Eisenkrieger is building a Dark Age Atlas XD

[=9th= Eisenkrieger]

Hi guys of the Battletech-community,

I thought I’ll gonna introduce myself to you with my  newest project, a 1/35-scale polystyrene-model of an Atlas out of the Dark Age-series. For that, I bought a WizKids-miniature a few weeks ago and started measuring this little thing, as I haven’t found any better sample of one of my favorite mechs. Of course, I still need to modify many of the detail parts, but to get the shape of it, the tiny plastic model turned out quite useful. A little bit about my person: I am a semi-professional modeler, starting to build and paint plastic models as a little child for about 25 years ago. Until now, I have built several hundreds of kits and miniatures, including some self-built models, too.
Luckily for me and my hobby, I started an occupational retraining a few months ago, which means I am learning design draftsman by using a 2D/3D-CAD-tool called Solid Edge ST2. This allows me to draw my own models in the right scale, printing them onto paper to use the drawn parts as cut-outs and transfer the shapes onto 2mm thick polystyrene-sheets. I am learning 3D now, which is quite effective as I can convert the constructed parts into 2-dimensional drawings, too. Of course, it is really time-expensive as I have to measure each surface, each part of this only 7,5cm tall miniature, scale it up into 1/35 scale, and do the drawings in Solid Edge. When finished, the Atlas should be about half a meter tall, so that it could be a nice counter-part for my MadCat.
First, here’s a picture of the WizKids-thing:



I started with a some kind of easy part, the rocket launcher which is mounted at it’s chest:




And now the converted drawing into 2D, ready to get printed-out:


The forearm-armor followed:


The knee-armor:


And, the last part until now, the left thigh:


Due to some problems with my camera, I hope I can post the first constructed polystyrene parts this weekend! And sorry for my bad english, too (well, it's not so bad after all and you can read AND understand what I am writing  )

[~SJ~KorbinWimmer]

cool stuff


good luck

[=9th= Eisenkrieger]

Thanks!

Due to my little lack of time, I needed some extra time to get the rocket launcher pod (at least its body shell) done. It has a lack of details for now; I still to add some and finish its rear side with the armor fins. The holes for the rockets were drilled, trimmed and counterbored. Just not some black colored plastic! There's some space behind them, giving a little bit more depth so that I can fit the rocket dummies easier. Man, drawing the launcher in 3D took me much less time than building it!



The rear side of the launcher, with 2 of the armor fins mounted and glued into position. Sadly, you can't see anything of the nylon mesh which I had glued onto the rear plate, so that you just won't see only a black surface when looking through the breaches between the armor fins.

[Deathbane]

This is going to be of considerable size! Keep it up, looking forward to more!

[-SM-SUCKER]

considerable size!

My thoughts exactly. I am eager to see more of this.

[[IPA] Thalamus]

... considerable size!

Those are probably the words the first mechwarrior used who first faced an Atlas on the battlefield

[Stahlseele]

i would like to know more and to subsribe to your newsletter!
also, what is the unfinished ship in the background?

[=9th= Eisenkrieger]

Thank you for your feedback and your kind words.
@ Stahlseele: What exactly do you want to know more? About the Atlas, the drawings, or the building of the parts? The ship in the background is another projects of me, the WW2 german heavy cruiser "Admiral Hipper" in 1/160 scale.

[-SM-SUCKER]

Do you also paint your models?
And are there any other finished products?

[=9th= Eisenkrieger]

Yes, I also paint my models, using airbrush and / or brushes. Here are some samples of some of my finished kits (sadly I have no pics of finished self-built models) on my account.

































































As you can see, I have a little fable for mechas ^^. If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

[[CG]Anastasius Focht]

Fantasic modelling and photography there.

Inspiring stuff

[[NGNG] Cattra]

That is amazing work and craftsmanship.

Q.Depending on how well the Atlas turns out, would you consider doing others in the future? (maybe not the same size)

Q. How long does each model take usually or estimated (not including paint)?  Including paint?

[[CG]Anastasius Focht]

Heres my CBT Atlas, balsa and bits (ie thumb tack for comms dish)



Looking forward to seeing a DA version

[=9th= Eisenkrieger]

Thank you for your kind words, guys *gettting a red face*
@ Cattra Kell:
Question 1:
Well, of course I am already thinking about building other mechs when the Atlas gets finished. Definetively the next one would be a MadCat Mk2, as I really love this huge beast! But its superstructure is much more complicated, and I have no model of it to measure the parts. That's why I contacted Pytak a few months ago (thanks again, pal!) to make some screenshots of a Mk2, but it turned out that I would need some more infos about the Mk2 than just a few pictures. A great help would be some mesh screens or texture templates so that I can scale the parts of it. Then, if this project should fail (the Mk2), I am a great fan of a NovaCat. This would be somehow easier, as I have a WizKids miniature of it and there are dozens of pictures of it available. And I would also love to build a CBT Atlas like on the picture below. All of them would be in the same scale so that I could display them together in a little diorama or so. But until then, I think some years will pass as building a kit on your own is much, much more work than "simply" buying a plastic model kit.

Question 2:
Well, this depends on the size of the kit, it's amount of parts and / or the complexity of the paint job (natural, realistic, used, damaged, camouflage patterns and so on). The first mech, the A.U.G.E., took about 30-40 hours of building and painting, for example (by the way, it won the first prize during the Winter Contest 2007). The red one (Major Riddens Zaku) took as about 30 hours due to its about 300 parts which all need to get removed from its sprues, cut the seam lines off, dry fit and glue the parts together, filling the gaps between the parts, sand and smoothen the surface, apply several coats of color, apply the outlines with a very fine marker, apply decals and so on).
The green Zaku had nearly 350 parts and took due to its used and damaged look about 35 hours. The 2nd blue guy, the monstrous 30cm Gouf Custom with the gatling, took  about 50 hours (well, nearly 600 parts including wires, screws, 15 LED's, and so on).




The giant gatling gun was bought additionally, but I needed to replace all of the gun barrels with selfmade ones:




Now to the Warhammer miniatures:
The first one, Harry the Hammer, on his throne of skulls, required about 20 hours (mostly for painting).
The Chaos General about 10 hours. Here you can see how many paints I had used for this only 4cm tall guy:


This one is getting finished within this month; Chillers Ice Machine from the cartoon series Ring Raiders. Everything is painted with airbrush! I took several hours to create the different masking foils for its ice-blue color sheme:






Hope that I would not overflow the forum with my pictures XD

@ Focht:
I love your army of balsa mechs! Really great stuff, and I know how many hours you have spent on each of them!

[-SM-SUCKER]

Wow, Eisenkrieger, you got some skills in painting little figures.