Heavy Handed: Homemade Thunderfire Cannon REMIX

Last year sometime I blogged in my "Heavy Handed" series about my homemade engine of destruction.  I recently revised that in order to post elsewhere (a much more popular blog than my own) after having rediscovered some in-progress photos on a thumb drive that I didn't know I had anymore.  So here it is again, with more step-by-step pictures!

I wanted the incredible firepower this contraption spits out (4 blast markers per turn) but didn’t really want to spend the money on the very expensive and bulky GW model.  So I started figuring out how to make my own.

The first element I came up with was using a large syringe for the primary cannon piece.  I had access to lots of syringes (though not a drug addict), and so grabbed me a 12mL artillery piece.  My plan was as roughly illustrated below: saw out the middle, sand down the inner edges, and glue the ends back together.

I then glued vehicle kit bits on to give it more character.

The quadruple barrels are just drinking straws painted black with silver edges.  For the track I used (you guessed it) epic-scale landraiders!  Bought a handful of them for cheap on ebay.

These I stuck together using paperclip clippings.  The rocker in the middle is a turn-screw bit from my old desk (the one my then-girlfriend now-wife sat on when it was up on its side in a storage module, breaking it to smitherines – she’s not big, I swear, it was just a cheap desk).

So for literally a few bucks I had myself a very workable and decent looking engine of destruction!

The Tech Marine comes with a full harness, which I tried to somewhat represent with the addition of another servoarm-drilly-bit (and hope those I play with don't get offended cuz it ain't the official 4-armed harness).  I painted his armor lighter blue washed with darker blue to stand out as artificer armor.  His head is appropriately bionic and his big hand (can’t really equip with a power fist) fits well as a Crimson Fist icon.

I call this picture my “Dr. Doom” shot—he just looks like an evil plotting supervillain from this angle.