The Minerva Dragons - Wasteman Truck
'And if we can't find a way back onto the main road near the Acon Range?' Steele asked, as the track became less gravel and more rock and looked more impassable with every metre of road they passed.
Elana gave a thoughtful sigh, and ran her hand through her blonde hair. She sat with one leather-booted foot on the dashboard, the other stretched out in the footwell. Her wistful gaze was directed out across the mountains, at the barren peaks that they were heading towards. 'Then we head north-west, into the Waste, and find a path across the desert.'
The truck rocked over a hole in the road, dislodging Elana's boot from the dashboard. Their cargo creaked ominously on the rear bed.
Steele gritted his teeth almost as hard as his fingers gripped the wheel of the old truck. 'People live there.' He mumbled.
'Pirates live there.' Elana corrected.
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The Wastemen play a small but significant part in Steele and Elana's journey across the northern hemisphere of Bliss in my forthcoming novel, The Minerva Dragons. They live in a series of caves in Potter's Waste, a hundred thousand square kilometres of featureless yellow sand and rock, and survive by preying on innocent travellers who use the intercity highways that border the desert to the north and east, or hunt for food in the Acon Mountains to the south. Despite their nomadic and violent lifestyle, these pirates are far from primitive - their vehicles are so well adapted to moving quickly across the sand that not even the mafia, whose power far outstrips the local police, can drive them out of the Waste.
Mighty Mike, leader of the southern-most tribe of Wastemen, uses a heavily-modifed Ford F150 truck with oversize desert tyres for traction, a 350ci V8 for sand-busting torque, sheets of steel welded in place as mudguards to keep the sand out of his eyes, heavy iron nudge bars for ramming victims on the lonely intercity roads, and a thick canvas tent on the rear bed so that he can sleep comfortably anywhere in the desert. His truck may be ancient and peppered with rust, but it is no wreck - nothing is better on the feared sands of Potter's Waste.
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The project depicted on these pages has taken years to put together. The chassis came to me as a bog-stock TL-01, and has remained mostly unchanged. An ancient silvercan motor provides a scale-realistic motive force and shocks are Tamiya oil-filled units from an early TA chassis, with very soft springs for better off-road traction. Wheels are standard TLT, resprayed matt brown for better camouflage in the desert.
The body began life on top of a Blackfoot Extreme chassis, and was very well used and abused by its previous owner before it ended up on ebay some years ago, missing several bits of plastic and badly repaired with body-filler. I bought the complete truck ARTR and restored the chassis, but the body was beyond reasonably repair, so I threw it onto the above TL-01 chassis, posted some pics on Tamiyaclub, and then promptly forgot all about it.
But it was not to be forgotten forever. In random bouts of boredom, I would dig out the old beast and add a few touches. An interior made of balsawood; a dodgy spotlamp to cover the hole in the front grille; a hoop section for a rear bed cover. Earlier this year I decided the truck was ready for a complete rebuild and respray, so the whole thing was stripped down to its raw parts and reassembled from the ground up.
Originally I was going to paint it matt black and use an old black t-shirt to make the rear tent, but the desert camo colour offered a greater challenge and more realism. I also had a spare desert camo bandana lying around that made the perfect template for the paint scheme and made a great tent fabric.
The wheel arches were a bit of an afterthought, made after I first painted the shell and then discovered some clearance issues with the wheels. They are made from plasticard sheet from my hobby shop, glued in place then heated with a cigarette lighter and deformed by hand to give that battered steel look. I wasn't pleased with them at first, but once I'd put another base coat on, they started to make a whole lot of sense. I also used plasticard to make the liners under the body, as there was a horrible air gap showing between the body and the chassis that completely spoiled the scale illusion. The front bumper and sidebars are made from plastic girders from the hobby shop, painted in red oxide automotive primer for that industrial steel girder look.
It's taken several attempts at painting to get it right. Most of the colours are custom mixes, using a variety of Tamiya matt acrylics to get the match as close to the bandana as possible. I'm not utterly happy with the design, but I've made too many attempts to start again and I've spent a small fortune on paint! The rust is a mixture of rust-effect kit (which is basically iron fines glued on with very thin PVA and then treated with an acid to make the iron rust quickly) and Humbrol matt rust paint, thinned almost to water and sprayed on with an airbrush. The rust-effect kit leaves a kind of sticky, shiny residue behind which can't be removed without removing the rust itself, so the Humbrol paint helps to mask the residue as well as add more depth to the effect.
I was working on this rebuild when the Mad Max competition was announced. The Wastemen are inspired solely by the road warriors on Mad Max II, and this particular truck (with its wide wheels and tent) was based on Max's truck in Beyond Thunderdome. I was overjoyed when the competition was announced, but unfortunately I couldn't finish in time. I'm really glad that I didn't rush to get it finished and do a second-rate job - this truck isn't perfect, but it's the best I could do.
The photo location is an historic minery called Troopers Hill, which is now a local park in Hanham, just a few minutes from the centre of Bristol and just a few minutes from where I live.
If you liked those pictures, you should see these...
The Minerva Dragons - Elana^s BMW
Comments
HOPPIN MAD 74
Crikey mate, must have taken longer to do the write up than build the truck!!!
Seriously though fantastic story and super truck, loving the steel girders and home made wheel arches. Nice location and cool pics too.
SRB Bloke
Nice truck, but you've just made me realise how so I am at reading. Never seen a description so long, great work mate..!!
rizzo rat
There's some great work gone in to this, looks real nice and i don't know about the unnoticed thing with the rear canvas on this lol. Great work defo a talent here.
paulos29
dude, excellent truck and a good read on your description too. whens the book out? let me know
top banana
def4x4
Great truck and very nice description to it! You did some nice work on this truck, but i think you started to late to do with the com entry!! O....by the way great location and pics too!
Henk4Focus
A superb model. I like it very much. The camo is perfect. Well done.
I found the STORY about as good as your Rig!! ???? That's some real clever work. Actually inspires me to go digging through my spare parts! Well done indeed.
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