I've been looking to bring more firepower to my cadre as the people I play with keep upping the ante. But since I lack the funds to buy everything I want from Forgeworld, I have decided that I should be able to build my own. My first attempt will be a Barracuda. I don't have the skill or patience to make an exact copy like atropos907's excellent version, but Kunas'Anuk proved that you can make something very cool and have it be "Barracuda-inspired". So, my goal is 'counts as' Barracuda, but still look Tau and be cool. I picked up a Skyray box and hope to use as many parts from that as possible form that. I can save the Skyray turret and wings to make a Remora, and set the railgun aside for my inevitable attempt at a Tigershark AX-1-0.

I am shooting from the hip a little bit on this. I have a general idea of what I want to happen, but I don't have any plans or measurements. The first thing I did was chop up the front hull to isolate the cockpit area. Having a Dremel or other high-speed rotary tool really helps with this:







Next, I elongated the engine parts to be more in line with what is on a Barracuda. I am using plasticard for the basic structure, then I will fill in the rest with green stuff and make it look pretty:







I was stuck for a while on how to join up the top of the fuselage and the engines. I looked at some ship-building forums and saw that most of those just started as a box in the rough shape of the craft, then the modeler attached all the details to the outside. So I got a piece of plasticard to use for the upper deck and glued the top on:





After drawing some basic alignment marks, the engines get glued down, and the upper deck trimmed to a more pleasing shape:







My "plasticard" in this case is a 'FOR SALE' sign that I picked up from the dollar store, so sometimes the colors make an appearance:







Adding the other half of the engine, and the back, sides and front to the fuselage section:







Building the nose:







Work is pretty hectic right now, but I hope to have at least weekly updates as things progress.

Not every day one takes a Sky Ray kit and thinks for himself; "I have a high speed rotary tool and a dremel.. let's butcher it and make a completely new model!" You, sir, are mad.. So far good work. You've captured the basic structure of the 'Cuda. Now all we need to do is patiently awaiting your next update.

I assure you, I am quite mad, and for reasons that have nothing to do with 40K.



The wings are on now:







I couldn't find any pictures of the ventral side of a Barracuda (I searched Google Images for a whole 90 seconds!), so I have no idea what it's supposed to look like. And having a completely flat underside would look horrible. After a bit of trimming, I added the side-hull pieces. I think they fit well and give it a 'beefier' look when view from the front:













I think I am about to the point where I need to start adding Green Stuff. And I need to find something to do with the "chin" area under the cockpit to prevent it from being a flat, boring place.

Well, I think there you will find most possible angles you may be interested in. And btw great project!

I really like how close to original it is.

Oh, excellent! Yeah, that helps quite a bit. Thanks!

Dang, hazmatt, those side-hull panels on the underside really makes the whole scratchbuild looking exeptionally good! My only concern is that as the WIP stands now, I find it greatly underpowered. Perhaps grab hold of another pair of jet engine exhausts from either a Piranha kit or 'Fish..

On second thought, scratch that suggestion. Looking at the Barracuda info sheet in Imperial Armour Vol. III; The Taros Campaign, the exhaust do not cover the entire back -meaning from top of the fuselage to the bottom- instead, they cover 3/4 of the back fuselage, as seen from the side view. So, here comes suggestion #2; add more plasticard between the overhead part of the engine and the underside part of the engine, a 5mm piece of card should suffice.

I heartily agree, bigger looks much better:





OK, now it is opinion time. On the top of the normal Barracuda hull there is a large dome structure with the Air Caste symbol on it. I can think of 3 options for this. First is the normal top hatch that would be used for a Devilfish:





Second, I could use one of the side hatch doors:





Third, I could use the rear hatch door. It's actually a little weird how perfectly the entire assembly fits in that space:





I'm partial to the side hatch door, but I had hoped to use those on the bottom of the hull, matched up to their side hull pieces to be the covers for the retractable twin-linked missile pod. What do y'all think?

I am so going to copy this since it seems simple enough ... But as to your last question Hazmatt I would shave the Hinge off the Back door piece and use that since you are going to be doing a Heap of Filling to give it those Nice Smooth lines and curves are you not?

But yes this looks to be a rather easy to follow thing to do and Is slightly cheaper than a forge world one for those without a credit card

She is looking Great so far keep up the good work.

Dang.. Option #2; the side hatch looks better, but option #3; the rear hatch is better modelling-wise. I guess it's up to you how much time you want to spend on filling, sanding and cutting to get the curves and lines right, hazmatt.

hrmn, I might have to steal your idea and make a few of these myself. I like it.

Over the holidays the cold/flu season visited the House of Hazmatt, so I haven't made a lot of progress on this. It's becoming more and more clear that my skill with Green Stuff will be the difference between success and failure, so I hope I can level up my Green Stuff Ability quickly.

The ion cannon came out of the box with a malformed part, I don't know really how to describe it. You will see in the pictures that I drilled it out and I will be putting in some 1/8 inch acrylic rods after I get it painted.

Seeing your progress on your 'Cuda, I've come to think of something.. Wouldn't it be easier to have the core structure buildt out of pink insulation foam sealed with a layer of pva-glue instead of plasticard and greenstuff? The foam is easy to cut to shape, and with a coat of pva-glue, it seals and can be painted/superglued without the foam being dissolved/warped by paint or superglue.. -thrust me on this one, I've tried it on strips of non-pva glue-coated foam and pva glue-coated foam to see how it would react to spray paint, superglue and to be honest, the results with the non-pva glue-coated strips of foam looked like Alien acid blood had dripped on them..

Hindsight is 20/20 and the answer to your question is, in a word, "yes".

The one thing that I am regretting is related to that. If you look in the last picture I posted, you can see the problem I am having with the underside. When I was building the "core" I used plasticard for the sides and top, but used the Devilfish lower fuselage for the bottom. Now it is too recessed and is going to look wonky (for non-English speakers: strange, weird). I wish that I had built the core entirely of plasticard and then attached all the bits, including the lower fuselage, to the outside of that.

As for the materials themselves, this is what I had on hand. If I had any of the pink foam it probably would have been easier, but I am following the path of least expense and just using what is already laying around in my modeling area.