Leman Russ Pt. III

Okay, let’s add on all that detail and make this pop.

First up is the little sighting hatch on the front of the hull.  I’m sure somebody knows the real name for this—feel free to educate me in the comments.  I started with the sighting window itself and added two tabs onto it (at the top and bottom of the template). I glued it and just held it for a few minutes.  Once it was solid I glued it to the outer panel and held that for a few minutes.  Finally, I clamped all of that to the outer panel and let it dry while I worked on other things.  Once it was good, I put it on the front of the hull.

Next up, the tread wall has lots of round detail pieces representing rollers-axles-wheels-something (again, feel free to put the correct term below).  The easy choice is to use my hole punches to make various sizes and work with those.  The catch is... none of the hole punch sizes really match up with the size of the detail pieces.  I went back and forth on this for a bit, debating pieces that looked a little small or a little big instead of cutting out all the pieces and having them be mostly round vs. the perfect discs I’d get from the punches.

In the end, I went with the hole punches.  This is detail work, and I think more people will skim over things that look really good vs. focusing on things that look okay.  The off things draw the eye, in other words.  So I played around with sizes and put some discs down on the tread wall.  As I mentioned above, some are a bit small, some a hair large, but I think it’s pretty unquestionably a Leman Russ setup.

Helpful Hint—That top front wheel/roller/axle piece. There’s a small problem here.  On the template, it goes down right on the seam between two of the panels.  But if you check an actual Leman Russ model, it sits in front of the seam.  On this model the seam is just a little too far forward for a clean placement, but it’ll by passable if you play with it a bit.

Next up is the second big part of the project.  If those tread walls were half of the work, this is about another third. Seriously, between the layers and the links, about 4/5 of the time on this project so far has been these tread elements.  They’re not difficult, they look fantastic, but just keep in mind they’re going to be the big time suck. Plan accordingly.  Have background entertainment prepared.

The first layer of tread links took about an hour.  I cut them all at once and then peeled off the template-paper where I could.  There are ten extras for each side, so there’s some room to pick and choose.  Also worth remembering that sixteen of them are going to be on the bottom, so there’s even more leeway.  I set the glue on the tread element section by section and then set the pieces down, making sure all the best, matching ones were on the front parts of each tread element.

Helpful Hint—I printed out a spare page of the template to help with placement.  It let me see how many to a section and gave me a nice sense of spacing.

The second layer is a little trickier.  This is the one that makes the treads really pop, though, so it’s worth it.  A small tread link goes between each of the larger ones.  I put a drop of glue, spread it a bit between the two sides, and placed accordingly.  The tricky part is on the corners.  A drop of glue will still hold one, but you need to keep an eye on it until it dries or gravity can pull them out of line.  Once set, they do a great job of “rounding” out the treads.

Once all this was done, it was time for the big moment.  Gluing the tread elements to the hull and hoping it looked like a Leman Russ.  I used a couple photos for reference, glued, and held the whole thing for about ten minutes to make sure it held.

Helpful Hint—Be extra careful when lining up the tread elements and the hull.  Because of that odd, uneven piece on top—plus the unusual shape overall—it can be tricky to make everything match in every direction.  Check how far forward and back the treads sit.  Make sure they sit flat.  Check it all.

Now... it was cool getting two posts in one week, right?  Well, funny story...

This weekend is both Memorial Day here in the states and also my birthday weekend. This means I’m going to be playing, not building, all weekend. So I won’t have anything new to show off next week. 

But after that... we’re going to turn this Leman Russ body into a Destroyer.

Leman Russ, Pt II

Hell—I wrote this up last week and never actually posted it.  Yay for you. Double post this week.

Sooooo, last time I got the layered sides cut out and glued together. This time I’m going to try to get the hull and both tread elements (for lack of a better term) done.  Yes, I’m sure there is a better term for what I’m calling tread elements. If you happen to know it, feel free to share your knowledge in the comments. 

The hull is pretty straightforward. Two sides and a long strip that connects them and becomes... well, the part we’ll see.  These are all big and simple, so I cut them all out with scissors.  Only took about ten minutes to have them all done and marked.

Helpful Hint—Because I’m planning on building this as a Destroyer, I didn’t make any of the cuts or adjustments in the hull that would normally allow for the forward lascannon sponson.  I may end up regretting this—we’ll see.  If you were making an actual Leman Russ (or variant) you’ll want to be sure to make those extra cuts.

