Chaos Space Marine Serpent Guard Heldrake Conversion

Hi peoples,

I've had a few people ask for some WIP shots of the Heldrake I converted for my Serpent Guard so here we go:

I began developing the base to create a solid structure for the design.

I used an old kitchen roll tube to mount the Heldrake upon and installed stiffening ribs beneath it.

I used a section of styrene tube and wrapped around the lip at the top of the tube.

Next I established the circumference of the tube with a sheet of 0.25mm styrene which was an inch deep.

Once I had split the sheet into equal sections I made multiple copies, enough to cover the tube from top to bottom. I wanted to add rivets to the plates so created myself a jig as shown above.

I then marked out and drilled holes into one of the plates to use as a template.

I then drilled through this template into the jig.

I clamped the remaining plates into the jig and proceeded to drill through.

Here are the first batch of drilled plates ready for adhering to the tube.

I adhere the first plate into place.

And then continue adhering plates until I completely encase the tube.

Here I am caping the tube with a section of 0.5mm styrene sheet.

The beginnings of the Heldrake. I wanted to be able to remove the Heldrake easily from the pipe so I drilled holes in the tail and the leg.

I then add magnets to the pipe to correspond to the magnets in the Heldrake.

Both were held in place with greenstuff and superglue.

Here I am beginning to create the shoulder mounted Hades Autocannon. The barrels are lengths of styrene tubing, the mount is one of the legs from the Heldrake kit and the body is from the Forgefiend / Maulerfiend kit.

This is a blu tacked assembly of the autocannon. The jaw over the barrel is created using one half of the Heldrake head and half of a head from the Terrorgeist kit from Warhammer Fantasy Battle.

Here is the finished assembly. I have installed a small magnet in the mount.

This is the first fitting of the autocannon onto the Heldrake.

 

Here you can begin to feel how large a conversion this has become.

Next I began adding the pipework to the base. I use sections of styrene tube and cast joints from the Hirst Arts molds.

More structure is added and a representation of a concrete base.

Here I have used one of my Serpent Guard miniatures to gauge the scale of the conversion and walkway width.

And that was the conversion pretty much complete. I was attending the Vidar's Fate tournament in a couple of days after this shot was taken and I wanted to reveal this beast then so I went about laying down some paint.

Here are shots of the completed miniature:

 

 

And here is a link to a video of the Heldrake:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1hCDy4-tFs

You can also find more of my work on my YouTube channel and Facebook page.

More to come,

Rumplemaster