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Disclaimer: I am not a great modeler. While I can have some very creative ideas, if it involves more than kit-bashing I'm usually in over my head. That being said, when I first decided to start this project I was scared. Very scared. What if I ruin a $40 model? What if I get halfway through the project and I reach some impassible roadblock and am left with a half Orked up Stormtalon? What if I finish and it just looks like crap? These are just a few of the many fears I have any time I start hacking up a model. But now, as I stand (type?) before you nearly finished with the project build, I echo the words of the great Kevin McAllister - Hey, I'm not afraid any more! I said I'm not afraid any more! Do you hear me? I'm not afraid any more!

Inspired by this (uncredited) conversion posted on Bell of Lost Souls, I decided I'd try my hand at replicating the beast. Here is my attempt:

I assembled the Stormtalon following the instructions, but built it in "main parts" that would be easier to convert/paint. The kit was fantastic to build, very easy, which was a huge relief.
The parts I glued as separate units were: the engines (sans wings), the main body, the cockpit (sans pilot/canopy), chin turret. I also flipped the tail fins around.
I've read a lot of people hating on the chin turret. Personally, I love it, and it was one of the things that drew me to this conversion in the first place. So that's where I started. I used the 2 longest Supa Shootas from the Dakkajet kit and carved away most of the assault cannons, leaving only the 2 base parts that snap into the turret case. Lot of cutting and sanding, but nothing too terribly hard.



Of course, those dinky wings are, in my opinion, the worst part of the Stormtalon. They had to go. I replaced them with the dakkajet wings. I had to snip off both connecting bars from the engines and the wings. I then drilled 3 holes in each wing for pins and pinned them in. Again, lot of cutting, not too hard.


For me, the hardest part was finding a suitable pilot. I tried a spare warbike boy first. He was too tall and the canopy wouldn't fit. I tried leaning him back but he looked like he was lying down flying the jet. No dice. I browsed ebay for a pilot and, after striking out on a couple trukk drivers, stumbled across the new Gorkanaut pilot. He looked perfect! I had not seen a Gorkanaut kit and didn't even know they had guys inside. After eyeballing the auction for a couple days I pulled the trigger. Lo and behold, he fit!

(You can also see the spiky armor I put on the bottom of the chin turret/landing gear. I just scraped off the aquila)

It's a really tight fit, so I'm going to have to greenstuff his arm joints a little bit. Hopefully that will be done tomorrow. I'm pretty crummy at greenstuffing so wish me luck!

Anyway, here's a couple pictures of the "finished" product. I'm still planning on adding a few bits and bobs like Orky icons on the bottom of the wings, a tail fin that runs vertically and perpendicular to the horizontal tail fins, and of course, 2 more pairs of Supa Shootas. I'm going to run 1 pair on the wings and 1 chin mounted next to the cockpit.
And the coup de grace - a trail of bullet holes leading from the cockpit pilot side across the canopy glass. How else did the Orks get their hands on this tech?





Planning on painting the main body of the jet as a Dark Angels Stormtalon, and the wings/armor/whatever bright BRIGHT yellow. Don't know how this will work so stay tuned!

PS: yes, I'm going to drill the barrels of the guns. Sheesh.

Looks like you're off to a great start. The nice thing about kit-bashing ork vehicles is that even if you do make a horrible mistake, a few riveted armour panels can usually cover it up.

Have you considered some damage/missing panes in the cockpit canopy?

I think I'd have tossed the chin turret just because of the stupid design it'd be the first part trashed in a rough landing/crash & gw didn't really think much about reality here. More so than any of their other kits.

This looks awesome and you've really worked out the mechanics of getting it to all go together, which I think is the biggest challenge.

However, I think that you should 'orkify' the hull a little more. The seams and panels of the main body are still too 'Imperial' to my eye. Maybe some extra armor plates in places, or greenstuff some welds or put some rivets on there? The same goes for the cockpit glass. It is a focal point of the model (and it's COOL, because you can see so much of the Ork pilot), but it's still so "Imperial" looking. While you might not want to go so far as to make a new 'window cage' out of wire, you might actually go further than bullet holes and cut out a few panels entirely, or 'smash them' by removing large jagged shards.

I know that seems like a lot of criticism for someone who said they liked your model, but it's mostly cosmetic. You've got a great conversion there; I'm just quibbling about the 'skin' over it.

