Wednesday 6 October 2021

A quick explanation for my lack of updates.

 Hi all, just wanted to give a quick update as to my recent online silence, here at least. 

I'm still here, but I've been in the process of changing pain medication, which has unfortunately had the side effect of making my hands shake too much to paint. I'm now in the process of changing back to the original medication, but with them being quite powerful drugs, these things take time. 

In the meantime I've finally had the chance to play with the 3d printer I bought earlier this year and made a start on learning Blender, so I can actually design things I want to paint! 

For my first project I decided to make a 40k version of the LeHaitre tracked motorbike/thing from the 1930s, which is this: 


As you can see, it's a pretty wacky looking thing to start with, and I thought it would suit 40k really well. I specifically wanted to use them for a small Tallarn project I've been thinking about doing for years, with them working as a ww2 Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) reconnaissance and raiding style unit. 

Once I'd had the idea, I went on a search around the internet to see if anyone else had already made one of these, but it didn't look like they had, so obviously I decided to do it myself. 


As for the modelling, I've never done any 3d design before, so I probably went in at the deep end a bit with this, but after a few weeks on and off, (I'm limited to 30-45 mins max at the pc before my left arm goes numb, so learning anything takes a while these days!) I finally came up with a prototype: 


the twin bolters I found online for free, and the baggage and legs are from file sets I bought. Hopefully the paid files will just be placeholders for a time until I get my head around sculpting organic objects and I can replace them. once I'd got the basics done, I decided to work on a Tallarn variant: 


I swapped out the RT bolters for a multi-laser, and the rider for a Tallarn style one I heavily converted from one I found online. I then decided to make variants of the riders, and do a variant with a towbar so it can pull the wheeled heavy weapons: 


The guy on the left is now holding a 2nd Ed 40k era Bolter, and the heavy weapon (unassembled so far, it's been sat with the rest of the project for years now!) can latch onto the back if wanted. 

So, yeah, that's basically what I've been up to. I must admit, I'm pretty happy with how far I've managed to get with it, both with the design, and the quality of the printed results. Now I just need to finalise the design to make it print more easily and fit together a bit better and I'm done. Eventually I'd like to replace the proprietary parts in order to perhaps put it up for sale, but I'm not sure about that yet, it's a bit niche, and can't see many people wanting it so it's a lot of effort for very little return.  

Anyway, next stop paint! (when my hands stop shaking.)

12 comments:

  1. Good progress on this. You might want to considering going mad with the stowage for your LRDG types.

    All the best with getting your meds sorted and great that you can get some hobbying done in the meantime.

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    1. Thanks! Yeah, I want the LRDPG (Long Range Desert Planet Group!) to look like a ragtag group able to survive unsupplied for a long time, so stowage and extra kit will be all over the vehicles.

      I think I'll probably go with heavily converted Taurox trucks, or a 3d printed proxy that looks a little like them crossed with the Fords and Chevy trucks the real LRDG used. Hopefully someone will have already done them!

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    2. And no worries about the duplicate posts, I've cleaned them up! :)

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  2. Stripped down transport, stacks of stowage and serious firepower would be great. Might as well throw in a portee too. And thanks for tidying up after me.

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  3. It's looking really good. I like the LRDG concept a lot. Hope the meds sort themselves out soon and you can get lots of painting in!

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  4. I love the concept! Well done sir 👍

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  5. This is a great way to spend the time you are unable to do normal hobbying. I say this because this bike is so cool I absolutely want one myself! Excited to see the future progress you make as you fine tune the build. Speedy recovery!

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  6. Here's hoping that the medication switch solves your issues. I'm very impressed with those Tallarn bikes - they're looking fantastic!

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  7. That has come out very nicely! Well done. I'm somewhat surprised that no one has jumped on that one yet, but thinking harder I suspect I'm remembering a 15mm model I've seen.

    I'd so go for it putting it up for sale. Price it to move (a couple of bucks). I'm not sure what is proprietary for it.....the bodies? You'd probably want to sell it as the first picture, with legs and hands but nothing else. Lets people choose their flavour of rider....

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  8. Look great to me! This sort of diesel punk thing fits in pretty nicely with 40k.

    The nice thing about selling STLs (or prints through a service like ShapeWays) is that you need to do nothing once you list the files. Someone will come along later and give you a few bucks here and there, and maybe some nutter will want a bunch of variants ;)

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  9. Well, first of all, I hope everything turns for the better.
    On the bike side, I'm truly impressed. I've always loved that kind of tracked bike and sometimes even wanted to sculpt a few from scratch (old school way, you know, I know nothing of 3D), so I'm enormously in love with your work here. Congratulations! I hope you keep on doing more works like this!

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    1. See? Suber is already ready to pay for an stl. If you build it, they will come....

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