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Even though I enjoy watching the Stompa grow, you are wise for not letting our squabbles taint your artistic flow. I can not wait to see it!

Could you still throw the wip pics for the advances between the last pics and completion up on the site once you're done? It's interesting to see it grow and progress.

It might be too late, but I just stumbled across this. I even registered on the board just to make this post.

Would it be possible to add a little yellow LED in the mouh? If that flamer has the 'pilot light' on, there'd be light there, too.

I know it's cheesy to post for this purpose, but I'm just reminding jamsessionein that we haven't forgotten about the gargant and we're looking forward to seeing the finished product

I concur.

Any word on the finished product?

Let's get some new momentum going, shall we?

It's been an interesting past few months for me. I won't bore you with the details, but the important thing is that I have recently been liberated from my obligations towards work and school for the winter, which leaves me with enough time to finally finish this. I'm deeply saddened that it's taken me this long, but I'll be happy to get this thing done and painted and stompin' on da closest fing dat moves!

My general first order of business is to finish the construction and fine details. The gargant now has a ramshackle grot bomb launcher that slots in on the center of the shoulders once the head is attached. The grot bomb has been pinned to the ramp - magnets proved too difficult to use for that application, so instead it slots onto the ramp nicely on a metal post. In the course of the past few months, the captain, who is the one grot in the grotpit that I did not pin in place, has managed to escape from my slaver. This means I will need to make another, which is alright with me because I wasn't 100% fond of him due to the ackward way I had him holding the ship wheel.

Here's some pictures of the grot bomb ramp:











I apologize for the picture quality, it isn't my usual camera.

The new ramp badly evidences the need for some proper shoulder armor, which is the next thing on my list to build after I magnetize the grot bomb properly.

I was originally messing around with a curved and streamlined shape to the shoulders so that they would not impede the motion of the arms.

Then I came to my senses and realized that 'streamlined' and 'orky' do not go together. At all. So I am working on making some nice, big, chunky shoulders.

I'm trying to make the shoulders out of reasonably thick card so that it'll be sturdy. The back is open so that I can properly pose the claw hand aiming backwards in a running position. Also, orks have no need for rear armor! As long as it's a walking wall of death, nothing'll get behind it. It'll get riveted up and a plated a bit, as well.

I'm thinking I'm going to put some spears sticking out the top of the shoulder pads - maybe a grot tied to a stick and some beakie heads on a pike.









I've just been working on the 2nd shoulder... I found the head is a bit asymmetrical in back, which makes the attachment of that shoulder pad a real pain because it interferes a bit with where the head wants to rest. I've been trying to make up for this by removing a decent impact blast chunk of armor in the corner where it pokes into the back of the head, and I think that took care of it.

I'm going to rivet around the edges, and probably plate the tops.. I think the gun-arm shoulder pad would look pretty decent with a chain hanging across it and heads tied to it for detail. I was considering those poles as spikes atop the shoulders, so I sketched it up real roughly. I only have two poles I can think of using - one with the grot tied to a spear and the other with the heads, which looks remarkably asymmetrical and a bit unbalanced.






With the poles:



I figured it looks a bit different when it's full on posed, so I propped it up using stuff on my desk in the running pose to match the concept art. I may tone the backwards-tilted arm a bit down, since it's already leaning forward.

I fixed your image links.

Dakka doesn't currently utilize the [ img ] UBB code, you just need to click on the little 'photo' symbol in the text editor and paste the URL directly into the window that pops up.


I haven't read your post yet, so I'll comment on your progress in a bit.

Haha. Yeah, I only just realized. I started to go back and fix them but you beat me to it. Thanks.

This is superb work. I really like the diorama scene with the Guardsman reaching out to his comrades from under the Gargant's foot. I can't wait to see the finished product.

CK

Speaking of that guy underfoot, I did a hand swap so he would be outreaching towards his comrades but the damnable thing won't stay glued on. He's actually got a stump presently because the hand seems to have fallen off at some point, and I have no idea where. I may simply try reworking it into him reaching out with a blown-off limb, depending on if I can find a new hand or not.

Yeeehaaa!!!!

I'm happy just to see this moving forward.  I can't wait to see the final product.

Looks great Are you able to take it apart though? I'd imaging painting is gonna be a real pain in the pills if not love the light up eyes

Head, arms, and launching ramp are all removable for my own sanity. Transporting it would be impossible, let alone painting.

I'm so glad this is back. I'll be able to sleep peacefully tonight. Keep up the great work.

Any thoughts yet on a colour scheme, or at least klan? I don't know whether you intended this model to fit an existing ork army or be the start of a new army, or indeed maybe it's just a standalone model...

Rusty and red. I'm going to have the occasional off-color plate to emphasize it's looted-ness - I'm thinking of making one of the new shoulder pads ultramarines blue with the U decal on it to suggest that they blew something up and just bolted it straight onto the gargant. I will be primarily aiming for a dull rusted boltgun and faded red, though.

It'll probably be fielded alongside my army, which is still working on defining it's shape and theme.

