An Interesting Use of a Plastic Easter Egg

An Egg Flyer

Inspiration

I have a lot of bits, and I was looking through them and came across a GI Joe Cobra flight pod...or at least parts of it as I do not have a complete one.  I had realized some time ago that if I found the right piece that I could make an interesting flyer.  I was thinking of something like a Huey used in the US military in the 70s with an open door for the gunner. Anyway, this is the beginning of what I came up with.

Materials

I am only using the back, or main part of the flight pod, and the jet piece, a plastic Easter egg, and the motor housing from a Zoids Gustav.  I was

The Flyer

This is the front view of the flyer. As you can see, the white/gray parts are from the flight pod and the yellow part is an Easter egg. I did not have to do any cutting on the flight pod parts, only on the egg to get the parts to vit together.  The eggs come in various sizes, so you will have to try to find the right size. I buy Easter eggs every couple of years or so because they are a great source of plastic shapes for various projects.

This is the side view of the flyer so far.  The brownish areas of the flight pod seem to be glue. I had to remove some stickers from the flight pod that had been on it for a very long time. The best way to remove such stickers is by using WD-40. The blue you can see are the markings I had to make to cut the egg.

The top view of the flyer.

In this picture, I have the egg with the Flight Pod as above, a complete motor unit from a Zoids Gustav, the parts I removed from the motor unit housing, and the part of the housing I will be using is in the lower right.  The very small piece I removed at the bottom center will be the shield for the gun.

In this picture, the only differences from the one above is the addition of the jet pack piece on top of the egg and I have flipped the piece I will use over at bottom right.  The white parts on the piece I will use are some sheet plastic I have cut to close off one end and seperate where the gunner will sit from the rest of the vehicle.  I made the cuts in the motor housing using a hole cutter.

In this picture, I have moved the piece from the bottom right of the pictures above and placed it where it will be when I am finished.

This is the right side view of the vehicle.  You can see where I have closed off this end of the motor housing piece.

This is the left side view of the vehicle.  It is not as easy to see the piece of plastic I have inserted to close off the gunners area.  At this point, I need to close up some holes, add a hatch or door on the other side, and create the gunner and the gun.








The Primed Vehicle

This is the front view of the vehicle.  The gunner is still not finished yet, but I didn't want to wait for the gunner to be finished before I painted it.

This is the left side view of the vehicle.  You can still see the yellow of the egg inside of the opening.  The white area is an opening I left and the white is because it is the color of the flight pod.

This is the right side view of the vehicle.  I dropped it and so there is a little chip on the lower right area of the cabin.

The Finished Vehicle

Here are various pictures of the finished egg vehicle.  I have not added the gunner yet, but that is another subject.  I am very pleased with this conversion as it mainly consists of four pieces: the egg, the motor housing unit from a Zoids Gustav, the main part of a GI Joe Flight Pod, and the jet piece, also from the GI Joe Flight Pod.  I added a door from an old GW Rhino, some sheet plastic, the plastic rod that holds it up, and two other bits from my bits box.  The last two are on top of the cabin.  The Easter egg should not be too difficult to get your hands on and the flight pod is available on Ebay.  The only piece which may be difficult to acquire is the motor unit housing from the Zoids Gustav.

A Trench on Treads

The Rolling Trench

Inspiration

I wanted to make a vehicle to go with some of my miniatures that would be like a mobile trench system, with machine gun nests, troop carrier capacity, and an observation post. This is what my warped mind came up with.

Materials

Again, I am using my widest plastic tape spool (2" wide), some plastic sheet (from which I have already cut the discs for either side of the spool, an interesting plastic hexagonal piece (which I have cut in half), some parts from a Tamiya 2/35th Bradly AFV, some treads from a Tamiya 1/35th scale SGT York, parts of the wings from an Osprey model kit (for the blade, and not the same pieces), and some bits from my bits box.  The white thing inn the back will probably not be used in the project, but I am not sure yet.  Anyway, it is a part of some toy and says US Mail on it.

This is the layout from above front.  As you can see, I have made the blade.  It may not be obvious from the photo, but the parts I used for this blade are from different parts than the one I made for the tank. You can see the holes that my hole cutter makes when I cut a disc. Since they will be covered, the holes are not going to be a problem.






This is the overhead view of the vehicle thus far.  As noted above, the white piece will not be in the final product.

I got really lucky and found this piece to use as the body of the rolling trench.  This is the front view.

This is the side view of the same piece.  It cam out of an old printer, and the tape spool fits really well inside of the piece.

Here is the same piece, from the side, with the tape spool inserted.

Here is the same piece, from the front, with the tape spool inserted.

 Here is a view of the same piece, with the spool inserted, and the sides laid out to illustrate what I will be doing. This view is above and to the front of the vehicle.

This is the same layout taken from the top.

This is a front view of the Trench on Treads.  It will still take a lot of work before it is finished, but I got really lucky with the printer piece as I won't have to do much work on the front - just primarily fill it in.

This is the side view of the vehicle.  I will have to remove parts of these sides so that I can glue my discs on either side.

28mm Walker Size Comparison

A Size Comparison of Some 28 mm Walkers

Inspiration

I am again blaming this size comparison on Dentatus...he started it all.  I have limited this to walkers with two or more legs, but not like a Mech with two arms.  I have stretched the scale a bit, but these are walkers I have in my collection.  I have only shown one example of any particular line of miniatures, for instance, the Kryomek line from Scotia Grendel has 5 walkers that are similar, but I have shown only one.

