Friday 25 November 2016

Pimp My Ship


They say patience is a virtue and that learning to wait will make you a better, stronger and more well-rounded human being. Well I'm not sure who 'they' are, but they can stick their virtues up their waste hole. Impatience, impulse and general knee jerking is in the water here in OB Towers (be careful of drinking from the water coolers) and we can't wait for squat.

Corvettes seem important, we all think. Troops will win you games in Dropfleet Commander, so stopping Dropships and Bulk Landers getting to the surface could be key. The most efficient way to stop troops landing is to knock out the Frigates and Cruisers which send these men and ladies to their doom, and destroying the ships in the loneliness of space and committing partial genocide. And what's good at killing Frigates which are bound to be in atmosphere? Corvettes! So yes, they seem to be important.

There is an issue though, in that there are no models out, and there aren't even any on the release schedule at the moment! So before we all get the arsehole with waiting and staple Dave to CAD, we have decided to kit bash our own!

I mentioned in our first battle report that we had kit bashed our own Corvettes, and I'm here to not only show you mine, but also give you a guide on how to build your own!

For this task you will require;
  • One Scourge Cruiser sprue
  • One Scourge Frigate sprue
  • Pin vice and drill bit
  • Metal to pin (a paperclip for instance)
  • Super glue
  • Modelling Knife
  • Clippers
  • General common sense in how to use tools and glue
  • An adult to supervise if you are younger than 18 or admittedly a clutz (I'm only allowed to craft when my wife is in just in case I have a Danccident; our first aid box has been renamed 'Dan's Moron Box')
  • A big, warm, lovely cup of tea (exchangeable with Coffee, if not English)

The following steps will show you how to make two Corvettes. If you want one, use your common sense and half the components!

Step A) I'm going for steps in letters rather than numbers, check my Maverick stylz. 

Clip the components from the sprues. You will need bits number 10, 11 (pic. 2), 24 and 25 (pic. 1) from the Cruiser sprue, and also the Djinn 'guns' from the Frigate sprue (pic. 3). Remember to trim those mould lines!





Step B) Next up use your pin vice to drill a hole in the ball socket joint in each of your Djinn 'guns', snip your pin to size (pic. 4) and super glue the two halves together to form the body of your Corvette (pic. 5). I added superglue to only the ball socket joints. In order to make sure that both sides were level when gluing I pressed lightly on the pinned area and on the top and underside of the tip of the ship.


Step C) Trim the bobbly sensor parts from the outside of components 24 and 25, and glue the trimmed sides together (pic6). You will need to hold them firmly in place to ensure the tips on one end meet and and on the other end splay. This forms the undercarriage of the ship. Heh, undercarriage sounds funny.

Step D) Take your Corvette's body and turn it upside down, and then glue the the undercarriage to the underside of the ship as shown in Pic.7. You want to have the narrow end face the front of the ship and the splayed end at the back. You can have the splayed end point either up or down as a point of personal taste; I chose to have them point up (copy pic.7 for this build), although you might notice that I accidentally glued one undercarriage facing the wrong way. #numpty


Step E) Take parts 10 and 11 and clip and trim the semi-circle on the inside of the parts totally off, so it forms a smooth panel (no pics, sorry, but what I mean will be evident when you see the parts. The semi-circle is used to attach the part to a Cruiser wing normally). Glue both parts to the undercarriage of your ship as shown in Pic. 8, with the curve of the part marrying the curve of the ship's body.

Step F) Attach flight stand. How you do this is your choice; I have pinned the flight sticks into the bodies of my Corvettes because I couldn't be bothered to faff with widgits!

Step G) Take your finished Corvette and fly it around the room, being careful to make no noise because of the imaginary vacuum you're currently inhabiting. 

And there you have it. I had the luxury of having Djinn pieces spare due to my Kickstarter bonanza, but you are bound to build four Gargoyles at some point giving you the spare pieces necessary. Let me know if you found this helpful, and if you've kit bashed some Corvettes for yourself!




Fun Fact; I can craft when my wife is out, but she really has written Dan's Moron Box on out first aid box in permanent marker, Can you feel the love?

4 comments:

  1. I think I like your corvettes better that the ones I made over on my BOW post and think I will try to make up a set.
    Thanks guys
    Maloquinn

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  2. nice conversion. I used the troop carrier bitz from CA spru and added so other bobs and nobs

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  3. I like these but want the Djinn! Made mine with the troop carrier bits and leftover Hvy Cruiser conning towers.

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  4. Interesting. They look very, erm... vagina-esque... :-?

    Thanks for taking the time to take pics and doing a step-by-step. My kitbashing skills are limited, so any help I can get is appreciated... 8^D

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