Steampunked Martian War Machine

unbuiltnautilus

Active Member
Our local radio control model boat club were invited to a steampunk event, due to be held at the Royal Navy Submarine Museum in Gosport, Hampshire in late September. I decided to dust off a long gestating build project, with a twist. My big Martian War Machine would now get a steampunk twist. The only problem, apart from a set of ill conceived piano wire legs, I had nothing else planned or designed!
This changed with one of those junk pile finds that can set the mind racing. In this case, a reservoir for a Vax Carpet Cleaner! This had a look to it that offered me a main body for my war machine. The problem, of course, were the legs...my piano wire legs had lost all their strength when being silver soldered together, and would not support any meaningful weight. I considered many options, brass rod, carbon tube and rod, old gazebo legs, until coming upon the answer with copper plumbing pipe and fixings. I went with a mix of 15mm diameter copper tube, tee sections, U sections, 45 degree and straight joiners. Followed by some serious gas torch work.

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Just to cap off the early part of the build, a face cream ball would make up the cockpit, while a mash up of a flexible screwdriver attachment, the guts of a brushless motor, plastic tube, a compression fitting and a rifle casing made a half decent heat ray!
 
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The advantage with copper fittings, I soon found out, was that the stance could be experimented with by dry fitting everything and moving the legs about to look like the beast is striding over the countryside.
The first assembly resulted in a model standing 48 1/2" tall. The legs were to be soldered in place, but the main body could rotate horizontally by about 40 degrees. The head was posed looking down towards the tiny humans, but could rotate around the neck joint. It could be posed looking left, right or straight on. The whole body sits on a tee joint. This was soldered in place at a slight angle off of vertical, to represent some sort of movement.

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The last photo shows some extras, including 3mm diameter soft aluminium tentacles and copper exhaust pipes.
 
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Some more bits and pieces were added for detailing. The cooling fins from an LED downlighter ( Thanks to Chinese quality control, these fail at a rate entirely suitable for scratch builders! ). Brass screws were drilled in around the 'hull'. Milliput was added to the outlets for the big copper steam exhausts, plus fairings round the tentacle outlets. A glass lens fresh from a recently scrapped Royal Navy Type 42 Destroyers engineering console makes the 'eye', here covered in masking fluid. Under the neck joint is a ( spare ) track link from a big prop tank, purchased by a friend of mine over ten years ago, which featured in the 1998 Godzilla movie. The fittings which make up the 'parambulation motivator unit' under the main body were a mix of plastic shapes, Tiger tank wheels and bits of old toys.

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Many bits bolted and glued together, the model needed a coat of paint...
 
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Also, at 48" tall, it needed its legs chopped off for transport purposes. This bit was easy enough, the re-fitting was a question for another day.

P1060157.JPGView attachment 766587This short, squat, three legged look has convinced me that I need to make a Martian Collecting Machine in a similar style, just waiting on a suitable household appliance to become available!!

P1060216.JPGView attachment 766589With its first coat of paint on, it looks less carpet cleaner and more invader from Mars. The paint I chose was a textured iron aerosol paint intended for plant pots. Bad choice, it covers easily and looks great, but the textured finish really restricted the later painting effects that I could apply.
 
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The next two days were spent overcoating the initial iron colour with a combination of Humbrol Metalcote Gunmetal and Humbrol Brass. Neither colour could be easily dry brushed due to the rough surface texture, so the gunmetal was scumbled on ( a fairly wet application with a broad brush, chased about the surface and used as a highlighting colour ) while the brass was more traditionally drybrushed on. I also used a similar technique with Humbrols Polished Steel.
Drybrushing all the copper was something of a mission in itself. Trying not to miss anything, while working fast, resulted in as much paint on me as on the model!

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The leg attachment problem was solved by using my old piano wire legs, assembled for the original, never completed martian. These were bolted to the lower legs up front, and to the upper leg back aft. With a 90 degree bend in the top or bottom of this bolted on spring steel, a hole could be drilled in the appropriate part of the copper leg. Into this the piano wire is pushed to hold the legs in place. One problem, with all this tensioned steel in the structure, the model has been known to move, just a bit, while on display..mostly just the leg joints opening up..or is there more to it!!
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And the martian? Well, it had a steampunked lighthouse to take on, plus I had ordered my very own Curate, Nathaniel, in the shape of a young Obi Wan Kenobi. Between the Saturday and Sunday he converted from the Jedi faith and gained his dog collar, bible and cross.

