The plan.
Note that for this project log the model has already been built, finished, painted.

I have been playing with the idea of having a Squiggoth in my bulging 40k ork army for some time.
My army have steadily grown to 6000+ pts over the past 4 years and already includes a big apoc sized nasty in the form of a stompa. Some who saw it at the Silver Skull will remember this one.

So this got me thinking, how to get a Squiggoth in my army that is unique and at the same time cheap and still very very orky.

Of course I started where everyone starts, admiring the Forgeworld Gargantuan Squiggoth and how great it would be to have one of those as part of my army.


I am however on a budget and can’t afford the £220 + weapons to get this beast, it also comes with the in-enviable downside that I’ll simply end up with the same Gargantuan Squiggoth that everyone else has.

So looking for inspiration I look on google images and simply find people that have laughably tried to convert Squiggoths from Lizardmen Steggadons and large plastic dinosaurs – no thanks. All look tacky and poorly done.

But this got me thinking, what to convert it out of another far larger war beast, if such thing was available somewhere.

Just browsing GW website I stumbled upon the lord of the rings range where this massive beast stands:

The War Mumak

My minds eye instantly worked out how I was going to turn this war beast into a Squiggoth, I had the model I needed.
Using the Forgeworld Squiggoth as inspiration/goal, to get it to where I needed it, I was going to have to completely change its mouth (i.e. build it a mouth of gargantuan proportions) and build a howdah from scratch. It also needed a complete tail change to something far more menacing. The model could also do with being liberally covered in armour plates.

These things were simple enough to work out:

For the head and tail I planned to build out of green stuff, and lots of it (this in itself is a huge challenge as I had never used the stuff before).

The howdah however was an easier build, having a big ork army I have accumulated an equivalent sized bitz box I had plenty of big pieces for conversion. I still needed a good looking flat bed for on the back and some good compartments for the driver and gunners. So opted to buy a battlewagon just to chop up and give the howdah the sort of orky feel it really needs.


After all of this I still needed something to assist in the building of the howdah should any of it need building from scratch and also build me some uniform armour plates for the sides of my Squiggoth. Simple enough I needed some plasti-card to help with the build.

Working to a tight budget and looking on ebay I find a person selling a War Mumak and quickly make them an offer of £35 for it which they accepted and the project starts.

Goodluck! The Murmak will need alot of work, they are very "leggy" so maybe either shorting the legs or giving it a larger waist could the way forward!!


Goodluck with your efforts

Should be a fun project for you but yeah as TR said the efalump is leggy and not so wide, it would be a shame to lose the size if you had to cut it down too far, I'd go with widening the legs and waists with GS or some kind of Epoxy, and don't lose the tusks they could come in real handy for large teeth etc.

Looking forward to seeing how this turns out!

Great stuff! oh and one thing. It's called a war mumak or mumakil, just to keep things straight

Santobell: Yeah after getting the Mumak I realised just how leggy it is and this was one of the more challenging things to overcome.

Rose_Mountainz: Thanks, Mumak is now the way I spell it. Must have got some wires crossed there.

Deciding that the head/mouth was the most difficult part of the model and clearly needed most work I put that at the top of the list. So that I wasn’t sculpting onto think air I decided to build myself a “skeleton” out of plasti-card and sprue edges. This gave me the full proportions of the mouth, something to sculpt onto making the job far easier and also allowed me to bond the front two teeth (made from battlewagon bits) and tusks using plastic glue.

Interesting project im going to watch it.

Cheers

Looking cool - post the rest!

Judging by your 2,000 ish points I faced in August it will look great

SilverMK2: Not just yet, I’m planning on a far more frustrating day by day, similar to how I did the actual build. + I recently got a display type cupboard so i can have my army arrayed before me every day and simply admire it – so vain. Think you will like how this turns out. Thanks

After building the skeleton of the mouth the next thing on the list was to build the rest of the jaws out of green stuff.
Deciding to be able to get the largest amount of detail I was going to have to build it up in stages each covering a different thing.
This however meant leaving each stage to fully harden before stating the next but allowed me to break the whole thing into manageable steps where my full concentration would be there at each step to make it the best it could be.

Building on top of a skeleton I decide the best approach would be to build the teeth next.

Also sorry for the blurry-ness of the photos my photography skills also get alot better duing this project.

Haha, love the teeth - looks like an angler fish

And damn you drip feeding us updates!

Any chance of an army shot at the end?

Watching with awe and anticipation!

Very interested to see how this turns out!

Scary looking and rather large squig good luck

Subscribed!

To deal with the legginess, you might be able to make a catwalk/platform below the body or at least one that goes down the sides, With ladder that go up the sides.

OR! You could make small tower platforms that go around each leg with ladders up and rope bridges between the legs. Though this would require the bridges to be quite slack between the legs that are striding close together vs the ones striding apart.

Good job making it look like a deep sea fish, maybe a big search light or lantern above its head to make it a bit more like the Angler Fish.

Also im not sure what sort of of armament a squigoth is supposed to have, but if it has a big gun i think a massive belt of ammo coming down one side and on the other a spent belt with shells on the ground.

Finally, every ork vehicle should have a lot of grots running around on it (well imo)!

SilverMK2: Yeah it being like an Angler Fish was completely accidental but completely awesome I think. If there is enough requests for it then I could do some army shots. Even if not I do need one or two shots with this beast stood at the center of it all.

