I make absolutely no excuses.
Due to the particular date and its relevance to myself, I was seriously in need of some distraction.
Unfortunately Clan War just wasn't enough... my attack run had been completed and I was bored. So bored I went grocery shopping.
And it was there, in the midst of the supermarket that I spotted what can only be described as a target of opportunity. Sometimes, it takes a little leap of the imagination to be able to discern one form, or part thereof, from another.
What I had actually spied was the stand of Matchbox cars, and in amongst them was a little replica from a certain superhero franchise. You may know it as "The Bat"; I however know it as 'Stealth Mech Torso no.1'...
Rushing home, I searched through my own toy box (the one the kids are banned from...) and found not only some likely weaponry, but a Transformers 'Optimus Prime' key-chain, which we will now refer to as 'hip and leg donor'.
Now I'll stop at this point. Yes, this is going to be a very fast and dirty chop job. So sue me... I wanted a quick project.
The other thing is that a lot of you will be thinking that 'The Bat' is going to be unfeasibly large to fit on those legs.
Sorry, but you are incorrect. You see, as a 'Gentleman of a Certain Age' playing this game, there is a good chance that I came to mecha through another game, perhaps a tabletop one.
That is correct, however you would probably get the game wrong. You see, almost 30 years ago I was a Titan Princeps in command of a Warlord class Battle Titan, courtesy of Games Workshop's 'Adeptus Titanicus'. And as such, the concept of a bipedal mech having a large turtle-shell carapace is nothing new.
And so ensues the fastest mech construction/kitbash I've ever done. The hips are hacked through to leave a pair of legs that are glued to their base and the base is textured. Note that I've set it well forward on the base as the model is going to end up quite back heavy.
A quick base-coat of matte black is applied, and while that is drying the gun barrels have been removed from their donor pieces and glued to the main chassis, turning jet intakes into full blown gun pods.
All that is left is to glue the two halves together (epoxy was needed otherwise the join would be too fragile) and give the model a very quick drybrush of light grey for the base, dark grey as a highlight for the body and gunmetal for the weapons and mesh grills.
And now all that's needed is to get some pics of it in a nice terrain setting!
I hope these articles inspire or prompt you to have a stab at your own creations, and we'd certainly love to see some pictures of your own work.
Submitted by David McCallum #701548