I lined up two of the front-strip edges against one side of the hull.  Once I had them as close as possible, I clamped them with a pair of clothespins.  After about ten minutes I moved the first clamp along to the next edge, and then swapped out the next pin to the edge after that.  It took a bit longer to work this way, but it let me get much cleaner lines on the whole thing.  Once I had the whole strip attached, I let it sit for a few more minutes with a small weight on it to keep it pressed flat.  I used my smartphone, for this, actually.  It’s a good size and weight.

 

While it sat, I cut up some of the scrap cardstock into strips about 10" or 12" long and made some of those consummate Vs to put inside the hull.  It's worth noting that the hull has two heights, front and back, so I cut two different width strips for the Vs.  Note also that these went vertically—I want to have some support in case something ends up pressing down on the hull. Especially since that’ll be what I do next.

There’s a raised section on top of the Leman Russ where the turret usually mounts.  The shape is a bit odd, but it goes together very well.  The worst part is that—even with tiny tabs—you’ll essentially need to hold the whole thing from all directions until it dries.  So make sure you’ve got a good movie on. 

If you follow me on Twitter, you know I did not have a good movie on for this part...

Helpful Hint—If I was going to do a Leman Russ (or variant), this would be a good time to think about making some sort of socket for the turret.  Or you could just glue the socket in place, depending on how nitpicky your own gaming group is. Or do something clever with magnets.

Next up was the engine compartment in the back.  This is a little tricky because it runs up the back section of the hull and the back part of that raised section. This means there’s a slight angle along the back edge of the compartment.  It’s easy to miss, so watch for it.

With that addressed, this is an easy piece to build. I added a few extra tabs and glued the body together.  Then I added the detail frame on top.  Once that was dry, I glued the whole thing in place.

Once all this was done, I glued the last wall in place and sealed up the hull.  It took a tiny bit of wiggling and pressure to make everything line up just right, and then a few more minutes of waiting.  Once the glue had a good hold, I set it down on its side with a book to hold it in place.

Next up was the treads.

To make this easier to follow along, I’m going to try to refer to things the following way from here on.  When I talk about “the treads,” I’m going to mean the horizontal section, the part that (hypothetically) runs around the wheels and moves the tank.  The tread walls will be the pieces I built last week and the matching inside piece—the vertical sections.  The tread element will be the whole thing together.  So there’s one tread element on each side of the hull.  Make sense?  Hopefully that’ll cut confusion a bit.  Again, if you happen to know the actual terminology, feel free to share the correct names in the comments.

           

On this template, the tread is two sections.  Rather than join them, I decided to attach them to the tread walls individually.  I figured this would give me more space to work the clips and get nice, solid joins.  And it worked.   Once I had one attached, I added the second (the back section), and joined it to both the tread wall and the front section.

Helpful Hint—I glued them to the inside wall first.  If anything went wrong, it’s easier to replace all of those parts than the layered, detail-heavy wall I put together last time.

I did this for both of the tread elements. While they were drying, I cut some consummate Vs to go inside the elements.  I tend to pick up my tanks by the sides, so I wanted those sides to be solid.

Once I had the Vs in place and everything was dry, I glued the layered tread walls in place.  I lined them up, wrapped them in an old veggie bag (wax paper works, too) and set them under a few hardcover books.  Again—I made sure everything was lined up first.  It’d suck to have it dry crooked after all this work.  I left these to dry for about three hours and they turned out... well, fantastic.  Solid and strong.

           

Alas, all of that drying time on some of these pieces needed means I didn’t get quite as far as I’d hoped to this weekend. The big elements are done, but there’s still some detail work. So I think I’m going to stretch the “Leman Russ” portion of this out for one more week before I switch over to full Destroyer mode.  So to speak.

Or, it was going to be one more week before I forgot to post this last week.  Now it’ll just be up on Friday morning.

Leman Russ

So, I’ve had it in my mind to build a Destroyer for a while now.  I’ve always liked the look and idea of them.  Much like the Basilisk (another favorite) it’s less a tank than it is a mobile platform for a single, massive weapon.  Plus, some of the folks I game with are starting to assemble (no pun intended) some pretty impressive forces, so having a dedicated super-heavy hunter gives me something that can die on turn one a lot...

