Plamo: Ork Trukk (Scratchbuild, Warhammer 40k)

 

Probably the first real kitbash an average Ork player will have attempted is that the common trukk, the standard greenskin battle taxi. Part of this is due to the old and often forgotten game: Gorkamorka, which encourages such things. For example, consider the "Gubbinz" bag release they did back then, a bunch of sprues and wheels for easy conversion, which is the stuff of legend and absolutely not something GW would like do today. There was also the matter of Gorkamorka truck kit being small and easily found even twenty years later, so people like myself bodged two together. Or if you were cost minded, you'd try rolling a child's toy truck in bitz and then call it a day. Today's project is in the spirit of the latter. Well, I don't want to sell myself short. I'm going for the scratchbuild root, but the spirit is there.

 

So, my thought process was a little like this. I'd tried to work out a few army lists based on what I had in storage, as I would unavoidably want to play at some point, and had come to a few conclusions. The first was that I'd have to paint a load of Boyz, which is half the appeal of Orks, but not something I was hugely looking forward to. My last attempt at painting Ork skin had been disappointing, and I wasn't feeling confident. So, while I was figuring that out, I'd make some trucks, which would also reduce the sheer number of Boyz needed in the end. I'd just make my first and experimental truck with an enclosed cabin. After trawling discount stores, I'd acquired various candidates for truck surgery, but after I'd had them in hand for a while, I decided to start with a purer scratchbuild.

Here, three poundshop toy cars died to provide wheels that were then attached to pen lids as axles, while a toy tractor provided the curved front end. The main Hull was built from a resource I recently discovered, Broadfix Flatpackers, an item more normally used in DIY projects & door fittings & such. These are slabs of plastic about the size of a chocolate bar, with assorted surface detailing to assist installation and cutting. This makes them desirable from a scratch building perspective, and coincidentally also come in a bag for easy converting, equating to a 9p a slab. I'm surprised that more people don't talk about them, if only because a single one forms a near ideal basis for a truck. A happy accident occurred when I decided to make my own rivets rather than just use my usual stick on gems. I acquired some hole punch pliers which can be used on plasticard to create little circles, but trying it on foamcard presented a surprise. The tool could not pierce the foam, but it would leave an imprint like a recessed rivet, which was awesome. I used the pliers to make more conventional rivets too, in conjunction with stick-on gems, and repurposed the leftover plastic for the flatbed. 

 

It was however still a learning process with respects to the wheel base, which still is a bit off. Its also too big, as overall size which crept up as my scratchbuilds are want to do. I can only assume I was visualising one of those big lorries you have to climb, or something the local Warboss likes to drive on weekends. Then again, the stock/official Trukk has a bigger footprint than a Leman Russ battletank, so maybe I'm being too hard on myself. Painting continued in what is now my standard style. I attempted to spice things up with a checkerboard pattern, but it didn't work out, so I painted it over. The tires were painted in Vallejo Glossy Black, before being smothered in homebrew texture paint mud. Things came together then and I'm pleased my scheme works on larger models.

Overall, I'm happy with the paint job and the general vibe, but less with the overall size and proportions. It's absolutely fine as a first try, and as a gaming piece, but the next one will be better.

Work in Progress Pics

 

Oldhammer: Kan Upcycling

 

This article follows on from this one, where I discuss the salvaging and repainting of some metal Killa Kans. So, with the "factory spec trio"done, I had 4 Kans left to do repaint. Kinda. Even before I cannibalised them for modelling fodder, these were incomplete. I'd got several in an eBay auction in the distant past, lacking numerous bits, which I compensated for with my first conversions. So, this becomes not such a matter of recycling so much as renovation and modernisation. New arms and guns were required for all, as well as a few hatches and power plants. And, if I'm doing that much work, I might as well make it extra.

 

Now, modernising models like these presents a few challenges. Matching styles is one, Orks having been through periodic redesigns, and proportions is another as scale creep is a thing. As I was still using the original legs, I ended up having to extend the shoulder mounts to give new parts the needed clearance, which wasn't ideal. I also had to scrap my initial run of arms as they looked wrong, too gangling and oddly posed. I went back to basics and used smaller lego bits and beads, which worked better, but with one thing or the other, these Kans have ended up stockier than most. I am however quite pleased with the mono eyes, and the klaws, which were mainly made from vegetable tags and EVA foam sheets, which I'd been meaning to try in a project. While this foam material is totally unsuited to structural use, it lends itself easily to curved panels and crude plating. Meanwhile, the leftover Big Shoota from the Deff Dread found a home here, as I scaled back a bit in the name of fun.

