The Warforge Miniature Modelling and Conversion

We’z too tuff ta die!

It's been a while since I've had any free time to work on the myriad things I have in bins around here. In the little free time I've found, I've been attracted to playing around with the Black Orcs I have. I've been pulling bits and pieces off of these sprues for a bunch of other ideas so far, but I've seen a number of people over at The-Waaagh make them into decent 'Ard boyz in the past, so I figured I'd give it a go.

The hardest part of working on these guys is how radically different they are from your standard 40k ork. While orks are all about hard angles and pointy bits, these models stand apart as very rounded and streamlined. The chainmail doesn't help, either - it's got a very medieval look to it that's hard to account for. I've seen a bunch of different takes on these models before, but the ones that look the best fit for the 40k universe have been so heavily converted and scratch built that there was hardly a need to even start from a black orc.I figured I'd go for something of a medium - I'd make some changes to the heads, which are the most visually distinct feature on the models, and try to update their weapons to fit the environment. A few stikkbomz or grenades indiscriminately mixed around in there doesn't hurt, either.

So, with all that said, off I went. I think I want a big, big collection of these guys, though I don't know what the unit caps on 'ard boyz is going to be in the new dex. I don't think I can go wrong with about 15 of 'em. I'm literally just working on these guys in my passing free moments, so I wouldn't expect to have a large number of them done with any sort of haste.

A couple individual pictures might help sort out the individual models, so let's start with the one on the left. He actually needs a bit more sculpting on his right shoulder to make it blend in properly. The head is one I made a while back just to pass the time while I was waiting for something - I cut a normal ork head in half and started building a bionic bonce. I thought it fit the body pretty well as far as scale goes, and there's really no way to make an ork's head look more in tune with the flavor of 40k than layering it in mechanics. I also put a little respirator on his torso that was wired up into the head. I'm not sure why. The slugga arm is off a normal boy, and I think it looks awfully out of place, but he was my first attempt, so I'm willing to let it stand for now.

 

Then there's this guy, who is okay, I guess. I didn't know how to make his helmet look a bit more 40k'ish. I tried cutting the tusks off the front of the helmet and replacing it with some sort of rivet. I ideally wanted to put maybe a rebreather there, but I couldn't figure out how to do it properly. I honestly put the slugga on the waist because I was still trying to figure out how to get a black orc's armored glove to properly hold one.

 

I like this next guy the most, primarily because I think I did well with the helmet on him. That particular helmet design is perfect for rebreathers - I cut two little exhausts off a marine backpack, which I have in copious amounts, and glued them on where the tusks used to be. The wire is really just an afterthought, I just thought it looked too plain. I managed to get the 'holding a slugga' thing properly on this guy by cutting up one of the banner holding arms that comes with the black orcs and pinning the gun onto the flat surface.

 

More to come as I get time.