kah-CHUNKa!

Just a little showcasing here.

This is a little something that I built a while back and I thought I'd write up a quick overview about it. (no WIP pictures... its me... too lazy :P)

THE... Avenger bolt-thrower. Handmade from scratch.

Although I am a evil player at heart, I really do love Gondor. Always have. The bolt-thrower is unique to this civ and it is quite the devil if you can get it set up in an effective place where you won't have to worry about shooting your own guys. (oh I really wish this thing could go with the goblins. They don't care about that sort of thing)

Definitely a fun thing to play with

I used popsicle sticks for all the wooden parts of the frame. I cut, shaped, and glued them together in four sections.

Section 1- The Base: The base is essentially a tri-sided pyramidal shape with a flat top.  The basic procedure was to cut out the individual planks of wood into their respective shapes, and then assemble as best and straight as possible. I put a circular washer on the top of the pyramid to at least try to make it look like this turret can pivot. After the base was built, I cut out two tiny slits of paper and glued them to the two front legs where the crossbeam attaches to them. This step, with a tiny slice of an unused lance shaft to be the bolt itself, completes construction of the base

Section 2 - The Main Doohickey... part: I seriously don't know what to call this next part. If it was a firearm I'd call it the 'barrel'... The main part of this thing! You know what I'm talking about. It was constructed out of two popsicle sticks glued together lengthwise to give it some thickness. Once dry, I filed it into a more of a rectangle shape with the two ends being mostly square. Here I carved indentations into the side of the piece to make some room for the springs (or screws), and then glued it to the base.

Section 3 - The Magazine: Pretty straightforward. Just glued two popsicle stick pieces together, filed it down to size-and-shape, and glued it on.  

Section 4 - The Bow: Without a doubt the most difficult part of construction. Not to mention that I was not sure how I was going to create the curvature on the actual 'bow' part of this model... aHA. My quick eye spotted an old spray bottle on a shelf! (ok... so I was sitting there, staring at the shelf for like ten minutes before I had the idea. What of it!?!) I took off the lid and promptly sawed away at the part of the lid that screws on to the bottle. After I cut off a nice ring, I chopped it, almost, in half. (little bit more than half... minor detail) I now had a nice, plastic, 'bow'. I just didn't like those serrated edges that the thing had to make it easier to screw and unscrew (for those people that use these things for what they're meant to be used for). So I cut out two slits of thin cardboard, and glued them to either side of the the plastic 'half-ring'. Then glued it on to the front of the main piece... thing.

And viola! Construction complete. Now for detailing.

Using thin strips of paper for metal braces, small slices of a plastic lance for bolts, small spikes from a paperclip as the ammo on the magazine, a toothpick for the main cord that actually does the launching of the projectile, and a combination of materials for the cranks on the back of the model, I spent plenty of time adding details to this thing. (with the periodic break to go look at the GW photo)

Everything glued? Time to paint.
Basically all the wood, I painted brown. All the metal, I painted silver. Really hard.
Once the basic colors were on, I ran a GW Devlan Mud wash over the wood and a Badab Black wash over the metel parts. Then I added some highlights to the metal.

So yeah, it was a fun project and I'm happy with the results.

    ~Tavros~