Arakasi: Thanks, as I do your project log.

crimsonmicc: I do build some platforms and ladders but that is really for later. Good idea about the lantern that would be cool. When making it I pretty much disregarded it looking like a deep see fish as really something coincidental but that could really add something cool and funny to the whole design. The armament for a gargantuan Squiggoth is listed in the Apoc book and is two Supa Lobbas (nasty nasty ordinance barrage 7”template weapons) and two twin linked big shootaz.

After completing the teeth I felt it time to apply some “muscle” to this beast, this will give me the overall shape of the mouth and so give me a good base for other layers of skin etc.
However filling in gaps I would get close to the surface skin of the Squiggoth and so the first texturing was applied around the lower part of head. This was achieved using a set of staedtler clay modelling tools and simply following the wrinkles of the War Mumak and creating a few of my own. Also texturing for the back and inside of the mouth was applied.





Note the rather large amount of green stuff in the background I needed to get the build done. =|

Haha, love the teeth - looks like an angler fish

Seconded. in a good way

Green for the Stuff god!

Looking good already.

Your doing great progress, can't wait to see this develope!

It looks great already !
Can't wait to see the rest.
I'm subscribed.

All: Thanks for all the great comments

Next on the list was to make my Squiggoth some gums for both the top and bottom teeth.
This was achieved easier than it sounds and looked convincing when finished.
Basically I got some modelling putty, flattened it out, applied it so that it overlapped over where the teeth are by the desired amount, then using a blunt modelling tool pushed it between each tooth. This was done for the left and right side of each set of teeth on both the top and bottom.
After this I then textured the gums with some stretch marks.

Very nice...

More!

Looking good, just one question, where is the enterance to his throat? Teeth and gums look great.

I'm just hoping that he does not pay quite so much attention to the exit at the other end...

I'm just hoping that he does not pay quite so much attention to the exit at the other end...

knowing orks they would just fit a cannon there or something!

Da Mukspredda - S10, AP 5, Hellstorm Template, Destroyer 1?

This is great!
I must see more....

This is looking very good and am keen to see how this turns out. The head looks quite tall though, so this may help deal with some of the 'legginess' from the mumak. You may be able to get away with it by simply hiding some of the upper leg area....?

SilverMK2 + Tortured-Robot: More is what people want so what I give. As for the exhaust point was thinking something like Da Mukspredda - SX, AP 5, Hellstorm Template, Pinning, Rending, Poison Weapon (4+). That should just about cover

Tortured-Robot: As for the back of the throat, didn’t want to make a hole at the back of the mouth as where to end the hole?? This was to be solved with the inclusion of a tongue this would allow the hinting of a throat and then the viewer can assume the rest. Also leaving it dark at painting allows for a “disappearing point”. This is how it is done with all models. I’ll admit that it is more difficult with such a large mouth though.

InyokaMadoda: I did think about this but if someone was to go in for a closer inspection I think it would have been too obvious and may make the model disproportionate (more so than I wanted it to be anyway) so I reasoned that I may as well just go and widen the legs. I had enough modelling putty to cover (just about anyway).

Next up was the tongue, this as mentioned will help hint where the throat is, but more importantly needed to be eye catching and a focal point of the mouth. It needed to be differently textured and look “soft”, squishy but at the same time muscular and alive.
The squishiness was achieved by making the tongue over hang on the gums and teeth slightly as if filling the area. The lift at the end of the tongue ensured it had the required life in it.
It was textured with a split down the centre and dimples all the way along, this gave it a rounded, soft look to contrast heavily with the sharp look of the teeth.

Anyway hurray for my first really in focus shot. (Note this doesn’t last for too long)

i wonder what's cheaper: simply buy one at forgeworld or spend all your money on gs? I don't care, this looks great. keep on the good work!

kingjayko: It worked out at about £130+ cheaper than buying a gargantuan Squiggoth from forgeworld but a little more than buying the other Squiggoth. Think I may give a full run down of costs at the end if people are interested. Green stuff when bought on ebay is SO much cheaper than buying from GW. I bought a meter length for £14 on ebay, which was everything I needed + a little more. Far cheaper then buying through GW for the equivilent ammount.

Next on the list was to create my monster some lips. The lips needed to be uniform, look squishy and interestingly textured to make them distinct from the skin of the squiggoth.
They needed to provide strong destinguishing line between the skin on the squiggoth and the gums and inside mouth. After a quick studdy of peoples lips I came up with:



Also missing as yet and added at this stage was the skin covering the top of the tusks. This was added with stretch marks similar but far deeper to those on the gums.



The mouth was now done, this was the last step I did before moving onto the body.

This looks amazing!!

You givin' me lip?

Looking good as usual!

As many of you have already mentioned the War Mumak is a bit of a leggy beast. This isn't very squiggoth like and that really needed changing. So now with the head done and before I started sticking the body together I needed to sort that out. Widening the leg came later when I had more on the proportions of the body right.

I wanted to do two things:
Shorten the height of the legs.
Reposition the legs so that it wasn't in the striding pose that the War Mumak is in.

The first was far easier I simply shortened each leg by ~1.5cm.
The second was far harder. I wanted a running pose something aching to a rhino charge would be ideal. This lead me to the idea of having the front left leg raised from the ground, this would make for an attacking like gallop, and the back left leg pushing/scrapping the floor as if propelling the Squiggoth.

All "mesurements" were done on the base to get the right pose before an "adjustments" were made.

At this stage the ... ahem ... gonads were removed for reasons that will become apparent soon.



After repositioning the front left leg the hole created was filled with a piece of plasti-card. This like before was there so that I had something to mold my green stuff onto that would fill the gap.

