Project Tonks: Part 8

Something something magic 8 ball…EDIT: Now with borderline acceptable pictures!

 

 

 

With three satisfactory Tonks completed, and the essentials of a forth underway, the home stretch was now in sight. Tonk 4 would become a refinement of the previous three with respects to the tracks, going smaller, and once more using keyboard keys for the shape of things. The hull and turret design however were a new approach, repurposing a cheap construction toy, the same type/brand as I’ve used for Ork models. This was built up with off-brand lego to make a more interesting shape. Turret rotation here was based on a screwhole, which would have been fine by itself, but added a bit of wire and a touch of hot glue to reinforce the connection. The gun, meanwhile, was built up from a glue lid, a bit of a water pistol, and a bit off an old tank kit. Detailing and painting continued in my usual way, although I’d salvaged a new style of plastic sheeting, which I used for a few panels. As I was out of gold paint, I did the rivets in copper, not that you can tell. Between the hyper-fixation and practice I did this one fairly quickly. I don’t know if I’d necessarily build the turret ring again like this, but its entirely fine, and I like the blue.

 

 

With Tonk 4 done, I moved onto Stage 5: The Tonk Destroyer. Within the rules of Tonks, this in found in the extra section, an alternate playing piece available for games of 3 or more players. The basic concept of a tank destroyer is a fairly self-explanatory one, but to summarise: a tank destroyer is often a vehicle along the same lines as a tank, just removing the turret in exchange for a bigger gun. This was mainly a WW2 thing, often a conversion of a tank proper, but they are still around. On balance, this would be a simpler affair than a turreted tonk, which is why I called it a victory lap. I ended up throwing this together from bits I’d collected for this project, before going all-in on moulded tracks. The tracks where salvaged resin examples by Ramshackle Games, while the gun and blast shield were out of an old robot toy. The body was made from another jenga tile, with one segment cut off, and hot glued on top for a gun mounting. The tracks are smaller than my scratchbuilt ones, which combined with the gun housing makes it look more super-deformed than my other creations, but its fine. It looks very single-minded. I dressed it with bits as I usually do, and added on a crude dozerblade because I was in a 40K sort of mode. It was about this point I realised I could paint this, but I wasn’t sure if I could get it done in time for Tuesday. Then I got snowed-in, OK, decision made. I did it in magenta.

 

Well, its a little ahead of schedule, but Project Tonks seems to have come to a nice conclusion. Time to start thinking seriously about the next project. In the meantime, I’m going to mull over how this all went, and maybe write up a summary. Cheers for now.