Hygeia's latest adaptation of the traditional Exoloader, the Exoscrubber is a formidable tool of janitorial and engineering work, providing a sealed suit of armour safe from all hazardous environs.
For this blog we thought it might be interesting to shed a little extra light on one of the more formidable equipments in Hygeia's stationside arsenal - The Exoscrubber.
What is the Exoscrubber?
Featured both as one of the miniatures going to Backers in the 'Squeaky Clean' pledge tier and present as a looming custodial war machine in Cleaning Crew's mini-adventure 'Slip Hazard', the Exoscrubber is one of the headliners of Hygeia's bucketload of new janitorial equipment (albeit slightly more expensive than is affordable to the average bucket-hauler).
Designed for traversing hazardous and toxic terrains the Exoscrubber is kitted out with a full containment cockpit complete with 8hrs of vacuum-rated oxygen supplied from a loaded tank. Fuelled for 48hrs on a cold-running microplasma battery, the Exoscrubber provides an elite janitor with the ability to scour ship exteriors, active reactor shielding and deep sea oil caissons alike in almost complete safety!
Last but by far not least is the key eponymous modification of the Exoscrubber - the scrubber. A high pressure water-jet system connected by a pair of 375-gallon tanks on the suit's rear face which can either be fuelled with water or a variety of optional chemicals, all of which are delivered in a jet powerful enough to scour graffiti from walls, plasma-burns from steel and flesh from bone.
Designing the Exoscrubber
Designing the Exoscrubber has been a two part process: concept and modelling!
Concept
While a lot of Cleaning Crew's equipment falls into the category of 'cheap and nasty' (well suited for the grim territory of Prospero's Dream) we wanted to put something in that not only just worked, but gave janitors the ability to go toe-to-toe with the everpresent horrors of Rimspace. Not just the ability to get into hazardous regions - as a Hazard or Vaccsuit will often provide - but the rare chance to fight and potentially win.
There was a pretty decisive choice of initial inspiration.
We definitely aren't the first to be inspired by the P-5000 Loader. After all, I'd imagine no small amount Mothership fans have looked at the 100kcr price tag on the Exoloader and wondered how many months salary planetside it might take to get one.
However, there was two big issues stemming from one source.
The Exoloader was intended for hauling cargo. The Exoscrubber would not be.
Firstly, this meant that any open exposure in a toxic environment like the ones often exposed to deep-space janitors would prove to be immediately deadly. Secondly, how would something like that actually be useful in cleaning?
A few different concepts came in and out (wearing Hazard Suits in the frame, giving it some kind of electric mop/steam cleaner arm, having a connected air supply to the pilot) before we settled on a couple of core traits:
- A high-velocity pressure washer that would handle a pretty wide variety of jobs whilst being a rather deadly monster-killing weapon.
- A sealed containment cockpit changing it from the standard Exoloader shape to something more top-heavy and armoured.
These were the traits that we went ahead with into modelling.
Modelling
With our other models we've typically drawn inspiration both from Lovecraft's own art, from the descriptions in the texts and from artist interpretations of the monstrosities of the mythos. The same goes - to some extent - with the Table Mimics!
By contrast the Exoscrubber was a relatively unique concept, so we had to draw on some unusual elements!
With both of us being Warhammer fans there were few better places to look than to the range of Ork Walkers, more particularly the barrel-bodied Killa Kans and Deff Dreads. With room enough for one pilot and clunky hydraulic arms, the Ork design gave us the idea for some of the body pieces you can see on the WIP Exoscrubber model.
However, Hygeia was not going to send its janitors in on a lumbering hunk of junk bristling with guns. We needed a source with a bit more mobility - the AMP Suit from Avatar. Enclosed environment, capable of a full range of mobility and rapidly moving it provided a template for what the Exoscrubber would be if Hygeia had gone all out with the budget.
When combined with Ed's own take on the Exoscrubber we got our current WIP result - the long-legged, hydraulic-armed armoured bulk of the LL25 Exoscrubber!
Thanks for reading!
We hope that this Spotlight gave a bit more info about the design process that went into creating the LL25! We hope to do another Spotlight soon, and potentially even a blog covering our experiences with the OVER/UNDER event!