Pudding Wrestler's Perfidious Projects: Grot Tanks for the memories.

Having built new Grot Tanks, and mostly painted new Grot Tanks, I decided that my old ones looked all wrong. They were the first ork vehicles painted for Waaagh! Snaggatoof, and I have changed my painting style, so they don't fit in. I have stared to remedy this, and I'm also going to build a few more. I'm low on Plasticard (just ordered more) so I'm going to try to make them with as little structural plasticard as I can. As a result, the next two will be based on PVC pipe. I still have tons of .5mm plasticard to add details and plates, but it's a bit thin for structural work.
Anyway, time for pictures!

This is the second Grot Tank - this time armed with a skorcha. I was channeling Italian tankettes of ww1 and the ww1 Ford 3-Ton tank on this one. It's the first Grot Tank with exposed road wheels.

It has ended up longer than the others, mostly because I didn't think it was selling the whole 'flame' part of the design without the big fuel tanks.

Here it is with the Rokkit version from MFH Twenty-Nin.

And here is is mostly painted with a second rokkit version I built later.

Meanwhile, Scale Reference Cat is being stalked by the Morkanaut (actually, this photo is the result of me looking at Scale Reference Cat from behind and thinking that from certain angles he bears a strong resemblance to the Morkanaut from certain angles...

I've started to repaint my old Grot Tanks to match the new stuff - I was never happy with the weathering on them before, and everything else in Waaagh! Snaggatoof is pretty clean as Bad Moons are the only orks with enough teef to afford to run their vehicles through the car wash - since Scunthork is by the sea and has a salt-water car wash it's pretty hard on the exposed metal parts, hence all the rust to go with the clean paint.

Scale Reference Cat, meanwhile, is ignoring me and sleeping in a box full of miniatures - moslty Mad Juzzy the Flutist's Bounty.

Well, that about wraps it up for this update. I'm going to start working on some PVC pipe based Grot Tanks, and I'm also planning on building a Gun Wagon and Grot Mega Tank soon. Plus, I just ordered a 1/35 Tamiya Sherman online for a mysterious orky project of mystery!

Pudding Wrestler's Perfidious Projects: Now THAT'S. gun!

Time for a tiny little bijou update-let I think!

I've finished and installed the main cannon. It's so huge that any attempt to just paint the inside black will look ludicrous. So I'm going to install a shell inside the barrel. With a happy face on it. 

I've also added a tank commander converted up from a nob with some mek boy parts. He's magnetized because I fear he'd break otherwise, and also be a right pain to paint. I have started work on the ork who will fit in the other hatch and operate the rokkits.

And here's a special bonus pic of Scale Reference Cat giving an idea of the size of the left over wands I made for Son Of Hoodling's Harry Potter Party. One of them has a Hagrid's Beard core. The one with the Cheese and Tomato core chose a young wizard on Saturday, much to said wizards confusion.

Pudding Wrestler's Perfidious Projects: My tank is BLAST!

Time for an update on the Kill Blasta (I think). I have not worked on it all that much of late - the weekly descent of the Hobbiests of the Hoodling's Hole has been lightly interrupted by Lego these last few weeks, but I have been spending some time either before work of after dinner most days.

This side is the more complete side. I have plated and detailed the upper hull, and plated the lower hull (not detailed yet because I have to work out the suspension). I have not added rivets to most of it yet, sort of planning to do that all at once in one big orgy of riveting.

Here's a detail shot of the exhaust mechanisms on this side.

This is the rear hatch which allows the 12 boyz carried in the armoured bowels of the Kill Blasta to spew forth and hit things. There'll be hatches on both sides and one above the main gun too. The four tubes top right are the rokkit lancher, and are just mocked up at the moment.

The main gun in only blu-tacked on at the moment, so I've removed it for a clearer look at the engine.

I've basically worked out how I'm doing the drive sprockets, road wheels idlers etc for the suspension, but I'm still working out how to make all the track links. Probably slowly.

Pudding Wrestler's Perfidious Projects: The Stompa is COMPLETE!

It's been a very long time coming, but the stompa is finally complete! I started this bad boy at Easter last year, worked on it slowly until June due to a spectacularly nasty and long running cold, and then sort of stalled until a few weeks ago. And now it's done. I built the final twin-shoota pintle mount yesterday, finished it up today, added some final rivets around where it's installed at the lower jaw, tweaked a few more rivets here and there, and then installed pilots to the supa rokkits. And now the vast task of painting comes...

So now there are actually a whole NINE kit parts on the model - all but one being figures. But just look how happy the ork gunner here looks!

Here's the twin big shoota pintle installed, all the riveting done, and me thinking 'YAY! FINISHED!' until I noticed the pilots in the supa rokkits not being there yet...

