A tale of two tanks...
The tank in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is, according to the makers of the film, a Mk. VII German tank from World War I. Such a tank never actually existed, since the design is obviously inspired by British, romboid-shaped tank design, and the presence of a turret is completely alien to any of the larger British tanks of the era.
Now...when I set out to make the tank, I was obviously doing so more from a gut feeling than anything else, since despite the presence of reference material, I got so many things wrong with regard to scale, shape, proportion, and level (or lack thereof) of detail. As a result, I sold my first attempt on ebay to make room for a second, more personally satisfying version. So here begins...A Tale of Two Tanks.
The First Tank
Work-in-Progress
Basic structure:
Base for treads added:
'Riveting' work:
The Final Product:
The Periscope:This thing was a mini-epic to build in itself!
First up, I drilled a hole in the top panel of the tank that was roughly the diameter of the styrene tubing for the main shaft of the periscope. The protective box is styrene, as is the periscope head itself. I found this tiny rubber gasket or washer in my fodder that would allow for the periscope shaft to hold a position when it was extended. The viewing part in the tank is a pair of binoculars from a clone trooper figure with some really thin styrene tube glued to the sided to simulate the handles.
I thought this was a fun little detail to add, though it ended up taking nearly a whole day to complete.
Now, I learned from this that the overall design was off model, and that I really needed to exercise more patience when it came to detailing. I was impressed with myself in some ways, but I wanted to take another kick at the can.
The Second Tank
Work in Progress:
The experience of making the first tank was a lot of fun, but it was also very difficult. It took me a month to complete, and I made many mistakes and had tonnes of setbacks. I kept adding to it, then realized that A) it was a tad too big for my tastes, and B) their were aesthetic elements to the basic structure that I wasn't 100% pleased with. So, rather than continue to modify it, I decided to start from scratch. In contrast to the first version, I completed Tank 2 in one week.
Among the things that I wanted to change this time around was make sure the caterpillar track housing was more accurately shaped. I also wanted to make the thing smaller, though I thought my first one was kind of cool because it was so big (but really I just wanted something more accurate), and the big reason for my wanting to redo such a mammoth project was because I wanted to do a better job of detailing the interior. So, here it is:
The Exterior:
Looks pretty familiar, eh? Its shorter in terms of height and length, and the treads/caterpillar tracks are 1/2" narrower than the first. While I liked the proportions of my first tank better (especially the side gun ports and the overall length) this really is more what I wanted from the finished product.
Another big change from the first tank is that I wanted the side armour and panels to be more three dimensional, which requires more construction but looks much better.
The turret is also much more elegant in its construction, since I actually created a circular joint as opposed to using a screw (which worked well for the first tank, but I wanted to try something different).
The shovels are scratch-built using styrene card and rod...they're not removable though, so Vogel can't beat the crap out of Indy with them.
A couple of outside shots:
The Interior
With my first tank, I plunged ahead on the construction of the outer body, thinking I'd just detail the interior later. Unfortunately, the tank's structure required more foresight than I thought, so as a result I ended up having a nicely done interior room with very little going on. The main problem was that the side guns needed to be accessed from the inside, and the way I built the treads blocked them completely off. Sooo...I had to accomodate the guns when building the treads this time, and also make some detailed guns:
The guns are more appropriately scaled this time as well, and are made from some plastic tube that I had lying around and some styrene rod and card.
The final product:
Thinking this through before construction really helped save time...all I had to do was completely remake the thing! Lots of doohickies and doodads and greeblies added as I went. The chair, guns, bench, and control console were based on very simple boxes constructed from styrene.
In much the same way that the periscope added a toy-like flavour to my first tank, I see this more detailed interior as doing the same thing for this version (though I did flub up and not leave enough room for the periscope this time around).
Comparison
Tank 1:
Tank 2:
Let me know what you think, and thanks for looking.