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I find it very interesting that you used the big mek body from the KMB modell, instead of building the hammer on basis of the wrench the KFF Mek carries.

I'm using the Big Mek with Bosspole body because it has the arms separate - the KFF Big Mek miniature has the 'wrench' arm molded into both the torso and the foot, which is a pain to separate and model around. Also, because of the way the Big Mek with the KFF is leaning on his wrench with his hand atop the tool, it would have made changing the head difficult, if not impossible.


Photo and model aren't mine, obviously, but you see what I'm saying?

a, yes. I forgot how much he was attached to his wrench.

how did you get such even teeth on those cogs? Were they molded from a previous cog?

MachineSlave wrote:how did you get such even teeth on those cogs? Were they molded from a previous cog?

I am not sure I understand this question. The 'gears' on his hammer are some parts I scrounged up - I didn't make them so much as simply sand them down so they would have a flat surface to mount glyphs upon.

So, I had grand designs of coming home on Thursday and jumping right into modelling Booma but of course the teensy, weensy fact that it is Valentines day threw a wrench into that. Add onto that the fact that I have been enlisted to fix my father's ailing computer and I didn't find myself with much free time today.

Despite this, I have something I thought I might post. See, I found a rather nifty bit a while back. It comes from a miniature model line called Demonblade, which produced some rather unusual models until Games Workshop shut it down for copyright infringement. The Demonblade models had an 'orky' line that had a fair bit of crossover with GW's old second edition ork designs.

I managed to pick up a couple Demonblade minis off ebay with the intent of maybe mixing their parts discreetly in with the rest of my boyz, and this bit caught my attention right away. It's a completely bionic left arm!









I have been saving this for some time now with the mentality that perhaps it would look good on a Nob or what have you, but it seems to fit Booma fairly nicely.

Now! With that said, I want to make one thing clear: I do still intend on trying to scratchbuild Booma a proper styrene arm to match the phenomenal art that Zsoulless has been creating. The only reason I am showing photos of this other arm is because it will serve as a plan B of sorts. If I find that I simply can't scratchbuild such a small, fiddly little detail, this bit will serve as a backup way to actually finish Booma's model and get it on the table.

Having said that, I think I'm going to head off to bed so that I can wake up bright and early tomorrow morning and contemplate how I'm possibly going to build such tiny fingers.

I'M sure you'll find a way ein

So I spent some time this morning struggling with manufacturing a bionic arm and man, this is not easy. It's all to do with the scale of the thing - if I could be like Games Workshop and make all of the original models at 3x the size, I would be set, but unfortunately I have to suffer through these attempts.

The little bit you're about to see is actually my third attempt, as arm number one was far too long and was hitting the ground even without a hand attached to it, and arm number two got glued to my desk in a moment of carelessness.

Anyway, here's the gist of it. I put a terminator hand on the stump for the time being both to get an idea of how long the finished arm should be, and because for the life of me I don't think I can build fingers that small. I tried - pins, paperclips, styrene, everything is too fiddly and flimsy!







The coily spring things in his wrist are some little fiddly roller part I found inside an old laser printer that I took apart a while back. I like the way they look, but they're such a pain in the ass to work with and I have a feeling that after priming they'll look like rubbish because the 'ribbing' is so small.

Personally? That other metal arm is looking better and better as I try this. Still, I figure it doesn't hurt to post the work up.

The other metal arm looks really solid, and I think would work great socketed in and widgeted up. I commend you on wanting to scratchbuild your own despite, and I think the termi arm doesn't look so bad, just waaaay long as you note. The hand itself is a bit odd looking, between how you've cut it and its palm-open pose ...

- Salvage

Wow I love the arm! and that art work it great.

Boss_Salvage wrote:The other metal arm looks really solid, and I think would work great socketed in and widgeted up. I commend you on wanting to scratchbuild your own despite, and I think the termi arm doesn't look so bad, just waaaay long as you note. The hand itself is a bit odd looking, between how you've cut it and its palm-open pose ...

- Salvage

Yeah, it's just a case of how closely I want to follow the art right now, really. The miniature is obviously an abstraction of the character to begin with, but the more I look at that metal arm the more I like it; it's actually a bit too tiny to look appropriate on a Nob, but it fits like a glove with the Big Mek model's proportions.

I think the Terminator fingers work!

The change I would make is that I would be converting your bionic arm you showed.

I like the new arm, the terminator hand makes perfect sense as something looted then 'improved' by a mek.