Why did you have to take his gibblies? WHY!?!?!

They had gonads?!!

lol they had to model every detail. Sorry for going OT it looks great, cant wait to see it finished.

All: Yes the giblies had to go so I could widen the model and not have the love spuds hanging too far right They may yet make a return

Aswell as finding the beast a bit on the leggy side it was also thinner then I wanted. To add bulk keep detail and get it how I wanted I decided that I needed to widen my Squiggoth to be.

So on one half of the still in bits model I, roughly, went around and glued on two sprue thick sprue lengths all the way around the edge of the Mumak body.





I then simply glued the two halves together giving me a wider heavier looking body.

Looks good wider and the legs look a lot more dynamic. Nice work

Are you going to make the legs fatter?

SilverMK2: Thanks, looked through your deviant art stuff you have some cool shots of models I didn't see at Silver Skull.
Rose_Mountainz: Yes I will be widening the legs - soon, very soon.

Sorry for the late update today and the missed update yesterday. Did a double shift at work yesterday, was bad.

Anyway

After now having the body mostly together I felt it about time I added the, so large it was obscene, head to the model.

Now that I had extended the jaw (or more built it a jaw) it was now critical that I got the head in the best pose possible and attached firmly to the body using plastic glue that looked proportional and "realistic". (Realistic for 40k anyway)

Using sprue bits, some filling and a lot of possing I finally setled on this.





Once I was happy with this it was then a case of green stuffing the gaps (and then widening the legs) untill I had a completed squiggoth ready to have a howdah built.

ceorron wrote:SilverMK2: Thanks, looked through your deviant art stuff you have some cool shots of models I didn't see at Silver Skull.

Thank you. I think I took most of the models I have in my gallery to SS certainly most of the CSM stuff anyway. If they are ready and I have had a few games with them before hand, I might take my Eldar to the next one

Any that squig has a gihumongous jaw

Look forward to see how you tie it into the body (and also bad luck on the double shift).

As mentioned already I now needed to fill in the "gaps" in my Squiggoth to make it appear much more realistic. Big challenges on the list included covering over the area I made when I widened the body, filling the gap between the body and head/mouth giving the realistic impression of a neck ontop of what I have, green stuffing the gaps where I had reshapped the legs.

For texturing this involved a mix of continuing the wrinkles in the skin of the War Murmak and creating some of my own in the correct places.

The widening and leg filling was done first.



Followed by the neck filling, this was definitely the longest and took the most work. For realism the wrinkles were made deeper on the side which the head was angled towards where as more streched and not as deep on the other side.





One of the last things I did to the neck that was really a spur of the moment addition was some skin flaps that help define it as a neck and are similar to what you might see on old people once their skin begins to thin and age.

Interesting!

Next up would be the highly anticipated widening of the legs. Yay Woooo....

Pretty happy with how it was generally I decided to keep it modest and only widen them to keep them proportional with the rest of the beast.
On the front two legs I also sculpted some new hooves as the War Mumak strangely only has three on the front two legs where as it has 4 on the back two. Wonder if thats how JRR Tolkien wanted it?
Anyway here it is, ready for me to start on the tail.





The gonads make a return at this stage fixed with super glue to the widened area of the squiggoths body. Leaving me with a no doubt happier Squiggoth.

Ahhhh.... No replies.



Moving on. Next as I mentioned was the tail. Still taking my clues from the gargantuan squiggoth. I first created, using plasticard, a set of slidding metal armour plates that the forgeworld squiggoth has covering most of its body. In a continuing theme this gave me a base to sculpt the tail into and gave the tail a sharp and brutal look reminicent of dinos that had large clubbed and scaled tails as attacking weapons.





The squiggoth itself was finished (bar some more armour plates like that on the tail) so it was onto the howdah.

Hi, I've been lurking about this thread for a while, I love the work you've done on on the legs and I love the idea of the club tail but feel it could do with a bit of beefing up a bit, otherwise great project.

It is really coming along now! I think the armour plates really help to make it look more orky and can't wait to see it covered in them

Must have been the nads scaring everyone off

Love the armour plating.

this is turning out very nice.

sweet stuff man, love it

I'm loving this post! Your GS skills are very good.

Could we get a few good quality shots though... perhaps even some overall progress so far shots, i.e. ones where you can see the whole beast rather than just sections of it??

FTL

Mu: Yeah I agree with you, Mu. Could for certain do with some beefing up. But short of sculpting a squiggoth myself I just couldn't get any more onto the War Mumak without terribly distorting the proportions. I suppose one of the major downsides of doing it this way is that you will no dout end up with something that looks like a squiggoth but is substancially smaller then the Forgeworld Gargantuan one.

Commander Cain: Certainly more get added soon.

SilverMK2: Must have been the nads, must have been.

fasterthanlight: Thanks See below for some full body shots. Not so sure about good quality. Think you need to be stood five miles away from something in order for this camera to get in focus, even in macro mode.

After many hours of skulpting I now get to the far easier part of sticking the howdah together. At this point I see my progress rapidly increase and the howdah is completed is just a couple of days.
Those that know the battlewagon kit will no doubt be able to tell how I did this. Basically I wanted 5 compartments one for the driver, 2 for the twin big shoota gunners, one central compartment with a larger flat bed area for the boyz that the squiggoth can carry to stand, this will also house the first supa lobba and finally a rear compartment that will also house a supa lobba.





The supa lobbas were converted using the kannon you get in the battlewagon kit and the killa kan blundabuss. The shells for the main supa lobba converted from varrying ork rokkits.





