Apocalypse Prep: Part 1

As I mentioned in my last entry, I thought I'd post my progress in painting and converting my Tau Apocalypse army for CanCon 2011. Well here we go.

I plan on fielding three Tigershark AX-1-0's in my force. These are beautiful Forgeworld models that look like this:

There's one small problem, however. Each one costs 140 pounds. Gah. I just don't have that kind of money. Luckily, I have a solution.

Hasbro makes these:

They're from the GI Joe movie and they're called Night Ravens. The body piece, which is the part from the little red intake behind the front wings back, is exactly the same dimensions as a Tigershark. Exactly. The best bit is they cost me $14.99 from Aldi. Each. Sweet. So my plan is to turn them into this:

I have spare Railguns (the black gun bit under the red intake) and burst cannons (the multi-barrel gun under the wing) that I will cast up in resin and add to the body. I'll chop down the nose section which, fortunately, doesn't come attached to the main body.

I've already made progess on this. I've managed to chop down the nose of one of the models so that it fits into the main body similarly to that shown above. With some gap-filling and a proper paintjob, I expect they will look enough like a real Tigershark to pass muster. I hope to have one finished (bar painting) this weekend. Sweet.