Big Gunz: Spear Guns

Way back during our first Gorkamorka campaign, I was careful to make sure that all the gubbinz for my mob were modular so that I could slowly acquire them to upgrade my vehicles throughout the course of the campaign. Of course, gubbinz aren't the only way to upgrade one's vehicles in Gorkamorka—you can also upgrade your guns.

At the time, I didn't have the time or the bitz to make a set of fully modular weapons for my vehicles, so I've been using the same Big Gunz in every campaign we've played. But at last I've finally gotten around to making a proper set of weapons, starting with a spear gun.

The first step was to create a way to mount the weapons on my vehicles. I decided to create a magnetic gimbal based on the weapon mount from the old Ork Wartrakk, which is what I was using before. I essentially just built a slightly larger, magnetized version out of plasticard. All things considered, I think they turned out looking pretty good.

For the spearheads, I decided to use some old Warhammer Fantasy grot spears that I happened to have lying around. I initially thought about about leaving the haft of the spears attached and just sliding them into a plasticard tube, but that would have meant using much bigger tubes, so I ended up just cutting the heads off. And since I didn’t need the tubes to be hollow anymore, I just made them with solid plasticard rod.

Next, I needed some kind of brackets or crossbars to hold the tubes together, so I found a piece of plasticard I had lying around and cut it to size.In order for the clamps to wrap around the sides, I cut some tiny sections of tubing and then split the tubes lengthwise.  I also had to trim the clamps a little bit so that the side pieces fit tightly to the plasticard rods. 

Now that I was halfway through building my spear gun with four tubes straight in a row, I thought it might be cool to have a second one with the four tubes in more of a box arrangement. So I set about making some fittings, which I made by gluing four rings of plasticard tube together. I then threaded the rods through the fittings and then glued them in place.

I tried to find some bitz that looked like they could be air tanks for the pneumatic launcher, but everything I found was a bit too big. So I decided to make my own out of plasticard rods. I also glued on some thin rod to make the tubes connecting the air tank to the four barrels.

The next step was adding the rivets. Which is always kind of tedious, but really adds a lot of detail to the model. Even after the rivets, I felt like the spear guns lacked a bit of detail compared to the other guns, so I decided to create some little pressure gauges to go on the back next to the air tanks. I made the gauges by just gluing some thin rings to a sheet of plasticard and then cutting them out. The concept was simple enough, but I didn’t cut the rings quite as thin or as straight as I had hoped. Still worked, though.

Pretty much everything on the spear guns got painted metallic silver, so I painted the fittings on the boxy one to be brass and gave the one with the barrels in a row a red stripe on the end of the barrels. 

The finished product turned out pretty good. They both came out with a nice brutal Mad Max vibe I could have made the pressure tanks brass as you often see with Ork contraptions, but the red gives some nice contrast with metallics on the other parts of the guns.

Very orky.

So at last, I'm no longer just limited to my 'Eavy Shoota (though it'll still be an option). I'm excited to test these out in an actual campaign, and there are a bunch more options coming up soon.

Gorkamorka Firecar Mk II

 

I've been slowly working on a few projects over the last few months and one of them is finally finished. I've converted my second Ork Wartrakk...again. It's been missing a wheel since my then-five-year-old got his hands on it, but there were always a few other things I wasn't completely satisfied with after I finished converting it. The front fenders were a bit underwhelming, the weapon mount put the scorcha above the gunner’s head, and despite being quite tall, it didn’t really feel as boxy as I wanted. So I decided to tackle all these issues at once.

The first step was getting some new wheels. One of the reasons used the same standard wheels as the one on the front of the Wartrakk was because they were one of the standard 40K wheel sizes, which meant you could easily order replacements from Games-Workshop. But then GW stopped selling them, so I had to come up with a different plan.

To replace the wheels on my little firecar, I eventually landed on the wheels from the Genestealer Cults Achilles Ridgerunner. These ones were quite a bit bigger than my previous wheels, which would require some redesigning.

I didn’t want the whole vehicle to tilt backwards, so I’d have to elevate the rear enough that it tilted forward instead. To do this, I decided to build my little trakk a proper undercarriage, like the one my big trakk. I also probably went a bit overboard with my dismantling and ripped off a few bits that I probably should have just left alone. Oops.

I made the basic frame of the vehicle with some long plasticard strips and some H-beams. I also added a ram mount on the front. I also put some brass rods in the Ridgerunner wheels to make them detachable.

I also built a ridiculously large transmission for the track out of a piece of a soap dispenser, 

In order to have the trakk tilt forward, I had to drop the tracks below the rest of the frame, so they ended up basically turning into their own subframe. I used some brass rod to make some sturdy axles that wouldn't get bent or broken during normal use and I used part of a plastic twist-off cap (similar to those on a Squeezit cap) to make the differential.

Of course, while the brass axles themselves were pretty strong, I didn’t want those plastic joints supporting all the shearing stress on the bottom of the vehicle, so I cut some plasticard I-beams to connect the two sides.

