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So, feeling sufficiently distracted from painting my other work, I've decided to take a look at scratchbuilding a warbike-mounted warboss. I don't claim to be anything of an artist, but plans usually help, so I drew up a quick little thing while I was waiting in the doctor's office yesterday..



After fidgeting around with it a little bit, this is where I stand:



Now, scratchbuilding this at the appropriate scale is hard, but I'm doing my best for now and if it turns out to be garbage I can just scrap it and build off a beakie bike. However, I wanted this bike to be large and stand out..

Here's some more pictures:



For scale with a beakie bike and trimmed warboss torso.



Extra-grippy tires.





I also widened the back tire a touch to give it a firmer base.

Anyway, here's what I see for this overall:

Boss on bike, not on a wheelie I think, as I find that a little bit cliche. Or at least, a minor wheelie. 20 degrees or so... anyhow, leaning the bike over to one side with the power klaw arm on the side of the bike that's closest to the ground. I'm thinking he can either be reaching out with the klaws open as if he's leaning the bike and about to snag some unsuspecting victim in the klaws, or dragging the klaws along the ground.. which I almost like the idea of - I could have his klaws partially embedded in the ground, with klaw 'trails' cut in the ground behind him on the base - like it's such a heavy power klaw that he just lets it hang and spark along the ground, and cuts a path through the earth with the blades of the klaws. I can't decide which of these is the best idea, although I think the klaw dragging one would require a slightly larger base, which may be a disadvantage in gameplay.. still, I'm more for aesthetics than practicality. His base will probably be urban-themed, though, and I like the idea of putting a run-over stopsign underneath the bike, or bent at an angle like he just deflected off it.

Cow skull on the front handlebars, probably either from Ghazgkull or the WHFB command sprue, whichever I decide fits there the best. Two large guns, belt-fed, mounted underneath the handlebars and cow horns, with the barrels extending forward over the front tire.. The front tire, I'm thinking of putting a sort of tire guard over with spikes along the front to catch unfortunate beakies that aren't paying attention.

The seat of the bike is going to have greenstuff'd cushions, and the framework that I've set up is obviously going to be armor plated to the sides and cleaned up a bit.

I am working out the details on getting a Tau Ion cannon to use for the engine, and depending upon the size of it I may have to cut down the overall dimensions of the gas tank to fit it in as a 6-cylinder.

And, in typical fashion of my army, it requires numerous huge exhausts trailing off the back, goggles, and unfortunate grots. I'm thinking of either having a grot shackled to the boss's ankle that fell off and is being dragged along the ground at high speed, or possibly one hanging on for dear life to the hot exhaust pipe by one hand, with the rest of him trailing behind the bike in the air.

What do you guys think? My number one concern at the moment is going to be the dimensions of this bike to make sure it doesn't turn out to be the wrong size for the boss, and making sure the boss can sit comfortably on it and look natural.

grab a Ghazgul model and use him for size comparison.If he looks too small on the bike,its too big already.
I really like the idea of the trailing klaw,shuffling rubble all over the place.Im no expert but arent the Ork bikes slightly larger than marines ones?
If not,mount him on a monster base (60mm) and like that you got plenty space to build on.Since i presume he will lead your army and not only a squad,you can justify the base by making him HQ or something like that.
I say go for it,sounds like a great plan to me.
Good luck too

Looks promising!
Im thinking of making a Boss on a Bike for larger games. Id like to see how this turns out.

As an aside; Does anybody remember which UK WD carried the Warboss-on-bike rules?

Those pictures are really turning me on (not in that way) to my orks.

You dont need the WD, just go online and grab it.

Excellent! I love that you sketched the bike in profile and then built it to size. I like the claws acting as brakes/dragging along the ground idea.

Okay. I'm still waiting on getting the Tau Ion Cannon, which is slowing me down a little bit, but I've done minor work here and there. I may have posted the initial bike a little too early for it to matter, and the changes that I've made to it so far aren't really that much more helpful in terms of defining the overall shape of the bike, I've just started working a little more on the front forks because I don't think they'll interfere much with the engine.





