149 - Guns...Miniguns
Hello all. Every now and then, you look at a model and decide that there is just something fundamentally wrong with it. Well the other day, I was staring at my Valkyrie, Sword, on my shelf and decided that the heavy bolters in the doors are absolutely ridiculous.
I'm sure many of you will have come to that conclusion as well. They just don't look like they'll be able to do anything other than cause catastrophic damage to the Valkyrie's wings! In my desperation for something less rubbish, I started browsing the internet and found a few pictures like these:
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| http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/V-22_M240_machine_gun.jpg |
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| http://i46.tinypic.com/1zn67w0.jpg |
Both images used without permission.
Now here you have a much better solution. A rear ramp gunner that can lay down suppressing fire without blowing the wings off. With a solution planned, it was just down to building the thing - back to the internet. This time I went searching for guns - sci-fi machine guns, miniguns grenade launchers, anything that would fit.
After much searching, and a bit of frustration, I went back to a site that I had used to get some bases from and that I new did some really cool looking weapons - Anvil Industry. I began browsing through their weapons options and had a few ideas jotted down, but the light-bulb moment came when I went on to their Afterlife page, which is all of the models they created through their successful Kickstarter a few months ago.
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| https://www.anvilindustry.co.uk/image/data/logoanvil.png |
Used without permission
All it took was a few minutes and I had the weapon that I was after. Behold, the Republic Taurus Gun Tractor with minigun:
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| http://www.anvilindustry.co.uk/image/cache/data/AFTERLIFE/Gun%20Tractors/tractor-minigun1-400x400.jpg |
Image used without permission
Unfortunately, I didn't want to spend £20 to get some guns and then have some left over tractor units that I would then need to find a use for (though using them as Tarantula sentry guns was a possibility). I sent the guys at Anvil a quick message asking if they sold the weapons separately, and explained what I was planning to do with them. Not too much time passed before I got a response: they don't sell them separately, but they were willing to. A little bit of price negotiation later and a few more bits from their regular range added to order and the guns were on their way.
And of course disaster strikes and Royal Mail manage to lose the parcel! Never fear though, as Joel and his team at Anvil have top notch customer service. After another quick email, Joel offered to send me out a replacement order and included some of the other weapon options as well for free! This replacement delivery arrived safe and sound.
With all of the bits here, I was able to do a quick mock up of what I am going for. So here is my rear ramp gun for a Valkyrie:
I ended up hacking the original mounting arm for the heavy bolter to shorten it a little, and also accidentally gave the gun a bit of a tilt. The minigun just looks awesome in there. I will be doing a tutorial on this as my next post, which will have more pictures and a lot more info on what I actually did (it was surprisingly easy!).
Thanks for reading and let me know what you think.
3 comments:
Project looks good so far :)
Joel & tea are excellent if there are issues, or you have a special project in mind :)
That is a wicked awesome idea for a gun mount...and the fact it works so well is even better! Nice find on that mini gun!
Thanks for the comments. I'm working on the tutorial at this very moment so that should be done this week.
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