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Friday, May 25, 2012

Coven Raider Update

Here's an update for my Coven Raider project, but it's been so long since I posted it that I figure this may be the first time that some people are seeing the project.

My concept for the Coven Raider was something a little more than the common Raider+Tentacles. Though it was a little more expensive than slapping some tentacles on a Raider, I wanted to have a Raider that was powered by a Talos. My idea was a bit like the Talos would be pulling the Raider, except it would be built into the body.


To change the lines of the Raider, I flipped the front cowling around to the back, hacked off the opposite end, and started changing the lines of the hull so that the craft tapered towards the front. I sculpted in some gribbly bits to replace the floor of the Raider to make it look a bit more like the craft had been built around the living Talos. Switching the front cowling to the back worked well as I could us the weapon mount to house the tiller that the driver would use: a tentacle from the Talos set that is meant to be the end of the creature's spine! How Haemonculus is that? Driving a Raider by steering with someone's spine. Gross.

Anyway. I've finally come back to the project. I had conceived to have the Talos' spine growing down the centre of the Raider's floor, and I wanted to do up some whacked-out spinal growths to form a trophy rack. Here are the paper prototype and plasticard substructure for that:
And here it is mocked up with the driver:

One of the reasons I stalled on the project was due to being baboozled by how to integrate the Talos into the front of the craft without making it look like the whole thing had been looted by orks and the Talos was just lashed to the front of it. Initially, I was thinking of using an old Raider prow to wrap around the Talos pilot:

...and it worked...kind of...
I would definitely have to cut it down a ways to make it make sense.

Then I started messing around with the rams from the new Raider kits, and I came up with the following...


...which I'm a helluvalot happier with. I'm still going to need to add something between the end of the raider and the start of the rams, but I think that should be fairly easily addressed.

One of my greatest recent victories on the Raider is the swappable weapons system. This is my first time using Rare Earth magnets, and were it not for the tip from Brother Pink to use silicone-based, rubberized glue, I likely would have failed as the force from the magnets would have cracked the brittle super glue. I took two Talos weapons pod bits, glued them together, and cut our a recess for my cube magnet. Then I glued a magnet onto each of the weapon's options--making sure to check polarities first!
 You can see that they're easily swappable into and out of the pod. I know this is quite simple, but I feel like a champion for getting it to work.

As you can see from the earlier photos, I will mount this weapons pod in a forward-facing position, beneath the Talos and between the rams that make up the new prow:
I think my next challenge is to solve the transport problem. To make this thing fully Coven, the passengers will not be transported on the deck of the craft but, rather, suspended on meat hooks from the end of articulated arms on either side of the craft. It's the kind of idea that just makes you want to have a good megalomaniacal guffaw. However, first I must figure out how to make the arms out of raw plasticard. Wish me luck.

5 comments:

  1. Awesome work!I loved the idea of this from the off!
    Out of interest, have you picked the 10,000 views giveaway yet? Sorry, but I might be getting a little edgy as I'm sure are others!
    Always a fan,
    Callum

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  2. Thanks Sir!

    As for the giveaway, it's on the cards for drawing today, so expect to hear something later today if not tomorrow. Sorry for taking so long to get back to it, but I was out of town for about a week.

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  3. Great! Sorry, I didn't mean to pester, I was just concerned I'd missed it. Hope you had a good time away, will be waiting in anticipation! :D

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  4. It looks great. Please don't take this the wrong way but if I were the fortunate owner of this beautiful piece I would use the added psychological damage by insinuating that my raider/talos hybrid was blasting my opponent with his... custard launcher

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  5. Now now. None of that. I'll have you know that custard launcher is deadly.

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