Heavy Combat Armour (mega battlesuit!)

[mangozac]

Hey Resin Addicts!

Well with the Superheavy Assault Walker all done (painted pictures will be available very soon!) it's time to turn my attention to my next epic project: A Heavy Combat Armour mecha for Tau. This time the project will be designed from the start to have a kit produced for when complete and seeing as I've already honed my scratchbuilding and casting skills on my first big project, this one will hopefully progress a bit faster!

This mecha is intended to fill the equivalent role of knight titans and stand at around 6-7" tall on the tabletop. It packs much more firepower than a tank but due to it's super agile frame it is much more potent. Whilst being too large for conventional jetpack or antigrav technology, it's long, powerful legs mean that it can travel and manoeuvre quite fast. These mecha are able to crouch right down for deployment in the tank bay of a Manta (only two can fit in this manner though).

I plan to make a few weapons options for the main arms, each of which will be available individually. The biggest point with the weapons on this project is that they will be all new types rather than alternates of standard Tau weapons (as awesome as they are, I'm a little sick of railguns).

I've been researching and planning this design for a while now but have just started mucking around with some clay tonight as the super wet, rainy weather is preventing me from doing any casting.

The design itself is based on a number of sources, the most notable of which being the work of @ Deviantart. I then got over at ATT to draw me a concept sketch based on a composite image I Photoshopped up. He came up with this little gem:


Whilst his sketch is good, its a little too stocky for my liking, especially in the leg area. One of my favourite aspects of the Tau XV8 concept artwork is their strong, athletic look, like shown in the 3rd Ed Tau Codex. That's no issue though - this will all be tuned during construction.

Due to the much smaller and tighter shape of this model compared to the Superheavy Assault Walker, the process of moving from 2D to 3D is a little different. In order to help get the scaling right and get a feel for the shape of the torso, I did a really quick and dirty sculpt with some modelling clay:





Please don't get too excited commenting about what you see so far - as I said, it's only a study of size and shape and not a very good indication of the final details.

So please join me on my next epic adventure as I once again jump into the deep end and do a brand new scratchbuild.

[Dominus Ex Machina]

Can hardly wait to see this project develop!

Even though I'm not at all fond of Tau in general (hehe, maybe a dangerous thing to admit on these forums ) I do love the super heavy assault walker and the many cool battlesuit conversions posted elsewhere on this site. You may just lure me onto a stray path from the Imerial stuff I usualy do...

[mangozac]

Thanks Peter! Indeed that is a very dangerous admission on a forum whose founders met on Advanced Tau Tactica. It shall become my mission that we turn you to modelling for the greater good at least just once

[Vaaish]

Interesting sketch. As you said things are pretty rough at t his point, but to my eyes it bears resemblance to the Marine dreadnought and perhaps even theoldschool beetle back terminators. I'll be interested to see where you take it from here.

[mangozac]

Yeah I've been getting that response a bit and looking at the pics again tonight I can see how it's a problem. I'm going to attack the clay sculpt again when I get a chance to see if I can correct it.

I want to refer to one of the original Tau XV8 artworks (the one with the 3 crisis suits) but since the GW website's revamp all of that stuff has disappeared. I've got the picture I'm after on my PC at work so I'll grab it from there tomorrow.

[mangozac]

OK so in a bid to refine the design to something more Tau-esque I started doing some serious clay sculpting. Not much more to comment really. I'm still trying to decide how those large, flat areas are going to pan out but I'm not too worried. The ball represents where the shoulder ball would be. Overall it does still feel a little too wide - I may shave a bit more off the width.





Oh yeah, and I do realise the right side of the picture is missing bits - I was feeling lazy

[Warhound]

Now you are chatting! That is much better! sleeker lines, not Tau (good thing) and when sharpness and details added will look sharp as a button! It also opens up the chest to accept the crew gurney!

