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1) Freakin WOW
2) Very sultry voice you have there
3) My suggestions would be to either
           a) plug some cash into the ever hungry MAW that is this hobby and buy some really nice but smaller speakers
           b) welcome some beautiful power-tools into my life (drill right into the guts of that squiggoth! Maybe make an area of the stomach detachable like you see on some toys so they have a place to hide the batteries)

4) More videos man! (Huge fan of your Gargant, I was supposed to be doing a midterm paper but instead spent 2 hours going through almost the entire 37 pages.. had to skim some of the text halfway through >_< )

1) Well, thanks.
2) Alright, now I know you're lying to me.
3) Definitely the power tool route. ;P I have already dremelled about half the cavity out to fit the first speaker in behind the head.
4) Yes, I think I will use youtube a bit more. It's kind've fun, and saves me a load of typing, and I can actually play the music for you to all hear anyway. Plus, I can embed the youtube videos right in on my blog's site to keep a proper archive, anyway.

jam,

Good Lord, Man!  You really love the MAJOR projects.  Good idea with the youtube.  With the extra time not typing, you can put to your projects and be done with them in no time.

A suggestion, if I may.  With the speakers and stuff, could you make the top platform larger and hide them inside?  We here at Dakka know you have mad skills when using plastics.  I make this suggestion because we all know how expensive that Squig is and if there is a mess up....  That is just a scary thought.

Anywho...  Good luck with it all and keep us updated.

I am a monumental idiot.

Somehow I can operate power tools like a drill press and such just fine. I was dremelling out the back of the squiggoth's neck for a speaker mount.

Of course, when I was done dremelling, I took my coat off and started shaking the pounds of resin dust off it. Shaking it vigorously so as to remove all of the resin dust, I managed to whip the rather large zipper around at a high speed and directly into my right eye, giving me quite a nice shiner.

So, to recap:

Power tools? A-OK!
Zippers? FAIL
Anyway, here is the next step of youtube videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=incEQV41PG8

It cut me off at the very end when I was talking, but you get the idea. I'm going to have to bitz order some goff rokkers, I think.

Ouch man... anything to the eye sucks (well... okay yeah anything pretty much) but a zipper is pretty high up there (just below pepper-extract, but above beer).

Very nice job thus far man!

Have you considered drilling up from the belly to hide the battery pack? That way you can have the power switch exposed for use without actually having it be seen. Is that even feasable?

One thing you can do to fix your oversized battery problems is to try to dig up a 300-600mah li-ion battery, they are very small, dimentions are about 1"x0.5"x0.25" (the ones iv seen anyway),  they should be 100% capatible with the speakers, just get one with the same voltage that the speakers are being powerd by now or less, otherwise you run the risk of blowing them. The only place that comes to mind as to where iv seen them last is ebay, but that was a loooong time ago, the guy that sold them might have gone bust by now as he sold so very few things (i forgot his name too).

Pros: very small, high capacity, doesnt die like nimh batteries when stored for a long time

Cons: needs a special charger, as any ordinary charger just kills the battery

Holy #$*#.

Your projects definitely need to be stickied. Most original, memerable and entertaining in all of modeling.

Fantastic start so far.

wow. just wow....well, just as we are used to be when it's about one of your projects.

I think it would be a better idea if you just build a BIGGER platform on top of it. and hey, as cool as it is. you need some more conversion which can be seen

btw. when will you finally paint your gargant?

Jam, you need professional help...like a few grots to help you out.
Seriously, you are turning into a mekboy and wont stop until the Inquisition catches up with you.
Do try and finish some of your already awesome projects.

Now joking aside a work of warning:

Get some resin cast a simple hollow cylinder and place your speaker within. It is one thing to have a speaker on your videro, its quite another thing to surround the same speaker with resin. Even if you get the modelling right, which I am confident you will do (unless you get another project idea in the way) your musical squiggoth will likely suck. You may need to line the cavity to get decent sound dynamics, or abandon speakers in resin altogether.

Frankly I would hollow out the top of the back, place the power unit in there and cover it with th howdah. Easy access and no problems. Build a pair of speakers for your orks on the howdah. Its more practical, you can build your huge orky woofers to size rather than to fit and it will sound better too as you can use far better materials than resin (your plasticard will work fine). You can also have a speaker grill in front made from metal mesh. Resist adding glyphs to that! Put them on the sides of the speakerz instead. Depending on your style you could have goff rokkers or an ork DJ up on the howdah.

If you do want sounds out of the squiggoth's mouth keep it to grunts and roars, if set on a simple timer so that every few minutes it snorts or something. Trun it on before a battle and dont pay attention to it. "Did your squiggoth just say something?"

Holy crap, your projects are so awesome in scope, execution and just cool factor i dont even know where ot begin.

