The Warforge Miniature Modelling and Conversion

Needs more dakka!

I decided I wanted to slightly parody Marneus Calgar's 'Fists of Ultramar' in my design by adding my own heavy weaponry to the already heavy power fists. I went ahead and attached a shortened Warbike Dakkagun to the exterior of his glove and fed the ammo belt into the gauntlet itself.

 

I'm probably going to put a matching one on the other fist... that, or a flamethrower. The asymmetry of a skorcha is somewhat appealing, but I have honestly never seen fit to give my warbosses a shoota/skorcha. Or anything over a normal slugga, really. I like my close combat monsters.

Still, since I seem to be playing off the Marneus Calgar image, guns are probably best. This is actually kind've nice, though. It means I can run him as a Dreadnought in some games if I wanted to (given his size, I think that's totally fair) and still have my other two HQs (Booma and Wurrzag) in play, while still adhering to force org.

Dual wielding

So here's the boss with both fists and Urk has a hat now, the brim of which is still drying. I think it [his hat] looks like rubbish from the front and decent from the side, but it's about the best I can manage, so it'll have to do.

 

Going to permanently attach the arms and hands now, and then add cabling to the upper arms. I had a giant-sized choppa that I had made a couple months ago for him, but I don't seem to be able to find it now, which I guess is part of the downside of moving.

A tiny helping hand

I got a start on Gargrim's diminutive gretchin companion, Urk. (Again, for those of you who haven't read my ork background fluff yet, I suggest you read it, this will make much more sense.)

I knew I went out of my way to get that Gamesday 07 Ork Boss for a reason.

These guys.

The 'boss' is going to be one of my Nobz. I was digging through my bin of grots looking for the appropriate little helper for Gargrim, and the gretchin with his arms folded stood out front and center.

So! I set about a little bit of work with my jeweller's saw. I cut the 'cloth' between his legs away so I could bend his legs up into a sitting position; this will be resculpted lying flat on the top of the boss's shoulder. I also cut away the horns on the helmet, and I cut an angled slice out of the back of the helmet. I'm going to be resculpting over the existing helmet, giving the tiny little dude a commissar hat.

 

He obviously needs some cleaning up, but you can get an idea of what I'm going for. I think he's perfect for the job.

Bob and weave!

Had a little time today to make the other fist. You can tell I also made some changes to the existing fist.

 

He's now rocking a spiked knuckleduster, for bringing the pain to any greater daemons or the likes he decides to brawl with. I need to sculpt the knuckles on the other hand and add a similarly matching knuckleduster, but that shouldn't take me too long. Then I'm going to work on the rest of the arms.

I've been considering putting him on a 60mm base, but I think I like the way he looks on a 40mm - he just barely fits within it's limits, which makes him look even huger by comparison. Plus, this way nobody can claim I'm trying any base-size shenanigans, since the normal warboss also goes on a 40mm base.

Here's a shot of the big boss next to the Black Reach dreadnought for comparison.

Double jointed

Broke out the greenstuff and quickly remembered why I sent the thing to Noze in the first place. Still, I got some sort of joint covering over the knuckles.

 

Look decent enough? It's too small for me to really styrene the joints with any degree of reliability, so sculpting was really the only option. I think it turned out okay; should be less noticeable when painted.

The actual punching part of the knuckles is going to be covered with a styrene strip for extra armored hitting. It should be like a hinged brass knuckle sort of arrangement that can swing up when not in use (read: almost never) so the boss can use his fingers independently to do things like grab weapons. Or tanks.

The wider strip is where I'm going to feed some of the wires into that lead up into the protective covering of the forearm.

Punch it!

So for such a small little piece, manufacturing a hand sure is labor-intensive. All the little fiddly cutting and bending and measuring has to be just right!

As you can see, I remade the hand to be a bit less sloppy work. While sloppy might have been orky, the hand I previously made couldn't close into a proper fist due to the finger lengths I gave it. This new fist has been designed entirely around having a closed knuckle sandwich, and I think it looks a fair bit better for it.

The exposed paperclip areas are going to be filled in with greenstuff at some point, and I'll try and sculpt 'ribbing' like what you see on the joints on marine armor so it looks flexible. There's obviously an unfinished space behind the hand - I'm thinking maybe running wires into the knuckles and down the back of the hand into that space. Hydraulics were my other option, but because the inside of the 'gauntlet' is curved, it's a bit too tricky to try and fit something that looks workable in that space.

I know the general preference for Warbosses is a snappy looking powerclaw, but I'm trying to avoid that approach with this guy by making two giant knockout fists for him. This dude's not about cutting or stabbing or slicing or any of that. He's summed up in a single word: Smash! This guy has boxing matches with blood angel dreadnoughts.

That said, seeing as how Terminator Power Fists and Ork Power Klawz are roughly equivalent, and based on the size and obvious strength of this guy, I don't think anyone is going to be telling me, "Uh, sorry, you didn't model that S10 klaw for WYSIWYG."