@Zogg thanks and exactly! I had to keep telling myself that very thing as i hacked parts off

@dreadclaw i have! Like i said above, im going to add a trail of bullet damage from the side of the cockpit across the canopy glass. That's how the former pilot met his fate :p

@red_starrise i personally like the chin turret...for Orks at least. And in my mind, the Techmarine would be wired into the jet, and if his vitals cease, the jet would make an emergency (non-crash) landing. Thats how i imagine the turret would stay intact

@Da Butcha appreciate the thought-out reply! I will be adding a little bit of scrap to the hull but personally like the intact Imperial look. Reason being, i think Orks would recognize the tech is miles better than their own and would try not to tinker too much :p
I will be adding some welds along the wings and maw (working on adding some teeth around the cockpit like in the inspiration photo) i think that, along with a a pair of shootas on each side of the cockpit, will go a long way to "Orking' it up!

I'll be sure to add some more pictures to the thread when i get some more stuff added to it!

Update: Was able to snap a few quick shots of the main body. It's pretty much done minus the cockpit window and top jaw/gob.

Here's the jet sans wings/canopy:



It was my first time doing any sort of weathering. I used the sponge method with dark brown/metal scratching. I like the results. I used it in a couple areas to cover mistakes as well

And here's the jet with unfinished wings. I'm still waiting on bitz to add a 2nd supa shoota to the wings:



As you can see from the side pictures, there's a trail of bullet holes that lead through the canopy and through the unfortunate Techmarine's head In my mind, that's how the Orks got the Stormtalon in the first place (As I said in one of my earlier posts, I imagine the marine being hardwired into the jet and if the pilot dies it lands somewhere safe without crashing in hopes of recovery) There's blood spatter in the inside of the cockpit against the far wall to indicate his fate, unfortunately with the orange tinted canopy it's hard to see.

I made the pilot's harness out of two greenstuff strips as my greenstuff skills are minimal. Mainly they're there to cover his arm joins since it was a pain to cram him into the cockpit and needed some arm repositioning.

The front gob has two long gold teef, as this indicates it's part of my Bad Moon contingent - the Goldteef. I'm hoping to find maybe an icon or symbol for the tail...still debating it.

So anyway, enough rambling! Hopefully will be updated again (relatively) soon and C&C welcome~

It's not bad but I don't know if it looks orky enough. I mean I read that sm will launch an offensive to recover a damaged vehicle so I'd have to assume that anything left for orks would be thoroughly trashed. Also, not enough guns, rule of thumb for orks is more dakka & bolted on armor.

 Red_Starrise wrote:
It's not bad but I don't know if it looks orky enough. I mean I read that sm will launch an offensive to recover a damaged vehicle so I'd have to assume that anything left for orks would be thoroughly trashed. Also, not enough guns, rule of thumb for orks is more dakka & bolted on armor.

Agreed. Though it does look pretty sharp.
I think maybe it should be red...so, you know, it goes faster.

On a side note, the fact that you squeesed an ork in there is pretty epic!

@Red_Starrise I didn't know that about SM's recovering vehicles...very interesting. I actually was imagining a little backstory about how the pilot was able to get his hands on the jet. I'll have to flesh it out some more
In the end I will have 3 pairs of supa-shootas, which is all it can take according to codex (I'm kind of weird about keeping things as close to wysiwyg as possible haha) I might be able to add a couple small armor plates places but I'll see when it all comes together~

@Dienekes016 I already have a red dakkajet so I wanted to change it up a bit. He will have red markings on glyphs though so I can still say he has a RPJ
And squeezing that ork in there definitely was stressful. I had to cut and file quite a bit of stuff to get his weird hunched over body to fit!

Hey dude, finally found this - you should start a log in the other plog forum. Would love to see what you're up to beyond cell phone pics!

I think just aim to really make it unique. Mek's don't have an idea or plan, it's not flight of the Phoenix, they just cobble stuff together till it works or blows up. It doesn't have to be completely symmetrical or even look like it should fly. Remember, ork tech works because of their group psychic ability that makes it work because they believe it will work.

So I got the supa-shootas done, which was my last remaining roadblock. Now all I need is to add a suitable glyph to the blank space on the wing and paint it up!


I went with the long barreled supa-shootas as I like the look of them. I also mounted them both on the wings as to not clutter up the front of the model.


Hoping I can the wings painted up in the next couple weeks and get a final update posted soon!