Lesson 4: Les Assassins des Fauteuils Rollents

Waaagh! Fellow Barbarians.

Today's lesson will answer the two age old questions of the serious ork hobbiest: what do I do with my left over torsos, heads and arms, and when can I introduce an obscure literary reference into my army?

The answer to both questions is to create a small regiment of Les Assassins des Fauteuils Rollents, or Wheel chair assassins, from David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest. Soon your opponents will also, "hear the squeak" as a squad of differently abled orks careen down the battlefield.



I made the chairs out of plastic from a cd case with pieces of spru, ork decals, matchbox car wheels for the big wheels and screws for the tiny front wheels. Fake-out legs were also made from spru. From there it is simply a matter of affixing an ork as if he were a slugga boy. Add a little extra green stuff in the shoulders, and above the legs to make a comfy blanket, and you're ready for priming.



Final analysis:
Materials
ork bitz negligible
tires 25c


total: 25c

time: 1 hour extra for original design. Painting, etc. equivalent to store bought model


I find this a highly worthwhile way to make use of your extra dudes. There is always other ways you can incorporate extra mostly-complete orks into your army: piloting a vehicle, poking out of a booby trap (objective), poking out of a barrel (kommando). Unless I play with these fine dedicated masters of throat slicing and someone takes offense, I would encourage everyone to make a few wheelchair assassins.

Taking pics of your models

Waaagh! fellow barbarians!

A word on taking pictures of your models:

You may have noticed that the earlier post had a blurry picture of a project killa kan. You may have experienced similar problems with amateur photography. The way I found to take decent pictures is to first buy a decent camera. I bought a used Canon PowerShot SD600 digital elf off of craigslist for 75$. This is well within most peoples means, but if its not...WHY ARE YOU INVOLVED IN A HOBBY THAT COSTS HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS TO FIELD A DECENT ARMY????? GO PLAY VIDEO GAMES! THEY'RE CHEAP!

Anywhoo. With your decent camera step back from the model and use your zoom. Once zoomed, focus, and use the flash. Poof* you've stolen my soul and you have a better shot than if you shoved your camera right into your Ghazghkull thraka model.

Waaagh! fellow barbarians. Saturday was spent praying on bended knees to the porcelain god, but Sunday shall be devoted to ministrations to Gork, and Mork.

Project 2: killa kans!

This project actually started in March of 2008, when I had just bought my first battle force of the new orks from phantom. Immediately I was struck by the idea that I could make my own killa kans. Excuse the fuzzy photos, from fuzzy memories. The kan is literaly a 54 cent piece of copper tubing pre-cut and a penny glued atop, bringing the grand total to 55 cents. I added the hatch lock using the piece that connects four bases from a boyz set, armor plates using the plastic holders on a loaf of bread, the guns were two shootas, and the arm was plastic from the sprue, wire and more bread holders.


Fast forward (so that your tape gets all warped and everyone knows you've been looking at the same sex scene from Trainspotting again and again) to two weeks ago. I have started another kan with bicycle chain links as legs. These took a long time to design so I'll go into detail.

Bicycle chain link legs:
Pop out two links exactly using the chain tool,

then repeat. Take one ball point pen that "clicks". Cut a small section off the end of the tube, the one not containing ink, and also cut the spring to match the size of that piece, and repeat, there should be enough spring to match the two tube pieces if you cut them small enough. Now take part of the sprue that has an extra little nub where the plastic is injected; I used the fluorescent green plastic from the AOBR weapons template. You now need something that looks like an ork would use it for feet. Originally I tried to make three toed feet from sprue, but they looked hideous. Inspiration struck when I meditated on classic Transformers models and used the tires of yet another 25 cent hotwheels for both the feet, and the hip joints. Now, glue/green-stuff the chain, and the ball point shaft/spring together so that they form a triangle. Glue the sprue piece to the tire, then glue these to the bottom of the pen shaft.


Now your in business, and you've just made a vaguely sexual pen-shaft pun.


For engines, I used an engine from one of my famous 25 cent hotwheels, and some more pieces from that PT cruiser model from project one. For weapons I parted a AOBR big shoota from its boy and glued it to more cheap wheels, the rokkits are from an AOBR deff kopta that I was converting to big shoota duty anyway and some random space junk. The close combat arms are as described above and also from the IG-88 model mentioned in project one. Sorry to abandon grammar here nobz, but are we not orks?




