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Biker Warboss 2: The Bikening

So, I tried this once about a year ago with limited success, as somebody stole my first bike that I was working on, and the second one was built to a tremendously wrong scale.

The biggest problem always encountered with a rider, particularly a warboss rider, is the pose. Some folks have proven ingenious with their sculpting knack when it comes to making new legs for the standard warboss so that he can ride some sort of vehicle, but I've never been one for greenstuff.

Instead, a few releases (fantasy, no less!) recently have come together to help rekindle the idea of a biker boss in my head. In particular, I mean our new plastic black orks and the Gorbad Ironclaw model.

The Ironclaw model in itself is wonderful - having a warboss torso that is separate from the lower body is a godsend. Granted, he's not quite a proper boss size - more like a nob - but such things are really secondary, as he looks mean enough to be an appropriate leader.

Also, he happens to have fairly close to my wargear of choice - 'eavy armor, power klaw and choppa - which is handy.

First I test-fitted an ogryn's lower body onto him. The legs are pretty large, and they have some orky traits, but I think there's a few problems with them - particularly, the waistline and the asymmetry in the pose.









While not an awful choice, it made his midsection unnecessarily long, and I'm not quite sure it's the best plan.

Which brings me to the second bit of fantasy model I mentioned. The new Black Orcs were a purchase I've been putting off for a while, but I had a bit of luck - my local gaming store has been heavily discounting the old metal ones to get rid of them in favor of the new plastics, but they seem to have mixed up the price tags or something, as I ended up getting the box of 10 for roughly half the cost of retail. Having brought it home, I cracked it open, and immediately the gears started to turn.

You see, the legs on the Black orks are separate, and as such, posable. And they happen to match Gorbad - not quite in size, but certainly in motif.

And, well, I think it needs to be done now. The biggest obstacle for doing this sort of thing has always been the rider, but I practically have all the parts I need right there!









I think were I to do this, I'd need to try and lengthen the thighs a bit and sculpt in the area between his legs, though I could do a pretty awful job of this and not many would see if I were clever enough to build the bike to hide it. His big iron hand is in a pretty suitable pose for holding long handlebars, as well.

Obviously, there's some 40k-ification to be done in order to bring him up to speed, but the sheer size of that iron hand of his should leave no doubts that it's intended as a power klaw when its got cabling running out from it. Likewise, that axe could use a bit of chainsawing action. My biggest concern is that the legs are too small to be considered useful, but I think it might juuust be passable.

Here's what I'm thinking the legs might look like when sculpted:



For the sake of it, I test fit the black ork legs on the boss onto a garbage warbike I had handy. This has so far helped convince me that those blork legs are a good choice, as once he's on the bike they become much less important, but they fit the seat well. His general posture seems to be right, though.







Whenever I get to making this bike, I'll probably bash something together from a mix of ork and beakie bike parts. I was never too fond of that back trakk design.

Or, I might scratchbuild something if I get particularly inspired.

What do you guys think? Those plastic legs too weedy?

Weedy...tiny to be precise
Try cutting up the ogryn's legs in the middle,posing them and just stuffing the gap with GS.Seeing as half of it wont be seen,you can just put a pelt on the front to cover it and call it done.

Try starting on the bike first also,like that you have a better base for your Boss to work on

Bike is too small to be a bosses bike too.

Posted By Clayman on 07/10/2007 7:27 AM
Weedy...tiny to be precise
Try cutting up the ogryn's legs in the middle,posing them and just stuffing the gap with GS.Seeing as half of it wont be seen,you can just put a pelt on the front to cover it and call it done.

Try starting on the bike first also,like that you have a better base for your Boss to work on

Last time I did this, I started with the bike first, but ended up with a bike that was completely off-scale because I didn't have a proper rider to build it around. Consider this me attacking it from a different angle.

Also, I'd consider doing what you suggested with the Ogryn legs, but the pose isn't necessarily the problem, it's the fact that they don't mesh all that well with the torso. If I cut it in the middle, I'd still have the problem with the gap in the back being too large and his midsection thusly being ridiculously sized. I considered maybe dremelling it down a bit, but there are details like armor plates hanging from the waist and belts that would look silly if half of them were removed but the other half still showed.

Posted By Redbeard on 07/10/2007 7:32 AM
Bike is too small to be a bosses bike too.

I touched on that in my initial post. He's simply on it to confirm that I have the general riding posture correct with him.

...Whenever I get to making this bike, I'll probably bash something together from a mix of ork and beakie bike parts. I was never too fond of that back trakk design.

Or, I might scratchbuild something if I get particularly inspired.

I have an Ork Warboss on bike that was built by a close friend. I am painting it for him but it is a huge mash on a SM Attack Bike.

 

EDIT: I somehow managed to submit before I was done. Anyway, this giant of a warboss has a gaggle of Grots and the old Gobbla squig in the sidecar. Really is a funny piece but it's killing me to paint. It's just huge and awkward. I'll post pics maybe for reference to your scaling.

didn't you already had a secon bike in the works. something that was supposed to look like clouds bike from FF7?
anyway, besides the fact that it annoys me a little that we never get to see a finished modell from you, it still looks great. as usual...

Posted By Anung Un Rama on 07/10/2007 11:21 AM
didn't you already had a secon bike in the works. something that was supposed to look like clouds bike from FF7?
anyway, besides the fact that it annoys me a little that we never get to see a finished modell from you, it still looks great. as usual...

Haha, it happens. I have a history of getting about 80-90% through projects before I get distracted by the next thing - usually I get a model into 'playable' shape and work on something else, with the overall goal being one of actually being able to play the game first and tying up the loose ends seconds. It's frustrating for me too, you know - I have all these almost done models staring me back in the face and constant questions online. "Whatever happened to..."

As to the history of my attempts to make bikes:

This is technically my third go, yes. The first one was going well, right up until someone at my local Games Workshop decided it would be a good idea to steal the bike I had made. Never found out who that was, but I'm positive it was the result of sticky fingers due to a couple of circumstances. I honestly don't know who would want to steal a half-finished warbike, but whatever.

The second attempt (the cloud bike thing to which you are referring) wasn't actually going all that bad, but I realized shortly after I had built the bike about twice as large as I should have, and that it looked like a silly dirtbike, rather than the mean ork warbike I wanted. It got scrapped shortly after.

I'm considering this round 2 mostly because I don't count the stolen one.

My main concern right now: Legs too short? I think they're juuust big enough to work for him with a tiny bit of sculpting/lengthening.

Posted By jamsessionein on 07/10/2007 12:00 PM

Haha, it happens. I have a history of getting about 80-90% through projects before I get distracted by the next thing - usually I get a model into 'playable' shape and work on something else, with the overall goal being one of actually being able to play the game first and tying up the loose ends seconds. It's frustrating for me too, you know - I have all these almost done models staring me back in the face and constant questions online. "Whatever happened to..."

Its okay. I have the opposite problem. I want to make something awesome and well-painted, and don't really care about playing the game. Which leaves me in a position of having good stuff, that never sees the table, because as soon as I finish it, it goes away for the next project.

Which strangely still gets the questions of "whatever happened to...", cause no one ever sees it hit the table.

The legs do look a little stunted. However, they look stunted on the new black orcs as well, in my opinion. Orcs in general just don't have good body posture.

Have the exact same problem. Mine is a painting issue. I like to paint, paint well (IMHO) but never seem to get the motivation to jump on my own stuff.

and I wish to second Anung Un Rama's statement AND add that, if you weren't so damned good at it then you wouldn't have an entire internet community pissed at you for never finishing your frickin kick ass projects.