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Is it wrong to be aroused by this miniature?

not at all!

I meshed in the sides of the ammo clip just because I didn't like having the sides completely open.

It looks perfectly good that way, too. It may make it hard to paint the shells, though, unless you do them seperately.

Outstanding work. The new cannon is much better, although the ejection port looks considerably smaller than the shells, which could be a small problem

that slit on the outside is for the big shoota chain if I am not mistaken....

Yes, that slit on the exterior is the place where the ammo chain will feed in for the big shoota, once I figure out how to make it.

The shells are also removable for easy painting for the moment. The pictures coming up don't have the shells loaded just because I couldn't be bothered.







There's a bare spot on the interior of the gun area (facing the torso) that needs a bit of work, and I need to make the ammo feed still.. I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to do that, but I have a few ideas. Unfortunately, none of them are simple or easy. -_-

Still, I think this arm looks powerful at the moment, and fits the overall detail of the rest of the gargant pretty well. I added in 'rungs' on the exterior of the upper arm for a grot to hang from - I have yet to make em, but I picture him hanging by one arm from one rung with one of those shells tucked in underneath his arm like he's scrabbling down the arm to place the next shell in the clip. This thing's going to have a lot of grots!

amazing, as always, haha

One tiny niggle about the rungs... and I hasten to add I'm only mentioning this because of your attention to relative realism and detail in the rest of the model. The first thing I thought when I saw the rungs was "hmm... a ladder, where is it going to and from".

With that in mind, could I humbly suggest that the lightning flash weld-on armour plate would make a good hatch (the ammo grot has to come from somewhere) ...or... perhaps put a little cupola for him on that shoulder?

Mobile: The rungs are more intended as just a place for the grot to 'ride' on the arm until he has to load the next cylinder in. I don't think there'd be enough room in the arm, mechanically, to fit him in, so a hatch doesn't seem practical as well. I picture the little bugger scrabbling over the exterior of the arm and loading shells. If he falls off and survives, he grabs the ammo belt and when they fire the big shootas it hauls him back up to the arm where he hopefully doesn't get caught in the ammo feed himself and makes it back to his post.

I cut out a 6" circular base.. I may actually have to sand it down a touch, as I think it's closer to 6 1/4 or so.  I don't know if I should trim it down to be smaller than that.. the inside  black line was the minimum base size I think I could get away with, but I'm not sure if I should bother doing that or leave the base the size it is. Also, please realize the base will get a lot of dressing up when the thing is done in terms of geography - uneven terrain, probably with the front foot indented a little bit in the ground at a forward angle so the back leg lifts off the ground and doesn't look like it's dragging.

Also, I like 'summarizing' the model in a 360 degree view, so here you go.



I'm working out how the ammo belt's going to work.. cutting some circular rod and drilling a pair of holes that line up in each of them is a hassle I don't really feel up to this particular morning, so I'm either looking for a substitute or working up my willpower until later today.

The head'll have to be next, as it's placement dictates where the elements on the back will go... working on finding the proper diameter curved cardboard so that I can make the head and jaw shape similar to how I did the body (can't even tell there's carboard under all that! ) I'm probably going to make the lower jaw first so I can make sure that the flamer I want to build in has room to fit.. Also, the circuits that will control the green eyes and flickering red grotpit light will need sufficient space that I need to plan for so I can put all of the electronics in the head. I'm really not fond of the eyes on this thing, though.. they need a redesign, but I don't have that many ideas for them just yet. I definitely want them to be equipped with the 'gaze of gork/mork' weapon, which is essentially an ocular zzap cannon.. so whatever I end up doing will have to look sufficiently dangerous as to be firing electric blasts from it's eyes. I'll have to think about this one for a little while.

very nice he's doing a fun little happy dance. I'd leave the base the size it is, maybe bevel it some but definitely keep the same size. I don't like the fact that SM's toes stick over the edge of the their bases.

He looks like he is ice skating. Surreal for sure.

360 rotating view? Now you're just showing off. ;-)

Amazing work. . . thanks for taking the time to share it.

For the ammo belt........get peices of elastic and sew them together, leaving enough room between stiches to slide the bullets inbetween (look at the ork shoota for reference where the bullet is sticking out at each end)........or you could use plasticard and make stitch-like markings
()
()
()
()<----bullet in between each

it'd be funny if after all of this he sucked really bad at painting

AMP, check out some of the orks that accompany this best on earlier pages.... I'd say he's a good painter.

Okay, here's my dillemma.