Extra details will be added as I go. I'm going to be sticking an exhaust pipe or two somewhere on the exterior of the gauntlet, as well as a vent towards the back. There will be some cabling running up and into the musculature of the biceps area in the upper arm to help 'control' the fist a little better. I'm contemplating trying to add 'flame' glyphs at the knuckle end of the outside of the gauntlet, or whether or not I want to do something like that with paint. I should mention that while I am still unsure as to the particulars of the outsides of his bionic arms, I do have the general gist of their function in mind. The way I see it, Gargrim (the boss) is obviously way too impressive to armor up, and from his own point of view he's too big to care. What he will do from time to time is use his bionic arms as a sort of shield for his torso; as he charges forward into the path of a tank or gunline or what have you, he brings both arms up infront of him to shield his body from enemy fire. With that in mind, I expect the exterior would be reasonably dinged up with bullet holes, scorch marks, and maybe a tank shell hole or two.

Also, because I think it's fun, here's my big boss next to the Black Reach boss (who, I should mention, is just a hair bigger than the old metal boss).

Failed handiwork

Well, tonight I took a stab at making fists and I have to say it was a giant step sideways. Hands in particular have always eluded me. Back when I was making my Big Mek and I had to come up with a bionic hand, I went digging through my Bitz bins like a lunatic because it just wasn't looking right. This is much the same - though I took a stab at creating some proper-sized manhandlers out of styrene and paperclips, the results were substandard at best.

 

The one thing I will say I got out of doing this is that I learned I like his look much better if I have closed fists, rather than the open hands like what the original dire troll mauler had. That last picture (farthest right) has his fist angled forward a bit strangely at the wrist, but you get the idea, anyway.

I may make another attempt at making a closed fist tomorrow in roughly the same style, with a bit more precision than the haphazard eyeballing I was doing today for finger joint lengths. Truthfully, though, I think this one might be a job for the toy stores - I'll have to go and take a look at things like transformers and gundam toys to see if I can't find a pair of robotic smashy fists already made the right size. I found a couple in Privateer Press's Warmachine lineups - the warjacks have a couple nice hands - but I don't know if they're the right scale, and I'm not desperate enough yet to order them and see.

Pens: Cheapest tubing you can buy

Okay.

I did a little walking around town and picked up three pens that looked like they'd be the right size at the dollar store.

Brought em back, hacked em up, and this is what I have to show for it:

The metal hands are just placeholders for now from another model I had that just happens to fit. They will be replaced with robotic equivalents, though the left one will not be holding the base of a trigger to a gun like it is now.

Unfortunately, this is where I have to leave it for now, because I have an absurd amount of work to do for school tomorrow and I need all the time I can get.

Fisticuffs!

So I have an unhealthy attachment to toy stores. I go in there and root around for stuff that could potentially be used for Warhammer conversions. Today I came across an unusual toy that I thought had a bit of potential: a megaman action figure. Of course, it's not like megaman that I remember from all those years ago, as he seems to have been given a new and trendy facelift for the younger generation, but I won't get into that. I picked the model up because it had a fist looking thing on it that looked absolutely delicious for use on my giant warboss.

Unfortunately I overestimated the boss's size a bit, so the fist is too ludicrously huge to be of any use on him, despite what my warboss thinks.

However, the general shape is pretty much perfect for what I have in mind for the arm, so I wanted to scratchbuild myself one following the same general profile (with some more obviously orky detailing).

With the wonders of forced perspective, I'm able to 'scale down' the arm bit a tad to the size I think is more appropriate for the warboss:

That look about right? It looks pretty easy to build, to be honest, but for one small detail: I don't have the styrene for it. My largest styrene tubes go up to 1/2" diameter, and I need bigger stuff to do this arm properly. I've been searching around, but I can't seem to find a source of styrene tubing that will provide me with larger diameters. There's PVC pipe, but that's too big and too thick (like 1/4" around the diameter of the tube!).

I may go out on a scavenger hunt in town, looking for pens that are about the right size to be cut up, because I can't think of any other way to get the plastic I need for this.

He’s gone green!

So, let's dig this up.

I did do a fair bit of work on this project before I realized I was in a bit over my head; none of the heads I had in my bitz bins were even close to right for this gigantic body, and a lot of the musculature that I had dremelled to shape needed a fair bit of resurfacing.

For this, I went to my good buddy Nozeminer over at The-Waaagh forums. Noze is a talented sculptor with an eye for detail and I managed to get him to agree to help me with the project. Off the boss went, with my fingers crossed.

I got the boss back today, and I have to say he did an astonishing job. He smoothed over and redefined all of the musculature on the boss's back, and sculpted a brand new face for the warboss that looks much orkier than the preexisting troll head. I have to share it because of how great he looks.

 

Here he is with an average marine:

He may not have any forearms or hands yet, but I'm pretty sure he could bludgeon the marine to death with the stumps if he wanted to.

Noze added in some fangs on the lower jaw, but they broke off in shipping and I couldn't locate them in the box. This isn't such a huge issue, as I'll simply carve some new replacements out of styrene.

Now for those of you who might not be understanding the forearms thing, the reason the sculpting stopped there is because I intend on manufacturing a pair of gigantic bionic arms and fists that join onto the body at around the elbow area. This will probably not be coming immediately just because I want to finish one other project I'm working on at the moment first, but aside from that it's at the top of my to-do list, because I very badly want to paint this fella up.