Sunday, April 3

Project Update: Freebooterz

 I sat down yesterday to start assembly on my first squad of boyz for my freebooterz and quickly got distracted by my Kaptin Badruk figure that I've had sitting around half finished. So, I decided to go ahead and convert the Kaptin to Big Mek Badruk.

I had built this guy and started painting him shortly after his release, but since I didn't have an army to go with him I set him aside for other things. To start my conversion I removed him from his base and removed his choppa (I'll have to find a model to put that on!). I decided to go ahead and not remove his shoota since it would be a huge pain and it looks cool. With everything out of the way, it was time to start adding the mek stuff. I wanted my Big Mek to have a power klaw and kustom force-field. As I looked through my boxes of Ork stuff, the only power klaw that really stood out to me was the one from the Assualt on Black Reach Warboss. With the help of my modeling saw and a few minutes later, I had my power klaw and the warbosses body just may become my base for my converted Mad Doc Grotsnik.

The power klaw was a simple cut and paste for the old choppa. I went ahead and pinned the klaw just in case. I used a few small pieces of floral wire to make the power cable going from the power pack to the klaw. To make these cables you just twist four or five of these wires together with a pair of pliers. I then cut a small section of hollow tubing to make a anchor point on the power klaw and glued it in place. Once the glue had dried I ran a small drill bit through the hollow tube and into the klaw and also drilled a small hole into the top of the power plant. Starting with the hole in the power plant I glued the power cable in place and let it dry before bending it to shape and gluing it into the port I made on the klaw. I also added a Big Mek glyph to the banner pole.




With the power klaw out of the way, I now had to figure out how I wanted to make my kustom force-field. Another quick search through by bits box and I found the parts I needed. Never throw away your old bits, and if you are going to, just send them to me, I'll take them! I grabbed a couple of pieces of hollow tubing, two gun mounts from the land speeder kit, some sensors from some Imperial vehicles, and a rokkit launcher from the Deff Dred that I didn't use. On the Badruk model his right foot is propped up on a treasure chest. I removed the pile of loot that is spilling out of it and filed a flat spot on the back side of the chest and glued and pinned one of the land speeder gun mounts there. To cover the empty loot pile on the front, I placed a piece of plastic card over the spot and used one of the glyphs from the Deff Dred to add a little detail. Next I assembled the plastic tubing to resemble a hydraulic lift and glued the sensors on top. While this was drying, I  removed the rokkits from the launcher and replaced them with a pair of extra exhaust stacks. At the bottom of the new power plant I added the second land speeder gun mount and left everything dry for about an hour. With everything drying, I got out some more floral wire and began twisting them into power cables for the kustom force-field. In the same way I did the power klaw, I attached the power cable first to the sensor then wrapped it loosely around tubing and connected it to the bottom of the power plant.


And here are the parts before I take them out to prime them. I went ahead and removed his head to make painting easier. I'm not too worried about the paint that is already there as it is quite thin and not blocking any detail so I think I'll be o.k.. I'll have to make a custom base for him as well. I'll probably combine a 40mm base and a 25mm base to make a figure eight shape to hold the kustom force-field. I'm also seriously considering changing my bases over to magnetic bases from Gale Force 9. I made magnetic bases for my Ultrawing Terminators and I really liked them especially when going to tournaments. The bases from GF9 are incredibly cheap (25 standard 25mm bases for $9.99), and after making my Deff Dred base I'm not sure I want to include the trench bases any more for fear that they will take away from the Orks themselves.

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