This will be such a bad ass project when its done! And it is just so Orky too!!

Seriously, keep it up man, your stuff is some of the best out there tha ti have ever seen.

Ein, you are a mad modelling scientist. That is crazy man! James Brown Squiggoth is totally kicking rad cool and I happily look forward to your progress with this most insane and wholly orky project.

I have been messing around with video editors.

My production values have gone up dramatically.

I have also filmed myself using a tripod this time around, so you may all grimace at my twisted visage.

And oh yes, there is a montage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qazdCRf0ao

I thought that the Stompa and Big Boss were impressive, and they are, but this will be a very interesting undertaking. Can't wait to see how it turns out.

I am impressed and inspired. I must now get to work on some models and converting myself. Can't wait to see how this turns out.

I have hit something of a speed bump.

While the first speaker will definitely be mounted in the throat, if just for the novelty of having it actually roar, the second speaker is posing a problem as there's really nowhere I can see that it will fit.

I've considered perhaps leaving the speaker off, but that seems like a halfway solution that would end up being dissapointing - just one in the throat isn't nearly the volume I crave!

The only place I've been able to figure out that might work is under the howdah, pointing up - by cutting away a section of flooring and putting a mesh overtop to replace the flooring and allow sound out - but I'm not so happy with that idea just yet because I also wanted to put the switches and controls in the howdah and a speaker would end up blocking most of that.

Any ideas, fellas?

mount one behind the other? 

With the belly of the beast being curved, you can not mount one there, and as you say, mounting one under the howdah will get in the way of electronics.

In any case, an awesome project!

 if you use the rockers you could have mounted the speakers on the tower its self

you have inspired me to make a noise marine rino gone wrong and it will play contry music. muhahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*begins consulting the Forgeworld site to get good long looks at the Squiggoth to see what he can think up*

In the meantime, suggestions for future songs for the Squiggoth to sing (listed by artist - title):
Powerman 5000 - Ultra-Mega
The Scorpions - Rock you Like a Hurricane
Metallica - Blackened/Damage Inc./Seek & Destroy/Die, Die My Darling
Dimmu Borgir - ANY OF HIS SONGS
also anything Rammstein
Or a curveball like some Zeppelin or country music (feral orks?)

Okay ummm after looking at the model I think I'm starting to understand why it's so conundruming.

The previously suggested idea of a giant boombox riding in the howdah (or hanging off of it on chains?) sounds pretty good, those Orks might understand that a good beat can really get a mob goin!

Or maybe do a really Emperors-Children-inspired conversion of one of the guns? Turn a lobba into a sonic blasta? Or something suitable punny?

Just an idea... *keeps finkin' on it* (AW NO YOUR GETTING ME ORKY AGAIN! I haven't been into Orks since... BFG days!)

What if you kept the other speaker on top of the squiggoth, but dress it up like some really large war-drum of sorts?

What about giving the howda an armoured crew compartment? will save a lot of worries about where to put stuff

what about the armor on the side of the squiggoth, you would be better able to judge the size comparison, but it looks like cutting a hole where the side armor is, under the howda, and then using the mesh to replace the armor you just cut away?

Here is a crazy idea, but replace the one large speeker with two speekers from a set of earphones. It would be pretty easy to wire up, about a dollar in some stores (hell I'll send you some free of charge). Add to this that they are small enough you could model them up to look like a couple of orky loudspeekers. Think of it, FUNCTIONAL loud speekers.

Just like to say, "We're not worthy , we're not worthy."

You're projects inspire not just me but a lot of other people (having read all of your threads so far).

Who else would think of creating a model with sound coming from it? Not just visually appealing like most conversions but also appealing to the auditory senses. Genius!

An idea on on the second speaker - why not create some sort of underslung speaker holder coming off the main howdah, with the speaker pointing down?

Your plasticard skills will be up to this no problem and the speaker will not be visible on the tabletop.

It does mean that the second speaker will be facing into the gaming table (or scenic base) but it should provide your sounds with more oomph than they have with one speaker.

Just an idea.

Keep it up man.

Love your work!

Well, i figure i can throw in my 2 cents, since you are going to have to hollow out most of the inside for the circuits and battery case, just keep going, mount the other speaker inside and make the sound port under the Squiggoths tail.

That way you can have music coming out of boths ends, sort of stereo phonic and all that.

Keep up the good work, can't wait to see what you do to figure it out.

Thelosttau: I think the speaker's a bit too wide to actually fit there, as silly as that sounds.

Bartius: I'd consider it, but the problem I have with that idea is that the speaker's a flat surface, as opposed to the rounded stomach, and I don't see a way of consolidating the two without something very obvious showing.

Cuda; I tested that idea out, but the headphones are barely audible compared to an actual speaker. Even cranked up all the way I had trouble telling music was actually playing at about a foot away.

