Converting a 1/72 scale M113 to 15mm scale Rhino/Razorback

Hi, folks. I've been working on converting a 1/72 scale Bravo Team M113 to a 15mm scale Rhino or Razorback. A while back I read on TMP that the design of the GW Rhino and similar vehicles is based on the M113 APC. I was concerned though that a 1/72 scal vehicle would be too large for 15mm. I got hold of a Bravo Team M113 in 1/72 scale and saw that it had a lot of potential. There was also a thread on the DakkaDakka forum discussing scale of GW vehicles and one of the posters posted a size comparison of a M113 with a Rhino. This confirmed my opinion that these Bravo Team M113s are appropriately scaled for use as 15mm Rhinos, Razorbacks, Predators and Vindicators.


The OP, Holden88 on the DakkaDakka forum said "So now we can determine what the real world dimensions of a Rhino would be based on the model. It measures 12 cm in length and 5 cm in height. Multiply these values by a factor of 2 we get. Length = 24 feet. Height = 10 feet."

The 1/72 scale Bravo Team M113 measures 1 inch high and and is about 2 3/4 inches long, making it scale out almost the same as a Rhino at 10' high and ~ 27 feet long.

My conversion is very basic. I added some plasticard from a "For Sale" sign to the sides, with a plasticard hatch added on the left side. There was already a couple of nice vents on the M113, I just made a cut-out in the plasticard to show them. I was unable to create the inset detail from the GW model so just used some cereal box card to create raised angled detail on the front and rear of the sides instead. The vertical detail in the place where a Rhino has the exhaust(?) was made with some sections of 4 15mm brads for a staple gun. Then I added a thin strip of cereal card to the front of the M113 and placed a couple of square ports made from pieces of granny grate. Next I removed the turret from the M113 model and replaced that with a hatch made from a 1/2" round magnet. I use those magnets for bases for my 15mm minis and had some sitting on the workbench and noticed that they appeared to be the right size. They fit so I used them as the base for my top hatch and Razorback gun. The Razorback gun is made from a couple of gun bitz from the Hirst Arts Industrial Accessory Mold #326 glued to a light from the same mold. Then it was ready for paint. I disassembled the M113 and glued neodynium magnets to the underside of both the hatch and the area where the Razorback gun turret sits, That way the hatch stays in place and I can swap the gun turret on or off to represent either a Razorback or Rhino. Paint was just a black spray primer and multiple coats of Folk Art Cobalt Blue craft paint. I then added a few paper emblems for decoration. I still need to go in and some detail paint, and maybe a black wash but it's mostly done. Here's some pics.


Rhino config



Razorback config
Different view of Razorback

Rhino with a couple of Blue Moon Orion Republic Heavy Infantry.

I've got another M113 sitting on the workbench partially painted. I may try to come up with a Predator style turret for that one.

Thanks for looking,

Luckyjoe

15mm Space Dungeon Test Pieces

This is a little test piece for a 15mm space dungeon/ship/hulk/whatever. It's made using the Hirst Arts 1" Starship Deck Mold #270 and the Starship Wall Mold #301. The wallpieces are made to be 1.5" tall standing upright but for my 15mm scale build I'm just laying them on their sides so they will be 1" tall. I'll probably just use the 1" floor tiles with industrial edge mold pieces for corridors. See below.


Alternatively, I could just follow Bruce Hirst's tutorial for his Space Hulk project but switching out the 1.5" floor tiles he used for 1" floor tiles yielding what you see below.



The other option I'm considering is an arena style build wherein you cover the floor surface of the entire gameboard with floor tiles and then just use wall sections to delineate rooms or corridors. See below.


I like the sort of claustrophobic feel of the arena type set-up. The taller walls help give that impression for me.

Also the tight quarters give you the "Crap, what's around this corner?" kind of feel.













Anybody have any suggestions or favorites?

Anyway, thanks for looking. C&C welcome.

