Big Mek Booma Options

[jamsessionein]

So dudes, I need to share this because it is totally awesome.

A while back I wrote up a somewhat wordy backstory to my ork army, and slapped it up on The Warforge.

A dude named Zsoulless has been posting at The Waaagh for a while now and started posting some completely, ridiculously awesome Ork art that hes been doing in his free time.


Kaptin Badrukk, the meanest Flash Git in da 'ooniverse.'
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The artist's personal Big Mek art for his army.
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I sent him a PM asking if he did commissions, and he asked what I had in mind. I pitched my ideas at him. In my backstory, I laid out a number of orky characters that are in my army: Wurrzag da Weird, the feral-esque Warphead, Booma da Big Mek, the chief architect of all things explosive and stompy, and Warboss Gargrim "'Uge'" Mungus, a massive ork warlord who has an unusual fondness for grots.

He said he had been looking for a couple neat ideas to draw out, and after a bit of discussion where I explained a couple facets of the characters that I hadn't yet written out, he started drawing. He did a general rough sketch of Gargrim, but that's not what I want to show you guys. See, he's started drawing out Big Mek Booma, and oh man is it awesome.

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I just think it's amazing to see a character I imagined up rendered like this.

That's Booma with his signature weapon, da Boomhamma, a bionic arm, and a Kustom Force Field generator. It's still a work in progress, but holy crap guys, tell me this isn't the coolest thing. When he's done, he's given me permission to ink the thing and color it in. While I have no artistic talents as far as illustration goes, I can certainly wield photoshop well enough to manage that.

I get inspired by good artwork, and this is one hell of a kick in the ass to actually build a proper Big Mek model to represent Booma. That little project has rocketed it's way up to the top of my to-do list! I'm going to try and model as closely to his art as I can within reasonably boundaries.



That bionic arm is going to be one heck of a fun job. I'm mirroring the image for the purposes of modelling because the big mek arm I have holding the handle is on the right side, so Booma's model is going to have the bionic arm on his left side. I'll just flip the image when he's done drawing.

I expect this to take me a while, as I do intend on sculpting a decent amount on this model so I can do the art justice.

[theshufflingzombie]

very cool, dude has talents!

[fattdex]

I would say you could bowwow some various Warjack bits for the other arm!

[jamsessionein]

Just a brief little question: What do you guys think of the hammer capped off with leman russ tank wheel hubs?



It just seemed like it needed a little something extra on the flat parts.

[theshufflingzombie]

works for me, id probably do something in the way of rivets around the edge, or power coils just to make it look like it functions a bit better

[Sutters]

rivets and power coil bits!

those pics looks unreal,

[liamrob]

Woah, some of the best ork art i have ever seen. That guy sure does have talent

I can't wait for you to finish making a model about that artwork.

Catchya!

[rogal_dorn]

Good to see you back mate, it's been a while since I've seen some of your work! This stuff looks great!

[jamsessionein]

This was a sketch I got today, and I think I like it. I popped the leman russ wheel hubs off and I had to putty the surface back over again so that it'll be smooth, but what I'm going to end up doing is adding a riveted outer ring with glyphs on the faces inside the ring - one will be of Gork, the other side will have Mork.



Have to wait till the putty dries tomorrow to pull that off, unfortunately, but I've been killing time with a couple other projects while I wait.

[jamsessionein]

Man oh man. Working on the head of this hammer has been some of the fiddliest scratchbuilding I've ever had to do, particularly that glyph, but I think I really like this more than the other designs. This is the 'gork' side - the 'mork' glyph will go on the opposite end when I get a proper chance to do it.

Also, I sculpted booma a larger tooth to match the art.

[jamsessionein]

I vowed to finish the other side and the glyph before I had to head back to school, so here is the 'mork' side of the hammer.





I understand that aesthetically it might look a bit better if the glyph were farther out from the face of the hammer, but I need to also reiterate how infinitely small they are to begin with - the only reason I was able to really cut something that size is because I used thin card. Sanding the outer ring hubs down isn't really something I care to do right now, either, because they've been riveted already. The ring is the thickness it is because when I tried making rings that were any thinner, they would fall apart when I used a pin vice to drill the rivet holes. I made about 6-7 rings before I managed to get a pair that didn't fall apart under the stress!

Still, I think it looks good all the same.

[jamsessionein]

Oh! Nearly forgot: Zsoulless updated the sketch a little bit.

[jamsessionein]

Enough people on other forums complained to me enough times about the fact that the glyphs were a bit too recessed into the hammer that I popped them off and used a hole puncher to fill the middle of the ring in and push the glyphs out a little bit. There's some tiny gaps around the outside edges, but I'm working on melting those shut with a syringe and some Plastruct plastic weld.



