Lead Figure Conversion Diary - WH40K: DOW Big Mek
This was originally posted as a thread on the RelicNews 40K: DOW forum.
Introduction:
This will be a work in progress thread that I will keep updating as this little project progresses....could take a few weeks as I am a slow and lazy painter/modeller ;)
Well. Someone has to do it, and since I like 0rks and the Mekboss in particular, that someone might as well be me...
That's my progress so far, I bought the bitz and a new cutting mat to hack them to death on :). I do have a reasonable plan how to do this but I'm too tired to write it out now. More info and photos as I do something other than staring at pretty metal bitz / spamming the painting forum ;)
Progress Report 1:
Gonna start working on this today. In the meantime the stuff I was going to write last time:
Design Brief:
There's various important aspects of the DOW Big Mek that make him stand out from other 0rks/Meks, these are what I should capture to best represent the BM:
- Powerclaw with a chainsaw each side.
- The apron (makes him look a bit porkier than most 0rks).
- The big backpack gubbinz.
- The electrical pylons with the lightning arcing across.
And some more minor aspects:
- The little square bionic eye and the metal jaw.
- The welder's mask.
- The stumpy little bionic foot.
- The pistol on an outstretched arm.
Da Plan:
This is what I'm planning to do, starting with the small things from the right foot upwards, working towards the bigger stuff and the backpack:
- Chop off left foot and replace with two small plasticard disks linked by tubing/wire.
- Cut off the holstered pistol on the other side.
- Bend and wrap two plasticard strips around his body to make the backpack harness.
- Cut off both hands and pin the piston hand onto the straighter axe arm (that's what it's for, orkmobsta), add a magazine to the pistol.
- Shave off the current targeter eye and replace with a simpler rectangular eye.
- Add thin plasticard to make a simple metal jaw.
- Make a simple welder's mask out of plasticard (it is simple in the game) and glue onto a simple hinge at the back of his head.
- Bend the claw arm as far back as it will go, then trim and re-angle the shoulder join so the arm is back and the claw more angled (this will be a pain in the arse but it's needed for the pose).
- File down the claw and chainsaws and glue all those together and add any useful details.
- Trim the sack, vent, and Skaven symbol off the backpack. Add a block at the bottom with a new funneled vent coming out as in the DOW model.
- Make the pylons, firstly with a plasticard base and those 3 cylindrical gubbins on them, then add the two small spikes at the back and the 3 large sphere-topped spikes at the front.
- Detail these with fine wire to represent the lightning arcs.
- Shave down the front armour of the figure, make a green stuff apron on a wire frame and pin into place.
- Base.
- Undercoat.
- Paint.
- Collapse into a heap and celebrate with a curry upon recovery :).
Progress report 2:
OVER TWO HOURS TO MAKE A BLOODY FOOT JESUS BLOODY CHRIST!!
Converted the foot out of various plastic bits. This turned out to be a lot more longwinded than I thought. An awful lot of effort just for a damn foot, will have to make sure I don't get too carried away with details... Also did the gun arm, a lot simpler, just needs to some greenstuff to bulk up the hand into a glove. Oh, I also cut away the holstered pistol which worked okay.
Next, the head and mask.
Progress report 3:
Managed to do a bit more:
Trimmed down the superfluous bollox off the backpack, added an extra tank at the bottom with a wire to mould a green stuff funnel vent onto (I'll do most of the greenstuffing in one go at the end).
Found some "track" strip to use as the waist supports, bent to shape in boiling water, this will need to be finished when I'm doing the apron though.
Repositioned the claw arm slightly so it's bent outwards, filed off various details, filed down and added the two chainsaws, finished off with pipes for detail. The full claw is pretty damn big ;)
Progress Report 4:
Small but important stuff:
Filed off targeter eye and added a more appropriate rectangular eye sculpted out of plasticard (really pleased how this worked), added a proper jaw out of thin plasticard (took quite a while to get the side bits right). Tweaked head position reading for gluing.
Made a welders mask out of plasticard including visor and teef details.
I'm pretty pleased how it's going....this is the most complicated single figure conversion I've done, but doing it bit by bit I'm making steady progress and can give each bit my full attention. Two more major stages to go - making the electrical gubbins on his back, and sculpting the greenstuff apron - both of these will be more challenging.
