The Warforge Miniature Modelling and Conversion

A Proppa Engine?

I found a rather interesting piece from an old zoids model. It seems begging for me to use it as the engine, or at least center of the engine, for this stompa save for a few details: 1) It's a bit more.. how shall I say, streamlined? Than would suit an ork vehicle. I think, anyhow. It's got lots of fluting and stuff that I think is a little elaborate for the purpose of a stompa. 2) It's not my own creation.

1 I don't actually have as much a problem with as I do 2 - I'm thinking that if I'm making this thing, I might as well make it and not use shortcuts like this - but it does fit fairly well, honestly. I'm thinking I'm going to whip out some plasticard and roughly copy the design and shape, but not to a T, so I have a reasonable facimile that doesn't look more elaborate than would befit the stompa. I realize I've already used parts from something else at the piece that connects the legs, but consider that that won't be nearly as visible, focal, or important as the engine will.

Upward and Onward

 

I've hooked the legs together with a center plastic piece from an old walking toy I had laying around - it's the right width, which is good. The putty is there to reinforce the ton of glue that is attaching these legs together, as they are a touch on the heavy side and hard to lock in that pose. Hopefully when it all dries it'll be solid enough to start building ontop of. None of that putty should really be visible when the whole thing is said and done, it's just a structural thing - the torso ontop and the armor skirting will prevent people from looking too far up under it to begin with. The legs also ended up leaning over to the back leg's side a bit (check the shot from the front), but I don't actually mind it, as it seems to give the whole thing a bit more canter and attitude than if it was just perpendicular to the ground.

As you can see, I cut another cylindrical frame for the body, but I really don't know if I should even bother doing that. It just seems like entire curved surface doesn't fit it properly - maybe it's because it doesn't have the armor plating to reduce the curves down and bulk it up, I don't know. I'm not sure where to go from here - I could try building something like a half-circle ontop of the black center piece between the legs and working from there, but I'm not sure.

This cardboard needs a bit of cleaning up.I wrapped plasticard around the outside, but the cardboard I used as a base is 'hairy' and won't stay as a clean edge, if you know what I mean.

Sketching it up

So, google sketchup is a little easier to use than I thought.

 

It looks a little wide from the front, but any narrower and the feet would be too close together. Just thinking about this thing in three dimensions helps a great deal, though.

Also, obviously the engine will be built up enormously. I didn't feel like doing the whole thing.

Legs are done?

 

I know there's hydraulics on the forward ankle of one and not (visibly) on the other, but it bothers me less than having no support there at all - it looked too flimsy otherwise. It would appear that those devils at GW have got me all figured out. They put the flattened grot on the actual giant sprue to begin with! Meaning I'd have to buy the whole giant if I wanted the grot.

Feet are pretty much taken care of. They'll get some tread on the bottom, but I want to move on for now.. question is, torso or other arm?

Torso it is

Already Stompin’!

My initial sledgehammer results. More experiments pending. I think the boiled water might do it better, but a blowtorch or direct heat would ruin the detail - I want it to be a beakie, visibly, instead of a melted blob. While realistically I wouldn't ever apply that much heat to it to begin with to melt it that much, I want to be able to see a crushed imperial eagle on those chests. I think I'll go to my local GW and ask if I could steal one of their painted Beakies, as apparently my chaos-playing roommate stole all my beakie arms before we left college for the summer and I don't have enough to make a proper beakie for smashing.

I'm going to go ahead and order the smashed grot from the giant accessory stuff if it's possible for the sake of it, just because smashed grots are always good under a wheel or, say, stompa foot.

I'm sitting at work trying to figure out if I'm going to actually make the torso next, or the arm in the background with the saw+kannon. I'm actually not looking forward that much to making the torso, as it's going to end up being the crux of the model and if I can't get it exactly right it'll look odd. The engineering worky bits on the back are actually what I think will give me the most trouble.

Also, as I am prone to do, I am starting to imagine LEDs on this thing. Particularly a 9v battery tucked in the torso powering light-up eyes and perhaps the grot cockpit's control panel and interior.

I also had an odd idea this morning of sticking a circular saw blade out of one of the toes of the feet, right down the middle, just to add some extra puntin' power. I'm not sure how that would look, though.

Sorry, just mindless brainstorming.

Two legz iz betta than one!

I doubt this thing can balance so I'll probably base it on a CD or something. The trailing foot will probably hang over the edge of the CD as I think this will end up being slightly larger than one, but as long as the planted foot has a large surface area to work with I doubt it'll be a problem. I'll probably cityfight base it for the sake of keeping up with the times, actually. Just walking through rubble. A thought I had a little earlier this afternoon which I think I have to do is to take one of the macragge Beakies and a sledge hammer, and flatten the bugger out, and stick him upsidedown on the underside of the trailing foot. It's just the right size, I think.

 

They're coming along. The 2nd leg isn't anywhere near done yet, but I figured I'd put pictures up while I was posting. There's an uncomfortable looking gap at the forward part of the ankle that I'm going to have to take care of, probably with some small hydraulics, but the foot isn't meant to be seen vertically, only in a horizontal profile.

Springs for legs

 

I just made a huge sort of spring-support for the main leg. The top won't be seen as it should be tucked underneath the gargant and it's skirting, but the front 'guard' plate is very bare. I think I need to slap some stray armor plating in random places on it to try and break up the huge flat surface.

The back of the leg is also a bit hollow, but I can't figure out what to put in there. Maybe stuff some additional cabling in there? It doesn't look quite complete, and this is the point where I have to break away from the drawing a bit since it's not particularly descriptive about the leg section above the ankle.

Engines are hot!

I probably won't cast other parts of the model, as I don't see anywhere else that I'd need to, but I'm not sure yet. I can't really cast the rest of the legs - I don't want the legs to be exactly symmetrical. Also to consider is that making a mold becomes more complex as the complexity of the subject piece increases - I made mine of the simple curves to work from so that I could make an easy one-piece mold. Casting the entire leg, with some of the shapes involved, would become very difficult. The feet are in slightly different positions, anyway - the foreground illustrated foot is placed at a 70-ish degree angle, leaning forward, while the back one is around 110 degrees and extending backwards at the ankle. Symmetrical legs would complicate that a good deal, as I'd then have to cut and re-position them. It's just easier to do it this way.

Gotta clean it up a bit. The spot between the fluted 'engine' on the back of the leg and the hose joint will probably get filled in with a touch of putty.