The topmost joint (even with the top of the skull) is where the handlebars will attach. When I finally get the boss on the bike and his arms positioned I'll fill the handlebars in so that he holds them comfortably - I don't want to make them in the wrong direction or angle yet. Going to wrap some chains around the front of the cowskull. to keep it attached once I come up with however I'm going to make a gas tank... I've been thinking of trying to mount the twin-linked big shootas as a large-bore machine-gun that sticks between the two front forks and rests on the tire guard.

The tire guard will also need to get some rivets, and the forks need some detailing, but that'll all come in due time.

I'm working on making gauges, knobs, and dials for the handlebar area that should help.

I'm having a hell of a time making an exhaust tank. I think I'm going to have to make a blocky tank, as opposed to the rounded one I was hoping for initially just because getting a tank to be rounded properly out of plasticard is a pain in the ass.

I'm also not really happy with the overall look of the back end's shape, but I don't know what in particular is bugging me about it. I took a look at a tire well I made for another vehicle but never used.. I'm thinking I may replace the back tire with something similar to it. I also don't really like the seat's shape, though I couldn't tell you why. Haven't bothered to close up the sides yet because of that.



Overall, not much progress yet. Once I get the Ion Cannon I expect I'll be going a lot faster. Still, I'd love any help coming up with ideas for the gas tank or overall design of the back end, because I'm not really satisfied with the general shape at the moment.

Hey,whats that wheel you're using on the last pic?
Is it strapped together from bitz or is it actual in-box piece?

I felt I've gone long enough without a proppa plan, since when I don't have one I tend to get lost, and a poor sketch isn't much of a guide.

So:



I've outlined what I think my problem areas, conceptually, are. I'm also scrapping the old backend in favor of the new one - I just like the open tire more. It's made from two Buggy Tire guards that have been trimmed down to fit the widened wheel, with a strip of plasticard to cover the joint.

Give me a hand, guys. I'd love to hear some ideas.

Also, I expect the engine to be a little bit bigger than what I've drawn there, as the tau ion cannon is realistically a little bit larger. However, I'm going to put the cylinder blocks on either side of the gas tank, instead of front-to-back like on most real motorcycles.

And of course, huge excessive exhausts win the day for my Kult of Speed. The one in the drawing might be.. too excessive, of course, but I imagine I'll have at least 3 large bendy ones on either side that trail to the back.

Of course, this picture shows the bike in profile. When it's all said and done, the bike will be leaning over so the boss can get his klaw close enough to the ground to start draggin'.

Okay. Here's where I'm at - at least, the top framework.





The picture includes my old footie warboss for scale purposes. I thankfully think I paint a little bit better now, and I am going to be taking my damned sweet time painting this model so that I do it right

One thing you'll notice if you look carefully is that I ripped out the old front wheel in favor of a larger one, and replaced the back end's wheel bay with a larger, wider tire. Haven't added grip to either yet, but I expect the back one will be the only one that gets it if I do since the front tire's clearance on the guard is very minimal.

I was looking through some of the resin models I have on my shelves and noticed that the shoulder guard on one of them was very reminiscent of the shape of a gas tank, so I went nuts, carved it up a little bit, and there you have it. It's only minimally attached to the front forks at the moment, as I want to add more details in up there (gauges, cables, etc).

The underside's open and ready to receive whatever bitz I decide to throw in there, but overall I think the shape is satisfying. The seat'll get a little padding, probably some structural support underneath in the form of tubular framework.

Still, now it's just a matter of filling in detail underneath.

everything looks great but if your taking suggestions maybey an ork biker chick on the back ?! and if the tau parts don't work there a lot of kids toy motorcycles with v-twin engines that might be slightly out of scale but very orkish !!

I vote for the guns in the front and a grot in the back.

I've only done small bits this morning. Added some pads to the seat and tried to add a bit of stitching to the sides - I'm going to clean the edges of them up a little bit with a hobby knife later. Also added some gauges up front, but there'll be more before this is done. And I chained the cow skull down just because.

The rest of what I'm going to try and do today are to seat the boss's torso in place, get his legs cut to straddle the seat properly, and probably build the bike frame that goes underneath the seat.

