Light-up Warphead

[jamsessionein]

Yes, I know. It\'s not like I need more half-finished projects, but staring at a baneblade all day can get bothersome and this is one of those conversions where I just happened to find a bit and the idea started running on its own. You don\'t need to remind me about all the other stuff I still have to finish.

I found a mask from the fantasy orc model, Wurrzag Ud Ura Zazubu. I\'ve been looking for a replacement head for the new weirdboy model for a little while now, and this fit the bill pretty well, I think - you\'d have to be pretty weird to pull this look off.

Well, the good thing is that the head is easy as all hell to light, too, so off I went.

No fancy SMT LEDs in this - just a simple 3mm green. I had to do a bit of dremelling to the body to get the head to sit right, but I think it looks pretty good when it\'s all matched up.

I have a couple more ideas for this model. Instead of holding the staff overhead like on the new weirdboy, he\'s going to have it outstretched at his side. It\'ll be lit, as well - the nice thing about it is that I don\'t even have to hide the wires for it, because from what I\'ve seen from the concept art weirdboys tend to wrap stuff in wire to try and keep their heads from exploding.

The pose I\'m going for with this weirdboy is \'hanging in the air\' - if I can figure out how, he\'s going to be posed about 30mm off the base in the air, suspended by Waaagh! energy, with a bunch of grots on the base holding chains trying to anchor him down. I think the new model\'s actually a pretty good base, as he\'s nearly in that kind of position to begin with if you cut away the terrain that\'s sculpted into his feet.

More to come whenever, this is just a kind of spur-of-the-moment thing.

As an aside, I didn\'t really have a name in mind for this guy yet, but \'Wurrzag\' or \'Zazubu\' isn\'t bad, based on the fantasy miniature\'s origins.

 

[AinuLainour]

**forehead slap**

Though I\'m looking forward to progress, I\'d much prefer an end result for a change.

 

[Dragonsreach]

Originally posted by jamsessionein

The pose I\'m going for with this weirdboy is \'hanging in the air\' - if I can figure out how, he\'s going to be posed about 30mm off the base in the air, suspended by Waaagh! energy, with a bunch of grots on the base holding chains trying to anchor him down.

Use the staff (replace the pewter with Brass rod) to support him in the air. That way he\'s got a \"grounding\" as well as a \"Lift\".


And I think you are as bad as me for half -finished projects. lol Maybe you should complete the building and then \'Farm out\' the painting.

 

[jamsessionein]

Haha, I\'d like to, but \'Farming Out\' the painting isn\'t all that easy on the wallet, assuming you mean \'get other people to do it\'.

 

[Thunderhawker]

\"Ooooo, shiny....\"lol

 

[pnave01]

Well if he will be held down by grots you could either make the chains sold glueing the links in a straight line, or to be real cool use magnets one in the base and another in the model using the like poles to repell each other and the chains to provide stability. Would look real cool but not sure if they would work with the height you want it to be at but possible with neo magnets.
Hope that helps.

 

[jamsessionein]

Originally posted by pnave01
Well if he will be held down by grots you could either make the chains sold glueing the links in a straight line, or to be real cool use magnets one in the base and another in the model using the like poles to repell each other and the chains to provide stability. Would look real cool but not sure if they would work with the height you want it to be at but possible with neo magnets.
Hope that helps.

Unfortunately, magnets will never work. We were debunking that in a thread over at Librarium Online, lining the magnetic fields up to make a miniature float is impossible short of using supercooled superconducting magnets. I built a lot of test pieces actually to try and create a floating monolith, but it just doesn\'t work the way you describe. Polarity always finds a way.

I have a lot of different chain, most of which would work for the project.The smartest way of achieving the floating look would be to have the chains themselves be the mechanisms that hold the model up in the air, like what pnave said, but I\'m having a lot of trouble coming up with a way of doing that.

Gluing the chain links in place will not hold strong enough to support a metal miniature in the air. I tried it, not even close to strong enough.

I grabbed a blowtorch and attempted to melt the links together at the joints in the hopes that maybe that would do it. I ended up with something... close, but still too fragile. It\'s brittle - the chains stay straight till you apply just a little bit too much pressure in the wrong direction (as I am likely do to just through handling!) and then one of the links gives.

I tried threading wire through the chain links to make them stronger, but doing so requires that you bend the chain in strange ways to get the holes in the middle of the links to line up and it doesn\'t look right.

I\'ve looked through the GW model lines, and the closest thing I can find is the chains hanging off the Dark Eldar Jetbikes, but those are not individual pieces (multiple chains cast into eachother) and i don\'t think they\'ll work.