The second kan's armor is a door from the new store bought ork trukk, with a funny shoota from an OOP, or out of print, model. The legs from the second kan are small pieces of copper tubing that the hardware guy cut from a longer length (2.00) with screws and hex nuts (~1.00) to make it look like it could actually walk. After that, buddy sit back and enjoy the fireworks!

Semi-final Analysis:
kans 1 kan 2
body 55 c 55c
armor 0.0 0.0
legs 3.00 25c (hours and hours of design)
c.c. arm 0.0 25c
weapon arm 1.00 1.00
engines 25c 25c

total 4.80 2.30

time: Hours and hours, most likely 10 were spent on designing, and re-designing these models. If you value your time at anything above 5$/hour it would not be worth it to make these. Kan 1 looks exactly like the store bough model only less detailed (shittier). Kan 2 is more original, but still looks like a rip-off of the imperial guard walker which is itself a rip-off of the AT-ST. If you allow me to be your guide, dear readers, and build Kan 2 you will have an inexpensive goofy-yet-original looking kan. Be Ye warned! It was a time goblin for me and if you want to make it worth your while build two or better yet save your energies for a Deff Dred.

1st project continued

Waaagh! fellow barbarians. According to the arbitrary rules I have set out for myself, I now have 4 minutes to complete this update! No time I assure you, like calling the Waaagh on turn one; it just isn't possible!

I'll continue with my description of the first project: with all the doo-dad's firmly glued/green-stuffed, I base coated the model with Rust-oleum "specialty camouflage -ultra flat black." I recommend this paint, not strongly but just enough. My time has expired...but I persevere! From there it is simply a matter of painting your normal color scheme on a vehicle. This probably took me between 2-4 hours, though I think I could have included less mud splash.




Final analysis:
Materials
trukk substitute 2.99
tires 25 c
engine, armor 25 c
-plates
ork bits negligible
balsa wood 1.00

total: 4.50$

time: 3 hours extra for original design. Painting, etc. equivalent to store bought model

Despite the extra three hours involved for original designs, I think this project was highly worthwhile. This is a trukk that will cause exasperated gasps to escape even the most stalwart of foes, when they see it kareening ever towards their troops. The savings are potentially substantial, the most obvious draw back being the dependence on luck to deliver an attractive and workable model. If you are like any good hobbyist you will have most of the other materials (balsa wood, tires, etc.) stockpiled and ready like a bow string kept taunt ready to launch the arrow of your project into the apple of your eye.

First Post! Waaagh!

Waaagh! fellow barbarians! The green tide has been growing quiescently a long time, but now it is time to unleash the accumulated multitude. Envision: the mad tumult of the Christmas-crazed Walmart shoppers this season as they surged forward towards what they hoped were unique savings. Not, incedentely they crushed a hapless employee (very sad). Similarly, I would like us all to marshal similar hybrids of raw power and thrift-mindedness.

The inaugural project that I present here is my kustom ork trukk. The philosophy of my army has always been to try to use 1/2 non-gamesworkshop or forgeworld models in my army. With this in mind you will have plenty of savings that can be spent at your local hobby shop. I shop at the phantom of the attic. I highly recommend it. Anywhoo, the project:

I started with a reasonable pick up truck body that I bought at a salvation army for 2$. I always have doubts about the size being correct. Night Serpent has used 1/35 scale models in his conversions and I will defer to his greater expertise. I would say simply carry a spare ork boy with you when searching for materials, or perpetually if you don't mind the stares.

To this I added an engine from a discarded PT cruiser model that I came across in the 25 cent junk bin of a vintage toy store. After that I added an undercarriage of balsa wood and plastic dowels. Wheels came from a monster truck also from the junk bin. Total costs, not including labor: 3.50$ so far. Then I added some legitimate GW pieces: an anti-tank barricade from the 1996 3rd edition, for a reinforced ram, the window shield from the new release ork trukk, and later the gunner from the same trukk, some ork symbols. Not from GW: the upper torso of an IG-88 figure from the Empire Strikes Back, and more pieces from the PT cruiser to flesh out the ram. The rear was missing something so I put wire screening, to create the illusion of chain-link fencing.

Uh oh! Its getting late. Its time for all nobz to eat a grot and hit the hay for a good 8 hours.