and then a scary earthquake, and work has been mental. Oh, and then it was our wedding anniversary this week and we were out for the weekend, but I managed to skive off for a couple of hours this afternoon and do some modelling. I reckon I need to get the sniper mounted so I can do all the in-situ painting and other bits and bobs, so I've been working towards that.

I settled on a place to stand him, making sure that the gun and bipod don't foul the concrete blocks, and the cable is long enough to reach the sensor. Then I drew around his feet and gouged out the texture and filler with a screwdriver so he can stand directly on the flat MDF. I painted the cut edges brown and will fill in with more earth mix when he's installed.

To make the mounting secure, I drilled up into the legs (from inside the heels) about half an inch and inserted some thickish brass rod to make mounting pins. It took two tries to get corresponding holes drilled in the base because the pins exit the feet at a slight angle.


Flickr link

I then set the figure in place again (not glued yet) and marked the sensor location on the concrete block. I drilled up from underneath with a power drill, and then fed a brass tube up into the block to complete the cableway. With that in place I could poke a hole for the wires through the front face and check it met.

The florist's foam is a pain - easy to make holes in, but very hard to fish wires though because it's so soft. As soon as the wire hits the foam it will dig in rather than follow a pre-drilled hole. In the end I got it to work by catching the end in a brass tube inside the hole, feeding in enough wire, and withdrawing the tube. It helps to use both hands so you can feel all the contacts (or lack of them) between the wire and the tube.

Once I've finished detailing the sensor I'll solder the wire joints on the rear face, and pull the LED wiring through using the beading wire which is in there at the moment. Oh, and I drilled out the base with a big spade bit to make a recess for a button cell.



Not very exciting pictures, but it is legit progress! I'll try and do some more tonight.

Will

[Will Vale]

So I'm into the scary "final assembly" stage, although that won't be the end of it since I need to do some more painting and decorating before I can claim this finished.

I fed the wires from the back through the sensor after weathering and applying dullcote, then soldered those to some longer wires to run down inside the concrete. The joints were (carefully!) heatshrunk and the wires expoxied into the back of the sensor. Then I added some pins from piano wire and fished the trailing wire through the block using the beading wire I fed through yesterday.


(click for bigger)

With that done I expoxied the feet, sensor, rifle and head in place, using blu-tak to set the LED in the right position within the head, and block out light leaks at the neck.



I think I need to tweak the set of the cable a bit, although it looks better from the side than the back. It has a strand of .3mm brass wire twisted with the conductors so it can take and hold a pose to some extent.

Oh, and here's the gun which I've slowly been weathering. I think it's a bit over-done now, so I'm going to go back and sponge/drybrush a little of the base colours to tidy things up and try and hide those damn decal edges.



For my money there's slightly too much variation, and too much dust.

I also need to add some final details (vegetation, mainly) and touch up the groundwork and some areas of paint on the drone.

Cheers,

Will

[Will Vale]

Aaaand a bit more. I've been touching up the groundwork and took some step-by-step pictures of how I like to approach it. This is usually a model railway technique (perhaps because it works well on large areas) but I really like it for small stuff too. Apologies if you've seen this kind of thing before.

The idea was to fill around the sniper's feet where I'd cut a bit too much away, and I also did some low spots by the water where you could see the edge.


Click for bigger

I'd saved some of my earlier earth mixture - this is a blend of crushed dried earth and soft rock, fine grit, tiny bits of cut up grass, scenic foam, and pigment powder to tint it. You can sprinkle it on but for precision you can't beat a bit of folded card or paper - tap to distribute the stuff.



Adjust with a soft brush while it's dry - you can't touch it once wet or it will pill up or otherwise not do what you want.



Wet with a spray bottle of wet water (water with washing up liquid) or dilute alcohol, or neat alcohol. The latter is good for very fine dust-like textures since it has very low surface tension. Get it fairly saturated, but don't make a lake:



Then apply a 50/50 mix of matte medium and water with an eye dropper. You can use PVA too, but it dries a bit glossier. Again, you want to saturate the texture with the glue.




Then finally sprinkle a bit more loose material on to soak up any pools, and leave for something between six and twenty-four hours to dry. It sets very hard, but looks loose.



Home stretch now!

W

[Jiloo]

I always appreciated WIP that shows how to do something step by step. That's why, although I'm new in modeling, I'm trying to show as much as I can during progress. Those of us, who already know that can just skip.

Your progresses are always a pleasure to read and watch and I'm sure I've learn a lot from you. Thank you.

[Hunter Rose]

Nice work Will!

I especially like the warning decal on the gun power cell, cant wait to see this finished

[Sharkdog]

Interesting method, Will. Does this also basically glue the drone to the base? Won't that be a bit dangerous if you need to transport it?

[Will Vale]

I guess it does, but I thought I pretty much had to do that because the sensor really needed to be glued in place and the cables don't have plugs and sockets. It's a risk, but hopefully it won't cause problems. The pins in his legs mean he's not likely to snap off, I suspect any breakage would be in the resin itself.

It's not quite comparable since the objects (and stresses) are mostly smaller, but my railway layouts travel quite happily upside-down or on their sides (I put pairs of boards together facing each other) and nothing falls off. I think if I had to travel far with the sniper I'd make a close-fitting box and either fill it with packing peanuts, or more likely make a foam/styrofoam insert to hold everything in place.

I should add a caveat for the scenery method - around his feet I ended up with some thin white tide marks This doesn't usually happen, I suspect it's because its such a thin application. The areas at the front which I touched up at the same time/in the same way are fine. Need to clean that up now.

W

[Will Vale]

Well he's finished! I might want to touch up the water a bit and tweak things, but he was done enough to take along to club night. I'll take some proper pictures tomorrow, but here's a teaser of the plants I added:


Covered in bees!

Cool news: Apparently Mr. Sniper is going to be the poster boy for our club show. "Because he's not a bl**dy plane or tank or car!".

Will

[Jiloo]

(...)"Because he's not a bl**dy plane or tank or car!".

Love to hear that :)

[Hunter Rose]

Nice flora! Look forward to final pics Will.

And congrats on being the poster boy 

[Sharkdog]

Congrats! I'm looking forward to your final photoshoot now :)

[Will Vale]

Pics in the gallery, still might take some more with a black background though - not sure.

[joewhite]

Wow, what an inspirational design, model and above all, build! I've been out of the resin model scene but I now have my eye on this and the Distopic model.

I am in awe with your little sensor! Something so simple adds a story to the scene. I love the concrete walls and tiny detail as well! You, sir, have a new fan! Coming back to this site and seeing the amazing work again has inspired me to continue work on some of my designs and builds. I've been learning Rhino and will probably try to translate some of my drawings into 3D models.

Oh, and the change from the muzzle reducer to the suppressor was a really neat move. The reducer looks tough and appears really well constructed/cast but his sleek and slender build flows much better with the suppressor.

Oh and I didn't get to read the entire thread so if I am repeating something, that's why. Cool stuff and thanks for sharing!

Joe

[Will Vale]

Thanks, that's really kind of you. The sensor is funny - I wouldn't have done it unless I had to run the cable but sometimes these things work out for the best!

If you liked this, have you seen Chris Clayton's "Hush" bust? It's *really* cool:

http://giganticminiatures.com/

MAJOR BROWSING CAVEAT: Sometimes pages on his site redirect to a totally NSFW dodgy dating site (!) 

Will

[joewhite]

I agree! The HUSH sculpt is excellent. And that paint job is ridiculously brilliant!

Joe