YAY!
This thing is so totally kicking rad! Glad to see you've had a chance to get back to work on it. Don't beat yourself over the time frame either, I've had conversions I've started work on years ago and still only manage to get anything done in occasional fits.

Just as a word of caution, whatever you do with the rest of your ork army, try to keep it generic until the new Ork dex is out, supposedly by this time next year. GW has a nasty habit of eliminating unit entries, severely nerfing things perceived as overly powerful and generally ignoring most weaker units.

Wow.

I may have wimped out a bit on the shoulders, but this is how they currently stand.

I skipped the spears idea on the shoulders for a couple reasons. First and foremost, I took a look at my other ork stuff and noticed a pattern of me continually repairing any thin, pointy bits that tend to protrude off the model. My battlewagon alone, for example, has had that grot-on-a-stick fall off and get reattached more times than I can count, and I really don't want to repeat that with this model.

Second, it was a bit distracting. Honestly. I drilled a few holes in the claw shoulder pad to prop the spears and trophy poles up in, and gave it a look, but they diverted attention away from the face and the head, which wasn't quite what I was going for. I patched them up as bullet damage.

Spikes would have interfered with the head's attaching and detaching. At the moment, I am actually considering making the shoulders and the grot bomb one entire removable piece to go on after the head. It'll depend on if I can get the angles to line up right, I think.

I riveted the shoulders and face.











Gotta work on it a bit more when I get home later. I don't know what else of the basic gargant construction needs doing aside finalizing how the shoulders attach - I know it needs a new grot in the grotpit and some orks running around on the base, but aside from that... any final touches you guys might suggest?

a grot or ork with a captain's hat seems fitting for the cockpit. can't remember if you've decided on something along those lines or not.

The base looks a little empty, maybe if you put one of those half-smashed buildings from the new city fight on it it might look less empty. It would need to be small though.

Wow, it's really come together.
A fantastic and inspiring piece of work!

Posted By erubus on 12/22/2006 9:51 AM
The base looks a little empty

You did notice the 'uge stompa, right? :S

But I think the base looks great as is, lots of bitz but not enough to clutter up or pull attention from the main stomping event.  The stompa looks fantastic too, love the rivets and plate work on those shoulders.  I'm glad you didn't go with the spears, as I felt they'd detract and be unneccesary, as you note too.

Really looking forward to paint on this bad boy.  I think we'll be very very lucky if GeeDub's plastic stompa looks anything as good as this.

- Boss Salvage

I agree. The stompa is where everyone's eyes will be anyways. Of course, having said that it's always neat to have tons of little details to keep the audience looking. If it where me I'd leave it as is and start painting.

..Of course, if it was me I would have stopped long ago and just glued four popsicle sticks to a toilet paper tube with "Stompa" scrawled in crayon across it.

Freaking sweet!

It is a pretty busy model as it is, very convincing, no need to keep adding. If you really feel the need to add a couple extra touches, then what do you think about adding some burnt tree stumps in there? Either way, this is a swank model! If you ever feel the need to get rid of it, I will trade you my pet rat or one of my room mates for it!

Glad to see you resume your work on this !!

I just wanted to add that I think the shoulder pads really make the model look orky. I had previously thought that something didn't look quite right about the head, especially when compared to the original drawing, but with the addition of the shoulder pads the head fits much more nicely into the torso and the whole thing looks properly 'orky' to me.

I agree that you don't need the spikes at all.

Are you thinking about making the shoulder pads/grot bomb removable so you can take them off if you don't want to use them? Because I really believe the shoulder pads should be a permanent part of the model.


Great, fantastic work as always!

Erebus: The base looks empty? I don't really agree, but I guess perhaps it doesn't have as much impact in pictures. There is the foundations of a ruined building tacked into the base - I spent a lot of time aesthetically planning the scene out so that the gargant would be the focus of the scene. The general idea is that guardsmen had set up a heavy weapons entrenchment behind the ruins of an old building aiming out at the street (the street is actually partially modelled onto the corner behind the gargant).. and the gargant, after taking a few shots from the lascannon there finally directed itself that way, smashed through the remaining front of the building, and proceeded to squish dem 'umies inta da ground!

I'm honestly inclined to say that the structure of the model itself is done. Left is the grots, and some orks trailing the gargant on the base, and that's about it.

Shoulders have been attached and anchored onto the main torso through the use of a favored construction method of mine - putty! It's a very-fast drying two part putty I found in my garage that I believe is used for plumbing purposes. It's horribly ugly, and smells awful while it's drying - not meant for sculpting at all! It does, however, have a remarkable knack at holding parts together and when it dries it is literally like cement.

I applied a bit on the underside of each pad and basically pressed it onto the torso till it stayed.

Component pictures!



And assembled!



I'm not going to lie to you guys, it is ugly when it is in pieces, but once all the parts are on the structural points are all covered up and it comes together pretty nicely.

I really wish I could sculpt. I can only imagine how much greenstuff I'm going to make trying to create a decent grot captain hat.

EDIT: I almost forgot, I have to put the mouth burna back inside the head.