Knocked out AT-TE

After receiving a broken walker from eBay, I decided to scrap it completely and turn it into scenery.

Every Clone Wars battle site is covered in knocked out vehicles and a walker like this can make a great objective.

As the cockpit was missing already it seemed the obvious area to place most of the damage.

A bit of wire helps to add some detail to the severed limb.

The wreckage still tells a story though, with a missile from a Hellfire droid hitting the front and blowing out the side. The blast also cripples the main leg and the walker slumps and comes to a fiery death.

A nasty looking but very useful Dremel tool.

I added a couple of warped panels to help with the idea of the blast coming from within and exploding outwards.

There is a burnt out AT-TE walker in the Battle Front game that I play with my son, the warped and bent barrel is straight from the screen.

I had to cut the leg and rearrange it as these are moulded in a fixed standing position.

 Still looking for his body, Beorn tries it on for size...

This doesn't look good...

The spoils of war, Battle droids secure the destroyed walker forcing the Republic to withdraw.

Update: so after a late night hacking up the model it's now time for the detailing.

Artist modelling mesh is great for creating super structure. It's really useful for twisted, blasted metal.

I pulled it apart with pliers to help with blasted look, you want it to look tangled and warped.

AAT's have arrived on the scene to secure the prize.

Having learnt a lot from the Transformers project, I used plasticard for detailing. Any tiny bit of plastic, including brush bristles were used to create the detailed interior of the cockpit. When working on projects, it's worth keeping all the little off cuts and scraps of plasticard. They are always useful in projects like this.

It's important to try a telly a story with a set piece, these milliput craters help to show the last moments of the walker's life. Heavy fire was walked onto the target, resulting in a direct hit on the cockpit.

These are very nice prints again, I'm very happy with these. I magnetised the turrets so they can swivel.

The scale is very good between the two models.

The crumpled leg looks good too. I stuck the model onto the base with hot glue so now it's solid as a rock.

I had to stop myself from getting too carried away with rocks on the base. I wanted to leave enough space for the infantry bases to use it. An infantry base next to this thing could claim hard cover for sure.

A little paint and an oil wash to bring out the details.

Hold the line! A lone Jedi holds back two AAT tanks. Don't worry, she survives to fight another day, Jedi tend to do that.

It's starting to look more like a destroyed vehicle now with all the mesh and plasticard just becoming a tangled, twisted mess.

Almost there now, all painted and weathered with soot effects.

While I was painting the wreckage of the fallen, I took the opportunity to tweak the others. After studying the graphics of the Battle Front game, I painted in the metal details missed in the toy. Mainly the large leg cogs and joints are a metal colour.

 The game has a setting were you rotate and study characters and equipment. It is proving very handy for this project, as I'm sure the design team at Dice had done fifty times the research that I have.

It's very useful for spotting little details like the metal detailing on the legs . Details like this are very hard to see in reference books.

The graphics can be rotated so the graphics can be studied from every angle. You can even zoom in and out...very useful.