by Mike Maynard

I was 11 years old when I came across the CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED magazine version of War of the Worlds (many moons ago). I had always wanted to build a model of the Martian war machine as depicted in the artwork of the magazine and finally came up with the right material and skills (after 40 years) to attempt the project. In my opinion the Classics version of the war machine is the best looking and most menacing looking of any depiction of the tripods.

• The war machine model bill of materials:
• K&S brass tubing for the legs
• Plastic fishing “bobbers/floats” for the rotator cups as well as the body of the machine
• A clear plastic cover from a zip zap mini r/c car for the “head”.
• Armored electrical cables for the tentacles
• Aluminum bar stock for the heat ray
• PVC pipe for the connectors that joined the body and head together
• Plexiglas for the head’s faceplate
• Sculpty clay for the Martians
• Resin used to cast the tripod's feet
• A resin air cleaner from a 1/10 scale Mack truck for the smoke projector
• And various bits and pieces from the parts junk yard under my work bench

Construction

I soldered up the legs after I eyeballed the length of the tubes. I used 1/35 scale figures as a rough estimate of the scale to work in. Wells described the machines as being 100 feet high. I cut a large “bobber” in half, glued in a piece of PVC pipe to widen the body. 3 pieces of small diameter PVC pipe were then glued to the body to support the legs. The smaller bobbers were drilled out to the diameter of the tubing and the legs were attached to them. The leg assemblies were attached to the body with sheet metal screws.

The head “face” was beveled at an angle as depicted in the Classics illustrations. The aluminum bar stock(heat ray) was turned on my drill press (don’t own a lathe) using files as the cutting tools. The armored cable was twisted by hand in order to taper the ends. The tips of each tentacle are brass pieces from a lamp. A piece of brass braising rod was snaked through the cable to give its curved look. They were then attached to the body with screws as was the smoke projector. The head was detailed at this point. As I had no visual reference to go by so I used some “artistic license” in the interior arrangement. For example, one Martian is the driver and the other is the gunner. Next the faceplate was attached, the antenna and the radar dish. Last assembly were the feet.

The entire model was primed with grey, then gloss coated with black. It then received a coating of ALCLAD aluminum. The tentacles were airbrushed with a clear blue; it is not as noticeable as I would have liked.

Then I dropped the damn thing and got to rebuild it a second time, lucky me!

The rest of the diorama evolved by accident. I realized that most folk wouldn't be familiar with what they were looking at after my wife thought the war machine was from Star Wars, Episode 20 "Revenge of the Tripods". Sooo I thought a scene from the book would be in order, depicting a gas attack on the English army. Only the artillery man survived and recounts the battle later in the book. To keep my narrative short all the features on the diorama were either kit bashed from Tamiya figures or scratch built. I did as much research as possible to depict the equipment the British would have mounted as a defense in this time period. For example the Gatling Gun was in use by the British home guard (reserves) as late as 1910. (See, even back then the reserves got the obsolete equipment, just like today). The newer Maxim machine was used by the regular British Army. And I scratch built them both from brass and plastic. The heavy siege gun was a resin kit but I added a brass barrel, elevation wheels, sighting devices, etc. The signal flags (Wig Wag) on the cemetery hill were used to communicate with other gun batteries as were the signal rockets.

The scenery came from a variety of sources including grass from my back yard. The tree actually is a piece of sage brush from the banks of the Rio Grande River, they make great looking trees. The structures were built from wood and the wall from stone glued to a piece of balsa. Oh, the smoke canister was fashioned from aluminum, a leftover from another project. The British Soldiers depicted a WWI uniform and I realize that is not the time period of which Wells wrote. But if you look at the cover of the Classics Magazine, it depicts WWI style uniform and I went with that.

Image: Tripod

Image: Survivor

Image: Hiding with the pigs

Image: Guns and casualties

Image: Martian's-eye view

Image: On display