Monday, September 7, 2009

Space Marine Landraider

My Knights of Eden Space Marine chapter finally has some heavy support. I have been working on this Landraider for a long time and it is now ready for battle. There is an interesting story behind this model.


This model started life as one of the original Landraider Crusader models. The original owner was new to the hobby, and model building, when he started his Space Marine force. He was doing Imperial Fists and everything in the army had a thick coat of bright yellow paint. This covered up huge amounts of superglue and very poor assembly. The Landraider was not built correctly, missing sever parts and not having been assembled in the correct order.


When the original owner got out of the hobby my friend Lonnie bought the army as an opponent force. He wanted to experiment with different Space Marine armies so he would know best how to wipe them out. He changed around the army, adding new units and modifying existing ones. One of the changes was to rob parts from the Landraider to do other conversions. When he tired of the Space Marines he donated the entire collection to me to expand my army. By the time I got the Landraider it was missing the Assault Cannons, the Hurricane Bolters and the top hatches.


I started collecting up the missing parts to turn this into a standard Landraider configuration. It took time and I was not able to find all the right parts. The ones that I could not find I had to convert. I wanted to take the entire model apart to and build it fresh but there was so much superglue on it I could not get it apart. I ended up adding lots of battle damage to cover the bad assembly. In the end I am happy with how it turned out but it took way too much work. This is the last time I do a salvage project on a Landraider.





10 comments:

Unknown said...

please dont let it be the last salvage Landraider you do, it would be a shame if you do that, keep restoring to greatness that lovely minis you did a wonderful job with this one.

Flekkzo said...

Man that is a sweet ride. Very nice. It was a little omnious that the guy painted Imperial Fists. Hope I'll do a better job with mine:)

And I have to ask, how come one of the crosses are lacking some white? It looked odd to me:) Other than that I really like the whole thing. How did you do those blue lights? They look real nice. I want to "steal" them for my IFs:)

What are you going to stuff the land raider with? Some termies or an honor squad perhaps? :)

RuntMcRory said...

Its always lovely to see an old battered model get a new lease on life and you have done this one beautifully. It looks great.

oni said...

Very cool. I can't say I've ever seen an orange Landraider, but I like it.

Robert said...

Thanks for the comments!

Flekkzo - The missing white is due to the tranfer tearing. There is a chunck missing in the first picture. I have not decided if I will fix this or treat as more battle damage. The lights are just Enchanted Blue and then paint the metal guards. Termies will be what goes in it most...maybe some vets.

ONI - Orange is a HUGE pain in the ass to paint! I am sometimes sorry I went with orange then I finish something like this...It is unique!

Anonymous said...

That is one sexy land raider! Nice job! I love the battle damage.

Ace said...

I like the orange! But then again, I am partial to that color.

My army is very orange, and I like what you did with this LR.

I've been procrastinating painting my LR because I couldn't envision how it would look finished. You've provided me with the necessary visual to get it done now.

Thanks!

Unknown said...

I cant seem to find the parts that you had to convert.... would you mind pointing them out to me because I swear I have looked over the photos quite a few times and I cannot find them.... That must mean that this was a great salvage job! Nice work here!

Robert said...

Pretty much the entire heavy bolter assembly is custom. The bolters are the LR bolters but I did not have the mount or the cowling. i converted the base from a 25mm figure base and the cowling is a cutdown version from the Laser cannons. i cheated on the picture so it is a little tough to see.

Gavin Schofield said...

Good work there, it's nice to see unwanted models salvaged - much cheaper too!