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.

 

Project Tonks: Part 7

Lucky number seven?

 

Mindful of becoming somewhat "tonked-out", I tapped my breaks a bit. I'd laid the foundations for today's Tonk in the week 6 segment, and then promised myself I'd try to do something else for 24 hours. At that point, the Tonk was looking to combine elements from each of the previous weeks'. The track base was similar to last week's, but triangular, with the hull being half a Jenga tile. The turret was looking like the one from week 5, but more towards the front. I soon realised this was gonna be too small, so I revisited the gimmick straws I'd used for week 4's oversized Tonk. Through good luck one of the pieces matched the width of this Tonk all-but-perfectly, with a bit spare for a gun barrel. However, things didn't seem to be sticking well, and I took that as my cue to take a break. 

 

When I came back to it, I found myself making an inverse of a Tonk somewhat, with most of the mass towards the front. The hull was dressed with a keyboard key and a lot of rivets, while I added additional roadwheels in the form of beads atop nanoblocks. While the turret was another small jar, I tried to detail it differently from the week 5 model. I also applied a panel from an old toy car to the top of the hull, as it had duel extractor fans. Painting then continued with my now standard "make-up brush dry brushed rust bucket method". I'm quite happy with how it turned out, although I didn't notice a wonky wheel until it was too late. 

 

Once that was done, I anxiously turned to the next, as I had plans that week and wouldn't be able to model as much. Yep, rushing again. I do learn, I swear, it's just I get very focused on things. Here I used smaller wheels and more beads, before trying a new turret style based on a construction toy. It's obviously not done, so we'll come back to that one again next week. 

 

 

All being well, I should have something to say about stage 4 soonish.

Project Tonks: Part 6

Six weeks now? I suppose that counts as a routine.

 

As you may recall from last week, I was feeling quite pleased, but had received a delivery of models that were gonna be a distraction. Bloody hell Richard, what were you thinking? You start a long term project involving 1:72 tanks, and as change of pace you order some 28mm mini-tanks for when you are on holiday. That's a really diverse set of projects you got going there. So, of course I put those together alongside today's Tonk work, although the write-up will come in future weeks. On the plus side, it does not appear to have slowed me down by much.

 

Today's Tonk followed on the innovations of last week's where I'd chanced upon a method to easily make road wheels. Here I cut down some 6 by 1 thin not-lego pieces, attached wheels to them, and wrapped the bricks with a strip of EVA foam to provide a foundation. The wheels here were salvaged from toy cars, specifically pull-motors, which also provide good gears. As this was a first attempt, I went for a simple line of road wheels, which ended up needing an additional small wheel as I’d misjudged the distance between them. Not quite what I wanted, but good enough. Attaching these to the hull of the Tonk was a bit of trail & error, as was applying the tracks. I had to faff about a bit so everything sat flat. Otherwise, I went for a slightly more angular look with a smaller turret than the last one. Said turret was achieved by wrapping the business end of a spraypump with EVA foam and bits until I got the shape I wanted. I used a lot of cheapo gap-filler on that turret too, to smooth it out. Painting then continued in the usual manner, making use of a make-up brush to speed things up. A couple rivets didn't want to take paint for some reason, but i think I got it in the end. Sorry about the photos, the light wasn't great.

 

 

 

All in all, I'm quite happy with how it turned out. The tracks aren't quite there, but are certainly good enough. I’ve also found my pace of building and painting has increased. Part of that’s being on holiday, but I seem to approaching Gaslands levels of efficiency where the only thing that’s slowing me is literally the paint drying, or waiting for the putty to set. I’ve made A LOT of track links in the past week, so the remaining two Tonks should go faster. Actually I’ve started on the third, but decided slow down, lest I burn out.

Up next: Another Tonk.

Project Tonks: Part 5

Part 5 then... Here we go.

 

 

While I was being too much of a perfectionist with last week's effort, I wanted to avoid the same imperfections for the next one. I.e. keep the size under control, and do actual track links this time. I started with the track links as I knew this was going to be the most involved and lengthy part of the build, but once I got it right, future builds would be easier. This was because I was going to make some crude, two-part, push moulds which would enable me to mass produce the links with minimal effort. I'm not great at precision cutting, but I don't mind filing a part after the fact to it fits. If you're unfamiliar with such things, I will say it requires a certain amount of preparation and good old trial & error. It's only worth doing if the part you're making is A) rare/annoying to source or B) you're making so many of the things it works out to a time saving. Obviously doing a bunch of track links is a massive B, and if you want to know more about the process, I'm going to include a link here to a video. It probably explains things better than I can. My initial design was to base these around zip ties and paper clips, but these proved to be too slight for this style of mould. Instead, I went for something based on cut down nanoblocks, tubing and scrap plastic. These are perhaps a bit chunky, and aren't interlocking, but I have to work with what I have.