Connecting I-beams at right angles was a bit tricky, but I just cut off the top and bottom of one beam so that they lock together tightly and ended up with a really great connection.

To connect the two subframes, I decided to model some pistons to look like a hydraulic suspension or adjustable traction bars. This would involve connecting tubes at some weird angles, so I started off by using some other bits of tube to make some connection points on the main portion of the frame that stuck out just beyond the flanges of the beams. I then chopped up some square tubing to make a C-shaped brackets on the track subframe.

A few little tubes at weird angles wasn't much to support the weight of the vehicle, so I decided that I needed something in the middle transferring the weight straight down. 

My initial plan was to create two more, even smaller pistons to squeeze into the spot between the two frames, but they were just way too flimsy. Instead, I decided to create some springs out of some plastic worm gears.  This meant that I could run some brass rod through the middle of the gears and solidly pin the two halves together. 

The hard part was cutting the worm gears at an angle to match the upper frame. They're made of some pretty hard plastic and trying to cut them at an angle across their threads just made them want to spin. But eventually I managed to get them cut and they worked great!

The little suspension bars were surprisingly difficult to attach. Trying to hold them at the correct angle and extend them to the proper length when I couldn't even get my fingers in there was incredibly difficult. I used superglue and baking soda to get a quick bond, but even then I don't know how I kept them in position long enough to glue it all together.

The next step was making an engine for my little firecar. I used the engine from the Mek Workshop and simply cut away the chains that were attached to these bits. Taking inspiration from some of the crazy vehicles you see at tractor pulls, I made a little gearbox to go beneath the engine and ostensibly connect it to my oversized transmission below.

I also made some exhaust pipes out of plasticard rod. Working with such tiny tubes at very precise angles was challenging, so I ended up first cutting out some little plasticard guides and then gluing the rods to them. I could then maneuver all the pipes together and sand them down to the correct angle to attach to the engine block. I then sanded off the guides as best as I could, so the underside of the pipes is pretty messy, but they look good from above.

The next thing I decided to add were some roll bars around the driver. I also magnetized his seat, which made getting him in and out so much easier.

I also rebuilt the gunner's platform that I'd torn off and added a spot to add some gubbinz like a big grabba or a wreckin' ball.

At this point, I put things on hold for a bit to take my updated Firecar on a test drive. I played a short campaign with Cygnus and his brothers, which included my scorcha trakk going up against his scorcha buggy. 

This particular encounter ended with both vehicles basically immobilized and their crews hopping out to beat each other up. Good times.

Once I got back to converting, the next step was making some new fenders. I spend a good deal of time sanding the joints to give them more of a smooth curve than the old ones had.

Before I stuck the two subassemblies together, I decided to airbrush them to make sure I got all the fiddly details painted. This ended up taking much longer than anticipated due to my airbrush being clogged and me accidentally shooting the nozzle across my kitchen while cleaning it.

Fortunately I did eventually get both halves painted and glued together properly. I made sure to mask out a few of the details that still looked good, as well as the connection points so I could stick them together with plastic glue.

I was also now able to add the front shocks that came with the Ridgerunner wheels and axle. Some very cool little bits.

I then painted up the trakk in my mob's classic Goff paint scheme, adding plenty of cheques where I could.

I'm pretty pleased with the finished result. My little firecar turned out nice and boxy like I had originally intended, without being any longer than it was before. And I can easily mount my second Big Grabba on it, which could be fun.

The ram mount on the front is also compatible with the ram on my big trakk, but it looks pretty ridiculous on my tiny trakk buggy, so a new ram is now on the list of future projects.

And if you want an even more in-depth description of the conversion process, I have a new video up on my YouTube channel.

Fort Construction: Workshop

 

Another big section of the fort is finished. This one is the spanners' workbench and tools, including some nice hydraulic arms. I probably went a bit overboard with the cables and the ductwork, but since the workbench itself was so detailed, I wanted the rest of the room to look like it matched.

As you can probably tell, most of this wall section is just built from the Mekboy Workshop terrain set, though it did take a bit of work to take the freestanding workshop and build it into the existing wall of the fort.

The biggest part was flipping the main wall of the workshop around and installing the bench on the wrong side. I decided to make the more detailed side of the piece face forward, since the other side would be glued to the wall. The piece is fairly symmetrical, so I really only had to carve some holes for a couple of wires and pipes to get the bench to sit (mostly) flush with the wall.

I ended up grinding off the back half of the wall to better attach it to the fort, so the workbench is now at a slightly odd angle. Plenty Orky, though.

Nice to see that the Orks keep their workspace as tidy as I keep mine.

Since the Mekboy Workshop came with a big hydraulic arm and I already had another as part of the gubbinz for my big trakk, I wanted to make some spots around the workshop where the arms could be installed. I went a little overboard making the mount for the arm, adding as many motors, compressors, and gears as I could fit into the tiny space I'd allotted myself. Though I guess going overboard is kind of on par with the rest of the workshop.

