Here we go, the first major article written in 2024. If you don’t count Project Tankbustas. Got a new document open and everything. Of course, the subject of this article was started in 2023, and I have a SUBSTANTIAL number of posts awaiting publication, one of which got bumped for this one, but here we are.
So with, January coming up, and in desperate need of something to do to balance out Chrimbo, I felt it was time to revisit the idea of a Killa Kans scratchbuild. Yes, it's both predictable and pretentious to consider making scrap robots for fun. Especially in the often stressful and hazy festive period. But it is fun. Also, I've built up my skills since. I'm very proud of my original scratchbuilds, don't get me wrong, but I will admit that those are a touch oversized. So these were intended to be refinements and closer to the official kits. This resulted in me having a tape measure and a reference model to hand. I drifted a little on that, but as with Project Tonks I seem to have found methods that work for me, arising as much from the resources available as any thing. First, I'd intended to make more extensive use of water pistol innards, but these seem to be out of season, so I ended up using beads more and more as I went on. As it turned out, I did have some left, but I wouldn’t find them until base-coating the things because I don’t organise my bitz. Unconsciously, I ended up making Beadbots, the legs of the third being entirely beads and wire. The arms were based off plastic rod, with a metal sewing bar, (I never did find out the proper name for these,) with a flexible material in the middle to suggest cabling. Wire and small beads were used to create pistons, giving the arms an industrial robotics look. At least until I put the klaw or whatever on the end. I did not try to add pistons to the legs as I felt it would not be visually pleasing. While each was based off lids and such, the main bodies of the first two shared a common hip piece, based off toy cars I was no longer able to source. All this leads to three Kans with enough common design elements to suggest a shared origin, although the last I made was the most divergent from the template as I'd ran out of some bits. So, let's briefly look at each in turn.
The first "Bugeye McPinchy" is the one most reminiscent of my earlier work and the GW house style for Orks. It's legs are water pistol triggers, with the generator and exhausts coming from the same place. The initial melee arm I built for this one proved far too fragile, promoting the style of arm described above. It's Grotzooka was the same style that I'd made for the Grot Mega-Tank. Once the limbs were on, and I was confident it would stand without issue, I then dressed the model with bits, going down the ork face route. Much later on, when I viewed the trio as a group, I'd realised the size of each had subtly increased with successive kan. Nothing major, all were close enough to my reference model, but I felt Bug needed a little something to compensate, hence his bosspole made from gears.
The second, "Screwfix" was arguably better received when shared on social media. This name, and presumably it's popularity, came from the big screw fitting I'd added as a melee weapon. Too big? Maybe. Appropriate? Definitely. I mirrored it's weapons versus the first and gave it a monoeye. Due to space limitations this ended up with fewer teeth, with legs being a combination of water pistol bits, beads, toy car wheels, and cable ties. The generator also ended up sitting higher, but that proved to be a good place for a glyph and other greebling.
The third, “Wideboy” was where I went full bead mode, and radically changed the body shape. Here the legs and claw were wooden beads, and its main body was a small jar of a kind previously used as a Tonk turret. This would lead me to omit the bulky generator of the previous two, because it was bulky enough already. He's biggish for a Kan, but not to the extent of the ones I made before. The klaw also required a rethink. I'D initially went for a jcb/digger look, but it wasn't working, so I sliced if off and tried again. I also opted for the Grotzooka to be more of a gun arm rather than mounting it directly to the shoulder. Aware of how much this one was deviating from the other two, I also gave this a monoeye and teeth.
This was fun. I might not need to actually buy models any more at this rate.
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