So while I was prepping that and creating a lot of miscasts, I went to work on the actual tonk. This proved to be a series of happy accidents. I'd decided to use a small spraybottle from an airline travel kit for the turret joint. During installation, the top, which I had intended to build up into the turret, pinged off into a corner and presumably Narnia as I have yet to find it. However, a small make-up tub from the same set would work just as well. Actually, better, as it had an indentation on one side the same diameter as the spray mechanism, so it flows better. The track wheels meanwhile were left overs from an old Frame Arms kit, these having been selected as convenient short-cut while I worked out the track links. These are single mould piece with four wheels and a rectangular behind. These looked the part, but there was a lot of empty space that would make adding tracks impractical. So, I wrapped the piece with EVA foam to fill those gaps and make for better connections. Then it hit me, I can do the same thing with lego and disks. That will make the next one so much easier to do! The track links meanwhile, while requiring significant clean-up and gap-filling, went on with almost no issue, when I'd been suspecting a need to mod something to make 'em fit. Word to the wise: if you're trying something like this, do the visible areas first, that way, if you have to bodge something, it's on the underside. I only really needed to add a strip of EVA to bridge a gap. And finally, once I' d added some panels to the side, the tonk proved to be very close to the 7 by 5cm target. I was quite pleased. Painting then continued in my usual way, this time featuring lime green, and some homebrew mud paint to obscure some imperfections.

Generally, I'm a lot happier with how this turned out versus week 4's creation. That was OK, well-liked even, but this is more scale appropriate, and looks a bit better. I'm inclined to do three more like this, and redesignate the bigger green one as a prototype. That puts me a little behind schedule, but I do have some time off this week. I’ll have plenty of time to catch up, assuming nothing happens to distract me…

Uh-oh.

Project Tonks: Part 4

Ah right, part 4. Let's do this. 

 

As you may recall from part 1, the plan was now to do scratching and heavy kitbashes, and on a very rainy day, I started on the first of four new Tonks. This was going to be a mix of techniques my research had previously turned up, although I hadn’t given much prior thought as to how it would all go together, it was very free-form. The hull was a cut down jenga tile, with cut-up pens for the wheelbase. Its tracks were then created with strips of EVA foam, layered with cable tie segments. I will admit to this being simpler than some of my previous works, but sometimes you skip the dull stuff. The main hull was built up around this, going for a still ramshackle look but less orky than my usual. I had various modern tanks in mind, mainly NATO ones, although that may not be apparent. I had aimed for a 7 by 5cm hull, but as so often happens, the model grew during assembly so it's more like 9 by 6. The turret was made from a hand-soap pump and a bottlecap, salvaging part of the mechanism for turret rotation. The turret and main body were painted separately, and not attached until painting was almost complete, something I should have been a touch more careful about, but rust covers my mistakes. Speaking of painting, I experimented with a Halfords grey primer and some watered-down Vallejo 70.873 US Field Drab as a base coat. I'd ran out of both my preferred and backup spraypaints, but I'd heard good things about Halfords rattle-cans, so I gave one a go here. Initial results seem satisfactory. 

 

While it generally came out well enough, I’m not entirely satisfied, like I’ve not quite got it down. It looks like a scrap tank, the EVA foam tracks work OK as a technique, but its not quite me. This prompted me to mull over how best to approach the next one. I gave some thought to casting a smaller style of track links. Then I thought about cut-up cable ties on double-sided tape. And then about the assorted kitbash ready tracks I already had. Then about cutting up shower gel bottles for their shape.I went back to my (unfeasibly large) bitzbox, and had a rummage too. I decided to sleep on it, before picking up fresh modelling supplies the next day.

Of course, this was just me suffering being a perfectionist, when I started sharing these images with people, the Tonk was well-received. So, I’ll accept this how it is. The next one will  hopefully feature milliput tracks though...

 

Project Tonks: Part 3

Okay, that's three posts now, I suppose that counts as a pattern.

With the scenery done I was chomping at the bit to start on the proto-Tonks. I'd initially thought painting these would be a fairly involved process that would be best done in stages, but I'd blasted through a couple of similar projects, (write-up pending,) with speed. It would be a simple matter of drybrushing metals, and then stippling the main colour. The main thing to keep in mind was the utmost importance of turret rotation, so those areas were masked, and the case of the KV-1, modified. As these were based off toys, some components were die-cast metal, so these went in the dettol. While these were soaking, I worked on the turrets. Like I said, I was eager. I drilled out the gub barrels, added some armour bits, and filled some gaps. As its me, I went rusty again. This sort of thing is my bread & butter, so this totalled maybe 3 hours work over several days, plus drying time. There was some trial and error regarding how many coats were were needed, and how to apply friction to the turret joint, but nothing major. Thus the set was ready for play on Sunday. One thing I probably should mention though is that are supposedly 1:64 scale which makes them on the small side for a Tonk, but it doesn't hurt them as a set.

It was only the one game, I spent most of the Sunday learning how to play Gaslands, but both experiences were fun. I don’t have any deep insights to share at this time, except to say its about careful positioning and carefully chosen actions, but also very rules light. I can see it being playable by four people in under an hour. The picture below shows a highlight.