I went out and found magnetic beads in the thought that they would make good shells for the big shoota. They're just the right size, but they need to have a rounded-off end for the shell, so I figure I was going to do that with greenstuff. Unfortunately, they are not as strong as I had hoped for, and will not stay together in a 'chain' just due to magnetism. I'm not sure how to best join them together so that I could drape the bullets feeding into the side port for the big shoota, though. I keep thinking to maybe wipe down two thin wires with superglue and press them against the shells until they stick in a 'band' but I don't know if that'd work or not.

Any suggestions or ideas? I need to be able to bend this into a proper curved-hanging-shape by the time it's attached.

Assuming I were to cap each round off (at the front end) with a 'shell' tip.. would this work? What do you guys think of how it looks?

I think it looks great.

I think you should do something like this
( )
X
( )

with three strips of plasticard

hopefully it would turn out like this

I'm doing some rough planning for the head.. Going to scrap the eyes that the thing has, as I don't like the 'stitching' across them, and replace them with sometihng a bit more square-ish - I think square would help me build cabling and stuff attaching to it at the sides and wrapping around to the top of the head, so the Zzap gun has some power. The teeth are going to be plated onto the outside of the jaw.. probably only 4-5 on the bottom jaw, but big ones. The teeth in the original concept art look a little unusual, in that they seem to face outwards instead of forwards.. it's like someone took the normal jaw and turned the teeth 90 degrees. Not sure I'm so fond of that, so I'll probably just bolt the teeth on the exterior of a curved jaw.



I'm not sold on the ears. I think I'll build the head and either make them removable or decide later.

One thing I'm noticing might be an inconsistency: The torso is armor-plated, which helps make the curve of the body more angular in nature, but the head seems to be, from what I read off the image, one big solid curved piece without plating, just riveted on as sort of a front 'plate' to cover machinery hidden behind it. I don't know if I should make the head one big curved piece and start working with it like that, or make one big curved piece and then put armor plating all over the exterior to break it up much like the torso.

your pilots are in the stompa's 'belly', not the head, so you don't have the "do the pilots need to be able to see out the 'eye' holes?" issue. But does the head have any combat purpose?

Purely as an example, both 'eyes' could be zzap guns? I'd like that.

Or is the whole head merely decorative (other than improving morale by looking impressively fearsome, and containing mysterious mek bitz)? I can't see the jaw, regardless of which way the teeth point, actually having any combat purpose (although a stompa which bent down and bit its opponents would certainly be amusing), so I'd just go for a symbolic giant metallic ork head, with teeth sticking up and down rather than out.

Posted By Clang on 06/28/2006 3:32 PM
your pilots are in the stompa's 'belly', not the head, so you don't have the" do="" pilots="" need="" be="" able="" to="" see="" out="" eye="" holes="" issue="" but="" does="" the="" head="" have="" any="" combat="" purpose="">

Purely as an example, both 'eyes' could be zzap guns? I'd like that.

Or is the whole head merely decorative (other than improving morale by looking impressively fearsome, and containing mysterious mek bitz)? I can't see the jaw, regardless of which way the teeth point, actually having any combat purpose (although a stompa which bent down and bit its opponents would certainly be amusing), so I'd just go for a symbolic giant metallic ork head, with teeth sticking up and down rather than out.

What I've been planning during the course of the thread is to have twin Zzap cannons in the eyes (a.k.a. 'Gaze of Gork' and 'Gaze of Mork' in epic 40k, as far as I know). In addition to this, I'm also planning on including a flamer in the mouth, tucked just behind the lower jaw - theoretically, it opens it's mouth and breathes a template onto whatever's in front of it.

Your idea looks pretty good. Of course, having laser eyes only increases the cool factor of the model. There are only a few things I wonder about, which you've likely already considered, given your superb planning so far.

For one, is the head going to rotate, and if so, how much would the jaw get in the way when it's open? It'd be a shame if the mouth had to be closed in order to clear the chest and shoulder properly. To fix that, the chest would need to have an adequate slope and the head would have to be mounted far enough forward to give it at least a 90 degree (45 left and 45 right of center) range of motion.

I also wonder if you're planning on mounting a rocket (Grot Bomb?) on the back, like the one in the picture. If so, the design of the head would be an important consideration in how the rocket is mounted. You wouldn't want it to be sitting up on top of some spindly tower jutting out of the back. That would just look un-Orky.

Posted By Davian on 06/28/2006 4:04 PM
Your idea looks pretty good. Of course, having laser eyes only increases the cool factor of the model. There are only a few things I wonder about, which you've likely already considered, given your superb planning so far.

