Bugsnak: Ork Deathskulls Warlord
Thank you to the Trolls at GW for the timely Bitz Order! Now for the recipe: An old Ogryn body, head of Grotfang, Ork Gargant arm, Nobz Power Klaw, a length of brass tubing, the thick E string from an electric guitar, and a few missile launcher bitz from the Marines. An incredible amount of scrounging adds up to this fitting testament to Deathskull heritage! He took longer to put together than to paint-- and that's counting   the teeny little symbol on his belt buckle. The picture on the left is him in the early stages, when I said to myself, as yet another converted bit was added... "Hmm? Is he over the top yet?" Nope! Not yet! The Warboss rule of thumb: He's not done until he weighs in at 140 points! Eavy Armor, Cybork Body, Power Klaw, Rokkit Launcher, Bionic Arm, Bionic Bonce, Big Horns, and Frag Grenades. Now where am I gonna stick another 2 points?

Don't he just make you want to kick the crap out of some Eldar?
(I mean more than usual, of course).

Vehicle Conversions
The Gorkamorka "gubbinz" bag was the best accessory GW ever sold. I used one bag to make almost 100% of my conversions. It had armor plates, spikes, extra tires, wagon wheels, and best of all, imperial treads. I had to put some treads on one of my trukks.

My Killer Kanz have recently undergone a few conversions to prepare them for the 2000 Chicago GT. They are all reworked as "construction krew." Well, technically they are DEstruction krew, such as this little fella on the left: rokkit launcha and wrekkin ball. I also lost the legs and put him on treads-- this drops him down considerably. I did it cause it looks cool, but I won't kid you: I'm hoping that troops will eventually be able to screen dreads. He's almost short enough for grots to screen him!

Ork Kannon
Scratch built Kannon. Most of the bits are from a Gorkamorka gubbins kit. Barrel is just a length of plastic tube. Chassis is a bit of sprue from the Wartrakk sprue (I think!). The back end of the barrel is capped off with the rounded hatch from the Rhino sprue. It's hard to get that much gun barrel looking good with just Boltgun Metal, so I went ahead and painted it up in the Warboss' colors, and tried that "chipped away" paint technique from WD-- without much success, as you can see. The other side of the kannon has the obligitory "KOP DIS!" scrawled across the barrel. I might try wrapping the armor plates with a length of baling wire. Well, I figure it will look ok once it's on the table with a bunch of grots around it.

Scratch-Built Ork Stompa Titan

Just after construction, basecoating, and first drybrushing.

The Orks are a great army for conversion hacks like me. Chaos is good too, but generally requires a lot of polish and painting skills; whereas with Orks, crappy construction is just... natural. I was inspired by the cool scratch built Gargant in the Ork Codex, but my first attempt was much too grand and never really got off the ground. So I started over from scratch, thinking small. Actually I don't exactly know the proper scale of a Stompa, but from some old design discussions from the Armorcast guys, and from the size of the Warhound, I think I made a pretty good guess: Seven-and-a-half inches to the top of his head.

I started out by cutting three rectangular sections of styrofoam about 4 x 4 x 1.5 inches. I held these together then used a hot wire cutter to get that pot-bellied gargant look. I then took aluminum cans (cut open and unfolded into sheets) and "bolted" them around the body using carpeting tacks-- right through the can and into the styrofoam. Pretty good fit.

Next came the arms. The shoulders were a problem because of the way the body curves up there. I got some flexible wire tubing-- not sure exactly what this stuff is, but it's kind of like the old Chinese Finger Trap. When you compress it, it expands. It really makes a much better fit than the pictures show. The gun and the ripper fist are completely scratch built from various tubes and bitz-- and they still need a lot of work before they look "natural." I am quite happy with the chains hanging off the gun arm but it needs a lot more detail on the big open spaces.

Next was the head. All I knew about this was that I wanted some big jagged teeth, and I wanted the eyes to match the army mascot-- the jolly roger with one red eye and a black patch. The rhino hatch makes the patch. You'll see the other eye in the finished product. There is room on the lower jaw for an ork or two to stand side to side, bunker-like.

Finally came the feet. The initial attempt-- styrofoam-- was a terrible failure. What I finally settled on was to cut the soles and sides out of foam card, then to stretch a really tough piece of plastic (cut out of a detergent bottle) across the tops-- bolted down, then taped around several times for good measure. The backs of the feet are rhino hatches-- presumably from whence my screaming orks will issue in the thick of the fight.

After all the body was done, as you can see above, I just started adding lots of bitz I have been collecting for just this purpose. Again, it still needs a lot of work to look natural. I have added some glyphs, rust, and dust, and you can see the finished version below.

Where is the belly gun, you may ask? I'll add that and possibly lots more guns when I have a chance to compare the scale against a Warhound, Reaver, etc. Until then, I think he'll remain a Stompa, but he could well get a battlefield promotion to Mekboy Gargant or Gargant without too much conversion.

I can't say I'm completely satisfied or that it is up to my normal conversion work, but for under 10 bucks and my first real stab at it, I'm pretty happy. It may not win any awards, but it'll see tabletop, and that's all I care about!