Be vewy vewy quiet!

Captain MAGpie's "Maverick" Stormtalon Scout Walker

A Games Workshop Stormtalon Walker Conversion

+ With the link to the 3D print files +

Be vewy vewy quiet! I'm hunting hewetics.

Inspired by how well the Crazy Hawk pattern Heavy Assault Stormhawk Walker came out, I wanted to revisit my original Stormtalon Walker Conversions. They were proper kit-bashed conversions and completely made of parts from other various kits. No scratchbuilding at all.

It made me... sad. Heck, it even made Batman sad.

Batman after hearing how Captain Magpie took shortcuts...

Well, that would just not do, the walrus said.

Add to all that pressure, I also did not want to use the same legs as the heavy walker.
So to the drawing board I went and decided on a few changes. For one, I wanted an inline leg design, where the upper and lower portions were in line with each other, as opposed to next to each other. I also wanted to change the feet, and lastly, the overall "feel". The height was good, I liked the Mad Cat/ Vulture look, and I was fine with the hip design. I also wanted a lot more armour.

K.

HAD I KNOWN how much of a PITA those plates would turn out to be to cut, I may have done things differently. However, that being said, once I was done with the build, I was very happy with the look. The extra time and effort was well worth it.

Ok, lets get into the build.

The tutorial

1) What you will need for: the template

• The Template (below)
• Cardboard
• Printer (Or a ruler and a lot of time)
• Fine-Point marker

STC - "Maverick" Stormtalon Scout Walker (Large Size!)

I recommend printing the template on cardboard, scaling it so that the yellow reference block is 25mm (1 inch) when printed out, then cutting the shapes out with a pair of scissors and transferring the shapes to your plasticard with a fine-point marker.

To make life easier, cut all the green sections from 0.5mm Plasticard. The blue sections (minus the sections in the feet) are decorative armour plates and you can cut those from thinker sheets, and customise them to your like. I used 1mm and it looked pretty good.
The red parts are cut from 2mm card, and there is a reason for it. If you don't have 2mm, cut 4 of each part from 1mm, and glue them together. That works as well. Well, for that matter 8 x 0.5 will work as well, but at some point insanity will set in and chaos will win.

Don't let chaos win.

Unless you play chaos. Then... well, go for 0.25mm.

Now, the reason for this is aesthetic, as insane as that extra effort may sound. Its worth it. It leaves a strong feel of thick armour plates being used on the moving parts. Trust me on this one.

As a note: The Knee-lugs, the two parts that connect the knee and upper thigh. I recommend 2mm to give you more surface area to glue the covers on. 1mm will work as well. I have my doubts on thinner though.


Additionally, print and cut a test leg from paper first, and make a paper-craft version just to test for scaling. There is a lot of cutting in this build, so making a fitting or printer scaling mistake will be frustrating.

What you will need for: Maverick Stormtalon Scout Walker

• 1 x Stormtalon Gunship kit from Games Workshop
• 0.5mm flat Styrene Plasticard Sheet
• 1mm flat Styrene plasticard sheet
• 2mm flat Styrene plasticard sheet
• 0.75mm x 4.8mmStyrene Strip (Optional - Can be substituted)
• 1mm x 6.3mm Styrene Strip (Optional - Can be substituted)
• 3.2mm x 6.3mm Styrene Strip (Optional - Can be substituted)
• Putty such as Green Stuff or Milliput (Optional, but I advise using this. So much easier to hide bloopers)
• A VERY sharp hobby knife
• A fine-point marker
• Metal Ruler
• Glue (I'll level with you. Use an extra thin solvent type glue here. It just makes life so much simpler. I use Tamiya Extra Thin, and believe me, you will have a hard time convincing me to use anything else. I almost feel that I should be wearing welding goggles when I use this stuff with ABS/Styrene.)
• Sharp Cutters
• Files and sanding paper (Fine)
• Patience and a first aid kit

Step 1 - Template

Print the template onto cardboard and cut it out with scissors or a knife.

Step 2 - Transfer and cut

Transfer the shapes to your plasticard using a fine-point marker, and cut them out using a knife. This is probably the hardest part of this build and requires the most attention.

Important! Remember to gut the green parts from 0.5mm sheet, the blue parts from 1mm or thicker, and the red parts from a 2mm styrene sheet.

The build, once cut, is fairly simple. So once everything is cut, the hard part is over!

Step 3 - Lowe legs

Deviating from the heavy walker, instead of building a hollow tubular bar and then reinforcing it with a solid bar at either end, I decided to just get the right width and breath by gluing strips together, and thus forming a very solid bar to support the leg. I liked this and will apply this to later reversions of the Heavy Walker as well.

So basically, a core strip of 3.2mm (H) x 6.3mm (W) x 45mm (L), with two 1mm (H) x 6.3mm (W) x 45mm (L) strips glued on the two sides with the same width. Then, 2 x 0.75mm (H) x 4.8mm (W) x 45mm (L) glued on the sides. You will see there is a slight step, as 3.2+1+1 = 5.2, so there is a 0.4mm step. This is fine, in-fact, I liked it as it gave that boring square a bit of texture.

Very simple, and very solid. Like a rock, or a bat.

Make 2 of 45mm in length for the legs, and 2 of 13mm in length for the ankles.

Step 4 - Knee

Placed the leg-bar made above so that about half is sticking out below the knee. It does not need to be exact but you need a minimum of 15mm below the knee. more is better both ways though as this part adds strength to the build. As a measure, you can place the top of the leg in line with the knew joining lug as I did in the second picture below.