I think this is where I leave it for now.

[Fluffy05]

You have a gift!

So does the Artist.

Thanks for sharing again!

Allan

[jamsessionein]

So, I had grand designs of coming home on Thursday and jumping right into modelling Booma but of course the teensy, weensy fact that it is Valentines day threw a wrench into that. Add onto that the fact that I have been enlisted to fix my father's ailing computer and I didn't find myself with much free time today.

Despite this, I have something I thought I might post. See, I found a rather nifty bit a while back. It comes from a miniature model line called Demonblade, which produced some rather unusual models until Games Workshop shut it down for copyright infringement. The Demonblade models had an 'orky' line that had a fair bit of crossover with GW's old second edition ork designs.

I managed to pick up a couple Demonblade minis off ebay with the intent of maybe mixing their parts discreetly in with the rest of my boyz, and this bit caught my attention right away. It's a completely bionic left arm!









I have been saving this for some time now with the mentality that perhaps it would look good on a Nob or what have you, but it seems to fit Booma fairly nicely.

Now! With that said, I want to make one thing clear: I do still intend on trying to scratchbuild Booma a proper styrene arm to match the phenomenal art that Zsoulless has been creating. The only reason I am showing photos of this other arm is because it will serve as a plan B of sorts. If I find that I simply can't scratchbuild such a small, fiddly little detail, this bit will serve as a backup way to actually finish Booma's model and get it on the table.

Having said that, I think I'm going to head off to bed so that I can wake up bright and early tomorrow morning and contemplate how I'm possibly going to build such tiny fingers.

[jamsessionein]

So I spent some time this morning struggling with manufacturing a bionic arm and man, this is not easy. It's all to do with the scale of the thing - if I could be like Games Workshop and make all of the original models at 3x the size, I would be set, but unfortunately I have to suffer through these attempts.

The little bit you're about to see is actually my third attempt, as arm number one was far too long and was hitting the ground even without a hand attached to it, and arm number two got glued to my desk in a moment of carelessness.

Anyway, here's the gist of it. I put a terminator hand on the stump for the time being both to get an idea of how long the finished arm should be, and because for the life of me I don't think I can build fingers that small. I tried - pins, paperclips, styrene, everything is too fiddly and flimsy!







The coily spring things in his wrist are some little fiddly roller part I found inside an old laser printer that I took apart a while back. I like the way they look, but they're such a pain in the ass to work with and I have a feeling that after priming they'll look like rubbish because the 'ribbing' is so small.

Personally? That other metal arm is looking better and better as I try this. Still, I figure it doesn't hurt to post the work up.

[jamsessionein]

Grah. Okay, I'm pretty sick of trying to do this already - I was pinning a very teeny, tiny hand together in the hopes that it might be durable enough to work but small enough to look decent. This is honestly as small as I think I can manage, but I am not happy with it.



It doesn't look terrible, but that's because the foreshortening of the camera angle is making the arm not look too long. Take a look at the exact same position from the side:



Holy gorilla-limbs!

Honestly? As of right now, I am nearly sold on using the metal arm I have. There are two reasons...

1) Much as I'd like to be able to model on this minute of a scale, it's just too much.
2) This is probably the only model that the bionic arm actually fits on. The metal arm is too small for a nob, and the arm I have made for Booma seems to be a perfect fit on that new Direct-only Waaagh-Banner Nob as far as scale goes:



So. I have some thinking to do about it, I guess. I considered maybe just cutting the 'hand' part off the metal bit and using it on the plastic arm I have been making, but I only have one of these bitz and I really don't want to ruin it.

[Fluffy05]

Could you maybe us a Necron or Marine Bionic Hand?

As always thanks for sharing your work rocks!

Happy Converting,

Allan

[jamsessionein]

In the spirit of compromise, I hacked the hand off my metal arm bit and placed it on the wrist of the arm I have been scratchbuilding in the hopes that maybe it would solve my hand dilemma. I realize the forearm is a bit longer than I might otherwise want it to be, but it's not possible to shorten it very easily right now, and I made it the size I did so that I could cram detail onto the curved areas when I got to that step.



Edit: I take that back, as well. I shortened the forearm up a bit and it's shaping up a bit better now. I'm going to use that metal hand bit I hacked off the other arm... but first I think I might cast myself a copy.

This post has been edited by jamsessionein: Feb 16 2008, 09:40 AM

[The Nothas]

I liked the termy hand it had the orky knuckle dragger thing going on. what you have done now is the bizz though as well

keep us posted it's a v cool project