by Todd Fargo

This is my Martian War Machine, from H.G. Wells' novel, The War of the Worlds. It is my own design, which I tried to make as close to the descriptions in the book as possible. I wanted to give it a period look, as if it came from the late nineteenth century, with visible rivets and panel lines.

The basic shape is described by Wells as “a milking stool tilted and bowled violently along the ground.” The top part must therefore be disc-shaped, like the seat of a milking stool. There is also a description of the top section of the machine being carried along the ground before the legs are attached, “crawling out in a thing like a dish cover,” which implies a saucer shape, hence the shape of my machine. The base of the saucer is the lid to a plastic candy dish from the supermarket. The top sections are twelve equal sized pieces of sheet styrene, with panel shapes scribed in.

The "rivets" are drops of Testors plastic modeling cement, applied with a tooth pick. There are other small panels cut from more sheet styrene on top of the surface, for more detail. I have not put a basket on the back, as described in the book, both to save time, and because I think it would hurt the overall look.

There is also described a “headlike hood turning about exactly like the head of a cowled human being.” I used a small plastic dish as the main shape for the hood, with plastic pieces cut and glued on. I left the “cockpit” open, as there is no glass shield described, and because at the time the book was written, windshields were not common, and probably not imagined. Besides, it made the model easier to build. For the interior controls, I used levers and small instrument screens, figuring that a creature that uses tentacles would find it easier to pull levers than push buttons. The levers are sewing needles, painted black at the ends.

The legs and feet are my first attempt at resin casting, from patterns made from sheet styrene. The “hips”, “knees” and “ankles” bend, so they can be set in different positions. Unfortunately, the joints are too loose, and the feet tend to slide out from under the machine, unless they are taped to the surface, as they are in these pictures. The gears under the top allow the saucer section to tip forward and back, as described in the book.

For the tentacles, I used insulated twelve gauge electric wire. The pinchers at the ends are alligator clips, with styrene pieces to disguise them, somewhat. The tube on one of the tentacles is the heat ray.

The model was primed with Model Master's Grey Primer, and the top coat is MM “Light Gray Metalic.” I dry-brushed some copper colored paint for the highlights on the surface. The War Machine stands approximately 12-1/2 inches high, depending on leg position. The machines in the book are described as 100 feet high, which would put the model at 1: 96 scale.

Although not perfect, this model comes pretty close to my vision of what the fighting machines in Wells' famous book might have looked like. Eventually, I may use this model in a diorama of a crashed cylinder, with sculpted Martians. That will be some time coming, though.

Image:Side view

Image: Looking down

Image: Peek inside the control room