Tank Pirates of the Hay Plains - Finished Pics Pg 5

[scooter]

Writing some words tonight.  The muse is with me and i'm on a roll.

As has mine with Half Contact.  At least, for that bit of fanfiction, it has decided to cease its gambols with the Jersey Devil in the pale moonlight

[zenrat]

I've been painting the crew.  Not the whole crew (I don't have enough little people for that) but the Pirate Chief and those who will be out on the hull with him.  They are 1/72.

Pirate Tank WIP 19-05-2022 by Fred Maillardet, on Flickr

[NARSES2]

 

[zenrat]

I was awarded this kit at Model Expo for coming first in the Sci Fi class one year with the Sky Pirate Kawanishi.  If I don't screw up the weathering I may enter it in this years expo.
This seems nicely synchronicitous to me.

[NARSES2]

That's a good idea 

[Old Wombat]

I was awarded this kit at Model Expo for coming first in the Sci Fi class one year with the Sky Pirate Kawanishi.  If I don't screw up the weathering I may enter it in this years expo.
This seems nicely synchronicitous to me.

That's a good idea 

Yup!

[zenrat]

Weathering.
I have some Vallejo pigments which seem to be doing the job.  The good thing about them is that when mixed with water they mostly rub off when dry so if I overdo things I can backpedal some.
It really needs a base to sit on but i'll leave that until after the GB ends.  I'll probably work something up on a piece of red slate.

[Rheged]

nicely synchronicitous

What a glorious phrase!   Please may I add it to my personal vocabulary?

[zenrat]

nicely synchronicitous

What a glorious phrase!   Please may I add it to my personal vocabulary?

You most certainly may.

The physical building of the Pirate Tank is now finished.  I still need to complete the back story though.
But here is a teaser.
Akuyaku #1 Short Gun Barrel  - 10 by Fred Maillardet, on Flickr

[Old Wombat]

Ah! Genetically engineered porcines & teenage schoolgirls, a fearsome combination!

[zenrat]

Tank Pirates of the Hay Plains.
A Dieselpunk Anime from Studio zenrat set in the worlds of My Sky the Free Winds.

Akuyaku #1 Short Gun Barrel  - 8 by Fred Maillardet, on Flickr

The rule of law was but a distant memory in the broken brown land which was once Terastralis.  What had formally been a (albeit uneasy and bickering) confederation of notional states and terrortories had descended into disorder, disharmony, and disgust.
The Queen Lands were a bombed out ruin; Western Terra was a mostly uninhabited desert; South Terastralis, New South England, and Darwinsland were a patchwork of squabbling hegemonies, warlord fiefdoms and bandit tribal-lands; Van Daemons' Isle was a strict no-fun polytheistic misogynocracy; while Vicortia had locked down her borders, fired up her industries and was at war with everyone she was selling weapons to.

Akuyaku #1 Short Gun Barrel  - 3 by Fred Maillardet, on Flickr

To the North of Vicortia lay the Hay Plains; a vast flat land rife with roaming gangs, clans, tribes, and other loose groupings of buccaneers, privateers, freebooters, plunderers, pillagers, corsairs, marauders, and thieves.  Right at the tip of this composting cess-pile of villainy and gutter-trash were the Tank Pirates, and the fattest maggot in that peak of squirming fecundity was Hideki Gruntojo.
Known as Captain Squealer (but never to his face – at least not twice¹), Gruntojo had been a perfectly normal child (albeit small for his age), growing up on the shores of Lake Mungo until at eight years old a freak accident with the power kneaders of the dough processing mill in his parents automated gyoza plant left him looking somewhat different to his playmates.  Children being what they are they teased him mercilessly, picked on him, and bullied him both physically and psychologically.  Young Hideki put up with this for as long as he could (10 minutes) at which point he snapped and butchered most of them with a pair of plastic safety scissors and a bottle of clag before fleeing to the high plains where he signed on as a grouser monkey² with the first band of tank pirates that would have him.

Akuyaku #1 Short Gun Barrel  - 6 by Fred Maillardet, on Flickr

Rapidly working his way up through the ranks (a sharp rap on the head with a flensing wrench or a couple of pumps from a strategically placed geese³ gun can work wonders) he was an under driver by age twelve and was Tankenfuhrer commanding his own tank at sixteen.
Concerns about potentially traumatising younger readers forbid me from fully detailing Squealers rise to power as supreme leader of his own Panzercohort at 21, but needless to say it involved treachery, back (and front) stabbing, betrayal, bloody murder, more treachery, and a King Island triple cream Brie so ripe it flowed like honey⁴. 
Under Squealers command Panzercohort Razorback prospered and grew (unlike their victims who tended to stop growing permanently after the experience) absorbing tanks and crews from other, lesser cohorts until the day came when Hideki achieved that to which all Tankenfuhrers aspired – he bought and took delivery of a brand new Akuyaku Tank from the Melbourne based Vicortian Tank Works.

Akuyaku #1 Short Gun Barrel  - 5 by Fred Maillardet, on Flickr

The tank Hideki Gruntojo chose was the top of the range Akuyaku #1.  From the options list he ticked the boxes for short barrel gun, Spackman Industries telehydrauloscopic Far Horizon observationacelle, UnstuckumFastum^tm underbelly crawler drive, twin Chicom Powercorp whiffium cobalt tokamaks⁵ powering multiply redundant cross wired Nikola T35LA Hi-Tork Hemi^tm  motors, a 3.23:1 Differential, lightweight fenders and hood, roll cage, heater & seatbelt delete, and a SMEG cheese safe.  The result was the meanest and most feared tank on the Hay Plains.  Fast, heavily armed, manouverable, radioactive, capable of low 14 second quarters, and able to provide quality charootery⁶ at the drop of a hat.
In other words, marvellous.

Akuyaku #1 Short Gun Barrel  - 7 by Fred Maillardet, on Flickr

¹Mainly because after the first time you were missing your face.
²Track maintenance and adjustment, when carried out on the move is best done by small children who can flit between the idlers.
³Not a typo.
⁴Like an episode of Survivor, except for the cheese.
⁵The series one reactors.  The ones with the dodgy shielding but a much higher specific max output that were supposed to have been withdrawn but were still available if you knew the right boxes to tick on your VTW dealerships special services desk order form.
⁶Also not a typo.

Akuyaku #1 Short Gun Barrel  - 13 by Fred Maillardet, on Flickr

The Model
Platz 1/72 Akuyaku #1 Short Gun Barrel.
Squealer figure from the kit.  Other figures are white metal from Elheim Figures.

[PR19_Kit]

Totally BRILLIANT! 

An instant Whiffie contender if ever I saw one. 

[Rheged]

MAGNIFICENT!!

[Steel Penguin]

wonderfull  and a smashing back story 

[philp]

Looks good and love the story.