Looking great so far!  I definately agree that you need to have some sort of orky girl or grot hanging on the back of the bike, plus of course a ton of gear.  Maybe a secondary seat, with saddle bags? If you have the skills to resculpt one of the daemonettes riding on the slaneshi beasts... that would be awsome.  Just give it a grot's face, more hair, and change the hand to be making a guesture and you would be golden. 

The claw tips dragging on ground sound great, and if you can get the base right, will really sell the model.

As for guns, I think you should keep the chopper look, and either mount them to the back, or have the grot girl work them.

I just wanted to say that I'm really enjoying watching this come together. It's cool to see the drawings come to life. Maybe I should plan more...

Well, I pinned the torso to the bike, and loosely pinned the arm in the position it'll be holding the handlebar in..

The stock legs are too short and too much of a pain in the *donkey*to lengthen, so I went ahead and started making bionik legs.. (or leg, so far) It's easier than trying to lengthen the stock metal legs and also provides a bit of backstory - he's on the bike because his legs are slow, mega-armor-esque contraptions that don't give him the mobility any normal speed freek craves

It looks.. odd. Having trouble getting the proportions right. I putty'd it in place for the photos just so you could see the positioning where it'd probably end up being in. Needs a foot, too.

I attempted to greenstuff over the stock warboss shoulder pads to convert them to tires like I've done for some of my other orks and nobs, as I have a road-warrior junkyard theme going for them - they wear parts of vehicles for protection, etc. It came out looking pretty bad (or at least worse than on my other boyz), so I'm probably going to go pick up a new warboss tomorrow, pull the torso off it, and have another go. (This is partly because the warboss head that this blister came with has the huge horns on it, which look stupid when mounted with the cowskull on the handlebars - too much horizontal jutting. I'll get a plainer face so I can modify it accordingly).

Be rough with a critique on this. If it doesn't look close to right in posture now, it'll keep looking unnatural for the rest of the build, and I want this bike to come out looking good.

Edit: The trailing wires on the leg are going to be attached to the body, I've just left myself a bit of extra to work with until I figure out where I'm attaching them. Probably at the base of his back somewhere. I am also aware of the gaps in certain places on his body, i.e. arm to shoulder - they'll all be cleaned up, The pose and overall appearance is more my concern at the moment.

i would make it a tad wider...
like a V12 engine on it,handle-bar mount the shootas and shove in a bunch of tied up Grots in a side car.
use them as 'ammo'....you know...pick 'em and throw 'em.
Like the way its coming along though....looks promising

Well, I had an interesting afternoon.

I bring my model to my local GW, along with the related bitz I had for it, in a backpack. Since the GW's located in a mall, and I ride a motorcycle myself, I generally lug most of my belongings around in a backpack so that I can get them from point A to point B...

I threw my bag underneath one of their gaming tables that had people playing on it thinking that it wouldn't walk off with that many people watching and started browsing through all the blisters on the wall across the store..

And when I get back? Bag's gone. Bike, bitz, and all. And the stupid stuff I bought from the rest of the mall that day as well.

Apparently someone must have walked in and grabbed it at some point, but nobody in the store claims to have seen anything, so clearly there are store ninjas present. In any event, I hope whoever stole my bag enjoys their half-built warbike.

In retrospect, I suppose this was a good thing. While it's going to force me to buy more materials to continue to make a warboss on a bike, I wasn't particularly enamored with the way the old one was going to begin with...

With all that said, I've been feeling rather down and depressed today until I thought of something that I thought would be a phenomenal idea to base a warbike on. The Hardy Daytona, from FF7:



And a sketch I dug out of google:



The bike is understandably a touch more streamlined than I think would suit orks, but the general slapped-together and mechanical monstrosity aspect I think is there. It's also a little high off the ground, and would still require excessive exhaust pipes, but overall I can see it working as a base for ideas.

(And maybe even an LED tucked into the front. )

So, I hate to have to start over, but here I go.

