First Order Heavy Gunner cannon WIP

[camprandall]

Hey guys! I've started working on the heavy gunner cannon and I thought I'd start a build thread here. It's been a bit daunting just because there is so little info out there, but I'm giving it a shot anyways in hopes of trooping it opening night in December.

I'll start off with a few of the minimal reference pics there are, mostly consisting of the Hot Toys figure promo shots.

 

[camprandall]

I'll mention in all of this that I'm going for an accurate look, not absolute precision. It's near impossible to measure off of some angled photos of a toy and be accurate and the one promo shot from the movie we have differs in small ways. I also don't have $500 to custom order every piece to be dead on.

The first thing I started on - because I could grasp it - was the barrel. I didn't want to go anywhere near that complicated mess that is the middle to back section of the gun or I would have quit immediately. I went with 3" PVC, which seemed about right because it's 3 1/2" on the outside, and 2 1/2" electric conduit for the smaller end of the barrel. I'm also using a reducer for the transition, which I will attempt to grind a bit to get a more gradual slant to it.



For the dome, I actually used a plastic tough lamp and marked the dome out with a compass. It worked really well!



I then bondo'd to hide the coupling seam and make the transition to the dome smoother. I then painted the inside black so that you couldn't see the inside of the barrel from the hole at the end.




P.S. - Is there anyway to keep the thread from rotating all the tall pictures sideways?

- - - Updated - - -

I have a few parts off to a friend, Chris Henning of the 501st Dune Sea Garrison, to mill out some minor details for the barrel. In the meantime, I started teaching myself to use the 3D design tools to make all the greeblies for the middle section. It's not going to be completely accurate as the visibility on this area is terrible, but again I think I can achieve the "accurate-looking" effect I'm going for. It's going well so far!

 

[camprandall]

Back to building. I decided to bite the bullet and take my best guess at the stock and body frame. I think what came out was pretty workable so I'm happy with it. The trigger area was tricky because it tapers bottom to top and back to front. Again, not perfect - but good enough.

 

[camprandall]

Did some work on the scope as well. I ended up making most of it with PVC parts, sanded into a better shape, and then the wide portion with part of a plastic telescope I found at the 99 cent store.

 

[CT7567]

I'm already loving this gun and the movie is still 60 days away!

 

[camprandall]

So I ended up doing most of the build thread over at FISD for the 501st. Here's the link and end result!

http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/33718-force-awakens-heavy-gunner-cannon-build/page-1