It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted a build here. I return with this one.
Vehicle background (Batman Wikia):
The Tumbler is a prototype armored tank designed as a bridging vehicle for the military, including weaponry and the ability to boost into a rampless jump. It
has a pair of machine guns mounted in the nose of the car between the front wheels. In "Attack" mode, the driver's seat moves to the center of the car, and the driver is repositioned to lie face-down with his head in the center section between the front wheels. This serves two main purposes: first, it provides more substantial protection with the driver shielded by multiple layers of armor plating. Second, the low-down, centralized driving position makes extreme precision maneuvers easier to perform, while lying prone reduces the risk of injury a driver faces when making these maneuvers. Other devices included:
- Six rear flaps to assist brakes
- Twin forward-firing machine guns
- Rocket launcher
- Landing hook to Sprung landing stabilization
- Integrated fire-extinguishing system
- Integrated safety connection to gasoline control
- Vector-controlled jet engine on back of car for quick boosts/"rampless" jumps
- Stealth mode, which turns off the car's lights and cuts the engine. The vehicle is powered by an electric motor, making it very hard to find in the dark
- Aft deployed explosive mines
- Front of car is heavily armored, so the car can ram as a practical offensive attack, and also protects the driver while in the prone driving position/"Attack" mode
- Both front wheels can eject when the vehicle is damaged to form the Batpod
It’s also interesting to read the back story on the construction of, the capabilities and the lengths the actual movie cars (I think 3, total) were put through. The desert camo ones are cosmetically different (not just the paint), but equally cool.
The model and build:
This is Terrordron’s Tumbler. You can find it with the search engine of your choice, ultimately taking you to Google drive. The scale I’m building it at is 1:14 (approx).
The parts layout per page is an absolute waste of paper. I set about rearranging all of its parts into a better use of each page, reducing the total number of pages from 51 to 26.
I then repainted the entire model as the designer created this with the intention of printing on colored paper (42 black or grey, 2 gold, 7 white) and I wanted to use the white I had on hand. The gold and silver is thin gift wrapping paper laminated to standard 20 lb copy, with spray adhesive and then printed on with laser. I used 4 different weights of paper; 110 lb for the internal box frame, 65 lb for the larger body parts/panels, 32 lb for the smaller fiddly bits and my custom metallic blend for the appropriate parts. The glass was made with a standard report cover plastic sheet, available at your local office supply store, covered with auto film tint. Note: CA does not stick well to tint. Actually, not at all. I ended up flipping the glass.
As with all models, it’s important to get the internal box frame truely square and flat. And, correctly sized if you plan to use different paper weight for these pieces as I did. I had to make it twice. I added the dark exterior base color to the inside, exposed areas of the box to keep the interior dark.
The fit, so far, has been quite good.
More to come, -J