Lego doodles POST THEM

[Captain-Camper]

Late night lego ramble inbound...

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Small Project to pass the time!
So I recently rewatched Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and i soon fell in love with the Tolmekian tank design! so I decided to build my own in lego.
Here are my reference pictures

Good Front View

The only side pic of these tanks i could find! they're down to the left of plane

Pretty good action shot

And here's mine


Comments and critiques welcome

The tank in the film looks a little like the Hungarian Zrinyi assault gun:

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(may or may not be a useful second reference?)

In my opinion whilst the second revision has more slopeyness, the first casemate design is cleaner to look at.


There are no holes here whatsoever which is good, the only point of contention is the 1x1 tiles not looking like a single sheet of metal as intended. However with lego, building up a surface to look like a single slanted piece/sheet of metal using lots of little plates and cheese wedges (as per the second revision) is normally a losing battle.

Even if you do get something that could look as if it's a single plate of armour (there will always be awkward overlaps/ steps between your plates that are not going to look smooth), getting the surfaces around it to sit flush and align nicely is now super hard to make work (which leads to holes as discussed before).

Now obviously the first version's tiled front doesn't look like it's made out of a single sheet of armour, but that's okay because it still looks intentional, as if the surface is supposed to have been put together from lots of overlaid smaller plates in the factory (with anime tanks you're allowed some artistic liscence I feel).

Take this* rendition of another Ghibli tank, where the turret quite obviously doesn't look like the rounded original. Here the turret (in contrast to the curved sides which were justabout doable in lego) is quite obviously not smoothly sloped. However it doesn't look like he's fucked up the turret because he's quite obviously (especially by using studs all over rather than tiles) gone for that look, and succeeded in getting it, rather than trying to make it look like a smooth sphere - practically impossible to do seamlessly when you're building with bricks that all have 8 corners.

This is all just my opinion on the matter and you should build how you want to build but don't forget lego is primarily sticking cuboids together, and that sometimes calls for compromises.

The two things about the first casemate that nag me are the gun (which you fixed in rendition 2, long barrels are for statpadders) and the 1x1 stud on the jumper plate by the gun; what does it do? IMO the empty hole with nothing on it looks better as a gunner's sight, or maybe a 1x1 lever base for a view port if you've got one in dark grey. The pith helmet as a gun mantlet works well I think, and I like the top & sides of the first casemate a lot... also interested to see how you try the lower glacis.

* I feel like if you're building in dark grey brown goes really well, you get quite a mean looking tank as well.

Thank you so much for your advice! The lego tank you linked was a direct inspiration for the first castmate. I enjoyed the studded armor of the original as it reminds me the work ghibli more but i feel as though the second version is the better tank with far superior lines. the reason why cheese slopes are on that is due to the fact of how i built the chassis. I'm really proud of my use of the pith helmet and the lower glacis is annoying me right now so i'll have that done in the near future.

[AnnoyedZebra]

Have you tried wrapping a cape around the pith helmet? If you can find a place to mount it, it m ight look good

[AnnoyedZebra]

double posts seem to be the fashion around here

WIP tank by Zebra The Annoyed, on Flickr
I to am in the process of constructing a tank

WIP tank by Zebra The Annoyed, on Flickr
It is inspired by soviet/russian tanks. probably has an autoloader and thick frontal armour. It will be designed for use in mass attacks rather than in defensive situations or ambushes, hence the bright colours for shock and awe

WIP tank by Zebra The Annoyed, on FlickrZebra The Annoyed
The shit tier photography can be blamed on the use of a chromebook's built in camera

[/url]WIP tank by Zebra The Annoyed, on Flickr

[RedRover]

This has potential to be a good build!

[Kommander Ken]

Totally forgot to post this on the forums yesterday, but it's totally on Instawham right now. This one's for you, Quantum.





"Don't put all your eggs in one basket, Claus."

[sahasrahla]

yessssss

i want that as a forum battle

[Captain-Camper]

double posts seem to be the fashion around here

WIP tank by Zebra The Annoyed, on Flickr
I to am in the process of constructing a tank

WIP tank by Zebra The Annoyed, on Flickr
It is inspired by soviet/russian tanks. probably has an autoloader and thick frontal armour. It will be designed for use in mass attacks rather than in defensive situations or ambushes, hence the bright colours for shock and awe

WIP tank by Zebra The Annoyed, on FlickrZebra The Annoyed
The shit tier photography can be blamed on the use of a chromebook's built in camera

[/url]WIP tank by Zebra The Annoyed, on Flickr

Looking pretty good

[ikensall]

Thank you so much for your advice! The lego tank you linked was a direct inspiration for the first castmate. I enjoyed the studded armor of the original as it reminds me the work ghibli more but i feel as though the second version is the better tank with far superior lines. the reason why cheese slopes are on that is due to the fact of how i built the chassis. I'm really proud of my use of the pith helmet and the lower glacis is annoying me right now so i'll have that done in the near future.

Fairs, good luck with it.

[Archduke]

[Quantumsurfer]

Totally forgot to post this on the forums yesterday, but it's totally on Instawham right now. This one's for you, Quantum.

Amazeballs.

[Silent-sigfig]

Liking the tankage going on

[Captain-Camper]

Have we reached maximum tankage yet or is it like dakka?

[TastySkippy123]

Le Double post
Just a quick update on the tolmekian tank

I like the use of the helmet piece for the barrel! Very resourceful.

[AnnoyedZebra]

More turret stuff by Zebra The Annoyed, on Flickr
getting more abrams esque

More turret stuff by Zebra The Annoyed, on Flickr
Another shot of the internal structure

[Venge]

Digging the Astarte Bunny color scheme.