Making the 2mm Cyber Tank
Posted by Germy | 1st
March 2010
To go with my 2mm miniatures I decided to have a go at a Mega tank
or Cyber tank as found in sci-fi stories like the 'Bolo'. I had a
couple of options on how to do this. Either flat and wide or tall
(a bit like a battleship bridge tower).
I decided to go with the tall option.
Stage one was to build the track unit. My original idea was to build
a tank with four separate track units and a massive tower on top.
Unfortunately I over did the size of the track unit. It ended up being
20mm x 25mm and 8mm high.
So to use four tracks would have made it huge (In fact I still went
on to make a four tracked unit!). So I decided to build the tank with
just one track unit and add a second track behind like a trailer.
Stage 1
The first track design you can see in Stage 1.
I made the main base out of magic sculpt and then added the tracks
with green stuff. But I soon found that I couldn't add the main body
of the tank onto the tracks without it looking like it was just perched
on top.
So I squared off the top of the track unit and added track wheels
and armour plating to cover the wheels. At this point the track unit
started to look more like a conventional tank.
Stage 2
Stage 2 shows the changes and also a first look at scale with a 2mm
Medium tank next to it.This new squared off approach allowed me to
create a tank hull to be placed on to of the unit alot better than
the original design. Magic sculpt was proving much better than green
stuff for this model since I could file it down to make nice sharp
edges.
So still working in magic sculpt, I began work on the cyber tank
superstucture. I first made the main hull to sit on the track unit.
I made this consist of two layers and angled it all by filing down
the sides. Next up was the main tower/bridge again angled by filing
the magic sculpt.
Stage 3
At this point I needed to look at how many weapons and what type I
could put on the main hull. In keeping with the battleship theme I
made a main turret for the front of the hull and intended to make
it look like a battleship turret by adding sveral gun barrels.
I also felt the tower should have some weapons and so taking inspiration
from the hunter killer machine from the Terminator films I added arms
and suspended cannon mounts underneath.
Stage 4
All made out of magic sculpt I kept applying a small amount of glue
to temporarily stick the miniature together (as you can see in the
pictures) to maintain an idea of what the final miniature would look
like.
Adding the weapon barrels saw me using some pre rolled brown stuff
I had lying around. I felt the brown stuff (which sets rock hard unlike
(green stuff) would be ok to act as gun barrels.
However when this model was sent to be produced the gun barrels broke
off and I in fact had to re-make the turrets and gun barrels. Second
time round I used wire (and now always use metal wire) for the gun
barrels. But I did get the battleship look I was after.
To add more fire power I added a missile launcher to the top of the
tower. I drilled small holes in the magic sculpt to act as missile
tubes.
Next it was time to add more detail to the hull and weapons. For this
I decided to use green stuff. Adding small details with the green
stuff as in the bridge windows as well as other details to the hull
the miniature started to look more like what I had intended.
Stage 5
Stage 5 shows more weaponry added to the main hull.
Stage 6
In fact it was at this point that the cyber tank became a bit like
a land train Stage 6.
I made one main trailer hull piece and then made components to that
hull piece so you can turn it into a heli pad, aircraft take off ramp,
missile silo, command unit or cargo unit.
Stage 7
The finished model.
Cyber Tank Specifications:
Height: 25mm
Width: 22mm
Length: 25mm
You can buy the 2mm Cyber Tank from Ground Zero Games