New W.I.P. Project Zeppelin

Zeppelin you ask? Well, let me explain. I have been working on my Vostroyan IG Army, off and on, for the last two years. I get caught up in the muse and I go for a while. I get a mass of creativity down, then with the weight of the store on me, slow down and move on to another project that I need
to do for a customer or the store.

I had always wanted to make Valkyries for my army, but since I was going with a Russian theme, I had planned on making a Hind D Helicopter. I had been a little slow on the uptake and did not get around to it fast enough. But a guy I have known for a long time did. Rob Baer of Spikey Bits not only beat me to the punch, he did a fantastic job of it for his Orky "Imperial Guard" Army, which he took first place at Mechanicon '09 and Cabin Fever '10. You can find a fantastic photo of it here: Deathskulls Chopper.
He did a great job with the piece, and I certainly could not fault him for something I didn't tell him about and he did independently of everything bossman. So I decided I wanted to take a different tack to my problem.
I began to reassess my army and what I had wanted to do with it. Like I have gone over in previous posts, I have based my army on a WW I theme. The older style of tanks, equipment and so on. Which is what led me to the zeppelins...
Zeppelins were the terror of the air. They were perfect for me. My "zeps" would carry squads of men, carry deadly ordinance and hopefully look great on the battlefield at the same time. Now for some of the logistical problems.
* I need it to be about the same footprint as a Valkyrie.
* I need it to look like it could carry 12 men and their equipment
* I need it to carry the varying weapon payloads that either Valkyrie can carry.
* I need it to look like it belongs with the rest of my army.

Not a tall order at all. So I took to the problems one by one. The foot print of a valkyrie model is 13" long and almost as wide, but it remains on a flying stand while its mobile. The airbag I sketched out is going to be 13" long. I decided to use the payload section of a Valkyrie model so that there would be no thoughts of what it could or would carry. The picts on the left side are foam core mock-ups of my sizing. the air bag would probably be made of that material and then skinned with a material that I could make rigid later.
I also wanted a classic ship like bridge for my crew to stand on. The captain of his airship majestically looking out over the armored plated glass of his cabin.
I was relatively happy with the basic mock-up of the pieces and now had a rough idea of where I will be going with the piece. I would spend the next few days digging through my bitz bins to find everything I could to entice this model into being. Oh and by the way, I will not be making one Zeppelin, but rather three at the same time.

And just to protect my ideas of other things I am planning on making for my army :P I will be making Manticores for the army that look like armored trucks with rockets on rails (Stalin's Organ). The Hydra Flak Batteries will be made to look like armored trucks with a flatbed AA Gun system with a trailer to pull a huge spotlight for spotting enemy aircraft and ... lol. Can't give away all of my ideas yet!

There will be a lot more on this stuff coming to a computer near you!