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Really impressive work Ragsta... the fact that so many of these are home made or highly modified is seriously amazing.

Very nice work on the Ork Scratchbuilds there... Coming along very nicely.

On the earlier Imperial scratchbuild, I particularly like the sloops and the Light cruiser.

Keep up the good work. Nice to see someone doing creative BFG stuff.

Gitsplitta wrote:Really impressive work Ragsta... the fact that so many of these are home made or highly modified is seriously amazing.

At the risk of sounding like a crawler, praise from Gitsplitta has made my day! I'm a lurker on your logs and really appreciate the story behind your projects. With my Ork builds I've tried hard to have them come from the same pile of bitz, the same palette of colours and a general backstory - thank you for your kind words!

wolfshadow wrote:Very nice work on the Ork Scratchbuilds there... Coming along very nicely.

On the earlier Imperial scratchbuild, I particularly like the sloops and the Light cruiser.

Keep up the good work. Nice to see someone doing creative BFG stuff.

Really appreciate your comments, wolfshadow, I'm rather surprised at how well the sloops have gone down! Maybe I need to build more escorts on a similar design philosophy... I love BFG and it is really easy to be creative with the ships, even Imperial ones. Something as simple as a custom bridge really works wonders!

You deserve all the praise I can heap on you. I've got a buddy who's a model space ship geek (lots of different gaming systems) and when i saw your blog I just had to send him the link. Really well done man, please keep it coming!

These are so awesome, Ragsta, I can't believe I haven't seen your blog before! I've got very litttle experience with BFG, but you've really inspired me with these. Love the variation in colour in the civvie ships, and your scratch builds are just fantastic - great eye for finding a use for random household junk! The ork ships are amazing - have never seen any before, and they look exactly like I would imagine them. Brilliant work, and I'll be following closely from now on!

Jihad_Ragsta wrote:
Thank you very much! Glad you approve, I have a whole host of ships to post here so this kind of feedback is great!

Could you show us some Ork ships? Please?

Ohhhh, alright then



Hammer class battlecruiser Juggamork and Onslaught escorts

Totally scratchbuilt, there's a variety of pen lids, skipping rope handle pieces, Bionicle heads and part of a car headlight!

The Orkish ships are awesome and look better and more orky than official ones!
You have found a good way to use Bionicle faces. But although I've got a plenty of them, I won't glue some of them forever.

Gitsplitta wrote:You deserve all the praise I can heap on you. I've got a buddy who's a model space ship geek (lots of different gaming systems) and when i saw your blog I just had to send him the link. Really well done man, please keep it coming!

When it comes to inspiration I was motivated in a big way by this guy's awesome site - this is what first made me try my own builds: http://www.angelfire.com/games4/chubbybob/golgotha.htm

For some reason I developed a real taste for GZG spaceships too (damn them damn them!!): http://shop.groundzerogames.net/index.php?_a=viewCat&catId=31

If your buddy is on Dakka tell him to give me a bell - I'd love to see what he looks at!

Scarper wrote:These are so awesome, Ragsta, I can't believe I haven't seen your blog before! I've got very litttle experience with BFG, but you've really inspired me with these. Love the variation in colour in the civvie ships, and your scratch builds are just fantastic - great eye for finding a use for random household junk! The ork ships are amazing - have never seen any before, and they look exactly like I would imagine them. Brilliant work, and I'll be following closely from now on!

Good grief, mate, thanks for all the kind words! I love your stuff so that means alot to me. I'm glad you're inspired - scratchbuilding is great fun for Orks! I really tried hard to give them some ugly 'faces' as that was in keeping with the GW Orks ships that came out. I was inspired in a big way by the Ork fleet from Warhammer Monthly's Bloodquest. Once I'm back in Edinburgh we will have to play some games!

Farseer Petriel - Are you saying you would never put glue on your Bionicle heads? That's fair enough - I find them an easy 'cheat' to get effective Ork prows myself. Anything that makes things easier!

I have a squadron of Imperial cruisers coming up next - hopefully they'll be finished this weekend. After all the love for my sloops of war I may have to build some more of them (tho slightly different from the last as my bits box demands it).