In fact I think I'll steal the idea for my own orks - the GW powerklaw hand is nice, but I don't want _every_ nob to have the same powerklaw

I really like the arm you are building yourself. I think the problems you are having with length and proportion are because the orc model proportions are different than what your artist is drawing. If you compare his drawing with the figs, the feet on the figs end up about where the knees in his drawing are at, or at least not far off. It also looks like he has the head set lower, or shoulders higher.

I say keep trying a few things with that arm of yours, and you'll get it looking good!

Grah. Okay, I'm pretty sick of trying to do this already - I was pinning a very teeny, tiny hand together in the hopes that it might be durable enough to work but small enough to look decent. This is honestly as small as I think I can manage, but I am not happy with it.



It doesn't look terrible, but that's because the foreshortening of the camera angle is making the arm not look too long. Take a look at the exact same position from the side:



Holy gorilla-limbs! :(

Honestly? As of right now, I am nearly sold on using the metal arm I have. There are two reasons...

1) Much as I'd like to be able to model on this minute of a scale, it's just too much.
2) This is probably the only model that the bionic arm actually fits on. The metal arm is too small for a nob, and the arm I have made for Booma seems to be a perfect fit on that new Direct-only Waaagh-Banner Nob as far as scale goes:



So. I have some thinking to do about it, I guess. I considered maybe just cutting the 'hand' part off the metal bit and using it on the plastic arm I have been making, but I only have one of these bitz and I really don't want to ruin it.

I like the terminator hand better than the pinned one.

I'll second that, I like the idea of a full made it my self arm but the top shoulder part you did not craft your self so the terminator hand sould not upset you so....

In the spirit of compromise, I hacked the hand off my metal arm bit and placed it on the wrist of the arm I have been scratchbuilding in the hopes that maybe it would solve my hand dilemma. I realize the forearm is a bit longer than I might otherwise want it to be, but it's not possible to shorten it very easily right now, and I made it the size I did so that I could cram detail onto the curved areas when I got to that step.



Edit: I take that back, as well. I shortened the forearm up a bit and it's shaping up a bit better now. I'm going to use that metal hand bit I hacked off the other arm... but first I think I might cast myself a copy.

Oooohhh... That's a drastic step. Definitely looks better than the custom made hand, though I still think the termi hand had good potential. Might want to blunt the finger tips, the pointyness of them I think doesn't mesh with the red of the arm?

Nah, I like the pointy fingers. They make it look a bit more kustom, less salvaged from a Space Marine corpse.

And the slightly gorillaish length of the arm is entirely appropriate for an Ork. Even being a bit asymmetrical is cool.

And I really liked the roller bitz on the inside. Nice touch.

I like it. But the terminator hand was also fine, unless you're trying to avoid the loota look.

And I don't think it's oversized - as Savnock says, the gorilla look is fluffy. And it makes orky sense to build a new arm that reaches further than the old organic arm

Alrighty! Here's some more progress for you guys to (hopefully) enjoy. I know I've been working slow recently, but between school and all of the Valentines day shenanigans going on I haven't had much free time.

First, the bionic arm is coming along. I haven't put the exhausts on it just yet, but they're in the works. I started on what will optimistically be the 'gauge' on the arm, as well as a couple of nuts and bolts and the vent. I even put the little power-plug outlet in, though it is so infinitesimally small that I will have to paint it with a microscope.





I'm starting to really like the look of things now.

As far as the KFF goes, I've done some digging through my bitz bins and come up with some parts that may produce a workable Kustom Force Field...



Of particular interest is the metal bit with exhaust stacks coming off it. That part is from a Warzones miniature (non GW game, I know, but I'll get over it even if tournament-mongers don't. ). I believe the original model was some sort of battle suit, but whatever. It fits fairly nicely on Booma's back, so it's got my gears turning right now. Here's a shot with it just pinned on:





Z and I have been bouncing ideas back and fourth as to what we could make of it, because he wants his art to reflect the miniature and vice versa. Some more thought still has to go into it for the time being, particularly because I would love to be able to fit a tiny red LED somewhere in whatever ends up being made.

As a little bonus, I've noticed that Booma is actually nicely poseable now. For example:



He could be holding something (like a whirring gubbin or marine helmet) up infront of him and eyeing it up for parts. Alternately...



He could be cranking a valve wheel on a busted Dreadnought.