That being said, I’ve decided to do these first two posts as Leman Russ posts.  The Destroyer is built on a Leman Russ hull, and it is one of the most popular tanks out there (after the Rhino, probably).  If somebody wants to build a tank company with nine tanks in it... this’ll be a good starting point.

An advantage of the Leman Russ being so popular is there are lots of different templates out there for it.  And for all the many, many variants of it.  Some brilliant ones by Patroch.  I dug through my collection and found a nice one from way back when—one of the first Leman Russ templates I ever saw, to be honest.  I’d love to give credit where credit is due, but the best I can find on it is a date (2000-11-15) and the word Bile, which might be a proper name or a handle or maybe someone created this template as part of an elaborate revenge plot?  If you know who created it, please speak up.  Regardless, it’s great and up in the STC Archive for your perusal.

One of the things I love about this template is its relative simplicity.  It has a lot of detail, but the whole thing is only four pages long. And all that’s on the last page is the standard turret—it’s really about three and a quarter pages.   I managed to fit about 90% of this on a single frozen pizza box.  So this is going to be cheap even from a cardstock point of view.

I’m going to start with the outer sides and work in.  This may seem a bit odd. but it means I’ll be able to get most of the treads and hull done in just two posts. Again—very simple template.

The sides of this template are layered, a lot like the Malcador I built years ago. It means a little more work, but it makes for a much, much more detailed model—and a much more solid one, too.  If you look at this template, sheets one and two each have both sides of a tread and three layers of detail (plus some other stuff we’ll go into later).  It’s worth noting that those inner layers, the two sides, are all angles, not curved. This is to help line up the tread pieces later.

Helpful Hint—The outer two layers have some fine detail work at the bottom.  The third layer is just one big ring, really.  Whenever I have to do pieces like this, I always cut out the inner bits before I cut the whole element from cardstock.  It’s much easier to work this way, especially with narrow bits like that ring.  Cut the element out first and it’s harder to hold and harder to work with.

Once everything was cut out, I set it out in order and started gluing sections on, one at a time.  I used my clothespin-clamps every step to make the edges stayed as flush as possible—especially at the top.  This is going to be a very visible edge, so it’ll draw a lot of attention. 

When all four layers were together and lined up, I let them sit for a minute to firm up. Then I carefully wrapped them in some old veggie bags (wax paper would work, too) and set them under a pile of books.  There’s a lot of glue here, and I don’t want anything to curl or bend while it’s drying.  Again—just to hammer it home—I made sure everything was lined up first.  It’d suck to cut out all this detail and then have it dry crooked.

I left these under the books for about... four hours?  I went out and saw Captain America: Civil War.  When I came back, they were dry, solid, and very flat.

And, believe it or not, the Leman Russ body is almost half done at this point.

Next time, I’ll assemble the treads and the hull, then put it all together.

New STC Data Discovered

Just a quick post this time.

As has been noted, I haven’t added the templates for the past few projects into the STC archive.  Sorry about that.  There were some password problems, now resolved.

(and, as a reminder to myself, the new password is now in the original document for this post...)

Anyway, everything should be current now, including templates for the promethium pipes and the Kroot tents (there's a whole Scenery folder in the archive now).  I’ll try to be a lot better about keeping it up to date.  Maybe even pre-updated, so the templates are uploaded before I start new projects.

Over the next few weeks, I’m hoping to finish off an old project that’s been sitting here for... well, about four years waiting for final touches.  Maybe dabble with some cheap or easy conversions.  A few tricks and techniques.  And I’m going to get back to a basic Paperhammer tank.  Something to deal with all the Knights and Gargants.

Kroot Encampment

Very sorry for the long delay.  As mentioned before I had copyedits. And then I was a guest at New York Comic Con.  And then I came home to a week’s worth of emails and messages and it turned out my publisher already had layouts done.  And all of that finally got squared away... well, yesterday.

Anyway...

Some of you may remember this little tent template from about fifteen years back.  Games Workshop actually just gave it away on their website at one point, no strings attached.  I went looking for it but couldn’t find it anywhere there.

