For Russ and the Emperor!
Riley's Land Raider - Painted and Driving!
May 31, 2021
2021 brought a lot of setbacks to the Land Raider. Paint shortages, a long winter, and the struggles of the pandemic turned a few weeks of painting time into six months of waiting. Finally, however, it is here, and it is impressive.
Riley painted it all up in the colours of his Space Wolves, bearing the markings of the Iron Wolves Great Company. He even added a cool Iron Priest in the commander's hatch, wolf pelts along the sides, and markings for a Wolf Guard unit to be carried within (TBD). He mentioned something about a painting blog coming in the future, and we’re excited to see more of his projects.
Scroll down for more phone camera shots; better photos will be coming soon.
If you’re interested in the original build log, click back here.
Changes to the Build
Internally, there have been a few changes since the paint went on; notably, both drive servos failed and had to be surgically replaced, which involved about an hour of hacking the old ones out with a file, to avoid damaging anything irreversably. The track width was also tuned a bit before the tracks were painted, which allows it to drive better and straighter than in the first video. If it were ever redone, there certainly wouldn’t have been any epoxying servos into place, and proper motor mounts and a motor controller would be the first change to be made. After that, a proper camera mount, and the mainboard replaced by the new Robots Everywhere ESP32-Cam breakout board we expect to release sometime in June or July. Some firmware improvements and changes to the web joystick would probably also be desired.
With enough changes to the internals, and a smaller speaker, a dedicated audio control board (rather than just an amplifier) could also be considered, adding more memory for sounds and 32-bit fidelity instead of the 8-bit PCM available on the ESP32-Cam.
If you’ve got a tank you’d like to see built out like this, or any other design projects our unique breadth of skills might help with, contact us. What can we invent together?
Video
If it isn’t obvious, we don’t own 40k and didn’t design the model. Warhammer 40000, the Land Raider, Space Marines, etc, are all trademarks of Games Workshop.
Photo Gallery
Final Thoughts from Riley
This was a really fun project to help shake the rust off. The paintjob is a long way from my best work, but it at least managed to look decent, and bring back some skills. I’m pleasantly surprised with how well it drives, given how fragile it is. I haven’t painted a Warhammer tank in a decade, and this was certainly a challenge to come back to. It’s very good to be back in the hobby, and it’s been really cool to bring some of my work into it as well. This won’t be the last collab with Robots Everywhere, but the real question is “what next?". The answer? Kay and Gamera’s Antbot-tan.
I have some ideas about starting a separate blog for hobby and painting projects, since Antbot 2.0 should keep this space a lot more active for the second half of 2021.