I could just cop out and have his lowest foot standing atop a clear flying base peg, but I\'m sure there must be a better way of doing this. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[nick232]

you could always get a snotling base and then make a piece of plasticcard look like wood.

that would be COOL. wait i\'ll do that for my orks!

 

[nick232]

just out of interest could you put up a ppic of the whole of your ork horde?
that would be really cool
~nick

 

[pnave01]

How about gluing a piece of chain in the angle you want it to be for the model then make a mold then cast the chain as one solid piece of metal, probably us something other than pewter to make the chains maybe to brittle. Gonna have to find some other metal stronger for that.

 

[Thunderhawker]

Or have the grots climbing on top of one another trying to hold him down, and run the support through them.

 

[jamsessionein]

Twisted wire to serve as ropes looks like it will do the job. I went to Home Depot and grabbed a package of the wire they use to suspend drop ceilings for less than $2 - the stuff\'s a bit thick, but very strong. One big, main rope and a couple smaller ones made out of floral wire should actually be enough to keep this bad boy in the air.

On a slightly related note, I urgently need to know if anyone has Goblin Doom Divers.

I need the rope-pulling grots badly to tether him down and I will happily buy or trade for them.

 

[uberdark]

hooray for not using ritalin!!!!!

cant wait to see another one done.....errr.....worked on.....errr...maybe finished....errr.....hmmm....yeah.

lol

 

[PegaZus]

Well, to only throw some confusion in the mix, you COULD float it with this:

Floating Shuttle

The only problem would be that you\'d need to lodge some rather largish magnets into it and then balance it terribly well and THEN find some appropriate fluff to justify the large structure around it and the power cord. Still, might be worth it for a display model. I\'ve actually got the shuttle pictured, and just sitting there it starts to spin, so even the manufacturer can\'t get the balance completely right.

 

[pnave01]

I will have a look i may have those grots, no promises though.

 

[jamsessionein]

If you come up with anything, I\'d appreciate it a great deal. Ordering just those grots from GW would cost me $14, apparently, and I just can\'t justify that.

 

[jamsessionein]

I got to working on the staff a bit more yesterday and after hashing out a couple ideas, I think I have come up with something I like. On the new Ork Boyz sprue, there\'s an ork skull with the mouth open - with a bit of creative fiddling, I was able to fit an LED into there and rig it so that green light will emanate from the eye sockets and mouth!

Now some of you might be saying \'Ein, I see what you\'re trying to do with this, but I can clearly see the LED in the mouth there\'. You would be right, but I\'d like to direct your attention to the fact that I have brownstuffed the skull closed from the back and underside. Why, you might ask?

It\'s simple! I have some Woodland Scenics Water Effects that I will be able to pour into the mouth - once it dries and hardens, it will become a clear \'lens\' over the LED that fills the mouth up and diffuses the light so that you can\'t tell the LED\'s behind there. I did something similar on a Necron Lord I was prototyping and it worked out fairly well.

The nice thing about a weirdboy staff is that I don\'t have to go to any real, absurd lengths to cover the wires up. If you look at some of the concept art for Weirdboyz over at at Wargaiming.net, you\'ll see what I\'m talking about.

I feel as though I should mention that to coincide with the writing of some of my Ork army\'s background story, this Warphead\'s name is now \'Wurrzag da Weird\'.

 

[squig hunter]

It would be sorta fun to have him floating with grots on the base that had to pull on various chains so that he didn\'t float away like a ballon

Squig

 

[mud duck]

Reaper makes sprue of chains that may be long enough for you to use to get this boy into the air. That or you could use the \"Avatar of Menioth\" as a base? Or maybe melt some clear plastic bases, painted up to look like warp-ish waves of power, again similar to the Avatar\'s cloth hanging bits.

 

[jamsessionein]

Squig: That is the basic plan, yes.

Duck: Don\'t you worry, I\'ve got a tough enough \'rope\' now that will support the model fairly well in the air.

I can\'t work on the staff any because the water effects I put in are still working on drying, but I\'ve started planning out the base a little bit.

I think I\'m going to use a 60mm and do a lava-esque base. My general idea is that the energy he\'s channeling is so powerful that it is cracking the surface of the ground underneath him and it\'s bowing up towards him - this is partly also so that I can properly angle the grots that will be holding him down. I did the lava up red, though on the actual thing green might be a better choice to represent waaagh energy. I\'m using the new Nob Biker arm for the staff, though I\'ll probably be hacking the chain part off... I\'m going to have to sculpt a new sleeve on that arm.

The pin is only a temporary measure while I work on figuring out how high he\'ll be in the air.