Obviously, I don't intend on him doing these things on the final, playable miniature, but I just found it entertaining that he could be posed to be a bit more interactive with things. If I had the patience, time, and parts, it'd be fun to make a couple versions of him just doing things to pose in pictures with my other conversions, but I obviously have none of the above. I can't really leave the arm free-swinging on the final model, either, as paint would chip, bits would get broken, and I couldn't sculpt to fill in the seam between his upper arm and torso. Still, it's fun to photograph.

you have spareparts from a THUNDERHEAD??!!

Good stuff! Nice oldskool feel to it and that hammer is bound to leave a lasting impression

Bah dump, CHING!!! "He's here all week, folks. Try the veal."



Seriously migs, stick with modeling.

Time for an update.

Not much happened with Booma himself in the past few days, as I've been quite busy with other things. Still, I have done a little bit - I've tried to add the 'exhaust' pipes like what is in the illustration. I took a bit of artistic lisence as far as their angling, but it was the easiest way to implement them. I'm not actually sure I love the way they look, but it may grow on me.









The arm needs some more of those big screw heads like what's on the front - I had three on there this morning, but they popped off with a bit of rough handling, so I'm going to glue them back on with some tweezers. The backpack is also still temporary, but I think I'm going to build off it.

As far as the rest of the model, I have done some deliberating, and this is what I've come up with.

I find it very hard with this new Ork Codex to put together an army list that doesn't feature a Big Mek. Booma was originally intended to be just a KFF Big Mek, but since I like the model a great deal, I would be sad if I had to substitute another model in his place to play a Shokk Attack Gun option. So, to work out a way around this, I'm going to go ahead and make a separate, large Shokk Attack gun on it's own base to be placed near Booma when I choose to run that wargear option.

I have a couple ideas in my head for this model that I thought I would lay out. According to my ork army backstory, my warboss has an unnatural fondness for grots and gretchin, and they are put in positions of authority accordingly (driving a dreadnought or stompa, for example). Needless to say, my Boss would not be happy with a gun that uses his little buddies as ammunition, so he would have forced Booma to come up with an alternate solution. Booma, being the enterprising sort, decided to fire squigs out of his Shokk Attack Gun instead!

My plans for the gun include:

- Motorized, spinning Shokk Attack Gun head
- A light behind the spinning section of the Shokk Attack Gun so it appears to strobe.
- 'Grot Helpers' that jam the squigs into the Shokk Attack Gun's funnel. These will have bionic replacement limbs, as shoving angry squigs into a hole is not without consequences.
- Caged Squigs on the base

I'll probably mount the whole thing atop a 40mm, maybe 60mm base for the sake of convenience. I already took a stab at motorizing the spinny bit on the Shokk Attack Gun with promising results:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=8ftTqIeyCZY

Oddly enough, those 2 AA's seem to be all that makes the motor spin. I've tried a 3v watch battery, and it just sits there immobile. I'm not honestly sure why, but I'll keep working on minimizing the power source.

okay, first, I don't know how you did it, but altough the has the KKF Mek head, he looks much more....awake, the n the original model. he looks kinda bad-a$$, ahich surprised me a bit.
I don't really like the backpack ye, but I'm sure you'll change that soon.

and I really did you SAG idea. seems like a logical choice to make it spin.

The reason why it won't spin with the smaller battery is simple.

It's not the VOLTS that provide the umph to spin a motor, it's the AMPS. Now, the great thing about electricity, is that by varying the resistance of the circuit, you can vary the amps. Stick a resistor or 2 in the circuit, that should slow the motor down some. It'll take some experimentation though. If you feel like taking a larger engineering bite, just gear the motor down. Put a pinion on the output shaft of the motor and a larger gear on the shok spinners.

Cool concept though.

KiMonarrez wrote:The reason why it won't spin with the smaller battery is simple.

It's not the VOLTS that provide the umph to spin a motor, it's the AMPS. Now, the great thing about electricity, is that by varying the resistance of the circuit, you can vary the amps. Stick a resistor or 2 in the circuit, that should slow the motor down some. It'll take some experimentation though. If you feel like taking a larger engineering bite, just gear the motor down. Put a pinion on the output shaft of the motor and a larger gear on the shok spinners.

Cool concept though.

Okay, let me pursue this a bit further. What you're saying about amps makes sense, but how can I make it so that smaller watch batteries will be sufficient to get this thing spinning? I don't see myself able to disguise two AA batteries on a 40mm base.

Well, to up the amperage, without changing the voltage, wire the watch batteries in parallel, not series.

You can also up the amperage by not changing the resistance of the circuit, and upping the voltage, so wire the watch batteries in series. It would probably be easiest to do this, and then insert a resistor or 2 to change the amps.