HERMES MkII Air Assault (3)

Hi all,

thank you for your feedback and comments.

In my part of Germany the summer is very hot and very humid - murky - and we have quite a lot thunderstorms.

One could say Germany now has "rainy season".
It makes working and live a bit exhausting, breaking sweat just by moving a finger :P

But I got to work a bit more on the HERMES.

I started off with cutting the wood to the base size (30x30cm).

Then I built up the mountain on which the air assault is to happe´n.

I used Styrofoam as base.

And covered everything up with cheap masking tape.

I want it to look as if the HERMES is hovering above ground while unloading the troops.

Once satisfied with everything I covered it with instant plaster.

And while the plaster was still wet I added sand and little rocks. The sand is standard bird cage sand and some small black deco rocks.

The HERMES on the cured mountain section.

While the plaster cured I started to build some assault rifles and dismantled heavy weapons.
You can see I folded the tripod for the heavy Bolter and mounted the bi-pod for the mortar to the tube in a folded position.

Next I started to position the troops.

As you can see there's still a lot to do, much, much cleanup.

What do you think so far?
Cheers

Klaus

HERMES MkII Air Assault (2)

Hi all,

thank you for your feedback and comments.

In case you haven't seen it, I merged all ATHENA posts into one page:

 http://fischers-design-shop.blogspot.de/p/athena.html

But be warned, it is huge and will take a long time to load.

The build of the HERMES continued over the last few days, and I think I made good progress.

First I added the intake fan.

 

 

Then the first armor panels and the front grill.

 

More panels.

 

After that I started to build up the passenger pod.

 

 

Fits snugly under the body.

 

Other than the VIP pod, this one has sliding doors.

 

 

 

As Malevengion commented:

One thing I wonder about the HERMES design is how is it intended to maneuver? It's got plenty of thrust and vectored thrust nozzles for VTOL capability but seems a bit light on control surfaces. Of course, it's a bit of a roar in there and cause carnage sort of aircraft so it works (and it's looking good too!) but that's just my take. I look forward to seeing this diorama come along!

Maneuver? We're Imperial Guard! We only go straight! And we're only going forward 'cause we can't find reverse :)

Just kidding.
I added some flaps to the fins (top and side) that should allow some additional maneuver force to the various thrusters.

With most of the inside completed I worked on the passenger pod.

First was the bench.

 

 

GreenStuff for the cushions.

 

 

And some holders for the seats (in open position).

 

 

Mounted together with some grab handles.

 

Almost done!

Still needs the lights and a million of rivets :)

 

I really like this version of the HERMES.

What do you think?
Cheers

klaus

HERMES MkII Air Assault (1)

Hi all,

thank you for the feedback!

Feels funny to be finally done with the ATHENA.

I have a collage up at Coolminiornot:

http://www.coolminiornot.com/401100

the score is OK so far.

As previously mentioned I have an idea for a dio with a militarized version of the HERMES conducting an air assault and dropping off some troops.
The first sketch for the MkII version shows the new nose and the chin mounted mini-gun.

I had the mini-gun already built a few weeks ago for the "Meeting of Scouts" diorama but didn't use it. So now it will be a part of the new HERMES.

Since the pieces are almost identical to the original HERMES the build was pretty fast.

Here's a comparison between the MkI and MkII

Next up were the wings and rotatable fins.

As usual the generous help of Green Putty was required :)

I changed the details a bit and here you can see the rear fin being rotated to a "forward" position, while the front fin is rotated to the "landing" position.

But for the diorama both will be in the landing position.

The MkII also received two auto-cannons for the wings.

The start of the rear/main thruster.

Not exactly the same as on the MkI

But looks similar :)

Then I built the thrusters for the nose and underbelly

But they were too high - not looking good!

So I built another set of thrusters and they are now the same height as the MkI HERMES.

Next I added some details to the chin gun - mainly the ammo feed.

The pilots windows are also a bit different form the original ones.

Finally I built some rocket launchers for under the wings.

Only 7 shots each, but a nice extra punch I think.

And they look good on the HERMES.

This is as far as I got :)
I hope you like it.

Cheers

Klaus

ATHENA finished

Hi all,

thank you!

 

You're feedback is making me all mush inside :P

 

As promised some good images of the final ATHENA.

 

I still owed you another scale shot of the Eisenkerns with the WH40K troopers and the TTGG officer.

Finally done with painting, I cleaned the desk.

And set up everything for the images - the ATHENA is really huge :)

The Welder,

Painter

Reception

Flight deck

ATHENA's lights

the rear mural

flight deck and conference room

conference room

and another of the flight deck.

And some daylight images of the ATHENA.

Enjoy!

And a final scale shot :)

Thank you!