Some full shots of the near complete howdah, still in need of some crew. Note the ladders made from trukk boarding planks and the driver compartment made from an upturned battlewagon ram, just some of the more inspired parts.
I especially like the variety of differing geometry that goes into the new battlewagon kit makes it look thrown together. I wanted to capitalise on this and get some interesting thrown together shapes into my howdah. What do people think?

Wow, looking pretty cool now it is coming together

Still can't quite get over how huge the mouth is

Your GS work is excellent and the howdah is coming along really nicely. I think my only problem with the head is the squareness of the mouth/jaw. My bigger issue is the mismatch in size between the head and body - oh and that the tail looks a bit limp. I really hope you are planing to extend the armour plating over the body though! (Which may mitigate these issues somewhat...)

The head is a bit big for the body, and as others have said, it looks very square. Still, sufficient armor plating should remedy this.

_Tim?

The head is almost in proportion, And the Orky Gubbinz in the Howdah are great. I think it should have another (shorter) horn on the head (like a rhino).

Looking forwards to seeing it completed, with Orks swarming over it.

I really like the giant head, looking forward to seeing it painted.

I think this looks seriously awesome

I like how the body is turning out, but the head seems off to me. I'd offer advice, but it all revolves around pulling apart or removing the head, and I don't think you'd consider that a option this far in.

Excellent blog! I swear I was planning on doing the exact same thing, except that I got my Mumak body from a bits grab bag. I will have to completely scratch build the head for mine, though, so I really appreciate your WIP shots of head construction. Great idea using dead sprues as bone structure! I've purged all my dead sprues recently so will need to dig some up... but I think I will combine sprues for straights and wire hanger pieces for curves.

I think the size of the head looks dead on, considering a squiggoth is a ginormous squig. I do have to agree that the squareness of the lower jaw seems off, though. If you put a bit in his mouth (like for a horse), or a chain hooked to the corner of his mouth for steering, maybe it would look like the weight pulled the mouth square? You would only need to add the inside part of the jaw where the outer lips got pulled back, if using the piercing in the mouth corner idea. I hope that makes sense. I can see it clearly in my mind but I don't think I'm describing it clearly. And I seriously can't think of search terms for google images that will not get me in trouble. Even easier, you could simply put armored cheek plates on him... or just leave him as is. It is totally up to you of course!

I think the tail looks fine in proportion to the body, and I love the tail armor plates. You could have done a little curly pig tail and it would look great!

Excellent work with use of the battlewagon for the howdah... it definitely looks orkified. I can't wait to see him all armored up. I think armor will make the whole thing finally come together!

What colors are you going to paint the beasty and the howdah?

Rose_Mountainz: Not too long before the painting starts.

Mu: The head is great completely oversized, how I wanted it really, very orky I think.

Gathering Storm: I did try a horn on its head, seemed like something that should work without question, however strangly it simply looked like the squiggoth was wearing a party hat so simply gave that up as a bad job. Think it was because of the difference between the position of the eyes on my model and the position of the horn and the position of the eyes on a rhino.

Some_Call_Me_Tim?: Agreed

Arakasi: Point taken about the tail. was much happeir with it once I had some more armour plates close to it. See below. Didn't go too heavy with the armour plates, mind.

Really the build was coming to a close by now. The only things left on the list was some final howdah details (glyph plates etc), some crew and some armour plates for my squiggoth. I also had the base to make which I planned to convert from the War Mumak one, that will get its own seperate entry.

I didn't want to go over board on the armour plates as this would invariably cover up the skin and my much loved green stuff work. I really wanted to leave most of the skin exposed as the skin, to me, is always the most interesting part of a model and has the most depth of colour after painting. So I simply wanted to concentrate on problem areas and drawing the eye away from them. This, as Arakasi pointed out, was the too square jaw and the somewhat limp tail.
So going with that I simply decided on some armour plates at the top of each of the legs sized proportional to where I planned them.





Also needed were some characterful crew. I planned a pair of crew "manning" each of the supa lobbas, a driver and two twin big shotta gunners for in the side compartments. All were built in the Squiggoth howdah ensuring a good fit.

Also, as a bit of a last minuet experiment, I had a go at fitting the battlewagon top cover and that fit so that was also added as a painting sub assembly, still unsure if I wanted it in the model I decided I may aswell paint it then decide if I wanted to keep it.



I'll leave it to people to guess who goes where.

Looks pretty sweet to me

That is one nice looking war beast you built!

This is really awesome. You've got mad GS skills...

I do, however, think the legs are a little thin to support that gargantuan noggin. Otherwise, that's gonna be awesome painted.

getting there man I am really liking it so far

The mouth is not all that bad just call it loud mouth!!

I always find that custom modeling jobs really come together once their painted. I'm sure it'll look great.

Gymnogyps: I put this up as a blog so that if anyone ever wanted to say recreate the steps/learn from my mestakes then they could. I think the squareness most probably originated from the abit too square bone structure, saying that I couldn't have got it as well defined without the bone structure so would simply have to build it differently or file it more into shape. Like the little curly pig tail idea, that would have looked very funny. I get what your saying about the chains into the mouth similar to the original squiggoth. Very good idea.

SilverMK2: Does to me too.

Corey85: Thanks

All: Will be taking people through the painting soon, hoping to be more brisk with that mind.

Very impressive conversion! Nice work. I hope you get a lot of enjoyment out of the finished product on the tables.