Once the unexpectedly lengthy assembly was completed, I obviously started painting, where upon there were some minor difficulties before it all came together. As can happen, painting revealed some imperfections and weak joins. The wrecking ball for example had its chain replaced with wire as the chain had already broken once in antiquity, and why tempt fate? Sadly, it still managed to demand further gluing once painting was underway. It happens, but it is a nuisance. Also, while the paintwork downplays the flaw, I'm not happy with how the elbows turned out, and I'll have to refine that idea further. I relied too much on green stuff, and a few bits of plasticard where probably needed to complete the desired effect. On the positive side, progress definitely accelerated once I got painting. I tried Colour Forge "Trench Brown" for a spray undercoat, which I’m quite happy with, and refined my homebrew texture paint method. Here I used some common or garden "Burnt Umber" craft paint, which worked much better than I expected. Brown seems to be a colour you can go cheap on... 

 

Nitpicks aside, I'm quite happy with how these turned out. My painting technique seems largely perfected, at least in the realm of "tableworthy", and I am now confident in my skills as a scratch-builder. However, having done 11 ork walkers in rapid succession, it's time to take on a fresh challenge.

Work in Progress Pics

Transformers: Siege Hotlink is Something That Exists

So when the largely middling Netflix Cartoon based on the War for Cybertron: Siege toyline aired, Siege proper had ended and Earthrise was already a thing, prompting a run of exclusive toys. These featured alleged more cartoon accurate colour schemes, although it's probably more accurate to describe them more enthusiastic paint jobs. These doubled-down on the grime and wear motifs that many had disliked about Siege, and this premium paintwork was the justification for a higher price. These exclusives varied from the desirable to the unneeded, the very obscure, i.e. today's subject. As exclusives go, they weren't super hard to find, scalpers notwithstanding, as a retailer in each major region carried them. Today's subject is the Japanese version, and the phrase "Japanese Exclusive Transformer" has historically been the subject of much fervently irrational desire. Not so much this case; Takaratomy does still occasionally do its own thing, like masterpieces, but mainly they just re-release stuff. Apparently, not everyone got the memo, as this was reduced from 55 to 25 quid by a specialist toy supplier. Good if you're a completionist, I suppose. Or if, like myself, you saw an inexpensive indulgence, and a chance to try something you passed on at the time. As to whom Hotlink is, and why he is? Well, he's a Seeker, one of the army of Starscream repaints that were used to fill crowd scenes in the 80's cartoon, and subsequently named in later fiction. Hotlink appeared in episode 1 and while he had a gimmick I'll get to, he's a blank slate. I suspect the only reason why he's here is that they were saving the Coneheads for Earthrise, and they'd done the similarly obscure Rainmakers as a three pack. He had a Botcon toy under similar circumstances and a few appearances since, but as lore goes, he's a niche within a niche. He didn’t even have a name until decades after the fact. Even the paint job here is taking liberties, as Hotlink more of a uniform purple and grey on screen, whereas this toy edges into Skywarp territory. I’ve seen at least one person repaint this into Skywarp because that toy is harder to find. On a conceptual level then, this is largely harmless exclusive; its not taking a popular guy out of circulation, Earthrise, I’m looking at you, and as its so obscure, it can afford to mix things up a bit.

Now, the siege Seeker mould got some well-earned criticism at the time due to its engineering. Its basically a shellformer, where robot form balls up, and is concealed by the backpack. I'd compare it to something out of the Gundam franchise, one of its function over form mecha where the transformation is about adding utility, rather than passing for a jet. Something along the lines of the Gundam Airmaster, perhaps? My example was also suffering from some spotty QC which prompted the use of a craft knife to ease a transformation joint and general touching up. Not great, but also not unexpected given the price and inevitable mould degradation. I have mixed feelings about this design approach, as I have pilloried certain Earthrise toys for doing similar, and objectively it's flawed. The difference is, I suppose, is that it feels actual creativity was used to catch the spirit of something, rather than simply a lack of imagination. If you're gonna cheat, cheat to create an alien attack polygon. Don't cheat to create a car. Visually, the jet has a lot of moulded detail, and many have made the comparison with the Colonial Vipers from Battlestar Galactica. Its certainly got that 80’s, real model, universal greebly vibe going on. What’s specific to Hotlink is the colours, a transition of black to purple to lavender, with orange highlights. There’s multiple tones going on, with both plastic and paint, putting me in the gentle use of an airbrush. Its a good scheme. Functionally: the tetra-jet isn’t doing too much, but you can have fun with blast affects attached to the thrusters, and you end up with a total of 6 under-wing mounts for the null rays.

