The tanker is one of the arachnids true heavy weights and made famous of course from the film version. Unsurprisingly such a large plastic kit was right at the top of my arachnid shopping list and is the first unit to reinforce my bug nest. Before explaining how I painted the tanker, its well worth being aware of a few points about its assembly if you plan on having a go at one yourself. The tanker kit can look deceptively easy to construct with relatively few parts, however it is not if care is not taken. The most common problem I have heard with its assembly from other gamers is ending up with the thorax being positioned too low giving the model little actual height. The other is having the legs positioned too high compared to the thorax resulting in them ‘hanging’ in the air. The best way to think of the tanker is a bit like it is doing a push-up. With the legs positioned correctly the tanker is ‘pushing’ its thorax upwards with all four main fore-legs. This is the effect you want to aim for when assembling it.

I constructed my tanker using the following steps, but these are purely a guide and record of how I approached this particular model and is in no way intended to suggest it’s the best way as I am sure there are other ways just as effective or even more so.

 Step 1: Rear abdomen.

 I started by sorting the rear leg sets in order of largest to smallest working backwards along the lower abdomen plate and glued these in place along with the two halves of the upper section. The legs were then positioned so they were flush with the ground with the front of the piece raised slightly. The legs were then sealed with a thin line of liquid plastic weld into position.

 Step 2: Thorax and head

Before cementing the two halves of the thorax together, I positioned the upper halves of the main forelegs into the sockets along with the assembled head (but without any glue!) and sealed the thorax shut. With both pairs of forelegs and the head still able to move freely I then pushed the thorax ball joint into position with the rear abdomen until with a little pressure it popped into position. An alternative to this would be to work backwards from the head assembling that first, then the thorax and finally the abdomen.

 Step 3: The fore legs

 With the three main body segments now in position the tanker is ready to be posed into the right position. The first step was to run a thin line of glue around the thorax ball socket where it meets the abdomen and glue it into position raised as high as it will go while keeping the back of the bug flat against the ground. In other words keep one hand on the abdomen holding it down whist with the other hand lifting the front of the thorax up as far as it will go. Once it is set in position use some putty of other material to prop up the thorax and keep the model raised and level while the legs are glued into position.

Push each of the lower foreleg sections into the feet sockets (but do not glue yet!) and then each of the leg/feet sections into position with the attached lower legs that are still free to move in their sockets with the thorax. Work each of the legs into the position you want and then starting with the joint where the lower leg meets the thorax seal it shut with a spot of plastic glue (again a thin watery glue like plastic weld works best for this as it will run into the ball socket joint sealing it whilst not leaving any unsightly excess glue on the surface of the model. Working my round each lower leg in turn I sealed them into position before then gluing the ‘elbow’ joint at the top of each leg and finally the feet. Once all of the fore legs have been glued in position with their feet flush against the ground, the filler can be removed from under the thorax and voila! One tanker standing upright with all four main legs correctly pressing down on the ground. As a final touch the head can then be positioned however you like to finish off the pose. I this instance looking forward and slightly to the left. As a final task prior to painting I sanded down any unsightly joints and filled any seams with modelling putty which was sculpted to follow the lines and joints of the models body.

 Painting

 Painting the tanker was done in two stages of dry brushing and ink washes, the first to pick out the plated segments in first night blue then prussian blue. The rest of the model was then dry brushed in graveyard earth and bleached bone before the entire tanker was given an ink wash of heavily watered down mix of 1 part black ink, 2 parts blue ink and 1 part brown ink with a spot of night blue paint added to help cut the reflection in the ink.

Once this had dried completely I dry brushed the prussian blue areas again over the tops of the legs, head and plated segments before a final light highlight of lightning blue. The rest of the body was again lightly dry brushed in graveyard earth and bleached bone before the ink wash was applied for a second time to finish.

To finish the detailing I gave the edges of the armour segments and head a light drybrush of dark earth and khaki grey before picking out the mandibles in scar red which I highlighted with blood red. The eyes were painted dark green and highlighted in goblin green and scorpion green respectively before receiving a wash of yellow ink. For the claws I mixed black and bleached bone and simply created some lines tapering down to the tip of each claw.

That was pretty much it, one assembled and painted tanker to add to the Mobile Infantry’s misery.

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