Nice work so far very good work with the green stuff
i think the head is ok on the boy its the legs that look a little scrawny to me or maybe just too tall?

but again very nice work with the green stuff looks very detailed

Awesome work! Very impressive! I completely understand where you are comming from wanting to have something unique! Can't wait to see the painting process!

Very nice conversion! The only thing is something about the head looks strange

Myrlyn: Thanks, have yet to get the chance to use this guy in a game. Though I'm waiting for just the right moment to unleash it on my brothers' Space Wolves.

All: Thanks for the great comments.

Before I delve into painting the base must be first finished.

The War Mumak comes with a finely detailed base, sadly detailed with dead lord of the rings models and scattered weapons. This of course just couldn't do.

So using a combination of junior saw and filling I cut off the top most layer of the base. Then using pasticard filled the gaps left in the base by me doing this.





Wanting something of a scenic base. I went for the usual detroyed battlefield debris look, with a destroyed trukk part, ruin and tank trap. All things my Squiggoth would readily smash into the ground. Also building up using sprue bits I created some foot positions for my Squiggoth so that it was in the most menacing pose possible.







To cover over the still showing LOTR base and the sprue bits I applied plenty of sand with PVA glue. The Squiggoth was now ready for some paint.

Haha, that looks pretty cool from the front

I can't wait too see this finished.

Really looking good, alot of work has gone in

I would consider reworking the head however, the mouth is great, the top of the head doesnt do it justice.

The only problem i have is that the head is bigger than the body....

otherwise, its fab!

I've been watching this thread for a while, and it never stops being fantastic. Great work.

I deeply want this to be painted Orange, Squig style.

Matrim wrote:The only problem i have is that the head is bigger than the body.... otherwise, its fab!

Yeah, It's super Scientific Fact that Squigs are 90% head...

Panic....

Panic wrote:

Matrim wrote:The only problem i have is that the head is bigger than the body.... otherwise, its fab!

Yeah, It's super Scientific Fact that Squigs are 90% head...

Panic....

Think someone maybe talking in a facetious manor that is, for once, not me!!

Panic, by this I can asume your 100% behind the large head?
How is the Kan Wall coming along anyway?

It came together really nice 2 thumbs up matey can't wait to see it painted!

Next up would be painting. I started as most would with such a large and formidable beast, with the skin. I wanted something deep, rich and fitting of my army. It needed to be green (sorry disty) and it needed to be darker then the orks in the rest of my force but most importantly it needed to have variety and depth. These could only mean one thing. Plenty of highlighting, building up varied, rich, heavy layers, and plenty of heavy washes to darken and mucky the skin.

After the standard black spray I started off with a fairly normal coat of Dark Angles Green.





Then a heavy, all over highlight of Knarloc Green with a large brush.





Followed by an all over wash of Devlan Mud to darken the Knarloc, mucky up the beast and bring out all the wrinkles on the model.





This wasn't the skin finished, before I got too indepth with the skin I wanted to bring some of the other areas of the model up to scratch.

Your sculpted skin looks like it fits right in with the actual model with those highlights letting us see the texture in more detail.

Having thought about this long and hard. The question was still relevant. What colours to paint the howdah?
I have a, mostly, goff ork army which is prodomenently black but that would IMO be a poor colour choice for this as for one I had already denominated the squiggoth as Snakebite.

To my opinion Snakebite clan doesn't have a prodominent colour scheme for painting metal. They tend to go with browns and green. To me that would be pretty boring and the squiggoth was already going to be greens with some brown.

I wanted something textured and deep but contrasting with my Squiggoth. Snakebites clan are weather beaten.
Hmmm... Weather beaten metal - Rust.

Perfect, textured, deep, matching the clan symbols on the howdah and contrasting with the Squiggoth.

Having not done rust effect before I looked for a good quality tutorial online.

Finding the Eavy Metal one I started here.
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?categoryId=&pIndex=5&aId=6000022a&start=6

However skeptical I'd get thye results, I needed to test it, preferably somewhere small on the model:



Not a hundred percent on this I decided to drop the last step and replace all chainmail highlighting and drybrushing with boltgun instead. Also the second step of Devlan Mud wash was replaced with 2 washes of Devlan Mud. It was also lighter than I wanted so a wash of Badab Black (not seen in this picture) was needed.





After botgun metal painting.





After two devlan mud washs.





After bestial brown stipling.





After blazing orange stipling.

I cant wait till this is done, it will look magnificent!

The beast looks amazing and the drybrushing and washes bring out so much of the detail.

Very nice

As painting continued and before I got too stuck into finishing off both the skin and the howdah I decided that I really wanted to get the other details of the Squiggoth in. The mouth, the teeth, the straps contecting the beast to the howdah all were yet to do.

First I picked out all parts I wanted base coating in scorched brown painted (straps, teeth etc.).

Then both the tougue and gums were painted with hormagant purple.



The tungue then highlighted with red gore, then blood red, then the whole tongue given a red wash.
The gums were highlighted with warlock purple then given a blue was.


The teath and tusk were painted together and was a build up through varrying stages toward the end of each tooth/tusk. The idea to give them a very unclean but sharp look.

Each building up toward the end, the order went:
scorched brown (already mentioned), snakebite leather, bleached bone, all over wash of Devlan Mud, bleached bone, skull white, kommando karki.

Also done now was the straps holding the howdah to the squiggoth using varrying combinations of snakebite leather, bestial brown, bleached bone and devlan mud wash and all over a scorched brown basecoat.



The metal areas on the howdah were then picked out with boltgun metal and the whole thing given a light dry brush.




