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Thanks to [maCe] for this.
This Tutorial is for creating modular hammerheads and devilfishes from the base chassis, adding on weapons, parts etc as needed. Inspired by the Tau Modeling tips page on 40K Online. There are several other hammerhead and devilfish related hints and tips posted on the forums, which really deserve a mention:
Anyway, onto the main stuff. This article is available below, as a text only version, or in an (updated) PDF form. Below are the links to the PDF files, for the text only version of this article (please note it's in less detail) please keep scrolling down.
You will need Adobe Reader to view/print the files.
1) Construct the hull: Only the main parts; don't glue on drones, engines, or the top crew hatch - for extra detail, hinge the side hatches. The rear hatch is designed to be hinged, so don't glue that on.
2) Construct the engines, railgun, ion cannon, weapons drone (Without any weapons), burst cannons, missile pods, and the top crew hatch (Hinge it properly) and the Fire Warrior crew member. Do not glue these parts to anything else!
The following should be left over: The 'C' piece and dome of the front turret, the turret ring, the targeting array, seeker missile and the sensor spine.
3) You can put the engines on now if you want, just don't glue them as it allows them to swivel etc.
This section shows how to handle the turrets, using either blu-tac, magnets or green-stuff.
The main turret should be pretty obvious, but what about the front one and the drones?
With a little bit of snapping etc, you can swap the guns the drones have between the smart missile system and burst cannons, just be careful not to snap the mounts!
As long as you didn't glue the 'C' piece and the dome together, this can all be held together in place without glue, once the 'T' piece is in place.
Attach this to the front turret using blu-tac, or glue on some spare 'T' shaped sprues (Or simply something to hold it in place.)
This section shows how to handle the conversion between devilfish and hammerhead.
[Devilfish and its components]
[Completed hammerhead with railgun and burst cannons]
[Completed Devilfish]
[Ionhead and all the components involved]
I got around to working on the front turret, with the 'no magnets' method for having the targeting array and burst cannon swappable.
I did this by adding a 'T' piece of sprue that has a small lip cut into it so that it can glue cleanly with the targeting array. When finished, it more or less allows it to be held in place easily between the turret and the 'C' piece, whilst being easily removable (my previous tests ended up putting a lot of strain on the sprue and making it unfeasible as an option). It's approximately 3 mm between the piece and the cross part of the sprue, and the top of the 'T' is around 9 mm long.
Basically, when its mounted it can't move up or down, due to the chassis of the tank and the piece that holds the front turret in place. The only thing is stopping it from falling out of the front turret. So I cut a piece of sprue, glued it on, so that the sprue can fit within the mounting pieces of the front turret, as seen in the second picture above, whilst leaving room for the turret to be able to turn.
This approach takes the least effort and the least modification of parts, whilst keeping the burst cannon moveable when mounted in the front turret.
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| Comment made by wenicher on 03:34:13, 27 February 2008 |
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| nice love the paint job, simple but effective i bet ur fire worriors look good 2 |
| Comment made by insanetau on 13:18:08, 23 February 2008 |
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| nice. i might be an insane tau, but you sure are kais (skillfull in tau) |
| Comment made by mabbz on 10:44:27, 12 November 2007 |
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| incredible paintwork. i once saw a purple and black fish with florescent green in the cracks |
| Comment made by Shas'O Check'Sa Bar'naby Kias on 06:48:14, 21 October 2007 |
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| clever use of t pieces |
| Comment made by rocker360 on 11:33:41, 15 October 2007 |
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| nice |
| Comment made by Karashi Lissera on 12:45:56, 29 May 2007 |
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| Hmmm it is all ways good to know some tricks |
| Comment made by n0valoco on 09:10:19, 27 March 2007 |
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| There's a simular process for the Skyray that's even easier. Don't put the 'top hat' under the turret and it should stay on nicely. Do the magnet steps for the front mount and you're good to go. |
| Comment made by stsonic on 06:21:39, 19 November 2006 |
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| nice =D |
| Comment made by spitfire on 08:02:54, 4 September 2006 |
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| i gave it a ten coz i like ur paint job on hammerhead, im gona copy it tho but wi black and green =] |
| Comment made by Tau Online on 00:27:12, 8 August 2006 |
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| No worries, I've changed your vote now! Yeah this is a really nice article, I gave it a 9. |
| Comment made by azr9 on 10:26:46, 7 August 2006 |
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| eek i incedently gave it a rating of 1 !!!!!! i give it a ten or so. nice! |