For one, is the head going to rotate, and if so, how much would the jaw get in the way when it's open? It'd be a shame if the mouth had to be closed in order to clear the chest and shoulder properly. To fix that, the chest would need to have an adequate slope and the head would have to be mounted far enough forward to give it at least a 90 degree (45 left and 45 right of center) range of motion.

I also wonder if you're planning on mounting a rocket (Grot Bomb?) on the back, like the one in the picture. If so, the design of the head would be an important consideration in how the rocket is mounted. You wouldn't want it to be sitting up on top of some spindly tower jutting out of the back. That would just look un-Orky.

On the concept of the head...

Looking at your drawings, it seems to me that your head is going to be too small. Much too small. In the original artwork, it seems as though the head / cockpit leave a gap really only big enough for the pilot to see through...which both serves to protect the pilot from getting shot, and make people think the cockpit is inside the head. I.e. protect the pilot by having the enemy shoot at the wrong location. For this to work, the head has to be pretty big.

On the matter of the teeth...I'm reminded of a passage from Douglas Adam's Life, the Universe, and Everything, describing Aragjag and his kill-Arthur-Dent reincarnation.

"Agrajag was black, bloated, wrinkled and leathery. He had the most astounding collection of teeth, and they were arranged around his mouth in such bizarre angles that it seemed that if he ever tried to chew anything he'd lacerate half his own face, and maybe put out an eye as well."

I think this is the kind of thing the orks would really go for. I wouldn't at all worry about angles or anything else on the teeth. You might also consider some of them to resemble real horns/teeth of large animals - seems the kind of trophy that would be appropriate.

Lastly, on the subject of the single plate vs segmented head. It seems to me that it could be the case that the head in the illustration is segmented, just in not very many segements. With two sides and front, the segements would be on the same order of size as the segments that make up the body itself. I think you'd be just fine makign a segmented head.

Oh, and the ears - to me large ears make it look more gretchiny than orky. I'm not sure if that's what you want or not. But to be the orkiest, I'd lose the ears altogether.

While we're at it, here's another fun quote from The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, which ought to apply to making Orky contraptions...

"The designer of the gun had clearly not been instructed to beat about the bush. 'Make it evil,' he'd been told. 'Make it totally clear that this gun has a right end and a wrong end. Make it totally clear to anyone standing at the wrong end that things are going badly for them. If that means sticking all sort of spikes and prongs and blackened bits all over it then so be it. This is not a gun for hanging over the fireplace or sticking in the umbrella stand, it is a gun for going out and making people miserable with.'"

So, first of all, your Stompa is amazing.  I am totally jealous that you have buckets full of talent, and I have none.

Anyway, about the head, I have to agree with Bob.  It does seem like it needs to be bigger.  Also, I think it needs to be lower on the body a little.  So that the top of the head is just slightly higher than the shoulders.  That would close up some of that cockpit space and not leave it so wide open looking. 

Again, it looks great.  I can't wait to see it all painted up and ready to destroy.

Looks absolutely awesome!!! Good job man. That's a lot of work and talent. I love the use of grots.

After having spent some time looking at the original concept sketch this is based upon... how about the various sections of the head are made out of a "few" curved segments.

-2 curved segments for the forhead area, meeting in the middle of the head (as the "join" would also break up the big open space in the middle of the head (as well as giving you an obvious place to put more rivets).

-3 curved segments for the lower jaw with the HUGE fricken fangs at the 2 respective "corners". This would also allow you to have the lower jaw be a bit wider (so as to cover more of the grot pit) without making the head super fricken out of proportion to the body.

A bit on the artistic side, I would also have the head fixed in position... but not facing straight forward. This would give the artistic impression that the head CAN turn (which would look super cool), but not make it super difficult to design/execute on the actual model. I would also make the head not be turned TOO far. Just make it like the rest of the model. Like it's in mid stride while charging forward.

That's my $0.02 for now.

From your head mock-up I have to point out that it seems to be quite a bit higher than the original drawing. In the concept sketch the top of the head is barely above the shoulders of the Stompa.

Your head also seems to "rounded" compared to the rest of your Stompa. I'm assuming (and hoping) you'll still make the head out of segmented plates instead of a smooth round face.

I eagerly await more updates. . .

why not leave the shells empty - one would assume that what is coming out on that side are just shell casings - the FMJ feed would come from the 'body' side of the arm- or the feed would come from within the arm itself...

think microsoft - if its too much hassle... just declare a new standard