(For the record, it should be up in the STC archives shortly after I post this)

This template was originally designed for the Kroot.  There’s a large one and a small one, but they don’t look that different side by side.  I think it might be a 1/2” difference, tops.  Even on this scale, that’s not much.

The template’s pretty solid and can be built as-is with no problem.  I put together five tents (two large, three small) in about two hours.  That’s printing them out, gluing them to some old frozen pizza and cereal boxes, cutting them out, and assembling them.

It’s goes together very easily, too.  My only suggestion might be to make the tab on the tent body a bit wider.  I scored the corners, pre-folded, and then clamped the tab with a few clothespins.  I let those each tent body sit for about ten minutes as I assembly-lined through them.

I glued the entryway and the front panel together as a separate piece.  I tried this template back when it came out and this is where I had trouble with it.  I decided to assemble this first, then attach it.  The tabs fit in the slots, then I folded them over and glued them for extra stability.  Again these sat for about ten minutes each with  a clothespin holding them together.

Once they were dry, I glued the flaps of the front panel, set the tent body over it, and wiggled it until everything was in the right place.  This helped me make sure that entrance sat flat on the ground and didn’t end up “floating.”  Again, maybe ten minutes for the glue to dry.  I didn’t glue them on to bases, but really any irregular piece of foamcore or cardstock would work.

Helpful Hint—If you want to do a cardstock base, stack two or three layers on top of each other, glue it, and let it dry under a stack of books for at least half an hour—preferably longer.  Wrap it in wax paper, too, in case glue squeezes out onto the books.  This will give you a heavier and much more solid base that won’t bend or flex when things dry on it.

Here’s a large and small tent side by side.  As I said, not much difference in size.  That’s a pretty solid little Kroot camp, though, and three or four can cover a good-sized space on the gaming table as an obstacle, objective, or whatever you want to use them for. With the assembly line and drying time, I ended up building four tents in just over an hour.

Now... let’s look at some options and variations.

I wanted to make the tents look a little more unique and handmade, and I remembered something from way back when the Ogre line was first released for Fantasy. There was a great article in White Dwarf (remember those days?) about how to scratch-build oversized yurt-like huts for an Ogre village.  And there was a great detail idea in there...

Get a paper towel or some textured paper.  Or get some better cotton paper (dollar store envelopes work great), crumple it up, smooth it out, and repeat until the paper has some fine texture to it.  Then trace out some simple “pelt” shapes on the material.  They don’t need to be exact, but I try to average most of them closer to 1” long.  I glued these around the tent at a few places to help hide seams and add to the “primitive” feel of the whole tent.  The texture contrasts the smooth cardstock and will look like fur or hide when it gets painted (in an appropriate color).

Helpful Hint—When you’re gluing the pelts in place, don’t put the glue on the pelt or the tent.  Put it on your finger and wipe it on the tent that way.  This will keep it from getting too thick and wet and soaking/flattening your material.

Helpful Hint II – do not do what I did.  Some of you may have already noticed the material in the above picture is actually toilet paper, not paper towels.  My paper towels had a very distinct linear pattern to their texture, so I decided to use a few squares of toilet paper.  Problem is, toilet paper’s made to dissolve once it absorbs... well, not much moisture.  So once my pelts touched the glue they turned into... well, mush.  I managed to salvage them, but it ended up taking me almost twenty minutes per pelt.

Save yourself a headache.  Do what I say, not what I do.

On a more positive note...  I didn’t do it, but it’d also be easy to cut a small opening off the top of the tent and put some round toothpicks up there as tent poles.  Just flip the tent over and glue the toothpicks into the interior creases.  It’s a tiny detail, but it’ll look really cool and makes the tents look even more handmade.

The Imperial Guard... sorry, Astra Militarium... use tents, naturally.  I’d just build the template as-is so they look more mass-produced and use a color scheme that works for your army or whatever scenery you use often.  Jungle tents, desert tents, arctic tents, or just a flat-looking canvas.  With such a big expanse of flat surfaces, it’s an easy place to practice your camo painting, too. 

Once that’s done, there are so many decals available to make this look Guard-issue.  A large aquilla or a few stencils pretty much sell it.  You could make a larger scenery piece by putting two or three of these in a row as if they were in-the-field barracks.   Or base them individually and just set them up that way.

