The Warforge Miniature Modelling and Conversion

Base-ic diorama plans

 

Shot of the gaming base and the diorama base. I hope to add terrain to them both simultaneously so they match.

I'm going to use the urban basing kits from GW for this, as they fit the bill nicely, but I'm wondering how I should set this all up exactly. I've been thinking that the entire diorama needs a sort of avenue for running up and down the middle - like some sort of path that the gargant follows. I'm considering having him walking down the middle of the road or something to that extent, but I'm not sure.. whatever it is, I'm thinking there needs to be a dip in the rubble running down the middle for a bit of a running path. Not a big one, just a small worn-down trail or something..

 

I put an ork in where I plan on having the running guardsman at just for conceptual purposes. Right now the chainsaw arm is holding it up, as well - the arms aren't posed as they will be in the final version, I just attached them for scale. I'm thinking of putting some street signs sticking out of the ground here and there.. and there's going to have to be a footprint (as shown in the pictures) where the gargant just lifted it's foot from. I'm also thinking I'm going to have it stomping down on the turret.. but the turret's going to be behind a small wall of sandbags, so the heel of the foot's going to be sticking through the wall. Probably have a few strewn sandbags here and there around the foot where it stomped down, and some torn and leaking bags spilling piles of sand around the turret...

Teef iz in place!

There we go!

By tomorrow afternoon I hope to have a circuit in hand that I can wire into the head to power the LEDs and flickering light. I'm actually thinking that I should revise the flickering red light from a grotpit light to a 'flamer' light, if it's suitable.. providing a bit of a glowing flicker from inside the jaws where the flamer is tucked away to indicate the 'pilot light' on the thing burning.

I also plan on putting small panes of clear plasticard in the eyes so that I can sand the surface of them a bit and get them to diffuse the light form the LEDs behind it. I think I'm going to hinge the jaw, as well, as it just looks cool to play around with opening and closing it. It'd be cool to open the jaws up when I'm using the flamer anyway. I made the eyes the same square shape.. I considered mismatching them, but it just looked silly and trivialized the face's meanness. The rest of the model's comedy, and the head draws a lot of attention, so I want it to read as ferocious.

Talking head show

With respect to following the original's jaw design, I can't make up my mind as to which looks best. I placed the teeth in a front-facing fashion to try and portray the typical ork gob.. but the illustration has the teeth turned out, like such:

The right one follows the illustration's design for the jaw, but I don't know if it looks as orky as the teeth-facing-front one on the left.

I don't know if this sort of design would match the top teeth, as well, as they look like they face in the 'forwards' kind of way that the picture on the left portrays.

If we build it, they will stomp

Back on track.

 

Just roughing it out. The lower jaw's good, I think, though I'm probably going to redo the top because the armor plating warped a little bit while I was trying to bend it to the curve.

More plastic surgery

I tried to go more with the original drawing, but this was mostly me looking at how the segmented armor would look on the head.. and it's not bad. I'm leaving a gap between the front teeth on the lower jaw for the flamer template to fire through.

The head may be a little small, but I think it's alright like that.

I cut the base down about 1/4" all the way around and put a 20 degree bevel in in so it'd match the normal gaming bases.. I realize this may make a bit of a gap on the diorama base, but I don't mind so much.

I also was thinking about something for the base - I can either have the gargant stomping an imperial lascannon emplacement into the ground, with the dudes manning it running for their lives... or someone suggested that I have the turret a step or two ahead of the stompa, with one dude facing completely the wrong way firing it so intensely that he doesn't realize the stompa's coming up on him, with one of his comrades trying to get his attention pointing at it, and a third running away already.

Face only a bigger gargant could love

I'm doing some rough planning for the head.. Going to scrap the eyes that the thing has, as I don't like the 'stitching' across them, and replace them with sometihng a bit more square-ish - I think square would help me build cabling and stuff attaching to it at the sides and wrapping around to the top of the head, so the Zzap gun has some power. The teeth are going to be plated onto the outside of the jaw.. probably only 4-5 on the bottom jaw, but big ones. The teeth in the original concept art look a little unusual, in that they seem to face outwards instead of forwards.. it's like someone took the normal jaw and turned the teeth 90 degrees. Not sure I'm so fond of that, so I'll probably just bolt the teeth on the exterior of a curved jaw.

