Flamethrower walker

flamethrower walker, originally uploaded by Wahj.

Continuing with the Gear Krieg scratch-building, my latest project was this flamethrower equipped walker.

This one is almost entirely scratchbuilt, with only the fuel tanks on the back scavenged from an Airfix T-34 kit. The hull is from a series of walkers I built some time back - you can see the other 3 walkers from that series here.

The most challenging part of this model were the flames. I knew I wanted to model the flamethrower in action, but I didn't quite know how. My first attempt was with cotton wool, soaked in craft glue, and wrapped around a wire frame. It didn't work very well - the cotton wool clumped, and it was difficult to get the colour I wanted.

I eventually settled on moulding the flames in GW green stuff, although that had its own set of problems, the main one being the weight of the sculpted piece. This forced me to change the design of the walker: I had intended for the flamethrower to be attached to an arm, but instead mounted it under the 'chin' of the walker instead, as the arm would not have supported the weight well.

As you can see from the picture, the flames are detachable (makes the model easier to transport). The model still needs to be weathered, and details have to be painted in. I'm going to paint in a 'mouth' on the front, similar to the decorations we've seen on WW2 fighters. I may also experiment with a camouflaged paint scheme for the hull - dark green tiger stripes would be a nice compromise between the decorative and the functional.

This will probably be a one-off model. I still have one more hull from this series left-over, and I'll probably build it as another specialist vehicle. A command walker might be nice.