They could also work for traitor Guard, naturally, but you’d want different symbols on the tents.  And maybe lean even more toward the primitive.  Perhaps a blood splatter or three.  And there are tons of skulls and ruinous symbols on the Chaos Marine decal sheet.

What about the Tau?  It makes sense that Fire Warriors would have temporary housing of some kind for exploration missions, but I’m sure the Earth caste wouldn’t send them out with something as flimsy as fabric and poles.  So what about using this template as a sort of pre-fabricated, lightly armored outpost?

It actually wasn’t hard to do this.  The two different sizes of tent are identical except for the scale.  I printed up one of each size and built the large one as is.  While that was drying, I cut up the small tent into its individual panels.  I mostly wanted the sides of the tent body and the top two panels from the entranceway.

Each component was centered on the corresponding panel of the larger tent (remember, it’s the same template) and glued in place.  Once they were all attached, it gave the whole thing kind of an “armored” look that made it feel more assembled.  Giving it a bright color scheme will make it look more like hard plastic than fabric.  And, again, a few spare decals will look fantastic.

Last but not least, if you’re a Fantasy/ Age of Sigmar player, I’d imagine a tent like this would work for a bunch of armies.  Brettonians peasants and Empire troops would definitely be sleeping in simple tents, if they had anything.  So would Chaos Marauders.  Even Orcs could manage something simple like this.  So they’re a quick set piece for lots of armies.

Tents. Fast, cheap scenery for almost any setting, almost any army.

Afriels

This is another one of those dirt-cheap, simple conversions that you can add some punch to your Imperial Guard... sorry, Astra Militarium army (because you can’t copyright “Imperial Guard”).  And, as an added bonus, it ties really well to the Adeptus Mechanicus, too.  Good timing on that...

Many years back, when the Imperial Guard codex worked off the doctrine system, there was a wonderful White Dwarf article about abhuman regiments.  For those of you who missed it, the idea was pretty simple.  With all the various not-quite-mainstream humans kicking around the Imperium, it was inevitable that you’d end up with a few worlds where the large percentage of their populations—and thus, their Guard foundings—weren’t, exactly, well, mainstream human.  Think Ogryns.  Or Inhumans.

One of the most interesting ones, I thought, were the Afriels.  Unlike many of the other mutations which resulted from centuries of isolation in harsh conditions, the Afriels were deliberately engineered by the techpriests of Mars using DNA from dozens of the Imperium’s greatest heroes (think Serpentor 40,000).  They weren’t Astartes, but they were tougher, stronger, and better disciplined than most Guardsmen, and usually equipped with top level kit from the techpriests.

I built a platoon’s worth of them in Adeptus Mechanicus colors... and then the doctrine system went away.  I briefly toyed with just repainting them all to join my Catachans, but I really liked the look of them as chalk-skinned figs.  And I do have a thing for super-soldiers.

It took me a long while to hit on the idea of Afriel Stormtroopers...  Sorry again, Scions (old habits, because you can’t copyright “Stormtroopers”).  It made perfect sense, really.  Afriels and Scions hit so many of the same points.  Better trained, better equipped, less common, more durable, very distinctive on the field, and usually deployed for a specific purpose.  And just this week, we’ve seen the announcement of Skitarii—genetically and mechanically engineered super soldiers used by the Adeptus Mechanicus.  So, yet another possibility...

The cheap part?  Afriels are pretty much just Catachan Guardsmen with a distinctive color scheme (white skin, pale hair, and a contrasting uniform—probably red).  So that’s a full squad of ten Scions (or Skitarii) for almost 60% less than the regular price.

I used a lot of spare heads from Space Marine Scouts.  Each one has a headset and several have monoptics or visors, which helps sell the high-tech idea.  They’re also just a hair too big for Catachan bodies.  I mean, we’re talking like three or four percent too big.  Just enough that it registers and feels a little... off.  Which is perfect for Afriels.

I’m probably going to go through and put Space Marine scopes on the lasguns.  It’s a little touch that makes the rifles look a little more high-tech and helps sell them as either a hellgun variant or just a higher-end lasgun.

My Afriel Tempestor Prime (originally the platoon commander) has a bionic arm.  This is a really simple conversion—it’s just a Space Marine arm without a shoulder pad.  Yes, I know he can’t have a stormbolter.  As I said, he was built when the codex was very different.  He’ll probably end up with a plasma pistol, and maybe a power sword.

