Stormbird scratchbuild - progress update

I've made a little more progress on disembarkation ramp doors and the interior area that will be exposed once the doors are open.

I've also begun building the landing gear feet and hinged arms. Ultimately the landing gear will be servo controlled so I'm going to begin building the mechanical components that will raise and lower the gear. I want to have a single servo control the front and rear landing gear so I'm going to have to figure out a lever system to get a longer range of motion since the rear gear sits higher on the hull. I won't be adding electronics till most everything cosmetic is done but I've left enough room to run wires for servos and LEDs and I'll be managing the rods and gears to run everything now.

Once the landing gear is built completely I can work on the 4 ball turrets. They'll be the last big piece to build before I can do all the detailing and layering that will make this look like a finished model.

It's not technically Stormbird progress but also bought a cool Tamiya motorized hobby drill. It comes a a model kit that requires assembly but was a fun little side project as a break from plasticard fabricating. It'll probably be really useful when i start adding the fine details.

I hope to have another update in about a week once I have at least the front landing gear mechanics working..

Thunderhawk turns into Stormbird

I started a Thunderhawk scratch build a while back out of a desire to have a fun project and end up with a super heavy for the odd Apocalypse game. I never had a real love affair with the Forgeworld Thunderhawk kit but thought this would be a good opportunity to make some scale and detail improvements along the way. However with the relatively recent release of the Sokar Pattern Stormbird I've decided to pivot and make my flyer into a different pattern of Stormbird. Mine will share all the important details that Forgeworld's has but I'm going give it a shape that I personally will like a little more. So far I've built out the basic hull, some of the engine components, wings that attach via magnetic system, and I've started on the side disembarkation ramps. As with any project like this it's begun to spiral and I'm sure I'll need to take a few months off soon but for now I've been building at a pretty intense pace.

Here's a photo dump of the work I've done so far.

These are the starting points for the secondary intakes on the engines, I'll be building four engines with slightly varying details for two of them.

I've mocked up the new wing shape here.

These are the mounts for the two engines on top of the fuselage. I decided to encase them in a boxy shroud sort of like the Storm Raven.

Here's a mock up of the engine shroud along with other unfinished engine components.

I've cut out a section on either side of the hull for the large ramps.

Here are the open and closed states of the ramps. I'll be doing a small amount of interior detail here as well as magnetizing the doors so they'll stay shut without any mechanism to hold them.

These are the intakes made out of some baby food caps and too much free time.

Here's the secondary intake mocked up on the wing, there will be one on the bottom as well when things are finalized.

And finally here's the rough state of things at the moment. I'll be cranking away on this during my vacation next week so hopefully I'll make a little more progress soon.