I've been giving some thought to Stage 3, the scratchbuilt Tonks, stockpiling materials and such. A common technique that I've seen is to repurpose a spray bottle as a turret ring, specifically the clasp that seals the mechanism to the bottle. I've done some exploratory surgery on a couple, and it should work, if maybe oversized. As such, I've sourced some mini spray bottles, out of a travel kit, which might be easier to work with, but we'll see. I've also lucked out with a charity shop find, a bag of plastic Jenga tiles that should be great for hulls. With respects to tracks, I've got a nice selection of discs and beads too. I have considered making my own track links, like I've done on other projects, although the scale is a concern. Regardless of how I decide to do it, the scratchbuild process is likely go relatively slowly, as while I have some time off coming up, it's not something I can speed through like painting.

Up next: the initial scratch Tonks.

Oh, and Happy Halloween!

 

Project Tonks: Part 2

Righty week 2, let's see if this can become a pattern.

For the purposes of reference and quicker play if I wanted, I'd cut up some chipboard for use as terrain templates during week 1. I now used these to start making actual terrian. The process here was to make a base of chipboard, layer it up with tinfoil, hot glue whatever terrain piece on top of that, and then use gap filler for the ground. The theme? Junk piles. It's the sort of thing you can easily throw together from your bitz box, although it helps to remember scale. I did think about doing some tonk-traps, before realising I need some seriously tiny girders and I-beams. Thus followed assorted craft paints & washes. As for the colours used? Well, I had an orange which I felt was good for industrial stuff, but then I remembered the colourful nations of the Advance Wars video game series. The art direction in that is fairly Tonks-adjacent, so each terrain piece got a subtle nod to a faction in that game, atop my usual metallics and rust. Overall outcome is good, although the gap filler seems a bit unpredictable when drying.

 

Although, this was during Storm Babet...

Anyways, let's talk about the proto-Tonks a bit. I took them apart to remove the friction motors, something I'm sure I'll find a good use for later, and considered turret rotation. For three of them, I'm fairly confident painting will be easy provided that I mask a few places with blu-tac. The forth, what appears to be a Russian KV-1, needs actual modification. It's turret can't spin 180 without bumping into some die-cast details. As cutting that off would require serious power tools that I don't have, I opted to put in a plastic spacer. It's an ugly job, but it's only temporary, and was a useful intermediate step to learn from. I'll find a better way to do that, be it either turret modifications or a less bulky riser for the turret ring. I was keen to get started on that, but I feel the need to pace myself. There’s no rush.

Up next: Painting and customising the proto-Tonks.

Project Tonks: Part 1

Following the completion of my Orktober Stompa, I was in need of a new project. It helps with my mental health to have something to do, it's why this blog exists, but at time of writing I'm currently 7 weeks ahead with material. When I'm in a good mood, it's often easier to write. So, having gone very big, I decided to go small, namely the miniatures game "Tonks". Like Gaslands, this is a model-agnostic game where you are encouraged to kitbash stuff, namely your Tonk, a roughly 1/72 scale tank model. It's not a full wargame, its free and it's very rules-lite, but offers 4 way tank battle-royals. The game is not hugely well-known at present; the only reason I know about it is that Bill Making Stuff has done a series of videos on it, but it does offer the potential for a long term project. One which I could take down to play at my local gaming venue.

What I am planning to do then is a series of diary style articles as I explore the world of Tonks, with the overall aim to build and a refine a Tonks set. This will run along side my usual posts, until either this comes to a natural conclusion, or I just get distracted by something else, whichever happens first. It might not be a weekly thing, but I think it will be something good to do in the run up to chrimbo. The basic plan is as follows.

Stage 1, Prepare Gaming Materials: the basic collecting of all the bits you need to play Tonks. This means printing rules, making basic tokens, and acquiring playing pieces.

Stage 2, Prepare scenery and proto-Tonks: having acquired some suitable toys to use as Tonks, the next step is to paint them up and do scenery. As a Tonk requires turret rotation, I'm mindful of the potential for paint/glue mishaps, so I want to refine a technique before moving on to...

Stage 3, Scratchbuilding & heavy kitbashing Tonks: having got a feel for things, the next step is to make 4 very individualistic Tonks from the ground up. Additional or improved scenery would also fit here.

Stage 4, Tonk-Destroyer: As a victory lap, make a tonk with a hull mounted cannon.

So where do things stand as if part 1, then? Well, I currently have some cheapo tanks, for use as playing pieces. These are the same make as my recent Grot Tanks, and are on the small side for this, but otherwise fit the Tonks vibe very well. One of them needs some modification to do a full turret spin, but hopefully that’s an easy job. Printing the rules has also been achieved, although that was a trail, as my printer is acting up. It can either start working properly, or it can be stripped for parts.

Up next: Scenery and trying out the game maybe.