 

The robot mode attempts the same trick, but its not as unified, and generally comes across as darker in the extremities. This draws the eyes to the torso, with his orange faux not-cockpit and lavender codpiece, which is a sentence, but the overall affect is pretty good. This is also where the base mould starts to shine, because there’s numerous little touches that suggest the time they saved on engineering to make things a little nicer. There’s notably good movement at the shoulders and knees, with two points of articulation for each wing. If you get a flight stand for this chap, he’ll look great, and he’s fully in the Siege play pattern, so he can carry a lot of guns. The general sort of Underbase Saga, real model, greebling also continues, and the eyes are light-piped red. I acknowledge the backpack as the beginning and end of all this toy’s design problems, but they did kinda nail the robot mode, with good posability and presence. I don’t think I would army build this mould, but I will say its got more appeal than I thought.

 

We now come to the unique selling point of both Hotlink and the set in general: flamethrowers. Hotlink’s one claim to fame is that in the first ever episode of the Transformers cartoon, he tried to trap Wheeljack and Bumblebee in a ring of fire. It didn’t work, but, I say again, flamethrowers. He’s got two little battlemaster chaps to represent this, Heartburn & Heatstroke, so, yes, he dual-wields flamethrowers like a goddamn Redemptionist. Both are recolours of the Blowpipe mould, and are functionally identical, and by omitting half of the blast effect, they now spurt fire. As my tone may have implied, I find this rather fun, but possibly the execution isn’t great. In what I assume is an attempt to more closely match that one scene, both are in a light blue, which doesn’t really work. Maybe they would have been better in some other tone, but this mould was used 7 other times, so maybe all the good colours were taken…

 

 

My point? Only that Hotlink etc are something that exists. And, sometimes, a mould can surprise you.

Oldhammer: Kan Recycling (Warhammer 40k, Metal Miniatures)

Oh. People really loved the Deff Dread too. Zog it, I suppose I'm back doing 40k models then. Why fight it?

I have a daft amount of Ork stuff in storage. Granted, a lot of it is some combination of broken, incomplete, obsolete and unpainted, but it's there. So, before moving onto my next major scratch project, I decided to strip the paint off a few, and bring them up to my current standard. On inspection, I had 7 of the old 3rd edition Killa Kanz, because of course I fucking did, and chose those. However, as these are decades old at this point, an idea presented itself. As these are now retro, a case can be made for a "straight build" as it were. I normally like to convert everything I can with Orks for variety, but these are old enough to be curiosities as is. So, I cobbled together 3 "factory spec" Kans from the available parts, which I'm talking about today. (The remaining 4 featuring new and/or scratchbuilt components will feature in a future post.) 

 

Salvaging metal miniatures like this is relatively easy as common paint removers work OK, but the medium can be a mixed blessing. It's very easy to strip paint, but metal is obviously heavy, and surprisingly bendy in the small bits. These Kans in particular go together with the kind of ease you'd associate with tax returns or prolonged dental procedures. The bike-pedal-shaped connector for the guns and hatch handles are a right bastard for not staying put or bending, not to mention gaps and such. A not-insignificant amount was spent trying to get things to go together, and replacing/fixing those mounts. Yes, they don't make em like they used to. Because they learned from experience. That said, I did bring some difficulty on myself, as I'd forgotten how tricky these can be, and got overconfident with my hot glue gun.

Painting and basing also suffered some minor setbacks. I ran out of both my preferred undercoat and my usual texture paint ingredient, so I had to improvise. I'd also opted to try pound shop D.I.Y filler as a basing material, which had a few teething troubles. These bases look fine of course, but are a bit tacky to the touch due to the home-made paint mix. The actual kans themselves went more smoothly, although the white proved to be a learning experience due to the small area. Otherwise, painting was quick and easy. 