Model so far

Amazing work! The skin looks great.

Looking great. Very good job disguising the base model!

I love it. I really do wish that my green stuff and painting abilities where anything like yours.

Love the colours on the mouth. The rusted metal areas are also looking pretty cool too.

Though I think the whole thing needs some red racing stripes

Looks brilliant fully painted.

Commander Cain: Just a little more to do on the skin but that is pretty much done.

legoburner: Cheers, I think/hope it would take some thinking for someone to work out that it is a War Mumak under all that metal work and GS. Like the look of your FOW minis, increadible detail

bigmeklover: One day, practice makes perfect. Saying that it was really my first time using green stuff. There is alot of skill involved but I put alot of thought into it while I was going along which payed dividends really. I'm sure that any green stuff project you start will look great so long as you take the time to think about what your hoping to achieve at every step.

SilverMK2: Think the mouth really does look ace now that it is painted. The rust effect is good too.

Gathering Storm: Thanks



As already mentioned there are really just a few more things I needed to do before moving onto the base, crew and roof.

I needed to add a few more light highlights to the skin.
I also needed to Badab Black wash all the metal areas to dull them and help this beast from being a little too bright to fit in my army, and give it a nice greased up, mucky feel to the Howdah + some other minor details like glyph plates/skulls etc.

The extra highlights for the skin were all extreemely (extreemely) light and concentrating on working up on the top most raised areas of the skin.
They were kommando karki, gretchin green and bleached bone.

The more I look at it, the more I like it!

The excellent paint job really does promote the awesomeness of the model and demote any issues I had with it - well done! Still looking forward to the final installments though.

Love it!

The more I look at this, the more I like it! When I first saw, I hated the head, especially the shape of it, but the more I look, the more it looks like an up-scaled ork
Which, essentially, is what it is

Edit: All I can imagine is Captain Badtrukk on the helm of this beastie...

yeah,
Looking good dude.
The howdah materials mesh really well with the metal wagon bits making it quiet realistic. top notch!

Panic...

Arakasi: Excellent Think i'm planning 3 more installments after this. Keep 'em peeled

joshoftheforest: You hated the head :( Yeah I think it is pretty cool how it has turned out really. Actually don't had a badrukk model (one of the few I don't). I do have some converted flash gitz that I think could look the part though.

Panic: Yeah, I wanted to paint the howdah with a rust effect with alot of the metal plating on the howdah just as normal. This makes it look like the orks have been slowly trying to repair the rusted howdah with limited success. Think that definitely adds something.

Rose_Mountainz/Q0rbin: Cheers

With the Squiggoth all but complete it was time that I painted the base and crew.

The ruin needed to look dirty and war torn so I started with a dark and mucky coat of dark flesh


Ruin was then given a raised area paint of codex grey followed by heavy highlight of fortress grey then light highlight of bleached bone. The whole thing was then washed with badab black.


The sand cover flat of the model needed to fit in with the rest of my army and so was painted with scorched brown followed by a dry brush of snakebite leather then bleached bone.
A cool shot taken by my brother of me doing some of the finishing touches with bleached bone.


The final features of the base were then painted using boltgun metal with washes of Devlan mud and badab black (small shadow grey highlight on the tyre too)


The crew undercoated ready for painting.
The crew were painted using my standard method of painting orks so that they would fit with the rest of the army. However I tried to end with more browns and fewer areas of black to match with the snakebite theme.


A mid-stage.


All complete ready to be attached to the Squiggoth


The top cover of the Squiggoths howdah was then painted using the same rust effect that the rest of the howdah had (of course).

Looking stompy

When looking at the pick of you holding the model in one tusk it really shows what an impressive model it is!

This is amazing!

Amazing. Be very proud.

FTL

fasterthanlight: Thanks, i am

Now that the painting was done it was really the time to attach all the different models (sub assemblies to the howdah).

For this post i'm just going to let the minis do the talking.

So drum roll please (blah blah ... etc etc)













As this may catch people unaware I have one super secret last step that I wanted to do just to finish the model.
Then another blog post people should find interesting.
Then I might do some army shots.

I'm stunned of the epicness of your squigoth (and jealous)... I'm impressed and sad because I know I'm never gonna be able to make something similar

Ooh! A secret step Fantastic paint job, I can see the orkiness in its face.

It looks even better now that it has its crew. I hope you can get a lot of joy out of using it in Apoc.

that is a fantastic conversion. I love the work you did on the mouth!

There is one problem with the Squiggoth that no one has yet to point out. That problem is, how is it that such a beast is being steered? On the original squiggoth they used chains into the lips of the mouth to allow steering by the orks on top. Put simply, I wanted the same.

So I was looking for small fine chain, but also chain that looks alot like large chain does only smaller. For this I was going to have to swallow my pride a little and go to the shop Clairs, the girls accessory shop. After explaining to the rather confused shop assistant that I wanted chain at a reasonable price that looks alot like big chain does only smaller, I was duely pointed in the direction of their chains-with-stuff-on-them range (name completely made up) where after 20 mins of sheepish searching I found this.



Bending out the hoops connecting the key to the chain and attaching it to the lip of the mouth and other end to the drivers compartment on both sides gives me the 100% completed Squiggoth Few....

That has worked very nicely. I can imagine it would be quite effective to move it around as well. Congrats on your great build! Hope to see more stuff like this in the future.

That is easily one of the most badass things ever.

Cool stuff. I didn't like it at first, the head looked really wierd and unbalanced. Now it's painted though, I love it.