There’d probably be some weapons tweaks needed to make an Ad Mech squad out of them, but the basic idea would remain the same. And be just as inexpensive...

A Brief Interlude... for War

I’ve gotten very little done the past two weekends, and probably won’t for the next three or four, either.  As I mentioned last time, I’ve had folks in town, book signings, and a birthday.  Plus I went down to San Diego for our annual Carnage Asada/ Memorial Day cookout game.  If you’ve ever wondered what a 20,000 point Apocalypse game looks like (lots of Tyranids versus Imperial Guard with Space Wolf allies and a Warhound Titan), well...it looks something like this.

This was also the first time I got to take my modified Hive Tyrant out on the field.  I’d originally called him Gigan, but as I was writing up my Carnage Asada list I realized, wait a minute, he’s the Tyrant—the king—so from here on he’ll be referred to as Ghidra.

Alas, the game was so huge and sprawling, Ghidra barely had a chance to do anything.  It was epic and fun, but with the socializing and drinking, we just made it into turn three before we decided to call it done.  There’s a lot more details and pictures over at the Atomic Warlords page, if you want to check them out.

As I mentioned above, it might be a week or three before I get to do anything more on the Imperial Knight.  I’m now in the last four weeks before the new book is due, so that needs to be the focus of my attention for now.  The good news is, once it’s done I should be ready for a burst of geekery and model work.

So please bear with me—legs and weapons coming soon.

Ogres to Ogryns, Pt 2.1

Two quick things...

First, wanted to show the Ogryns with some paint on them.  Not a lot of paint, mind you, but right now they’re in the “broad swaths of color” phase and it’s enough to get a general sense of how the conversion turned out.  As I’ve said many, many times, painting is not my strength.  If we waited for me to finish, the blog would probably go another four or five months without an update...

Assorted Ogryns, ready to pound the jungle flat.

The Bonehead with his pauldron.

Assorted pouches, straps, and "frag grenades."

Not bad, I think.  I’m happy with how the ripper guns turned out.  The putty abs look good, and the gear really helps carry them out of Fantasy and into 40K, even with some of their bags and bear traps. 

The second thing was a big Friday the 13th sale that one of my publishers, Permuted Press, is having.  Almost all of their ebooks are under five dollars, most of them are just 99¢.  That Times of Trouble anthology there on the right is on sale.  So is my mash up novel, The Eerie Adventures of the Lycanthrope Robinson Crusoe, and also my novella The Junkie Quatrain.  Grab them all by Monday morning when the publisher gets back in the office and resets all the prices.

Ogres to Ogryns, Pt 2

Well, this only took a few months.  More like half a year.  Pathetic, isn’t it?  Sad as it is to say, these guys have been sitting half-done on my cutting mat the whole time.

So, the basic bodies are done.  What I need now are weapons.

The ripper guns weren’t that hard.  I wanted to stick to the combat shotgun idea from the Imperial Guard codex, but I didn’t have a problem with them looking a little simplistic and Ogryn-friendly.  My previous Ogre-Ogryn conversion (for my Penal Legion) had used the autocannon magazine on the side, but I wanted to see if I could make something that looked more like an industrial Thompson sub-machine gun.

The most notable part of a Tommy gun (and a ripper gun) is the ammunition drum.  I played around with a few ideas, including building the drums from scratch.  What I finally decided on was gluing together a pair of old Fantasy shields.  It gave a size and depth to the drum that I liked, plus some tiny details around the edges.

The main body/barrel of the ripper gun is 3/16” tubing.  I cut a 1/4” section and then a 1/2” section.  These would go on either side of my magazine.  On the shorter, back half, I also added a wheel hub to serve as a machined-looking butt to the weapon.  

Then I took some 1/8” wide plastic and cut a 7/8”strip.  This would be the top of my ripper gun and help tie the whole thing together, both  visually (it helps hide the fact that a few of the front and back pieces don’t line up perfectly) and structurally (it was going to serve as a sort of spine for the next bit).  I lined it up to the back so any excess hung out over the end of the barrel.

I made a few 1/4” squares and put them on either side of the rear section, placing them so they “connected” to the top strip.  This gave a bit more bulk to the body of the ripper gun.  I put 1/4” x 1/8” pieces on the front, also lined up with the top strip and butting up against the magazine.  It gave the whole thing a nice, solid look.  I finished it off with a thin strip along each edge and a 1/16” strip along the top.