Once got stolen a very bad paintrd gargoyl on a tourney, not that bad but annoying. Ihope for you your property shows up somehere. Your new project is even more cool looking and if you stick to it I really like to see that tutorial !

this a shame it is....
well if you're lucky,someone will realize the mistake and bring it back.
Good luck on your Daytone though...sounds fun

Oh, man, getting that stolen sucks.

But, at least you've got a nice plan B.

Alright. So, here's my first stab at a new bike frame thematically drawing from the hardy-daytona but not a direct rip My footie boss fortunately wasn't in my possession when the backpack walked off, so I still have him to use for scale purposes. A lot of the problems I'm having with scratch-building a bike are size considerations.







I'm thinking it's a bit longer than I want, but I can bend the front pipes up a little farther and shorten it up a bit. I'm filling in the undersection with the engine area at the moment before I start trying to figure out how to lay a seat overtop all the gubbinz.

I'm also trying to be a bit more detailed with my work this time, as that was part of what was agitating me on my old one.

Everything gets a bunch of rivets by the time I'm done, so don't worry about bare surfaces.

that bag thing sure sucks, but look on the bright side. now you get a Warboss Bike FF7 Style .
there should be more Conversions like that...I think my Warboss needs a new Choppa...

Got a little more done. Going to armor plate the gas tank a bit more, and the seat will probably come soon.





There are some gaps in the worky bits that will be filled with a touch of greenstuff later on.

The front tire + suspensions are simply balanced on there for photos for the moment, as I plan on turning them slightly into the turn. They front forks are also a bit long. They'll get a little trimming down.

I added on the seat and basically finished the general frame of the bike off. I still need to add intakes and the guns below them on the sides.







Comments or crits are very welcome. There's a lot of extra stuff that needs to be added that I think will help the shape - lots of exhausts, extra bits, rivets.

Alrght.. Just to figure out the placement of some of the other things (i.e. handlebars) I started working on getting the boss mounted on the seat properly. Gave him some bionik legs to start with - obviously, the area between where the legs join on the torso will be filled with more worky mechanics, but I'm just setting him up for posing at the moment.



The bike also looked a lot better with an extended rake, but I had to flip the forks over to do it as the 'support' I have attaching that wheel guard to the center of the wheel looks wrong if it's not parallel or perpendicular to the ground - increasing the angle the other way made it look bad. I'll probably add some spikes or something to the front of the tire guard.



And here's a few posing shots - he'll be leaning forward into this one.





I'm also considering draping a bearskin rug over the seat, with the head of the bear facing back off the rear end of the seat.. not sure yet, though.

At this particular point I'm starting to feel the bike's not orky enough.. but I'm not sure what I can do to correct that. It just doesn't seem mean enough for a boss's bike. I'm hoping exhaust pipes might help, and guns probably will, but still, I'm very open to suggestions.

Absolutely fantastic! I hate to sound like a jerk (not really) but this second bike is turning out way cooler than the first. In my experience, most projects are better the second time around. Most people just don't bother to go back and re do the thing because it's done, but having to re do it is probably a good way to free up the creative process!

That being said, I'm sure we will all be watching ebay and preparing to severly deal with any recent sellers of scratchbuilt ork warbikes.

This looks really promissing ! Very cool.

I added on a lower leg section for the boss after I got back from job-hunting this afternoon.. while it looks decent, I get the feeling that the legs are a little too splayed out away from the bike, but at the same time I think they look decent for bioniks. The area between the legs underneath his torso will be filled with mechanics, I just haven't gotten around to it yet. He's actually pinned to the seat at the moment. I took pictures from a few angles so you guys might be able to size the bike up a bit with the rider and tell me what you think.













I really need to get this thing orked up. I keep looking at this every now and again and getting dissapointed because something on it isn't coming together right, but I can't really figure what. I keep considering where the guns will go - either tacked on either sides of the forks, or.. well, I have the thought of a grot on the seat behind the boss shooting some gun mounted to the bike's frame, but I can't logistically picture how that would work.

What do you guys think?

Chains and skulls are always a good choice. To solve the leg prblem you can cut of some parts of the seat. Or cut the insides of the legs and model some blanket or skin from a slain monster squig over the seat so it would look like that the legs are sunk half in the smooth underground. I hope my poor english could eplain what I mean...