Also, it opens up the shoulders to mount the weapons, on recessed locator plugs or rotator cuffs would be my suggestion?

cheers
WARHOUND

[mangozac]

So I decided to do some more refining and shave a little more off the width. Much better I think. The pectoral areas aren't so massive and the overall geometry feel much more solid and Tau like. As Warhound has mentioned, the front panel will open up to reveal a fully detailed cockpit and pilot.

The sensor pod on the right shoulder will be more integrated into the pectoral armour plate. The missile pod will be a separate, optional piece.





All that's needed now is to work out what I want to do with the front of the waist area. I will probably just make it a continuation of the front (cockpit cover) panel. Overall though, I'm pretty happy with how it's looking, so the next step will be to start cutting up a card frame from which I will derive the final styrene frame. The final model will be an amalgam of styrene and Milliput.

[Wolfs16]

Looking good! I like the redone chest a lot more.

As for the head, I think something similar to the XV9's head would be perfect. The shape stops it from being so big that it overshadows other details, since it swoops backwards and up. You can have all kinds of neat little optical clusters in it too! I also think that that kind of head adds to the heavily armored feel that you are trying to achieve with this suit.

[mangozac]

Wolfy, I think you're spot on with the XV9 head. Whilst it has a couple of angles I'd change, it definitely makes a good overall shape to emulate (sans antenna though).

[Warhound]

Chuckles to himself.....

Its so weird, now I am working on the SAW, and you having started from scratch again... its a 2 year deja vu!

Anyway, I like the sensor and the missile pod- just bare in mind that the shoulder/ pads will need to arc up and so the missile pod may interfere with the radius of movement?

Head is a good size too and the XV9 romboid type shape would work well....

Bring it on!

WARHOUND

[mangozac]

What a perverse, inverted world we are living in

Remember that the arms are only weapons mounts, not fully functioning arms, and thus they don't need as a big of a range of movement as if they were being used for melee combat for example. For that reason I'm thinking of limiting the shoulder movement a bit (also because pretty much all Tau mecha and concept art depict a very restrictive shoulder design). Don't worry, there will still be plenty of movement, it will only be restricted in specific situations.

[mangozac]

Update time!

I was having trouble working out where to start with the torso build, so I decided to go with the cockpit. I had been throwing around a few ideas and settled on an "entry plug" style from . Here's a pic of one:

Obviously, the entry plug is quite massive so the implementation won't be too similar. Rather than being a self contained, removable module (the Eva entry plugs can be ejected and have thrusters for such an event), the cockpit will be a cylindrical design without any hatch or door of its own that lowers out from the abdominal armour plate area.

I didn't do any sketches worth showing, so I'll skip straight to the styrene implementation:



This will be filled and turned into a smooth cylinder with Milliput. The area where the pilot sits will be soft and padded, with just a couple of "manual" displays and control surfaces. The actual control of the Heavy Combat Armour is via neural interface. The pilot will be a separate sculpt (hopefully) by my good mate Warhound.

The reason why I settled on this design and the fact that the cockpit will extend out diagonally downwards is because when the mecha is rested (parked) on its knees, the cockpit will be very close to the ground so that the pilot can actually get in!

I've got a busy week ahead of me so don't expect to see any updates until at least next weekend.

[Warhound]

You know I am up for that job!

Looking really good man! I would make the walls higher and more encompassing (think from castin eye), so that it has a 'lozenge' 'window' into the capsule- if that makes sense?Don't worry about any internals- but I think we need to skype the whole shell discussion

Otherwise, I think that you have created the besy scenario to meld the caspule into the torso!

cheers
WARHOUND

[mangozac]

I've been busy casting and with a BFG project I've been doing: , but finally found a moment to dome some more work on the HCA, so I've got a little update today.

The puttying was done yesterday but some of it didn't mix properly and thus I had to gouge it off and redo some sections this morning after sanding things smooth and round. The two square holes on the left will have vents inside them and underneath there is a guide strip that contains more details.



Note that the front end is still rough as it will have the armour plate which forms the front of the torso, and thus won't be constructed until much later. The next step (which to be honest I'm having trouble deciding how to go about) is to start constructing the torso around the cockpit pod.