 |
| '57 Chevy Bel Air with hood-mounted twin .50s, and a Desoto Adventurer tricked out from here to Heaven. A couple of my extra machine guns there are drum-fed to break up the monotony. |
Here are a couple of the cars in progress. (The guns on the Chevy are only dry-fit, hence their lowered aim.)
All of the guns were made using brass rod for the barrels, plastic tubing for the muzzles and cooling jackets, and plastic sprue for the receivers. At such a small scale, I don't mind my receivers being that smooth/simple (no bolts, ejector ports etc.) I also switched to plastic sprue (from bass wood) because it's easier to control the pen vise when drilling out a hole for the gun barrels. The sprue is also much more sturdy.
I did the Desoto Adventurer (right) first, adding a larger engine, big exhaust pipes, rocket tubes and a couple machine guns up front. With that many pipes on this car -- all of them noise makers -- I had to name the vehicle "Calliope."
Since Calliope has so much going on, I decided to go simple with my next car, the 57 Chevy. The Bel Air only has a couple guns mounted on the hood. I'll armor up the front and rear windows, but otherwise, there'll be no more modifications to the Chevy.
In fact, I like the simple look of the Chevy enough that I'm going to do a couple more cars with just hood or roof-mounted guns. In Machinas, one of the more common armaments are twin .50s, so having a few cars armed as such fits right along with the game.
Don't worry, the car I have planned after the three gunners, has a snowplow scoop mounted up front as a ram (and as a scoop; the car will go to my church faction, which is responsible for digging out and repairing newly found Infernals.) Maybe I'll throw a couple rocket tubes on it, too.
Love the Calliope. Great looking, and the extended exhausts compliment both the massive engine and the rocket tubes.
ReplyDeleteIt occurs to me that, with the ultra-close ranges involved in Machinas, there is little need for the extended barrels on the machine guns. One could give up accuracy at long range for reduced weight and shorter form. Given that they're mostly mounted on the chassis anyway, and therefore only roughly aim-able, seems like those long barrels are unneeded.
Then again, they look quintessentially "machine gun" and are cool, so...
Another thought, again driven by the short ranges: what about single- or limited-shot, massive impact damages? A great blunderbuss/Claymore mine/grapeshot cannon mounted front and center on some car? Light, short-ranged mortars (like modern tank smoke launchers) might be interesting too?
Regardless, I'm a huge fan, and am very inspired.
Yep- I stick to the longer barrels for that "quintessential look" you mentioned.
DeleteMines! Why didn't I think of that?! Oh well, something to add to a supplement of new signatures/weapons for later, I guess. Not as if there won't be enough ways to kill your opponents already in the game :)
I do have a couple cars armed with those short-barreled tank-smoker-like launchers, though. In the game, they'd most likely count as small or cluster rockets (though, there actually is "smoke" in the game, too.)