Creating An Advanced Spider Droid

Every since playing the game Republic Commando, I was struck by this design. The droid was a heavy variant of the Dwarf spider droid, with re-enforced armour plating and a artillery style cannon. When it was damaged it could move it's from legs to provide a thick shield while it recovered.

It's very hard to find good references for the droid and I've even had to look at Lego models for an idea of it's aft.

 The eye lenses are set lower down in the thick armour, with an additional plate that can slide in place to protect them.

I found a rubber spider droid from eBay, this is the reason I found the larger variants.  I always knew once I started to collect a droid army, it would be nice to have one of these heavy hitters in the force.

I also had this artillery gun from Micro machines which came in very handy.

The first step was to cut the top off the dwarf spider droid. I was kind of making it up as I went along at this point.

I added some thickness to the legs to bulk them out. Next up was to add the thick armour plating to the front legs. These were made from tank tracks from a Warhammer tank. These won't exact but my Mech building head kicked in and I couldn't turn down the heavy mechanical look.

The centre was then hollowed out with a Dremel to leave room for a magnet. I thought if you're going to build a tank droid, you might as well make one that can move it's turret.

Keep your head on a swivel! This droid can hit you from any angle.

I added some extra bits to the rear legs to give them a little more detail.

The tank tracks are perfect for thick armour plates. I added some tiny spot lights to them to tie it back to the original design a little.

I still need to figure out what the back looks like.

When it's complete I'll have the entire spider droid family.

UPDATE: Green stuff has now been added to round off the belly and add the eye lenses.

The lense shield is now added. Annoyingly, the glue stuck the tiny bits of detail to it before I could get them in place. They're not too far off, but it's still annoying. Super glue and plasticard stick in milliseconds if the glue is spread thin enough. Normally this is a good thing...but not always.

I had a go at building up the armoured mount for the gun. I'm going to go over it with liquid green stuff to give it a smooth finish.

I'm pleased with the rear of the droid, I think this belt fed system looks about right. I couldn't attach it to the turret because of the swivelling motion. However, I think it gets the idea over as it is.

The beast is looking almost finished to me. Another good days build.

So, the back of the turret needed some thought. In the end I went with another tank track as it fitted the shape nicely. A gog was placed on the front just because it looked interesting and mechanical.

I'll do some more research into the droid and see if I need to change anything. For now though, I'm pleased with it so far.

E5-22 War Droid

This is an idea I got while looking at more of the Wotc star wars figure range. I came across this cool looking Assassin droid. On further research I found it was created by the same species that created the battle droids. This is all good stuff because it fits in with the look and feels of the CIS forces.

The figure isn't as big as I was expecting but is still huge compared to a clone. It has a flame thrower so that was fun coming up with rules for that. Rather than an assassin droid, I'm going to use these up scales versions as war droids.

I will give them tank class armour and pair them into units. So two of these droids will form a platoon.

Their melee attack is quite nasty too due to the crushing tracks and array of weapons. I think the main problem for the clones will be the class three armour though, that might cause some headaches.

The E5 stands much taller than his B2 brother. These E5's were going to be the follow on from the classic B1 battle droids. However, the B2 came along and took the slot.

I will get two units of these, so four models in all. I just like the idea of having slightly different droids in the army, as these were made by the same manufacturers, it's a no brainer to include some.

Also, the flamethrower is unique to this unit and that will be interesting to game with.

I used a green / tin shifter Vallejo paint to give it a nice green sheen. 

Some mild battle damage and weathering finishes off the model.
 

Gunship stowage 15mm

I had an idea recently on how to improve the look of my Republic gunships using crafting mesh.

It's always good to look at the original models whenever possible, this is a nice example of panelling and weathering. This is also a good reference for battle damage and carbon scoring.

This side view clearly shows the stowage racks and hand grips for the troopers. It hangs down far enough to see it and is quite noticeable.
 

Recently I have been watching a guy on YouTube who creates his own space fleets using crafting mesh to create the ships. It took me a while to finally track down what he was actually using. Luckily for me my wife knew exactly what it was and where to get it.

Having managed to get hold of some, I realised it would look great as the stowage and handles in a gunship. So today I cut up some pieces out and glued them in.

At first I put crates and equipment in the racks, but the empty ones looked better, so I emptied them again. Seeing light through the mesh gives a much better impression of the detail, so it was a no brainer.

The troopers look a lot better in the back now too. There was too much space above them before and they looked a little lost. They look much more film accurate now.

I positioned the mesh just low enough so it looked like the figures could reach up and grab it.

My mesh doubles as the hand grips and the stowage racks, it's a cheat but it works.

Once I had worked out the positioning of one, it was time to do all the others. The new ARC troopers gunship got one too.

Finally, the finished gunship got hers too. She really is finished now, complete with cargo storage and racks. The mesh gives just the right amount of detail to do the job at this small scale.

It's nice to keep improving these toys and bringing them closer in to a scale model for gaming.