I demand you make more to finish the flock. You don't waant him to get lonely.

That looks very cool. If you had not see it already, Platinum Devil II is currently in sign up. I'm going and would love to see your squiggoth in the flesh

SilverMK2 : I did know about that torni however wont be able to make it. Will just cost me too much to drive all the way to canterbury. I really would like to go and take it to show you and play a few more games just can't make it. Edit: Just read the platinum devil again. Any chance of a car share?

As for more/other projects - now this is complete I have thought a little about where next for me and my ork army and the prospects look good for me doing something equally titanic for the next project.

This maybe the last post as such for this "series". If i get some free time, however, I think i'll get around to taking some full army shots and putting those on here.

As I mentioned when starting this blog the model is actually already done. Well the model was complete (just) in time to be entered in the this years UK Golden Deamon where I wanted to enter it in just for the fun of it really but with the real hope that I might get through to the short list for the 40k monsters competition.





I however didn't get short listed which is a shame. I looked at the models that did and was shocked to find models that I thought came no where close to the epicness, vision, modelling and painting skill shown in my model. Oh well.

Man thats cool!!

I think thats one of the failures of GD tbh. Its such a good conversion that they dismiss it as a regular mini painted to a good standard. No offence but the painting isnt slayer sword quality, i think the judges are just too shortsighted and only rank on pure painting.

[This is in no way meant to be offensive btw ]

Rhino Driver: What the hell is that following us?

Rhino Passenger: I think it's a-

NOM!!!!

Vitruvian XVII wrote:Man thats cool!!

I think thats one of the failures of GD tbh. Its such a good conversion that they dismiss it as a regular mini painted to a good standard. No offence but the painting isnt slayer sword quality, i think the judges are just too shortsighted and only rank on pure painting.

[This is in no way meant to be offensive btw ]

No offence taken.

I couldn't possibly have hoped to even have got a gold, silver or bronze. Just would have liked to be short listed for the obvious work that went into it. Even that seemed far off to me but when I saw the quality of some of the model that were short listed even my brother admitted they weren't a scratch on my model even from a pure painting perspective.

There was a link on the games workshop website that sadly I think may have been taken down showing pictures of all those that got short listed in the different catagories and I think a few would be shocked about 1 or 2 of the models entered getting short listed at all in the 40k monsters catagory.

That is awesome. I love when doing/seeing projects like this, from start to finish how much of a difference there is. Seriously that is just cool man

Might it not been this little line:
"Due to licensing restrictions, entries to non The Lord of The RingsTM categories may not include components from The Lord of The RingsTM Strategy Battle Game range, and vice-versa."?
(from: http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?categoryId=&pIndex=4&aId=15100003&start=5)

Agrinja wrote:That is easily one of the most badass things ever.

Yeah seriously badass - Ooooh yeah

Yeah, blambi, that may well have been the reason. Should really have checked the small print first mind Still is a bit of a stupid rule. I can understand why games workshop doesn't want 40k and WHFB bits invading the LOTR range but not the other way around.

I supose it is probably more a legal thing so they done piss off New Line Cinema. They must have a bigger legal department or something

It was fun just showing it off at gamesday anyway. Some of the comment I got there made it really worth it. And I got to see the new Dark Eldar befor everyone else so that was great too.

I still think it's not completed. H'why, you may well ask?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It should so have been splatted on one of the feet

ceorron wrote:Any chance of a car share?

I would, but I'm staying at my in-laws for christmas so don't think I will be able to I'm afraid. Not sure if anyone else from your part of the world will be coming down for it thought - ask around

ceorron wrote:
Yeah, blambi, that may well have been the reason. Should really have checked the small print first mind Still is a bit of a stupid rule. I can understand why games workshop doesn't want 40k and WHFB bits invading the LOTR range but not the other way around.

I supose it is probably more a legal thing so they done piss off New Line Cinema. They must have a bigger legal department or something

Yea I find it rather sad to. But Kârn in LoTR sounds awesome.. or maybe not

ghosty: Yeah great idea. While at Gamesday there were a few suggestions on improvement. One person said why don't you have a grot sat on his mouth using a "tooth pick" to get out something between his teeth. It would have been funny if I stuck a space marine head between its teeth that the grot was trying to get out.

I finally got some time to get more pictures taken including some army pics. So as I promised some more shots.
I'm suprised at how the army has grown over the space of 6 or so months, even though I said I wasn't going to focus too much on my orks for a while.
Let me know what you think.




Some shots from the sides.




Some better pics of the beast




Some shots of the crew




Apocalyptic battle for supremacy in Waaaaagh Graznacker


Most recent army picture


And a closer one with the Squiggoth

Have you played any games with it yet? And also what are all the boyz you got? (a litle hard to tell if it's ordinairy boyz or tankbustas etc) I'm curious of what you got

Looks good with the whole army

Going to have to crack on with my CSM super heavy to throw into combat against it

Heh, I saw the apocalypse army of yours and my eyebrows shot out of the top of my head! The squiggoth looks like he is among friends

Wow man this is a very very impressive army!! Well done, it must feel so good to put them all together like that and see such lovely work you have done.

Nice!

Rose_Mountainz : I sadly haven't managed to convince my brother to fight this monster. He will sometime, he can't hold out forever.

As for my army there is ALOT. Pretty much one of each of the units availiable in the ork army list.