Thank you for all the comments, everyone - hope to provoke you into building some ships yourself

I like them all! I am not familiar with the models though, can you get some pics for scale? like with a coin or something? There are a couple of pics of a table, and from the wood grain I can see they are small, but not HOW small. If this has already been answered, I apologize, I didn't read every comment.

RSJake - What?! Not reading my awesome thread in full?! How dare you, sir!

I will get some comparison shots up for you - don't have anything that would work right now though. The Ork kroozers measure just under 15 cms each and their escorts are twice the mass of an Imperial escort frigate. I'm assuming you've seen the BFG models before - sorry if that's not right! I actually really like how large my Ork pirates are in comparison to their Imperial equivalents - I think Ork warships would need more bulk (armour, engines and guns) just to match up against a human warship.

Speaking of human warships... I managed to churn out my squadron of line cruisers. INS Erwin Guternacht, Jericho's Chorus and the Marshall Vect

The formation of Guternacht Squadron, widely referred to as the Big Red One, was used by the Imperial propaganda machine as an exercise to rally the masses of civilians across the entire Infernis sub sector.

It is estimated that over a million Imperial citizens were granted the privilige of full time employment in building and refurbishing this squadron of line cruisers. After several intercessions by Fleet Command these numbers were boosted by the population of Penal Colony 170D/AE51.

Completed 3 years ahead of schedule, the Big Red One features in several long running propaganda serials - lots are frequently cast by planetary populations for the honour of joining their crews (these are not voluntary).

The squadron's recent interdiction into Tau space, headed by the battlecruiser Apostle of Fire, has enjoyed number 1 holo vid rankings on three major worlds.

Happy Saturday to one and all!

I need to get on with building some Ramships

Part of what motivates me in building Ork ships is my bitz box - we have a hate/hate relationship. As such I am determined to use up as many random pieces as possible!

I have taken some Ork totems I was building and used them for the prows on these. The bulk of parts come from the chemical plant set as usual. I'm going to add some wire mesh to the 'wings' to make them look slightly less flimsy. Also need to mount some small guns/ antennas to the prows for a bit of detail. Seeing as these ships have a habit of exploding rather quickly I won't be taking too much time on them.

It's not much but I like them so far - that will give me 3 squadrons of Ramships and each one of them look distinctive. I imagine a different Mek will have inspired the construction of each squadron.

Suggestions and criticisms very much appreciated!

Thanks for looking

Nice work JR... are these cooked up out of your fertile imagination or do you have some artwork or something that you're pulling the inspiration for your ideas from?

These are amazing! I cant wait to see those ork ships completed. MORE MORE MORE!

Nice use of bits on these latest rams. Might I suggest a boarding tunnel/spike/screw type affair coming from the hole above the prow-faces?

Gitsplitta wrote:Nice work JR... are these cooked up out of your fertile imagination or do you have some artwork or something that you're pulling the inspiration for your ideas from?

Thank you, kind sir! Alot of my inspiration actually comes from space ships I grew up watching - the Ravenork was based upon a Klingon Bird of Prey.
As mentioned previously I am also inspired by the Reavers out of Serenity - I would say at least two of my Terrorships and a squadron of Rams came from there. I used to love playing a game called Homeworld and I hope to base another squadron of Rams on the Junkyard Dawg from that.

I also have a Kill Kroozer in the pipeline that will be based upon the starship Enterprise! I have some pieces here that I'm looking forward to using for that one...

Las wrote:These are amazing! I cant wait to see those ork ships completed. MORE MORE MORE!

Haha thank you, fella! I will try and get some more stuff done for you soon! Once the Ramships are done I have my Hammer BC to finish - I've ordered a bunch of brass etched mesh and random panels to help with detailing. Well, actually to cheat with detailing. Also... Eventually I'll need to bite the bullet and start working on an Ork battleship idea for Dakka Dakka's scratch build competition - I blame Monkeytroll foor putting me onto it! I notice that the Waaagghh Dakka has no fleet support yet

monkeytroll wrote:Nice use of bits on these latest rams. Might I suggest a boarding tunnel/spike/screw type affair coming from the hole above the prow-faces?