 

 

All in all? A fine outcome, with useful experience for what comes next. Kan upcycling.

Plamo: Ork Deff Dread "Blubottle" (Scratchbuild, Warhammer 40k)

 Wow, a lot of people liked those Kans... its humbling.

Anyways. A lot of my love for Kanz and Dreadz has to do with the shenanigans you could pull with the 4th Ed Ork Codex. That and, as you’ve probably observed, me having a robot fixation. In retrospect, the Kustom Forcefield was somewhat broken at the time, but you could organise a walker heavy army in way that was then uncommon, this predating the modern laissez-faire system by donkey’s years. If you took a Big Mek, and you would for both theme & practical reasons, you could place a Deff Dread in a Troops slot rather than Heavy Support, which would be full of Killa Kanz. So, if you took this to its logical conclusion, you could have 11 walkers in a standard sized battle, and still have enough points left over for the Boyz, whom could happily march behind a wall of scrap metal. This was awesome. Deff Dreadz were viewed as sub-optimal at the time though, and their prominence has ebbed and flowed since. My understanding at present is that people like to teleport pairs of them next to the enemy lines and watch the carnage unfold.

A Deff Dread isn't a significantly different modelling challenge than a Kan, its just larger with more arms. Indeed, one of my initial ideas was to start with one of these, before deciding to start smaller and experiment first. Having now found workable methods to create limbs, I opted to make things a touch more involved by creating legs with actual knees. My first idea was to create these with armature wire and bits of mechanical pencil, and while this worked fine, it proved wrong for the project. I might end up using those in future, but I instead opted water pistol parts and zip ties to create some much more stocky legs with elephant style feet. This would have a knock-on effect with respects to the pose, as I had to work around the lack of ankle joints, but I was was worried about over-building. Once the legs were set, the main body was created from some plastic lids, and general faffing about commenced. I ended up reworking the backpack and weapon mountings before I finished, which resulted in an otherwise perfectly acceptable big shoota being rejected. That said, I did get to mix things up a bit, adding more intricate and asymmetric detailing as I went. I also used a lighter to burn off stray bits of hot glue, and bend some pipes; don't try this at home kiddies!

Now, about that klaw. Yes, it's oversized. Yes, its off some Kill Team terrain. Yes, that is kit-bashing not scratch-building, and I could have tried to make one myself. But, it is also the ideal piece for such a model. The chainsaw was also something too good to leave in the bitz box forever, but this old Frame Arms accessory was subject to a proper doing-over. Only the front half was used with a new mechanism built around the arm. The Rokkit Launcha meanwhile was a relatively late addition to the project, as my obsessive brain insisted I give some thought to what would actually be sensible in play. Rokkits previously functioned as a somewhat passable anti-tank weapon, but these days they have an explosive effect that makes them more desirable. I've been wanting to have a stab at making my own, and the shape has proved tricky, so I cheated. I used "blue stuff" to create a crude mould of skorcha missiles for their shape. The resulting warheads were then attached to tube offcuts. It's ugly, but Ork stuff allows for a certain degree of crappiness, and I'm sure I can refine this further in later projects. The last notable sub-assembly was the face area and decorative teeth. As the klaw and legs were posed through construction quirks, I decided to lean into it and have the dread look to one side. So, I made a monoeye from trukk bits, which gave a good and sinister appearance. 

 

Painting was achieved via the same drybrushing, stippling, and aggressive weathering techniques practiced on the Kans, but with two main additions. The first was the painting of teeth in Citadel Wraithbone, by stippling with a brush, and a later dabbing with a bit of sponge. White is a secondary colour used by the Deathskull clan, my lads, and I’ve never enjoyed working with it as its boring to look at, and very hard to keep clean. However, clean is not a priority with something such as this, and the overall effect is like road markings, so… ideal? The second major difference was the eye, which was painted in the same manner as my BattleTech cockpit glass, with Contrast Iyanden Yellow and Ard Coat. I briefly considered a purple eye for a zeonic flavour, but orange contrasts better with blue. Also, this model felt kinda relaxing to paint, as I’ve homed in on some effective but simple techniques.

The end result? I think this might be the single best model I’ve ever done.

Work in Progress Pictures