The Walkers

The Walkers in this photo are, from upper right, one of the US walkers from Dust Tactics, to the right of it is one of the German walkers from Dust Tactics, to the  right of that is the Talosian Tank Droid from the Star Wars line, and at upper right is a Sierp from AT-43  A note about the Talosian Tank Droid:  it is very large and can be purchased for a very reasonable amount.
In the middle at left is a toy, the make of which I do not know, but it was bought at a dollar store.  I have reworked the toy.  In about the middle of the photo is a Behemoth from the Void line by Scotia Grendel with its howdah at center right.  Between the two is a smaller dinosaur from the same line with its head being the black thing just in front of it.
At bottom left is an Uga Uga from the Star Wars line, my three miniatures I usually use for these comparisons, and at bottom left is a powered armor from the AT-43 line.

In this photo at left is the Korvus Walker, in the middle is the Tiger APC, both from the Void line from Scotia Grendel, and at right is the Orca Walker from Warzone, which I believe can still be purchased online.  Sorry about the shape of the Tiger, I dropped it on the way to take these pics.





















The walker at the right is the Fenris Storn Strider from the Kryomek line by Scotia Grendel.  All five of the walkers from this line have the same legs, and "hip" piece, the only difference being the cab and the weapons.  The walker in the middle of the photo is the TACO-34 and the walker on the left is by the same store on ebay, caomao1122.  The one on the left is not currently available, but I have asked them if they plan to recast these, as well as others that are not currently available, but have not yet received a reply.  Also, both of these pieces are listed as 1/35th scale.

The two legs to to both the metallic body to the right and the red body at top center.  I do not recall the name of the metallic one, but the red one is the Grizzly Bear.  Both are made by Armorcast, but neither is currently available.  The monstrosity at the right of the photo is the Raven Scavenger walker from the Kryomek line by Scotia Grendel.  Of all of the pieces I have in my collection, purchasing this is the one regret I have.

On the left side of the photo is the Mammoth Strider by Dreampod 9.  I have taken liberties because this is a smaller scale miniature, but it is very large, so I still use it as a 28 mm walker.  On the left is the AT-ST model kit that you can buy at some stores.

A note about the AT-ST:  it does have limited parts, but there were some pieces that I have not shown because I didn't want to risk losing them.

At upper left is a Therian Walker from AT-43, in the middle is a Vulkan Battlesuit from the Warzone line from Prince August, and on the right is a Grenadier Walker - I am not sure of what its original name was and I am unsure what line it actually came from.

The miniatures in the front are a Tracked Warbot from Alpha Forge Games, but I am unsure of who has the rights to the molds now, Decker, Steampunk Hero from the Chronoscope line of Reaper, and a Robot from Reviresco.

A New Vehicle to go with the Monotreads

Inspiration

Some of you may have seen my Monotreads, and know that I make them from tape hubs.  I still have a lot of the hubs, so I have to make more vehicles.

Materials

For this project, I will be using the widest of my tape hubs, which is two inches in width.  I am also using the same treads from a Tamiya 1/35th scale SGT York, some sheet plastic, the side sponsons from a Games Workshop Leman Russ tank and some bits from my bits boxes.

The Vehicle

Here are two tape hubs, only one of which I will be using for this project, but I wanted to show the diameter and width of this particular hub.  Also shown is the tread from the Tamiya 1/35th scale SGT York.








This is a picture of the hub after I have prepared the treads and glued them on.  Notice that I have only put the tracks halfway around the hub, and that there is a gap between the two treads.  Obviously, this is not going to be a monotread.  A note about the placement of the treads: the treads extend beyond the edge of the hub a little, or, in other words, the treads are not flush with the edge of the hub.  I will be adding a superstructure over the hub, so only half of the hub needs to have the treads since the other half will not be seen.

This picture shows the placement of the tread on the plastic hub.  You can glue it on flush, but I prefer having the tread extend beyond the edge of the hub.












The Blade

 I had to make a larger blade for this project and I wanted to make it look similar to the blade on the monotruck.  I thought about it for almost a week, looking at various materials that gave me a curve at the bottom, and eventually decided on using the lower wing assembly from the Osprey.  If you follow my projects, you will know that I have already used part of the fuselage from the Osprey to make a cab for a Mech.  If you look closely at the comlete lower wing, you can see some blue lines which are the cuts I made to create the blade.  Below the complete wing are the parts that remained after I made the four cuts to make the blade.

The teeth in the front and the parts of the blade that did not come from the wing were made with scrap plastic sheet and plastic rods.

I am fairly pleased with how the blade turned out, but it took about three days of my spare time to create.  I wish that I could have done it quicker, but because so many components were made from plastic sheet and rod, cutting and shaping was time consuming.

The Hub, Sides, and Blade

Here are the hub with tracks, the two sides (you can see the two sponsons, and the blade.  I still have to fabricate the front, top, back, and the turret.









The Front, Top, and Rear Pieces

At this point, I have glued on the two side pieces to the vehicle, and made the parts that will connect the two sides.  I cut these pieces from scrap plastic except for the piece on the left - I cut it from a 1/35th scale Tamiya vehicle of some sort.  The tube you can see attached to the piece on the right is for crew to exit the vehicle.

Here is the assembled tank so far.  I still need to add a driver's cab and a turret.  Then I will do some weathering so that it doesn't like a box on a tape spool.  This is the front view.

Here is the side view of the same vehicle.














The Somewhat Finished Tank

This is the right side view of the tank.  I haven't done any weathering on the tank yet, so it isn't really finished...but almost.

This is the front view of the tank.  I had done the damage and some weathering on the blade when I painted it, but the tank has been a real problem.  I just used two GW sponsons with heavy bolters for the sides and the turret is made from a part off of a 1/35th scale Tamiya SGT York.  The two barrels are GW autocannons.






This is the left side view of the tank.  The small tube at the bottom right is an escape hatch for the crew.