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and just one hall away was a steampunk War of the Worlds classic....

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I think this is very exciting. I'm such a fan of art from found objects and am currently on a Steampunk kick. These kinds of things inspire me. Unfortunately, the links in your last few posts are broken and I'm not seeing the images. I hope it's just me. Regardless, I'm looking forward to following this thread. Thanks for posting.
 
I think this is very exciting. I'm such a fan of art from found objects and am currently on a Steampunk kick. These kinds of things inspire me. Unfortunately, the links in your last few posts are broken and I'm not seeing the images. I hope it's just me. Regardless, I'm looking forward to following this thread. Thanks for posting.

I think my images may be too big..will have to see how to fix that..
 
I think I am on top of it now. After the Steampunk Weekend it was off to the Tank Museum, Bovington in Dorset. Nathaniel now had a barn to stand in front of for scale..and I got the chance for some outdoor photography with minimal backgrounds.

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It has been a quick build, just over four weeks in total. In that time I have watched George Pals and Steven Spielbergs War of the Worlds, watched Steamboy, listened to Jeff Waynes original and next gen soundtrack, over and over again ( mostly while filing down plumbers solder! ), met some great people, and started reading H G Wells original novel ( it is an easy and interesting read ). But most importantly, got fired up to try some new stuff out, is that not what this is all about?


The pics seem to be working now. It looks awesome! Nicely done.

Thank you, it has been interesting turning junk into something interesting!

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Very nice to see a build thread, after admiring it in person at Gosport!



And that's one of mine, hope to return next year to see some more of your (and your clubs) work!




:)
Thank you sir!
On the Saturday of the event, I was all full of the old 'look at me and my Martian', soon tempered by wandering upstairs and seeing your models! I wandered away feeling just a little sorry for my self ( the old ego is a fragile thing! ), but as the day wore on, I got into the swing of things, decided to attend your talk on the Sunday morning. It was informative, fun, funny and encouraging. Loved your art deco ray gun, I shall never walk quickly past the stainless kitchenware in the stores again! Capped off as you offered advice to the youngster and his mum on the best use of spray paints on his props. Start 'em young I say, none of us will last forever old chap!!
 
Thank you! I'm always worried that no one will turn up for my little talks, or I'm boring! Glad I was able to actually say in person how good I think everyone's work work is! It's part of the Steampunk community's make up that we share our skills and advice, and it's always wonderful to show my stuff and inspire people, as they like to show me what they're making too!

You've got a whole year before the next one, get down the workshop! ;)
 
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Very nicely done!
WotW is one of my all time favs, especially the war machines.
Never cared for the war machine movie versions, (Pal or Speilberg) as I remember the old comic book designs. Yours rings more true to those in my mind.

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There is also a Wells authorized sequel to the original, "The Massacre of Mankind" which I'm reading now. It is true to the original and explains how world history was altered by the first Martian invasion and goes on to a far, more deviating second wave.
 
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Very nicely done!
WotW is one of my all time favs, especially the war machines.
Never cared for the war machine movie versions, (Pal or Speilberg) as I remember the old comic book designs. Yours rings more true to those in my mind.

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ere is also a Wells authorized sequel to the original, "The Massacre of Mankind" which I'm reading now. It is true to the original and explains how world history was alter by the first Martian invasion and goes on to a far, more deviating second wave.


Sounds like something I should seek out once I have finished War of the Worlds.
I too am very happy with how 'alien' the model turned out. This was despite me mostly bolting strange object A to strange scrap part B to plumbing pipe C! I forgot that I am also supposed to be a model 'maker' as well as some sort of expert vacuum cleaner painter!
My recent steampunk experience has fired up my dormant interest in getting on with my Nautilus project ( top LH avatar image ). I have dusted off my side view plan and started scaling it to my donor hull..good grief, it's going to be 81" long!!
Gonna need a bigger workshop.
 
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