Here I go again...
At work I had picked up a couple RJ45 cable connectors that had been wired wrong (these were the type you buy for custom wiring at 20 cents each). If I held them with the clip down, I could imagine some sort of hovercraft, either a recon type or an APC. I started out thinking Grav propulsion, but as I thought about the DPA background, GEV (Ground Effect Vehicle, a hovercraft) seemed more appropriate.
Snapping off the clip, I taped both connectors to a square of freezer paper and grabbed my container of filler and some white glue. Now filler is not modeling clay... not by a long shot. But if you mix it with white glue, it can make do. I sculpted a rough plenum skirt for each connector and let them dry for a night.
For references on designing these hovercraft, I looked at a couple of websites: Hover Craft Models: How a Hovercraft Works and Model-hovercraft.com: 2000TDX and more.
The next step was to smooth out the skirts (especially for the one on the right in figure 2 above).
But what about detail? Taking inspiration from the Light GEV from OGRE (TM), I decided to I need some fan housings for the horizontal thrust. Also, these were going to be command vehicles, so I would need antennas for sure. Lacking proper glue, I used the ever useful white glue bottle to affix the details (see pic below, I apologize for the poor quality... bad compression choice).
After cutting and gluing a "commander's hatch" from a 1mm wooden stick, I was ready to apply the undercoat of black spray-paint.
Page Created: (September 29, 2002)