The last touch was to cut a 3/8” piece of 1/8” tubing and slide it in the front of the ripper gun to give it a muzzle.  I left 1/8” sticking out and filed it a bit to make it perpendicular to the barrel.  I toyed with the idea of putting iron sights on the front of the muzzle, but for the moment I’ve decided against it.  Since ripper guns are made exclusively for Ogryns, I can’t see them being manufactured with any level of accuracy in mind.  I may change my mind at the last minute before priming, though.

Next step was to mount the weapons on the Ogryns.  The Ogres come with a lot of large, square blades that look a lot like machetes, and I like that look for Ogryns who were going to be in the jungle.  Since those blades are all right-handed, I had the choice of making all the ripper guns left-handed, or doing a lot of modeling work to switch everyone’s hands around.  I decided to stick with machetes on the right, rippers on the left—mostly because I like how this works with a lot of the arm poses (which are pretty inflexible on the Ogres)

(keen-eyed readers may note one of those is a right hand.  I did a cool knife bit with the Ogre musician hand, so I had to put that ripper on the opposite side.  The other option would’ve been having it slung over said Ogryn’s shoulder, but that would’ve involved building a sling and a trigger mechanism and, well, I didn’t want to do all that and have it come out half-assed.  Plus it’d leave me with the oddness of what to put in the other hand...)

I cut the weapons away from the hands and filed them flat above and below the fist.  I tried to make sure the flat sections were parallel, so I could add a base to the grip (just a little square of plastic) that would line up.  This is one of those subtle little things that can really gnaw at you if you get it wrong, and it’ll take forever to figure out why.

Helpful Hint – I attached the fists to the bodies before I attached them to the weapons.  Most of the Ogre arms are tight against the torso and I didn’t want to risk attaching the hand to the weapon at a point where it would prevent me from attaching that whole assembly to the body.  So hand to body and then weapon to hand.

Ogryns get frag grenades, but all the standard grenades look ridiculously small on them.   So I tried to think what a group of near-feral abhumans would use.  Oh, sure, they might just use oversized frag grenades, and I even had an Inquisitor-scale grenade, but I thought it’d look a little weird to only have one model in the squad with a visible grenade.  Plus, I wanted something that would sell their borderline bestiality with something a little more fun.

As it turned out, the answer was right there on the Ogre sprues.  Bear traps.  They’re big, primitive, fit into the jungle setting well, and... well, let’s be honest.  They work as frag grenades.  If someone throws half a dozen open bear traps at you, you’re sure as hell going to put your head down.

I also added a bit of random greenery from different Fantasy sets onto the bases.  Especially for a jungle-themed army, I find the big empty swaths of base are kind of distracting.  I find these leaves and weeds all the time in the bitz bins (I think they’re from Wood Elf sets, or maybe Dryads), and this is a great use for them.

I tried to pick some of the less-crazy Ogre heads.  Even so, I filed down a lot of the weird bumps and pins on their heads.  I’m toying with the idea of using a little bit of green stuff and making simple bandanas on them.  It would tie them to the Catachans even more... and also give me some more time to consider those iron sights.

But, there they are.  A good-sized squad of Ogryns for about a third the price it would cost to buy as many actual figures.  If I’d been able to work on them straight through, this was maybe three days of non-intensive work.  I might toss up a picture later once they’re primed and have some basic colors on them.

Next time (which will be, I swear to God, in one week) I’ll show you how some friends and I whipped up a bunch of good-looking, dirt cheap scenery in just a few hours.

Yet Another Shameless Bit of Pandering...

 Hullo, all.

I’d really hoped to get the second half of the Ogres to Ogryns post up, well, about three weeks ago.  Then I’d hoped to get up a half-assed version that just went over how I built the weapons for my first set of conversions, the ones I use in my Penal Legion army.  As you probably noticed, neither version of these events happened.

I’ve just been swamped with final edits on the third book in the Ex series.  Plus going over layouts for the second book.  And tons and tons of publicity stuff for the first book, Ex-Heroes.  It’s in stores everywhere starting... well, today.

