Friday 4 July 2014

Zombie Control Vehicle

Introduction

This is my second complete kit bash so please be gentle in the comments box at the end of this page. Like all good kit bashes I suppose that a theme or basis for the idea has to be in place before you start so that a good idea can't go drastically wrong. I have also taken into account the vehicle that I have for this project. Its a WWII Universal Carrier from Tamiya. There is no reason why I chose this other than it was a cheap second hand purchase from e-bay that had a few parts missing.

The background of the vehicle

Taking into account my theme of a post apocalyptic zombie control vehicle and the medium I will be using, a WWII vehicle.I am going to construct this vehicle on the premiss that in a post apocalyptic world, usable military vehicles have become something of a rarity so the remains of human kind have had to adapt vehicles that they find from anywhere, possibly a museum (you see where I'm going with this hopefully) to use in the fight against controlling the zombie population and restricting them to the outer reaches of the destroyed cities that the survivors now live.

The construction

I have decided to keep the vehicle body and running gear roughly the same as supplied. As I stated this will be an adapted vehicle for modern use rather than a ground up construction. I did however want to alter the look of the vehicle somewhat so I have began to cut away large portions of the upper structure that I will not be using or wish to alter in some way:
























I have extended the drivers cab to the very front of the vehicle and cut the front bulkhead wall away so that only the engine cover remains in the cab section. At the moment you can see the alterations quite easily as the Tamiya plastic is a light brown and the plastic card I used as extension pieces is white. I also wanted to add some form of main weapon to the vehicle, much like the flak conversions that I have seen on the internet. I just wanted to add a little bit of modern twist to it. I have a PAK that I made back in 2000 that I was never really happy with so I think that I will dismantle this model and use some of the parts.




















The photo above and left should clearly show the front cab alterations. You should also see the beginnings of a structural mount that I have began to make for the main weapon which I have now decided will be a flame thrower. For the flame thrower section I have dismantled the PAK from the photo above and chopped quite a lot from the swivel mount. I added some plates and a length of styrene rod to it for a little substance. The barrel was cut down slightly and a piece of larger styrene tube has been added to the end. This will be drilled and eventually have burn/charcoal added to the end to simulate smoke discharge from the flame-thrower operation. I will also fabricate a chair mount on the other end of the barrel. At this point in the process I don't really know what else I'm going to do! The following photos are progress to date






































This is another project which has stalled for the moment. Its not because I have lost interest or enthusiasm for it; it is because Masterbox have announced a zombie figure kit release in the near future which I think will be a prefect addition to this vehicle. Basically as soon as I get hold of their kit once its released, this will come out of storage and make an appearance on my work bench once again.








The Re-Start

Well its been a while since this project was updated but I now have some new figures and renewed enthusiasm for this dio. The kits that I will be adding to this project are:



















One of the first jobs that I decided to do as a way of re-introducing myself to the project was painting the kit-bashed vehicle. I have opted for a light dusting of white over the entire surface of the vehicle in the fist instance







































I also decided that as well as the lone "non-zombie" figure provided with the kit, I would need a few more to represent some of the "team" that comes with the vehicle. I opted to use an old figure from Tamiya's JGSDF reconnaissance set and two figures from Dragons Seal team 3 kit





















The figures from both kits are of very good quality and very little work was required to put them together. The following pictures are of the various figures in stages of painting:


More updates when I resume this project later in the year






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