Thanks for the suggestion! I was thinking about what to do with those holes myself - I'm now building some boarding 'spikes' out of tube and BFG Imperial antennas. It's VERY fiddly work. And to think I'm doing this a single hit point escort.... I will post up some progress shots once my brass etch stuff gets here.

Happy Sunday, everyone!

Inspired by monkeytroll's suggestion I sat down and built some boarding spikes for my squadron of Ramships. I've also taken delivery of some brass etched mesh and panels so I added a little to the wings and hulls for some detail.

At one point I was bashing my head off the desk at the frustration of building such fiddly pieces!! The spikes are made from BFG Imperial antennas (I LOVE these bits - you can use them for guns, torpedoes, boarding spikes... ) and some plasticard tube.

I will be painting the squadron red and boltgun. I will hold off from posting another update until I have my Hammer BC upgraded for you - don't want this thread getting boring with constant shots of escorts

What's wrong with pictures of escorts? Ohh, you mean the ships!

Yeah, they look good with the boarding spikes in place, I'll have to look out for some of those antenna's!

Where did the brass mesh come from?

The mesh came from here: http://www.scalelink.co.uk/acatalog/Etched_Brass_Frets___Photo_decoupe.html

I dunno if I could find somewhere cheaper to get it from but at least it's tried and tested and the quality is nice. Haven't used too much on the Rams but that will soon change once I decide to finish the Hammer.

Hmm, some interesting stuff on there, didn't go for the mesh, but got a few other bits

Farseer Petriel wrote:

Jihad_Ragsta wrote:
Thank you very much! Glad you approve, I have a whole host of ships to post here so this kind of feedback is great!

Could you show us some Ork ships? Please?

Ohhhh, alright then



Hammer class battlecruiser Juggamork and Onslaught escorts

Totally scratchbuilt, there's a variety of pen lids, skipping rope handle pieces, Bionicle heads and part of a car headlight!

The Orkish ships are awesome and look better and more orky than official ones!
You have found a good way to use Bionicle faces. But although I've got a plenty of them, I won't glue some of them forever.

lol good to see someone else with bionicle heads lyin around

Nice work Ragsta

Thanks, mate! I love the Dark Crystal, you have good taste in signatures! It all started when I found a random bionicle head and added it to the scratchbuild you've quoted here - the effect was so simple and effective I immediately bought a bag of them off eBay. At some point I'd like to make some escorts out of the heads alone but that's rather far in the future.

Ork Ramships - also referred to as Rams, Rammers, Ramboyz and Jamboyz by Ork crews. The term Jamboys probably comes from the mess these ships make of the enemy (but more often themselves) when they manage to make contact with the enemy.

This particular squadron of Ramships has a different design aesthetic to others seen within the fleet of Killa Gargruk - the 'wings' are probably for flamboyant style. Imperial Navy analysts are bemused by the boarding spikes mounted above the prows - surely any close range engagement where boarding would come into play would be brutally cut short when the ship itself rams the enemy.

Ork Hammer Battlecruiser coming up next! After that I'll be taking a holiday from my Ork builds to recharge the brain cells I have a supply of brass etched plates and mesh to detail up the Hammer so I'm looking forward to getting it finished - it's been semi - complete for months :rolleyes:

I doubt this log will go silent though - I have 16 Imperial escorts to paint up in the meantime, plus I may have something else coming in the post that a buddy has hinted at

They turned out great JR... I take it the chipped paint suggests successful past rams in battle?? Or is it just from driving through things that most ships would drive around?

Gitsplitta wrote:They turned out great JR... I take it the chipped paint suggests successful past rams in battle?? Or is it just from driving through things that most ships would drive around?

I think all those dings and scratches represent the crap they fly through yeah - if I'm totally honest I was experimenting with chipping and thought now as good a time as any! I can't imagine ramships surviving an impact TBH... Unless it was with a ship of equal size. I like the paintjob on these - I didn't uesterday but they've grown on me since then.

Heh heh, after your referring to flying through things others wouldn't I thought of this:

Actually one of my favorite Star Wars moments... good call Ragsta.

I'm not dead

Recently my laptop melted, I lost my bank card during a night out on squig beer and my job has leeched my will to live (and therefore hobby). Happily, things are much better now (I don't live in a warzone for starters and I have all my limbs, so maybe I should suck it up and get hobbying).