Luckyjoe

Bravo Team 1/72 scale M113

Hi, folks. I found this baby when I was shopping in Target. It's a Unimax Bravo Team 1/72 scale M113. It came as part of a set with some 1/72 scale pre-painted infantry and some scenery bits for $9.99. I got the only one they had. If they had more I would have bought them. The scenery bits included are a telephone pole, swing-arm gate, sandbag bunker, a couple of barrels, and a nice little pull-cart. If anyone is interested I will try to post pics of the scenery pieces. I really like this M113. It's made by the same company who made the Forces of Valor stuff. Apparently Bravo Team pieces are less detailed than the FOV, but I think it will work fine for my intended use. Which will be to paint it blue and use it as a not-Space Marine Rhino for 15K.


Rear view


Front view


M113 with some of my Blue Moon Orion Republic Heavy Infantry for scale.

Thanks for looking,

Luckyjoe

15K - 15mm Blue Moon Orion Republic Heavy Infantry

Hi, folks. I've been working on some of the new Blue Moon Orion Republic Heavy Infantry minis. Managed to get 10 of them ready for pics. These are great minis, well-sculpted and come 10 unique sculpts to a pack for $6. I'm planning to use them as not - Space Marines in 15mm 40K (15K). When I saw Spacejacker's excellent paintjob of these minis he posted back in July on the Tiny Solitary Soldiers blog I knew I had found my not - SMs. No way I can match the beautiful cammie paint job he did so I just went with a standard blue for the armor with gray or silver details on the armor, silver weapons and visors, and a black wash to bring out detail.


This is the leader. I painted his armor detail silver instead of gray. I'm trying to come up with a powerfist or chain sword for him. Any suggestions?


Heavy weapons guy. He has a stand to support the weapon but I chose to omit it.



One of the 5-man squads.




I've got 20 more of these guys halfway painted on the table now as well. Once finished I'll have a good 500point army for 15K. Thanks for looking,

Luckyjoe

15K Armies - Khurasan Minis Space Demons

This is my not-Tyranid army. 3 Space Demon Queens (center) as the HQ unit. 1 pack of 8 each of the Space Demon Warrior varieties; Hammerhead, Assault, and Infiltrator. I'll probably divide those into 2 units of 10 or 12. I love these little guys, Great scupts and they paint up easily. I did a simple, basic paint job on them. Black spray basecoat, yellow drybrush, MinWax dip, touch up yellow again, sand and flock bases.

Thanks for looking.

15mm "Necros" created from Rebel Minis Scourge

Here's some Rebel Minis Scourge I converted to be not-Necrons for "15K". These will be up against some Khurasan minis Space Demons (not-Tyranids), some Blue Moon Orion Republic Heavy Infantry (not-Space Marines), and some 15mm.co.uk Shia Khan (not-Orks). This is a project I've sort of had in progress for awhile but am finally ready to pursue.

Easily enough for a 750 point army with:
1 Lord
3 Destroyers
4 Scarab bases
2 Units of 10 Warriors


Lord conversion

Another shot of the Lord showing one of the Scourge I used to create him. Conversion steps: Cut off the pistol, drilled through the hand, inserted a staff made from a piece of wire topped with a portion of a GW shield emblem. Used a piece of another GW shield to make the claws for the left hand. Then added a cape made from a piece of pie pan foil.


"Destroyer" conversions

The "destroyers" were made from Rebel Minis Scourge Heavy Weapons Team and GW scarabs


That leads to the last unit. Some bases of not-scarabs. These were some vaguely scarab shaped GW shield emblems from my bitz box.

If you go to Rebel minis site you'll see that this army cost about $18. :) This will be a really easy army to expand to 1000 pts. I can easily make some more Destroyers and scarabs, and someday I may try my hand at a 15mm not-monolith. Stay tuned for updates on the 3 other armies. I just got some more Khurasan Minis Space Demons in today's mail and already have a bunch painted and based, so that will probably be the next one ready.

Thanks for looking,

Luckyjoe

Sci Fi Diceroller Update

Hi, folks. We did a little touch-up painting on Mark's Dicetower and added some pics of the lighting effects from putting in a tea light. He still needs to base the diceroller, but it's almost done.


This is the back of the diceroller. Did a little touch up painting.