Laid out and ready to go.

Place the leg so that you have about as much in the knee part as you have sticking out below.
I have a little more in the knee.
Just make sure you have enough dropping out to the lower leg so that you can attach it without loosing too much height.

Next, attach the lug as this will be the starting point for the plates.
Align it so that the corner and the knee corner aligns. (Refer to the template)

Glue the cover plate all round.

All glued and ready for the cap-plate and the remaining lug.

 

All assembled. Allow to cure and sand smooth.

Last bit is to make the lug "solid" as well.

Start by gluing the plate in place on the flat side, and set it aside to completely cure.

Step 5 - "Thigh"

While the "lugs" cure, assemble the thigh. This is as simple as falling out of a tree. Only things to take note of is the inner cover that runs from the top to the bottom to close off the inside of the leg so that it does not look hollow if you look at it from a certain angle.

Laid out and ready to glue.

Assembled. Note the inner plate.

Step 6 - Finish the knee.

Finish building the lug. You will notice the plate folding over the lugs are about 2mm too long. This is by design, as, well, depending on how accurate you cut, you may need mope or less (Hopefully, not more... as, then its too big).

Start by making a few bends, specifically over the corner. You can now measure the length and trim the access. You SHOULD have access. If you don't, you may need to file some more.

Use tape to keep it in place while the glue cures.

Bents applied.

Tape applied. Ready for the glue.

Glued. Now tape it nice and tight, and wait for the glue to cure.

Once the glue is fully cured, the card will take form and remain in shape. The lug is now "solid".

Test fit!

At this point, test fit how well the two sections fit into each other. May need some more sanding to get them perfectly aligned.

Test fit. Great Success!

Step 7 - Lower leg

Follow the same procedure and glue the lower leg. I set aside the second "leg" portion in the pictures just to measure. But you can use the assembled knee portion as well. In fact, you will glue it in place by the time you are done here, so its a good idea to use it.

Laid out and ready to glue.

Its pretty simple. Just make sure the two upper plate sit snugly against the leg.

Just to measure.

Of course, you can use the knee as well.
Note, the lugs are still curing.

Glue the knee to the lower leg. About 10mm of leg should be exposed between the knee and lower leg.
You can play with it here, depending on how high you want your version. All that's is important is that the left and right leg, at least look the same.

Drilling.

Its optional. If you do not plan to have the model move and simply want to glue it into a pose, then you do not need to drill any holes. Just glue the parts into the position you want them to stay.

Legs is done. You will notice that I have not drilled holes until now. That is because I wanted to be sure that the pivot points are in the correct place. Of course, if you do not plan to make the model dynamic, just glue it together and skip the drilling.

Step 8 - feet and toes

This ankle was just the 13mm (yeah, I know...) piece drilled with the swivel point. This is again, optional. You can just glue it in place.

Ankle with swivel and foot-rotary piece in place.

Same ankle, different view.

Foot assembly. Straight forward.

Leave one panel open to get something in there when you glue the roof in place.

Glue the roof in place and level it through the open panel.

All done. now toes.

(NOT the scout foot. I forgot pictures of the toes... AGAIN!)
Start by gluing the back section in place on the foot. Then "fit" the mid section over it, and lastly, the toe-tips.
Drilling, optional.

Front toe test fit. (Plating already applied)

All 3 toe attachment points fitted.

All the toe-bitz eva!

AGAIN, drilling the toes is OPTIONAL! You don't have to bother at all if you are just going to glue the toes into a set pose for a static piece. I made this one dynamic, again, just to see how it will perform.

Step 9 - Hip

To build the Hip, what I did was used the Stormtalon's front gun-mount and re-purposed it to the rear. It was surprisingly easy.

Close the top and bottom openings up.

Upside of the Schwartz.

Assemble the hip-bones.

Step 10 - Plates

Now that the legs are pretty much assembled, accessorizing them with the armour plates is next. This was quite time consuming but well worth doing.

Accessorise! Accessorise! Accessorise!

The plates are purely aesthetic. Go wild here.

Both done.

Video: But Yogurt, why bother?

All the angles.

Step 11 - Kit modification

Of course, with all the walker variants, the tail needs to go.

Its all in the De-Tail. Again...

Next is to plug the gaping hole the tail leaves. You can do this in any variety of ways. First ones I did, I used the roof piece of a Razorback.Then after that I just used plasticard and decorated. This was actually easier than cutting the roof panel.

Spare Rhino roof plate cut to size.

Last bit (already done in the pic above) was the attachment point for the hip, which was simply just the gun mount from the Stormtalon kit and a flat piece of card just to cover the hole where the "flying stem" plugs into the model.

Hip-Mounting point.

Step 12 - Build the kit and Accessorize

Rest is up to you. This part at least is fun. As I was using an already built model, I decided to go with the "Jump-Jet" variant. I am still debating taking some weapons off...

3D Print Files by Daeowar

If you have access to a 3D printer or do not quite feel up to the task of cutting the card, the incredibly talented Daeowar has created 3D printable files and has kindly provided them for free use on his Thinksverse page. They can be found at: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3745852

3D Print Files by myself

Or you can get mine. They can be found at: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4434724

Reactor on-line. Weapons on-line. Sensors on-line. All systems nominal.

Hope you enjoyed it. And as always, I would LOVE to see you take on the template. Post up picks or links to your Stormtalon Walker Conversion.

Captain MAGpie,
Styrene Addict