Reaver Jet Bike Conversion (Part 5)

Just thought I would take the time to show everything as it currently is. At least it is now starting to look like a complete vehicle. The model is slightly longer than a standard Reaver - about the size of the rear thruster longer. I could have made it shorter, but I wanted it that long for two reasons. Firstly, the underside of the rear section is where a captive would be trapped, caught and kept immobile in a 'force net'. So the rear section needs to be long enough to hold a normal man sized captive. Secondly, the silhouette of the jet bike from above or below looks a little like a spear, so I wanted the tail section to be long enough to support that impression. Although the Dark Eldar can not summon an aspect of Khaine to fight for them like the Craftworld Eldar can, I believe the gods of the Eldar and the Dark Eldar would still be the same, even if the Dark Eldar may favor different gods within the common pantheon. The Craftworld Shining Spears use their laser lances as the 'Spears of Khaine', while the Dark Eldar prefer to use the jetbike itself as the 'Spear' (It perhaps may not be supported in terms of Dark Eldar background material, but that was part of my assembly philosophy). The model needs alot more work, but it does not look too bad even at this stage.
I still feel like the rear blade is too small. I am holding a Raider blade in position so as to compare. If I put that there, then it would go against my desire for the model to be front heavy, it would also draw attention away from the attack blades at the front (more blades at the front are yet to be added), and it would steal an important piece from my Raiders when I construct them. However, if I did replace the small blade with the Raider blade, then it would make the model scream out - "I am Dark Eldar"

Reaver Jet Bike Conversion (Part 4)

I cut off the slanted part of the tip of the Bright Lance and replaced it with half of the final thruster, using a little greenstuff to improve the transition. I cut off the other end of the Lance close to the ridged undersection of the weapon, and glued it so that the centre axis of the barrel was in line of where the blades would normally attach to the Reaver section. I then cut in half what was left of the underside of the heavy weapon platform, and used greenstuff to attach the two pieces to just behind the seat. I also used greenstuff to attach part of the heavy weapon gun support. I held the canopy where it would be so as to best position these pieces (the canopy had a natural position where it happily sat on the barrel - what luck). Using greenstuff to attach the pieces allowed me to adjust the position of the pieces before the greenstuff set. After some rounding of edges and filling gaps and transitions with greenstuff, I ended up with what you can see above. I had not initially planed to use the gun support part, as even in the above picture, it is a little bulbous in that position. However, looking at it, it looked like a mechanical version of the painting - 'The Scream' (Well, to my warped imagination it did). So I thought it would look very appropriate being a part of a Dark Eldar jetbike. When it comes to painting it, I will try and highlight this as a distinctive feature.

Reaver Jet Bike Conversion (Part 3)

As can be seen from the picture, I've done some work on the 'rear' canopy. The canopy was too wide and flat for my liking, so I carefully cut it in half and glued it back together on the other edge. This gave me the shape I was looking for. I filled in the holes with green stuff since I had no use for holes along the spine of the canopy. Originally, I was not going to add a blade as in the above picture, but considering that the Raider has such a large rear structure (and even the battle fleet gothic Dark Eldar ship has a massive rear structure), I thought I should add something there to maintain a Dark Eldar 'look'. Taking one half of the small blades, I gave it the same treatment as for the large blades, and filed it down and cut out a section. Unfortunately, while the blade itself look quite nice, I am left with the feeling that it is just too small. Thinking again of the other Dark Eldar vessels, size does matter. Not only that, but the small blade makes the canopy look a little like the tail of a ordinary aeroplane. So now I am left torn between leaving it as it is or ripping this small blade off and putting something bigger there. The canopy needs much more work done to it (like using green stuff to put some plating back on), but for now I will leave the canopy as it is until I make some hard decision about this back blade.

Reaver Jet Bike Conversion (Part 2)

The 'heavy weapon platform' segments have been added to the Reaver main segment. I have also added the large blades and two of the thrusters. From above, the front now looks a little like an epic sized Falcon. But that's OK, as Eldar and Dark Eldar would be expected to have similar elements. With the large blades, I filed the supporting struts down so that they were only slightly thicker than the blades themselves (since I did not want chunky struts). Of course, this removed the detail. So I added detail back by cutting out sections and drilling a few holes. This gives a similar 'look' to the blades and rear fin of the Dark Eldar Raider model. The leading edges of the blade struts have also been rounded, while the trailing edges have been left square. The thrusters were not used as is. I cut off the front of each thruster at an angle (as I did not need the intakes), and carefully curved the edges of these cuts to give a natural look. They were then glued to round pieced of sprue (also cut at an angle), and glued to the Reaver main segment. I have not worried about pinning anything since the parts are light plastic, and when green stuff is added to fill gaps and smooth transitions, the bonds seem strong enough.

Reaver Jet Bike Conversion (Part 1)

Although I am looking forward to the Dark Eldar warriors and wyches being updated, I am in no rush for the jetbikes to be updated (except for the rider). After all, not only do they look good, but they are very versatile in how you assemble them. There are some things I wish were better. For example, the spars that hold the blades are a bit chunky, and the jetbike does appear to have primative elements better seen for Ork gear rather than Eldar gear.

Although I like the Dark Eldar jetbikes, I decided that I would convert them anyway (being the conversion nut that I am). I've seen the sneak peek of Jes Goodwin's design-in-development for a new Eldar jetbike. So I will make sure my conversion looks nothing like that. After all, I will just buy the new Games Workshop jetbike models when they eventually come out if thats what I want. Looking at the above model, I thought to myself "what if the backward pointing blades were actually the front". So from that initial idea, I would use the pieces to construct a different looking jetbike. Now, I do have an idea of what I want the finish conversion to look like. I want to make the jetbike front heavy, most of the 'weight' of the model being up with the blades. Rather than opt for a big thruster at the back like in the current Reaver model (and the potential new GW model), I would go for mobility thrusters instead. After all, all bikes can turbo these days, no matter if there is a thruster on the model or not. My conversion would have moveable thrusters like in a Harrier Jump Jet, although in my imagination, the thrusters would have greater movement and control than that of a Harrier. Manouverability is one thing that all Eldar jetbikes are actually superior in compared to the bikes of other races. Also, I wanted a 'net' area below the jetbike somewhere (to capture a slave), as we are talking about a Dark Eldar jetbike after all.

Now with those desires in mind, I chose parts to construct the jetbike with. Of course, I would use the entire Reaver kit in the construction, since that is what it would be in the end. Since I have been converting Dark Eldar warriors from Guardians, I have heavy weapon sprues spare, so I decided to use that as well. I decided to replace the smaller blade structure with the hover platform of the Eldar heavy weapon. In the picture, you can see that I have already cut out the front thruster. I will cut out the other two as well, along with the back panel of the platform (note that I intend to use the thrusters in the conversion, so they are being cut away carefully. You can also see that I am cutting out a section from the front panels to expose the bottom part of the platform. I am doing this to make it look lighter, since I feel a Dark Eldar vehicle should look light. The same panel will be cut out on the other side as well. I have also cut down the main Reaver segment to be what I want to use (no going back now!). You can probably see that I have filed the detail off of what would normally be the nose canopy. I unfortunately felt I had to do this, since on my conversion, it would become the rear. This would mean that the plating would have been overlapping in the wrong direction (No point in converting if your not going to do it properly). The Eldar Bright Lance is going to become what is 'under' the now rear canopy.