The pic above shows a little battery-operated tealight that cycles through different colors. Picked up a few packs of them on sale BigLots. Mark got the idea of attaching one to the underside of the roof with a piece of poster-tac. The pics below shows the lighting effect while it's doing the blue color.





The pic above shows the roof and some of the retouch on the side.
Here's a link to the previous post on this if you hadn't seen it. I think it cleaned up pretty nicely. http://ljshobbyspot.blogspot.com/2010/08/sci-fi-dice-tower.html
I like the way the lighting looks. It adds a lot to the build and was a really easy additiion. Thanks for looking,

Luckyjoe

28mm Dropship WIP

Hi, everybody. A while back I saw an excellent thread on the Lead Adventures Forums by Ironworker on converting a GI Joe Cobra gunship for use in 28mm wargames. I thought that was a really cool project so I went looking for one of those GI Joe Cobra Gunships to convert. Unfortunately, when I found it it was $25, and that was a little too expensive for my conversion budget. Eventually, I found a Secret Saturdays Griffin Stealth Plane at BigLots on deep discount for $5 so I picked it up. It's not as cool as the Cobra but $5 makes it Ok for me :).

I had to do a little work on it. I cut off the big orange button on the back that fires the missiles, disabled the pop-up panels that conceal/reveal the missile launchers and glued them shut, redid the canopy, covered the round hole that came from removing the missile firing button with a Hirst Arts gun, primed it and gave it a black wash.

Here's a pic with a Space Marine for size reference.



It reminds me a little of a Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet WW2 Fighter so I was thinking of painting it in the classic camo of blue underbelly with a forest canopy style top. Then I saw this paint scheme on http://www.fritzthefox.com/german_camo_guide.html. What a great site. Gotta love the interwebs.



I like that night camo pattern. I think it will look cool and will be relatively easy. Anyone have any tips on how to do that? Anyway, thanks for looking.

Luckyjoe

WIP 40K Terrain with Hirst Arts

Hi, folks. Back again with another update. My son Bob designed and built a couple of small pieces of terrain for some upcoming 40K Kill Team games. So far they have been built and primed but still need painting.

The first is a small guard tower. Very simple design but nice and open.


My son Mark designed and built these AA guns for the tower from the Industrial Accessory Mold #326, the Machinery Builder Mold #327 and a floor tile base from the Starship Deck Mold #270. I really like the way these guns came out. Simple construction but an effective piece.


Bob's design is pretty cool. He used a variety of bricks from several of the sci-fi molds. I like the way he used the ladder pieces from the Large Grate Accessory Mold #279 both for the access ladder and the platform railing.



Next piece is a bunker. Bob built it with another mix from the sci-fi molds.

Front

Interior with control center


Side view with firing ports


Roof with ventillation fans


Another side view with firing ports


External piping and machinery

Well, there they are. I like these two pieces even if I am biased in favor of the builders. :) It's especially nice because we got some nice terrain and I didn't have to do any work. Thanks for looking,

Luckyjoe

15mm Sci Fi Tank Garage

Hi, folks. I've been casting a lot of Hirst Arts bricks for a numer of projects and made a little tank garage/repair facility for our 15mm SciFi stuff. Really simple design and easy to build. I gave it some blast type doors at either end to make it sort of a "Ro-Ro" design (roll in/roll out). The roof lifts off. It's based on mdf. I tried something new with the detailing. I bought one of those fine tipped Nail Art pens at Walmart and tried it out to blackline some of the detail. It worked really well but didn't last very long for $7. I also got a red and blue one. The red was gloppy and didn't work nearly as well as the black. Haven't tried the blue yet. Anyway, back on track. I used a Rebel Minis 15mm Earth Force Marine for size reference. Here's mo' pics:






In the picture above there is what is supposed to be a force field door represented by the green plastic. Unfortunately, it has a piece of blue masking tape I used to protect during painting which I can't get off. I'm going to try some "Goo-Gone" adhesive remover. Maybe that will fix it.

Anyway, thanks for looking. And C&C welcome :)

Luckyjoe