Z Force Armoured Troop Carrier

One of the earliest 15mm vehicles I 3D printed was for my Action Force project, the Z Force ATC.  The toy was a repainted version of the GI Joe Amphibious Personnel Carrier, but with a slightly different turret and a new interior.   The "Armoured Troop Carrier"was a re-coloured version of the US GI Joe APC, but with a different interior arrangements and a revised turret with missile rack.  I had been looking for a suitably scaled version of the French VAB upon which I assume this was based, but the more common 4-wheeled version tends to crop up most often. The only 6 wheeled version I found had very chunky wheels and didn't seem quite right.

Z Force ATC.

There is a great selection of GI Joe models on Thingiverse including this one by Jabberwock. His vehicles are produced at the same size as the original toys, which makes them 1:18 scale for 3 3/4 inch action figures.

Peter Pig infantry for scale.

I printed the ATC standing on end at 18% the original size.  Comparing it against a French VAB in 1:100 scale (on which the original appears to be roughly based), the width and length seems about right.  In hindsight, angling the hull at 20-40 degrees would have been better because it would have avoided so many support scars on the back of the vehicle, but that's one of the many things I've learned about 3D printing over the last 22 months. 

Support marks visible on rear.

Painting is detailed further down the page, but this particular vehicle is only part finished, needing a little more detailing such as stripes on the sides, black striping on the front red section and general tidying up all over.

Interior detail.

Because of the changes from the GI Joe APC, what I've printed doesn't quite match the Z Force ATC, but it's close enough for a first attempt.  I've been modifying the file slightly, attaching more detailed wheels to the design so that they don't have to be glued on afterwards.  There is more work to do, for instance adding a pick axe, axe and sledgehammer to the rear hull.  I'll print a few more once I've got the design right, to form the carrier allowance for an AK47 Western intervention force.

ATC blueprints.

The August competition for the AK47 Republic Facebook page was to create a waterborne model of some sort, and it was a chance to revisit the ATC and try a few new techniques, inspierd by the Z Force Jungle Terror story.

Jungle Terror comic strip.

Jungle Terror includes a section where the ATCs use their amphibious capability to try and evade an enemy attack, not entirely succesfully as it turned out.  This provides some good reference for my model.  The ATCs in the comic omitted the missiles to the rear of the turret, so that's a feature that I didn't need to worry about creating.

Amphibious ATC swimming.

I split the ATC model horizontally in an editing program and removed the bottom half, leaving a waterline model.  The existing turret was fairly basic and I rescaled an M60 tank cupola to 80% original size to use as an alternative.

Water effects from toilet paper & PVA/varnish.

A suitable sized base was cut from a piece of self-adhesive vinyl floor tile and after peeling off the backing, I stuck the ATC down in the centre.  I tore up a sheet of toilet paper and stuck this down around it.

I mixed some brown into the water colour at the rear to try and simulate churned up sediment.

I mixed up some PVA and Pledge/Future floor polish and dabbed it onto the toilet paper until it was well saturated, then used a stiff brush to dab and pull it into some rippled shapes to simulate water.  I've wanted to try this technique for a while and this was an ideal opportunity.

Rescaled M60 tank cupola replaces the original turret.

The APC was painted in Vallejo acrylics, medium olive for the hull and canvas load cover (never understood why you'd make an armoured vehicle with a virtually unprotected troop area), with black camouflage pattern and windows.  Z Force insignia, side stripes etc were carefully hand painted in white then overpainted in red where required.

Some extra coats of varnish gives the water some shine.

The water was painted in a variety of acrylic craft paint blues, with a little brown mixed in to the rear to try and show where the props have churned up some of the river-bottom sediment.  Some white was mixed in with the blues for some highlights in the ripples.  After drying for a couple of days, I gave it  acouple more coats of the Pledge/Future floor polish to give a gloss finish.  I also applied some patches to the hull to show where water had splashed, it looks quite good in reality but doesn't really show up in the still photograpsh where you can't see the change in the way the light reflects as you move it.  The various windows receives some of the gloss varnish too.

Overhead view shows the camouflage well.

The AK47 competition required the model to have a Peter Pig figure included somewhere but unfortunately I couldn't find the pack of seated figures that I intended to use, so I didn't get to enter the model after all!  I'm not disappointed though, because it gave me a chance to try some new techniques and pushed me to solve a few problems I'd had with the original ATC design. I'm in a better position to finish editing the model and printing some superior vehicles, and I'm very pleased how the water turned out.  I shell definitely be using that technique again on some future projects.