I'm not sold on the ears on the original sketch. I think I'll build the head and either make them removable or decide later.

One thing I'm noticing might be an inconsistency: The torso is armor-plated, which helps make the curve of the body more angular in nature, but the head seems to be, from what I read off the image, one big solid curved piece without plating, just riveted on as sort of a front 'plate' to cover machinery hidden behind it. I don't know if I should make the head one big curved piece and start working with it like that, or make one big curved piece and then put armor plating all over the exterior to break it up much like the torso.

This post won an Oscar for Best Visuals

I cut out a 6" circular base.. I may actually have to sand it down a touch, as I think it's closer to 6 1/4 or so. I don't know if I should trim it down to be smaller than that.. the inside black line was the minimum base size I think I could get away with, but I'm not sure if I should bother doing that or leave the base the size it is. Also, please realize the base will get a lot of dressing up when the thing is done in terms of geography - uneven terrain, probably with the front foot indented a little bit in the ground at a forward angle so the back leg lifts off the ground and doesn't look like it's dragging.

Also, I like 'summarizing' the model in a 360 degree view, so here you go...

Click the above image to view the animation.

I'm working out how the ammo belt's going to work.. cutting some circular rod and drilling a pair of holes that line up in each of them is a hassle I don't really feel up to this particular morning, so I'm either looking for a substitute or working up my willpower until later today.

The head'll have to be next, as it's placement dictates where the elements on the back will go... working on finding the proper diameter curved cardboard so that I can make the head and jaw shape similar to how I did the body (can't even tell there's carboard under all that!) I'm probably going to make the lower jaw first so I can make sure that the flamer I want to build in has room to fit.. Also, the circuits that will control the green eyes and flickering red grotpit light will need sufficient space that I need to plan for so I can put all of the electronics in the head. I'm really not fond of the eyes on this thing, though.. they need a redesign, but I don't have that many ideas for them just yet. I definitely want them to be equipped with the 'gaze of gork/mork' weapon, which is essentially an ocular zzap cannon.. so whatever I end up doing will have to look sufficiently dangerous as to be firing electric blasts from it's eyes. I'll have to think about this one for a little while.

One fancy gun

The pictures coming up don't have the shells loaded just because I couldn't be bothered.

 

There's a bare spot on the interior of the gun area (facing the torso) that needs a bit of work since I haven't figured out what'll go there yet, and I need to make the ammo feed still.. I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to do that, but I have a few ideas. Unfortunately, none of them are simple or easy.

Still, I think this arm looks powerful at the moment, and fits the overall detail of the rest of the gargant pretty well. I added in 'rungs' on the exterior of the upper arm for a grot to hang from - I have yet to make em, but I picture him hanging by one arm from one rung with one of those shells tucked in underneath his arm like he's scrabbling down the arm to place the next shell in the clip. This thing's going to have a lot of grots!

This… is… my… BOOMSTICK!

 

Things left to do to this arm:

- Add stray armor plating to the upper arm and rivets all over. - Add mechanical cabling going from the elbow area, as well as the back of the rippa (unfortunately, I'm all out of lego cabling, so I'm going to have to make a substitute from wire. ) - Add detail to the gun area where it faces the torso (inner arm). - Add a belt of ammunition that dangles for the machinegun ammunition port. I'm not sure how I'm going to make this, yet, but I'll keep thinking about it for now - I think I'll end up cutting some plastic tubing down into 'shells', greenstuffing tips onto them, and using some floss or something that I coat in glue as the binding for it so that the belt is still flexible and movable - that way I can hang it correctly.

I meshed in the sides of the ammo clip just because I didn't like having the sides completely open. The top shell is showing a little more than I'd like, but they're all still removable at the moment so I will probably shave the 3rd shell down flat a little bit on one side so that all the shells shift down a little bit. I thought about extending the clip's size, but really, it's more of a slot where ammunition gets jammed, and logistically I don't want to bother with worrying about how many shots that things gets off anyway. I also don't want it going much more vertical than it is now because any higher and it'd look awkward, in my opinion.

I haven't had as much time as I'd like to work on this recently, but with my girlfriend going to a yankee game tomorrow with her sister and me all alone at home, I'll have plenty of working time.

Perfect reload

 

It looks a little messy, but mostly it's the marker that got smudged that does it. The shells are a little crooked, too, but they're not glued in yet, though the clip itself is.

I think this works.