Now that the holiday season looms I really want to wrap up some of my projects so I can do some new stuff. This involves the following:

Completing ALL my Imperial Navy models and bringing the fleet up to 4000pts inc. commander.
Completing ALL my Ork Pirates and raising them to 1500pts inc. commander.

What does this leave me to do?

Imperials

4 Sword frigates (BUT they won't be GW models, oh no... And I ain't saying what they'll be either).

Scratch built Vengeance Grand Cruiser for my flagship (my fleet fluff isn't big on battleships - they prefer larger numbers of less capable vessels).

Orks

2 Onslaught attack ships (just a little somethin' somethin' to hide behind the big ships and snipe at any flanking enemy escorts).

Hammer battlecruiser (it's finally built and ready to be painted!!!!).

In the mean time, here are some Imperial escorts for your enjoyment - I tried squadron markings on the Cobras for the first time (I fear freehand) and it really improved the look. On the flip side, I tried Orgyn Flesk over Mechrite Red for my Firestorms and it dried all glossy. Yuck, but nothing so ugly as to make me wanna change it.






Thanks for looking guys, any suggestions for the Vengeance or Onslaughts gratefully received, as is any comment or insult!

Started work on the Onslaughts last night - I have a large bitz box of Imperial weapons so that's where the bulk of my pieces came from.




Initially, I was going to give each one a cluster of engines but then I found the muzzle from a Demolisher and thought why? All the other escorts have multiples and Orks thrive on being different! So one large thruster each.
I'll be adding the pictured Ork shield bosses to the sides to break up the blank spaces and give them some identity. I will will be adding some antenna vertically to represent more guns (and more importantly break up all those smooth lines - not very Orky at present). I will also add a few rivets to break it up some more.

I'm thinking I'll paint these ones red like the kroozer prows, except with some yellow dags if possible. Do they need anything else? The engine tubes will be broken up with plating and some pipes...

Nice use of the Imperial gunz. The second sqadron of rams is also a great design although in my eyes it could use a bigger spike.....

Nice work JR. Really good stuff!

Your desk looks spookily like the furniture installed in Z-type accommodation

Llamahead wrote:Nice use of the Imperial gunz. The second sqadron of rams is also a great design although in my eyes it could use a bigger spike.....

Glad you like the choice of bits - I have a serious grudge against my bits box for some strange reason. Any reason to use up bits is fine with me! *Glares at bits box, which promptly hisses in reply*
As for the spikes... Well, maybe if I make another squadron of Ramships they can comprise nothing BUT a ram spike, howsabout that?

Bash the Bosh wrote:Nice work JR. Really good stuff!

Your desk looks spookily like the furniture installed in Z-type accommodation

Thanks buddy, glad you like! Z - Type furniture huh? Well, I live in a total rat hole of a flat (seriously, this place leaks like a sieve and the dust gets everywhere - I have to DUST my freakin models whenever I wanna paint!!!). I'll have to take your word on this but I really wouldn't be surprised if the landlord shipped some in to cut costs.

Chaps, I doubt they'll be further updates until 2012 now - the weather sucks for undercoating and I;ll be back home with my folks and away from my toys :( But once I get back there should be multiple updates pretty quick.
Take care, and have a great holiday if I don't post again beforehand!

The current Imperial Navy group are finished!!!

I think I had an advantage in that BFG ships are quite easy to paint. I'm still really pleased knowing that I currently have no Imperial forces left to paint! One reason for so much success must have been all those escorts.

Here are some photos of the completed ships. Photograph four is a close up of my counts as Swords - they are Soryllian frigates from Firestorm Armada and I really like them!



Sorry about the pics - no daylight BUT I was champing at the bit to get these guys posted up. My photography setup in general is not good - I live in a boxroom so I have very little scope for a light box or multiple table lamps etc

I welcome any comments, suggestions or criticisms - this is the second wave for my Imperial Navy and they represent a major boost in numbers for me. There is a subtle improvement in paintjobs but they should still mesh fine with my older lads.

Impressive fleet Ragsta, congrats on clearing your Imperial que!