Tintin - 1/72 Bordurian Tank

zenrat · April 04, 2018, 03:48:33 AM

This brings back memories.
I built quite a few of the Matchbox Armour kits as a nipper. I loved the diorama bases. They are hard to find now.

Weaver · April 04, 2018, 03:49:03 AM

I always thought the Lunar Tank's running gear was based on the Chieftain, with the six road wheels being in three distinct pairs:

Obviously the track guards and hull front are different.

rickshaw · April 04, 2018, 04:22:41 AM

I doubt it was a Chieftain. More than likely a Centurion, considering when it was published.

Weaver · April 04, 2018, 04:46:20 AM

Quote from: rickshaw on April 04, 2018, 04:22:41 AM
I doubt it was a Chieftain. More than likely a Centurion, considering when it was published.

Hmm 1954 - yeah okay, fair comment.

NARSES2 · April 04, 2018, 05:33:31 AM

Quote from: zenrat on April 04, 2018, 03:48:33 AM

This brings back memories.
I built quite a few of the Matchbox Armour kits as a nipper. I loved the diorama bases. They are hard to find now.

And for me, except I wasn't so much the youngster when I built them

Weaver · April 04, 2018, 05:36:31 AM

Quote from: zenrat on April 04, 2018, 03:48:33 AM
This brings back memories.
I built quite a few of the Matchbox Armour kits as a nipper. I loved the diorama bases. They are hard to find now.

Not so hard to find here in the UK. I think Revell reissued them at some point. I've got a couple or three...

NARSES2 · April 04, 2018, 05:40:36 AM

Quote from: Weaver on April 04, 2018, 05:36:31 AM
Quote from: zenrat on April 04, 2018, 03:48:33 AM
This brings back memories.
I built quite a few of the Matchbox Armour kits as a nipper. I loved the diorama bases. They are hard to find now.

Not so hard to find here in the UK. I think Revell reissued them at some point. I've got a couple of three...

Yes Revell did and indeed still do. I'm not sure if they all had the scenic base however ?

Dizzyfugu · April 04, 2018, 05:51:21 AM

They did/do, at least the original kits. Once Matchbox reveiced the black boxes, though, some thrid party kits were marketed under the classic label, and this includes some tank kits - but these were IIRC modern types like a Leopard 2 A4, a T-74 and a Challenger (which were 1:72, though). AFAIK, any recent 1:76 tank kit from Revell is a Matchbox re-issue.

Concerning the moon tank I know of a 1:35 build that used a Centurion kit chassis as a basis.

BTW: lovely little tank build!

NARSES2 · April 04, 2018, 05:54:09 AM

Thanks for that info Dizzy

strobez · April 05, 2018, 12:23:48 AM

The Matchbox Chaffee does seem to have been reboxed by Revell, and it looks like the kit still includes the diorama base, albeit in one colour not two.

I had thought long and hard about using the Centurian as the base for thr Lunar Tank (and those coupled wheels do seem to reflect Chieftan... perhaps Herge was just ahead of his time). I've seen the 1/35 build using the Centurian and it looks great. I've also seen one built using the M26 Pershing - wih the added bonus of the grates being repurposed for the Bordurian tank. So in the end I decided to go with the kit I could just ride the subway to get my hands on.

We'll see if that was a good choice in the final result.

zenrat · April 05, 2018, 02:27:08 AM

Quote from: Weaver on April 04, 2018, 05:36:31 AM
Quote from: zenrat on April 04, 2018, 03:48:33 AM
This brings back memories.
I built quite a few of the Matchbox Armour kits as a nipper. I loved the diorama bases. They are hard to find now.

Not so hard to find here in the UK. I think Revell reissued them at some point. I've got a couple or three...

Rare here unfortunately and those selling them know it. Especially anyone with the LRDG set.
A couple of years ago there was a bloke at Model Expo displaying what looked like a built up (OOB unfortunately) complete set, all on bases.

Weaver · April 05, 2018, 02:52:13 AM

Quote from: strobez on April 05, 2018, 12:23:48 AM
The Matchbox Chaffee does seem to have been reboxed by Revell, and it looks like the kit still includes the diorama base, albeit in one colour not two.

Which makes sense really, since it would be MORE work to cut the diorama parts off the sprue, and the cost of the plastic is a relatively small part of the total cost of the kit.

Quote
I had thought long and hard about using the Centurian as the base for thr Lunar Tank (and those coupled wheels do seem to reflect Chieftan... perhaps Herge was just ahead of his time). I've seen the 1/35 build using the Centurian and it looks great. I've also seen one built using the M26 Pershing - wih the added bonus of the grates being repurposed for the Bordurian tank. So in the end I decided to go with the kit I could just ride the subway to get my hands on.

We'll see if that was a good choice in the final result.

Fair enough.

The Centurion had a similar Horstmann suspension system to the Chieftain, but the paired spacing of the wheels was less apparent.

In all these discussions about tank suspension in comics art, I think there's another important thing to bear in mind: drawing wheels is boring. Whatever real-life tank the artist was inspired by, there is an understandable tendency to reduce the number of road wheels when you're going to be drawing the damned thing lots of times, especially for animation purposes.

There's also a tendency to draw 'rubber tanks' that can subtly change shape and size in accordance with the needs of the plot, especially in an open-ended series where future requirements can't be anticipated at the initial design phase. Need to hide the tank in a garage? Fine, just make it a bit smaller. need to have the tank hold ten people? Fine, just make it a bit bigger. This is MUCH easier to do on paper with a pencil than it is in a workshop with a welding torch...

strobez · April 06, 2018, 04:57:22 PM

That's a very good point. When building scale models of real vehicles depicted in the comics, it's easy enough to just get the real dimensions. However vehicles in the comics that are pure imagination, like either the Bordurian or Lunar tanks, are much more difficult to figure out. At least with these "almost real" ones you can make an educated guess, but you still have to account for the "rubber tank" variable (I think you just coined a new term!).

Usually I just selct the most "iconic-looking" pose and try to use reference points. That's what I did for thr Tintin test rocket. There's a scene where you can see scientist working on the fuselage. I made a guess that any single "generic scientist" was about 175cm tall and just counted how many standing on shoulders it would take to reach the top.

It gets even harder the further from real world you get. The Laputa flapter was tricky to figure out given the "rubber tanking" in various scenes.

strobez · April 15, 2018, 08:16:20 AM

So I decided to take a break from banging my head on my desk

while trying to figure out the mysteries of a seven segment LED clock display and work with just somw plastic for a bit....

The body is coming together now, but there's a lot of PSRing in my future I think...

Rick Lowe · April 27, 2018, 03:11:05 PM

Wow, that's coming along well. The lineage is visible when you know what the base kit was, but the changes have added up to quite a different look.

Keep on!

*and I'm going to have to add "The Rubber Tank Variable" to my lexicon now - see what you lot are doing to me?! That's one of the things I like about coming here.