I suspect the boy here may suffer from deafness due to having a Mega Gattler going off right over his head all the time...

Here's the right-side supa rokkit on it's launch rail.

And the left side rokkit - this was the first one I built. 

Here's the mighty Deff Kannon as it looks installed, with the new Supa Rokkit shoulder pad installed above it.

And now the Mega Choppa or whatever the damn thing's called. There were some parts hanging off the back designed to link to a hydraulic system to push the arm up and down, but they broke when I dropped it, and I liked it better without.

And finally, here are the supa rokkits with the pilots installed. The one closest to camera is a complete grot, trimmed down to fit. The other two have green stuff bodies.

Well, I guess I should probably start working on the paint now. Which could take another year.

Pudding Wrestler's Perfidious Projects: Back on the bench.

Guess who's back on the workbench? That's right, after a very long break, I'm working on the Stompa again. So far this has just meant working on the Deff Kannon (or mega kannon or whatever they call it these days...)

This is where it all started - the ammo cylinder. Originally, I was planning on a sort of revolver design, but I ran into some problems with making the cylinder properly (this is part of the reason the project stalled). I decided to simplify and go for a drum magazine instead which was much simpler. The end caps are MDF cut using a hole saw and drill, which have been plated with plasticard.

To get a rough idea of the gun's length I cut out the barrel and tested it - obviously there's more gun behind the cylinder.

The more gun behind the cylinder in question.

The gun as fitted to the shoulder. I was also having trouble with arm design until I realised the gun was too big to fit to an arm without clashing with the legs, so I just welded it right onto the shoulder. 

And here's the gun fully detailed with underslung skorcha - there's also a big shoota mounted to the top but it's not visible here. The gun is about the same size as the old Rhino kits, and gives the current Rhino a run for its money.

Well, there it is. The Stompa is now well on its way to completion. I'm working on the supa rokkits now, and then it's just a matter of a pintle mounted twin big shoota on the lower hook of the moon.

And paint. Oh so much paint.

The race that once more fails to stop Pudding Wrestler's Perfidious Projects: The Sequel.

Here it is, nearly 2100 on cup day. Not a great deal got done this afternoon. Things sort of slowed down and I got sidetracked by DVDs. However, some of the mystery surrounding the Shokkjump Dragsta can now be shed.

Here's the dragsta with the body mocked up. This is not quite the final position, but it's close enough to give you an idea. That's a 1:32 toy kombi van by the way.

Here's the driver - he's from one of the trukks that formed part of Mad Juzzy the Flutist's bounty. The beige stuff is all part of the kombi's interior. The rest has been cut off to make room for the shokk reactor which will be going into the back.

The race that once more fails to stop Pudding Wrestler's Perfidious Projects.

It's just after noon on Cup Day here in Victoria, and while the various glittering socialites are parading around Flemington race course in tiny hats, here in the mekboy workshops of Grot, we're doing what we always do with cup day long weekend - building stuff. I like to try to get a huge amount of hobby in over the long weekend - in the past I have actually run a challenge to build, paint and complete a whole model over the course of just this one day. This year, I am scratchbuilding a Shokkjump Dragsta.
Once again, I am not that mad about GW's model. It doesn't really scream 'dragster' - it looks about as  heavy as all the other new vehicles, and apart from being on drag slick tyres, it's not really very dragster shaped either. So obviously I have to build one and make it very clearly dragsterish. Also, I get the fun of building a Shokk Reactor. Which I am certainly excited about.

The chassis is now basically complete. The wheels are not glued to anything yet, but the axels are all mounted and it rolls nicely. Wheels are from a 1:32 scale toy car (front) and a 1:25 scale model Pro Street car (rear)

The engine is almost done - I still need to add some belts to drive the twin super chargers. The area between is being left clear to allow the Shokk Rifle to fire through the engine.

I still need to fine tune the engine's position and add some mounts. At the moment the exhausts get a bit mixed up witht he wheels.

The rear diff and suspension has just been mounted. The yellow bit in the middle is a bead I found at a $2 shop - more of them will be used in the reactor.

Stand by for further updates, including what I'm using for the body of this thing later this afternoon or evening!
And if I win anything on the cup, who knows, I might spend it on actual GW vehicles models - but mostly so I can point out all their many failings and sneer at them while scrath building things I like.

Pretty Pictures: Waaagh Snaggatoof at Orkness showcase

Yesterday I had a game fall through at HGC, so I took the opportunity to set up the Orkness terrain and get some good photos of Waaagh Snaggatoof on it. It occured to me that I rarely have all of the army and terrain out at the same time, and in fact the army spends a lot of time packed away meaning that I usually just take photos of the latest additions when they're done, rather than getting shots of everything. So here's how Waaagh Snaggatoof stands right now. There are a few things which have taken a bit of damage which needs repairing, and a few others which I thought I had finished but hadn't. Also, I forgot to take the Morkanaut with me, so it is conspicuous in it's absence.