Alright - no video with this one, as it's not so much progress as analysis, and I can't really film effectively in macro.

I've spent the past few hours really thinking this squiggoth over as to what I want to do. The first speaker's fine - I actually spent a little time hollowing out the back of the throat a bit more and carving it so the acoustics would project forward a bit more, and it's ended up being notably louder.





Now, here's the circuit that powers the speaker assembly...





from the side of the howdah so you can get an idea of how much clearance there is already between the body and howdah...









Of course, the 4x AAA batteries have to be put somewhere as well. I'd shove all this stuff inside the squiggoth and be done with it, but I couldn't get to any of it in there - it would suck if I had to remove the squiggoth's head every time I wanted to turn the speakers on or use the mp3 player.

I should mention a few things:

<!--emo&<img src='http://www.dakkadakka.com/DesktopModules/NTForums/images/emoticons/biggrin.gif'>-->1) I do not want the speakers or electronics to be visible anywhere. Having it exposed somewhere, be it on a tower or mounted on the howdah or anything like that, isn't really what I want to do. I think it'd be far more... interesting.. if I just kept all of that stuff concealed so that people would walk in on a game or something, hear music, and ask where the hell it's coming from. <!--endemo-->

2) This will probably not be based. This is a gaming model for me, and I think a base would make it a bit too unwieldy.

I've seriously been considering doing one of the following things:

- Now that the speaker's louder, I may ditch the 2nd one all together, as I haven't figured out a place where I can logistically fit it. Under the howdah's a nice thought, but I don't think there's room for it, and even if I hollow the back down (which I have held off doing so far due to fears of ruining the model) I don't know if it's worth the trouble.

- I could build an entirely new howdah for this thing. I'd probably model it after the Dawn of War howdah, except that it's closed-topped. I don't even know if that matters, as it's technically not a vehicle (It has wounds and such) but I am under the impression that for WYSIWYG rules I need to emphasize that orks would be firing from the howdah. The upside to this is I could design the howdah around the speaker and electronics, and maybe even add a few extra lights or something. I almost don't want to do this because it'd be such a pain in the [I Swear To Much] to build something that fits as flat on the squiggoth's body from scratch, and I don't really have a plan for what I'd make if I did this.

- One of my friends had an interesting idea while watching me dremel - he noticed the smoke coming off the dremel bit because it was getting ridiculously hot and saw the smoke coming out of the squiggoth's mouth, which I'm told looks pretty cool. I wonder if it'd be possible to put a smoke machine inside the squiggoth's head - one of those evaporators, you know, the stuff you see in Spencers. Kind've a silly idea, though - it'd most likely wreak havoc on the paint, and I don't think it's quite as cool as sound.

What do you guys think? I've hesitated to mess with the squiggoth's back so far mostly out of paranoia of wrecking the thing - when I went to the hobby store today and showed the guys there what I was working on, they basically all called me insane for even considering taking a power tool to it.

Well, if the earphones are not loud enough, you can always still get a different speaker that is easier to hide. Maybe disguise it so that it looks like a giant satalite dish or some kind of force feild generator?

Or if the sound is loud enough you could always rig the exta wires up to a strobe light so that your Orks have a disco ball with their music.

A squigoth that bumps the bass?

Excellent.

be sure to install ground effects as well. Something like neon would be pimp and make the b|tches throw they hands in the air and scream "HO!"

Seriously though, remake the howdah. It wont be that har and you wont have to do back surgery on the squiggoth.
Besides, the howdah it has is kinda lacking in my opinion. After seeing the magic you did with the stompa, I figured asking if the howdah should be redone was a rhetorical question.

Get rid of that ugly howdah and make it look like it should, an imposing beast of war that is equipped to not only stomp the hell out of the enemy, but can bump the 18" bass woofers and make slaanesh jealous of your music pleasure.

On the smoke.

Dont do it. Not only too much work, but it uses a synthetic fluid (a form of glycerin) to create the smoke.

if you must do it, use an ultrasonic fogger  that uses distilled water found in floral craft stores and pet shops (works great for keeping my poison arrow frogs humidity quite high). You will gather condensation where the fog is emitted, but it is better than having a synthetic fluid foul up the paint. Distilled water will leave no trace of its presence because there are no minerals.

There is also a problem with moisture and conductivity. These two ideas wont mix wll on a single model.

If you were to build a brand new howdah, you could make the roof detachable so you can still model the insides and show it off?

Also, yeah, taking a power-tool to it is totally nuts! But as long as you keep being careful and/or don't overuse them, you should be fine!

This is the greatest thing I have ever seen. I don't really have any ideas on how to work out the issues you're having, aside from perhaps making a drop-down battery compartment hollowed out of the spine, but I do look forward to the next exciting episode.