So, for the moment, please check out that big link down there on the right side, just past the end of this post.  And then, I promise, in the weeks to come you’ll see a post on how to build a ripper gun for these Ogryns, a new paperhammer tank, and zombies of both the undead and mechanical variety.  Plus a very big, very Orky unit for Apocalypse that I'm building with Marcus from Atomic Warlords.

But, in the meantime, the folks at Random House would be very happy if you bought the first book in the series...

Ogres to Ogryns

There’s some old stories in the Catachan fluff about how the Catachans like Ogryns.  There’s something about the straightforward, no-nonsense approach both groups have to warfare that make them bond.  They’ve even got more specific stories, like how Nork Deddog served with the Catachan II for years.

So when my Catachan army started coming together, Ogryns were kind of a no-brainer.  What army can’t benefit from a pile of brainless muscle that shrugs off damage and hits like... well, like a pile of brainless muscle?

But seriously!  Twenty-two bucks per model?  That’s $66 for a bare-bones squad of three.  And even with the drastic remodelling, the Games Workshop Ogryns still look... well, a bit goofy.

So I started looking at other options.

A box of Fantasy Ogre Bulls is just forty dollars for six models--less than a third the price.  If you’re willing to go with fewer options, you can buy them piecemeal online and save even more.  Ogres are big and beautiful, in a modelling sense.  They’re so big there’s lots of room for modifications and modelling.

First thing is the feet.  The soles of the ogre boots are metal, but they’re also pointed.  It goes with the whole Mongol tribesman look that you can see all through the Ogre Kingdoms line.  I snipped off the pointed tip and used a file to round it down.  The Imperial Guard isn’t going to have anyone prancing around in pointed shoes like Mr. B Natural.

On the torso, I used a knife to carve down the edges of the gut-hole.  They’re just a bit too sharp as is, and reach out a bit too far.  I don’t mind Ogryns looking big, but they shouldn’t look drastically overweight.  Then I filled the hole with little scraps of plastic sprue and put a few drops of plastic glue on it.

Once that dried, I made a little ball of green stuff (about half the size of a pea) and pressed that on top of the scraps.  A little work with the sculpting tool made it match up with the rest of the body.  I was even able to sculpt really simple abdominal muscles.  It’s not that hard, honest.  I did it while splitting my attention between sculpting and watching reruns of Firefly.  Just make a cross in the green stuff and smooth it out in all directions.

That’s a good point, actually.  One nice thing about the ogre bodies is that they’re so big it takes a lot of the pressure off me as a modeler.  Like I mentioned above, I’ve got space to work, and on these guys tiny mistakes are... well, tiny.  It’s not like when you’re trying to put hair on a Space Marine and one wrong pass with the sculpting tool gives your veteran sergeant a reverse-mohawk.  When it comes to green stuff I’m a mediocre sculptor at best, but even I could pull these details off.

Then I took a sliver of green stuff and rolled it into a tiny snake.  This got flattened across those new abs to make a continuation of the belt. Just like above, I used my sculpting tool to smooth and blend it into the belt on the model.  It got topped off with a little 1/4” piece of plastic for a belt buckle.

I also rolled a longer snake and used this to make a strap across the Bone‘ead’s chest and over his shoulder.  It gives me a little something more to make him stand out.  I’m not worried about it being perfect because I’m going to stick gear all over it.

One more detail on the Bone ‘ead.  I used a spare icon/ clasp from the Space Marine Commander set on his belt buckle.  The way I see it, his belt was probably a packing strap on a Baneblade that some Techpriest gave the Bone‘ead as a thank-you present for pushing it out of the mud or something.  It’s a small, simple detail that helps the Bone’ead stand out a bit more.

I wanted to give my Ogryns pouches and bandoliers to help sell their military aspect and also to distinguish them from Fantasy Ogres.  The best thing to use was Space Marine pouches.  If you play any type of Space Marines, you know there’s that one double-pack pouch that’s just a bit too big.  It’s tough to plant it anywhere on a Marine and not have it look like a little bit of overkill.  But on an Ogryn, scale-wise, it’s perfect.  It looks just like an ACU belt pouch would look... if you were making them for nine-foot barabrian giants.

Next time I’ll show you how I built some ripper guns for these guys, and also look at the Penal Legion Ogryns I built a while back that were the unofficial test run for these guys.