The first four meganobs stride forth to defend the Hotel Grunthos. I really need to get round to making more - I had grand plans for a unit of ten...

I've scaled the plan back a bit to six since Morkanauts and Gorkanauts can carry three meganobs each. Of course, I need to build a gorkanaut to take advantage of this...

I have a bewildering array of plastic nobs, both the multipart boxed set and Black Reach versions, plus some vintage metal versions. I should also add more to my nobs mob... If nothing else, painting a unit would be a big change of pace from scratch building a Stompa.

I've also got quite a few space Black Reach deffkoptas, so I should work on expanding the Winged Huzzorks.

I've recently discovered the joy of running max-size units of killa kans. Of course, since the first three kans were one of the earlier parts of the army painted they don't quite fit with the newer ones which were painted after I'd ironed out all the wrinkles in painting all that yellow.

The two on the left here are both early models - note the lack of rust. My system for painting rust is a more recent evolution of the paint scheme.

When I pulled them out of the case, I found a few weapons and icon poles had come lose.

 

My Mega Armoured HQ choices - Warboss on Mekky-Throne (counts as Mega Armour) and Big Mek (almost Killa Kan size)

The Big Mek is also an early part of the army - I may need to revisit him and add a few details and finishing touches which have evolved since he was painted.

Deff Koptas. If I had known how many Deff Koptas I would end up with across a few bags of assorted Orks at CanCon 2018's second hand stall, I might not have gone with this design. On the other hand, I got no bikes at all, so the plan of turning Deff Koptas into bikes seems to be working.

These guys are about the halfway mark of the army - there are a few paint tricks which developed later, but it's mostly all in place at this point.

And here are the buses I posted a Modelling For Hippos ishoo on - this is the first time painted pics have appeared on the blog (I think)

The dramatic chap in the middle is Francois; the only rank and file ork in the army with a name. He's converted from one of the two-piece arrer boyz in the 6th Ed WFB starter box. I have lots of them...

This is clearly the greatest of the choppas on the nob sprue. I usually run my boyz with a klaw nob, but for the photos this looks so much cooler.

I have sourced some fine metal mesh which I plan to install over the large areas of glass - which will also be gloss varnished before I install the mesh.

Heres' the other bus.

I know that 40K orks don't really have a use for unit banners, but I felt like doing some free-hand work, so. they just sort of ended up with a banner.

My lobba battery with Grot Bots take up position behind the good ship Orka. I have one more lobba built, and I've also got some partially built zzap guns and kannons - I will finish them some time.

I realise Mek Big Guns are probably a better option, but I didn't feel like making anything so involved at the time, so the simpler Big Guns were chosen. I've made them a lot bigger than the old metal versions.

The Grot Tanks were the very first thing painted for the army. As such, they show a very early version of my yellow paint technique. They also have a lot of chipping and weathering (which I'm not really happy with). For the moment,I am arguing that my other vehicles all have immaculate paint free from chipping because, as Bad Moons, Waaagh Snaggatoof can afford enough Grot slaves to re-paint them between battles. The Grots never have time to repaint their own vehicles because the ork vehicles keep them so busy.

This is the kommand tank.

This is the first grot tank I built, and the first to appear on TFH in it's unpainted form.

The first grotzooka variant - more of an assault gun than a tank really.

This one always reminds me of a WW2 German Panther - it's something to do with the shape of the turret.

The buggies were the first thing I built for the army, although not the first things painted. They look rather bright compared to the other vehicles - I have started to add more shade on later machines.

Having Orkness set up gave me plenty of opportunities to get really dramatic angles.

Dramatic wheel is dramatic.

The wheel on the front buggy had broken - once it was dry I got all three together for a group shot.

It too, is not immune to being dramatic.

Having all the orks out finally gave me a chance to photograph the stompa with some scale reference. Note that the lads in front of it are nobs, not boys, so they are a bit larger. The nobs were on top of the case, the boys at the bottom and I couldn't be bothered digging...

The Stompa is taller even that the Hotel Grunthos, the tallest Ork building I have. It's also taller than the blimp in the background (which is technically a terrain piece but is on the right height base for 40K flyers) which leads me to imagine flyers accidentally ramming into it...

 And there you have it! I didn't photograph the Megatrak Scrapjet because, despite what I remembered, it's not actually finished. It's finished enough to photograph, but I had taken the tyres off while I painted it, and didn't bring them. I also left the Morkanaut at home, so no pics of that either (although I did post extensive photos of both painted and unpainted versions in the past). There should be an update on the Stompa fairly soon - I have gotten the close combat weapon done and am about to embark on the rest of the arm for that side.