Yeah, cant see any reason not to get a few of these made.

Been a busy weekend. Managed to get the top of the body rounded as it is in the picture which took a surprisingly long time. I also did the vent (though because of the limits of 3D printing size and casting Ive had to make the walls quite wide. Other than that Im really happy with how its looking. Somehow something went a bit weird at one point and everything got smoothed out (must have lent on some keys accidentally) so took a quick pic:



Ive also been working on the engine that will be on the back (turbines wont work in space and these are meant to be able to work inside and outside the atmosphere). Obviously these arent on the pics so Ive had to start making some choices about what they should look like. Wanting to link them into other space marine technology the engines are based on the thunderhawk.

I'm assuming that's on the underside and very back?

I'm assuming its designed on a gimbal yo provide some sort of thrust vectoring like a harrier. I'd suggest making it a dual engine as it will visually say, "bigger engine" and with your choice of making it like the TBrick, hopefully "that's two thunderhawk engines"

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Interesting idea of it being on a gimbal. I hadnt thought that would be a good idea on an engine for use in space. In my head thats what the turbines are for (landing when in the atmosphere). I was only really going for forward thrust and then the smaller "vents" to the side of the engines would then allow more subtle changes in direction.

There will be two engines (one to either side) but I cant double on each side as I wanted to put in a rear hatch as well (its not always going to be the best plan to charge out through the front! :p)


On the thunderhawk theme. I originally made this scaled off the GW thunderhawk but having seen the FW one in a picture Im really wanting to do this in a truescale allowing me to fit on some more detail. Does anyone have the dimensions of the FW thunderhawk? I only really need the width and length of the main hull/body.

Looking good mate.

FW TH dimensions.

Wingspan = 85
Hull length minus rear engine = 90mm
Hull width = 16mm

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Youre a legend dakka!

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Good progress today (making this was tricky.... and it took a lot longer than I expected).

Its obviously a little odd as the design of the stormbird is asymmetrical.


I think this confirms that I need to change this at some point to being truescale as the guns are as small as they can be and they just look to large. Might leave that till the end though as it means I can look how it is when Im done (I may change my mind, especially if I cant get hold of a truescale thunderhawk :p)

Yep bigger is better.

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Thats what my girlfriend says. Im gonna go cry in the corner for a bit....

OK, well some hobby will make me feel better :p

Taken some more pics of the AA mount. As you can see Ive changed it from the original picture a bit as it just didnt seem to work for me. It was meant to be a set of guns on the top of the "tower" and I couldnt see how it rotated. Instead I went for a design that made it clear how it moved (with the up down movement being allowed by a swivelling section down the centre and then the left and right being allowed by the turret turning.



Ive also been working on the nose mounted assault cannons. Again a bit of a change. In the rules these are twin assault cannons but on the original pic its a single (same with the AA mount) but I wanted to go with the rules over a very old pic. Its only meant to be inspiration after all!


Again the guns just look too big in a clumsy way. But it will do as a "marker" for now until I get a chance to resize everything. Im thinking I might as well finish the body and then do the resizing as a whole.

Looks promising mate.

How about having the upper turret being able to fire on a flat trajectory as well. At the moment it looks like it can only depress as far as shown in the picture and i feel it would benefit the design and the aircrafts defensive capability if it could fire across the hull, especially to the sides.

Just a thought.

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This is the year 40000. Oversized weapons are par course
Also once printed, accentuate details is a good idea

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Thats a good call dakka. Again an issue with the massive gun size. Im thinking that when they are in proportion (true scaled) they could get closer to being vertical. I dont want them to be able to get perfectly horizontal as that would allow the accidental shooting of the turbines :p. It would leave a bit of a weapons blind spot to the sides but the lower half would be covered by the heavy bolters (though they are more for landing site clearance in my mind). I will have to see when I get everything true-scaled and work from there.

looking good. great progress.

Shooting the turbines would not be a problem as a mechanism would be in place to prevent this happening. It would stop the gunner or computer from firing in this area as well as shooting up the tail section if that was in the way to.

So there would still be some arcs of fire/dead zones that could not be engaged.

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Hehe. Thats probably true (I hope it is the way thunderbudgy bolters facing forward point at the engines!). I will look at that when I truescale everything as it will give more room. Wow, Im starting to have a list of things to do when I "biggify" everything!

OK, so other work today. I now have a heavy bolter (modelled off the size of the epic Armageddon metal landraiders):


I also have the rear ramp sorted (the squares to the sides are where the two engines go):