I was originally going to mount the second arm on the floor right next to the workbench, but that didn't give me much space if I wanted to make sure that this piece still fit together nicely with the other fort walls. Also, there was already more than enough detail crammed in this little section, so it couldn't hurt to spread it out a little bit.

I ended up making a little freestanding platform for the arm to sit in. I modeled it mostly on the assembly line platforms you see in car manufacturing plants, which seemed appropriate. I also had to pack more lead weights into this little thing than any other part of the fort just to keep it from tipping over when the arm swung around. Turned out pretty well, though.

Only a few more sections and this thing will be ready for some paint.

Gubbinz: Reinforced Ram

The first gubbinz that I started working on after our mini-campaign were also the last ones that I managed to finish.  My reinforced ram, though fairly simple conceptually, ended up being much more difficult to pull off that I had expected.  The idea was simple enough.  I was going to start from a Chimera dozer blade and bulk it out with Orky bits until it looked less functional as a plow and more like something that was just used to smash into things.  I was envisioning something like the Battlewagon ram, but a bit more boxy.  Simple, right?

The first few steps went very smoothly.  I glued the dozer blade to the trunnion and then carefully cut across the push frame where it would meet the undercarriage of the trakk.  I then drilled out both sides and inserted some sturdy brass rod into the blade side.  Since this would be sticking out in front of the trakk and could be relatively large compared to some of my other gubbinz, I wanted to make sure that it didn't snap off if it got caught on a piece of terrain or something.  To make it secure, however, I couldn't just have a strong connection between the blade and the frame, I also had to have a strong bond between the push frame and the undercarriage of the trakk.  While there are lots of bits under there that I could have potentially glued the ram to, there were no flat surfaces where I could get a good bond.  Just lots of bolts and rods, all at different depths.  I decided that the best move would be to gently clip away a bit of the detail to make some flat, level places where I could attach the ram...

...I didn't do such a great job.  I ended up accidentally breaking the front axle of my trakk.  Then, while trying to clean up that mess, I ended up breaking some other bits off the undercarriage.

By the time I got all the broken bits removed and everything smoothed off, the entire front of the trakk was gone up to the chassis.  While this was pretty frustrating, it meant that I could make the new undercarriage solid.

The new axle assembly was built with two big plasticard I-beams on the bottom, which gave me a good surface to glue my ram to, even though they would run perpendicular to each other.

Unfortunately, I was never able to get all the bits of broken axle out of the resin wheels, so I just extended the axle wider and drilled new holes into the wheels to pin them with some brass rod.  Despite my best efforts, I didn't drill the holes in the wheels very straight, so the wheels are now really crooked.  On the other hand, I didn't assemble the rear treads very straight either (I'm really starting to dislike working with resin), so the vehicle has never really been able to sit flat, so I didn't worry too much about it.

Attaching the dozer blade to the new axle assembly went very smoothly.

The hard part would be attaching everything to the chassis.  Even after chopping off all the little greebly bits, it still wasn't a perfectly level surface, so I leveled it off with some plasticard.

I actually drilled out four little holes in each side to try and pin the axle on, but trying to line up four tiny bits of wire proved to be way too difficult, so I just glued all the flat surfaces together and filled all the gaps with green stuff.  I then glued more plasticard to the outside to reinforce the bond.  I also made sure to paint the axle assembly before sticking it to the rest of the trakk, since there was no way I was going to be able to paint all those little crossbeams once they were attached.

So after two months of breaking things and trying to repair them, I had finally managed to get the Chimaera dozer blade attached to my trakk, which meant that it was finally time for the converting of the actual ram to begin.

The first step was bulking the ram up to a size that looked good on the trakk, which took a bit of trial and error, adding on plasticard and then cutting it back down.  The next step was making it look proper orky.

I added a bunch of panels to look the finished ram look more cobbled together, then added some ork glyphs and some big toofy bits.  I used a combination of plasticard and glass beads for the rivets, which was rather time consuming, but managed to tie the scratchbuilt bits to the dozer blade.

For the paint job, I decided that I'd first paint it up all bright, shiny and new, then weather the shit out of it to make it look like it'd been smashing through everything in the desert for months.

This meant painting a million thin coats of white over the black undercoat...

It wasn't the cleanest checkerboard pattern I've ever painted, but it was about to get beat to hell, so I didn't mind.

The finished paint job turned out pretty well.  Lots of washes and thinned down brown paint.  I painted the scratches to look like the ram scraped up a lot of sand and rocks between the teeth of the dozer blade.  I think the finished effect turned out pretty decent.

So after two long years of work, my Morker Mob is finally finished.  There are still a few things I'd like to go back to and fix, such as making the big gunz on all my vehicles interchangeable (and someone got the idea of making a bunch of bikes stuck in my head).  For now though, I'm pretty happy with how Grizwoad and his mob have turned out, so it's time to move on to some other nerd projects.