3 Warbosses (1 converted from Gazy, 1 from black reach, 1 from the ork runt bot)
2 big meks (1 with shokk attack gun, 1 with KFF)
1 Weirdboy
3 Nob Squads (1 of those is the old Nobz in Mega Armour and old Nazdreg counting as Nobz with cybork bodies)
1 Mega Nob Squad in my Warboss trukk
1 Burna Boyz squad
1 Loota squad
1 Kommando squad (with either nob or Boss Snikrot)
1 Tankbusta squad
1 30 boy Slugga squad
1 20 boy Slugga squad
1 10 boy Slugga squad (usually used with stikkbombs)
1 12 boy Slugga squad in trukk
1 20 boy Shoota squad
1 Ard boy squad (converted from warhammer black orks)
1 Gretchin squad
1 Stormboy Squad (with nob or Zzagstruk)
2 Warbuggy squad (each only 1 strong)
1 Warbiker squad
2 Deffkapta Squads (1 is 1 strong the other 5 strong)
1 Deff Dread
2 Looted Wagons (1 from land raider, 1 from Leman Russ)
1 Zzap Gun squad
1 Lobba Squad
1 Killa Kan squad
1 Battlewagon (with killkannon)
1 Flash Git squad (converted out of the new nob kit)
1 Stompa
and 1 Squiggoth

Waiting in the wings I have 10 more shoota boys to bulk the shoota squad up to 30 boys as they have found regular use in my games now.
Also I have a newly converted trukk to kit out my Ard boys with a trukk so they don't have to keep stealling the trukk off my 12 boy unit of trukkers.
And three warbikers to bulk out the bike squad I currently have as this squad is far too small to be effective in apoc sized battles currently.

I noticed your a Nazdreg fan. 8D Probably the first model I had in my old ork army and was the reason I started orks all those many many years ago.

SilverMK2 : What is it that you planning to make? Are you thinking of blogging it? Once you have it finished maybe I will get chance to finally use my squiggoth.

Commander Cain : Yeah certainly looks good sat where it is right now.

redscorps : Cheers. It feels good to see it all like that. Many, many hours of painting and gaming in there. Does make you a little proud.

It is deciding what should be transported in my squiggoth that has got me at the moment. It can transport a 20 boy mobs in the same way as an open topped transport. Now everyone knows what is in my army. What squad do you think should go in it?

That army picture is supreme orkiness!
The Squiggoth came out beautifully, I enjoyed following its progress, thank you for sharing.

Ceorron, this Squiggoth is absolutely stunning! Sorry to hear you didn't grab a spot at Gamesday but I do believe it's because of the LotR pieces mixed in. They're picky about that stuff. Regardless, I've followed this thread since you started and am amazed at how epic it has become. Congrats, man!

Curiosity arrises one question: Counting the bits, orks and the Mumak how much did you save, money wise, opposed to just buying the Forgeworld Squiggoth at 70 pounds or versus the Gargantuan squiggoth, which looks more like the route you took at 220 pounds?

Thanks for sharing this project, it was interesting to see it progress. I really wasn't sold on the mouth until later when it took some paint and the dimensions seemed to come together better. The end result is stunning and very Orky.

You may have been passed over at GD but if the respect of your peers was an award I think you'd be topping that category right now.

This is soooo EPIC

That is extremely ugly (in a good way).

Moltar wrote:
Curiosity arrises one question: Counting the bits, orks and the Mumak how much did you save, money wise, opposed to just buying the Forgeworld Squiggoth at 70 pounds or versus the Gargantuan squiggoth, which looks more like the route you took at 220 pounds?

Seen as you asked about the costs it did come out considerably cheeper than buying a gargantuan squiggoth but more than the basic squiggoth.

War Mumak : £35 (bought off ebay second hand, as new)
Green Stuff : £14.99 (inc p&p, bought off ebay for metre length)
Battlewagon : £37.50 (bought from GW)
Plasti Card : £9.99 (inc p&p, bought from ebay) - I really bought too much of this buying more sheets than I needed really so could probably have got away with buying only one sheet at a cheeper price

Giving me a total of : £97.48

That would be more than £120+ less than buying the Gargantuan Squiggoth but ~£30 more than buying the basic Squiggoth.

100% worth it

Very pleased

Note that I did get a very good deal on the Mumak. If you were to buy this off GW you would be paying £50 for it which would up the price by £15

ceorron wrote:SilverMK2 : What is it that you planning to make? Are you thinking of blogging it? Once you have it finished maybe I will get chance to finally use my squiggoth.

Making a counts as Plague Tower - The start of it is already in my PLog (linked to in signature). Kind of on hold at the moment as I try and get my Eldar painted up for Platinum Devil.

Hey ceorron,
I know its a bit late (Bearing in mind that the squiq is mostly finished) but its looking really good man! The head is really effective but looks really good! And I really like it. Btw were have you been from my blog? Its been updated lots since your last vist (Link is in signutre).

Subcribed

HAZZER

Wow That squig is one of the most awesome conversions ever (for serious).

Would like to see that in a Bat Rep...

Cracking stuff mate, and really inspiring. I have a tarascus lying around that I plan to squigify, so this is a really useful and interesting source!

Dat iz amazin'!
We'z gots ta git one uv doze fer me Waaagh!!!!

Beautifully done! And thank you for the step by step!
I do fairly well with conversions... Once I have somewhere to start from.
My problem is figuring out the a good start point.

Again, I tip my hat you!
(some Orkys have 3 thumbs)

The licensing issues are, I'm sure, what kept you from making that GD short list. They would not have been allowed to use any photographs that contained your model.

Take solace in knowing that bureaucracy kept you out of the limelight. That model is awesome!