Progress Report 5:
The electrical gubbinz. Added some plasticard as a base. Made up the back gubbinz with sharpened wire, drilled out plastic sprue, and thin wire coiled around and across. Really chuffed with these, they turned out exactly right, and there were no awkward bits to deal with. Added the cylindrical plastic bitz for the capacitors - this took ages as I had to file the middle one down by over a mil to be an appropriate size, whilst retaining the cylindrical shape. Wine bottle foil over as a strap, pins drilled in for the upright gubbinz - these will have greenstuff added later to form proper spikes. Finally drilled little holes in and added fine-ish wire to represent the electricity arcing....not convinced by way I've bent the fine wire but looking at the screenshots it will do, I initially hadn't planned to put it in.
Also added the square kneepad and left armband in a fit of "make the thing as anally retentively precise as possible" :spin: .
Tired now. Need pizza. - blame any incoherence and blurry photos on these factors.
Progress Report 6:
Latest blah:
Well I've nearly been foiled at the penultimate hurdle - I SUCK AT GREEN STUFF. Or maybe green stuff just sucks full stop (i.e. it's a pain in the arse to manipulate, gets stuck to everything except the bloody figure, and dried overnight to a strange rubber-like constituency)....but then again every man and his squig seems able to casually sculpt the odd army or two out of it just for a laugh. Whichever, this bit was hard (the other bits have been slow but not actually difficult).
Firstly finished the waistband thing by filing stuff and then bending into shape. Then trimmed down the front to make room for the apron, drilled a couple of holes and made a wire frame for support. Sandwiched this between two sheets of green, spent ages trying to get it into vague the right shape when still damp. Left to "dry" to strange rubber like state overnight. Sculpted, filed, hacked, sanded and eventually got something approaching a vaguely acceptable apron shape. Checked fit. Trimmed down front to get a better fit. Checked fit. Trimmed down front to get a better fit. Checked fit. Trimmed down front to get a better fit. Checked fit. Trimmed down front to get a better fit. Eventually got bored, made the teef necklace out of wire and tiny plastic bits (these were awkward too).
So....gotta do a bit more green stuffing but hopefully should be simpler. Then final assembly, base and blah blah. Still a way to go.
Progress Report 7:
Finished converting!
So this is the final unpainted figure :). No confusing him with your standard Mekboy I think - he is BIG.
The last bits were: Tidy up both "gloves" with greenstuff. Bulk up the top pylons with greenstuff. Make the backpack funnel vent thingy out of greenstuff. Trim and sand all this down when it had dried. Detail the bottom of the pylons with wine bottle foil. Glue all the seperate bitz together. Detail base with a thin layer of polyfilla and the usual sand and shit. Glue and pin to base. Glue on chainclaw arm. Look at the final result in amazement. Ponder the painting task ahead. Brain fuses. Coma-like state ensues.
So that's that. I may put a couple of pics of it undercoated and with base colours on but probably not. Next time it should hopefully be the final painted pics. OMG this is gonna be a beast to paint... :smash:
Lack Of Progress Report 8:
Woooo, 10 days to undercoat, paint the base, and do base coat colours,
I haven't been doing very well (mentally, mostly), so I've made almost no progress. I hadn't intended to show any mid-painting pictures but since people were asking, here's the basic shitty messy base colours. Took me a long time to decide on the colours for the main claw unit, other than that the colours are pretty much the DOW Evil Sunz one. I may still change the strap across the top of the gubbinz, a bit OTT having that red too. Yes the red is very bright, it will look better shaded and highlighted. The base is pretty much done apart from the rim and a bit of neatening.
HOPEFULLY I will manage to make some proper progress this week, I've got more of an idea how to tackle this one now.
Final report:
See the finished figure here.
Painting this took a very very long time due to the complexity of the figure and my general bad motivation....it was really arduous and had me tempted to give up lead figures at a few points! Heavy reliance was placed on a series of drum'n'bass and techno tapes recorded from the late and legendary John Peel's radio show... On the other hand I learnt some new stuff (e.g. I'm sticking to basic army style from now on, LOL), got some effects I really liked, and it certainly got me in touch with my inner 0rk .
A brief description of the painting: I did the base first (heavy drybrushing tends to bollox up the figure paintjob). I basecoated all the colours at once, this is to reduce colour spillage basecoating later on. Normally I'd paint each colour fully, then move on to the next colour, touch up the basecoat, and paint that colour fully. However this model was too complex, so I painted it in sections fully, then moved onto the next section: Feet & inner clothing, backpack, electrical gubbinz, pistol and glove, power-chainclaw (neat name eh ), apron, arms, head, lightning arcs.
All colours were painted with blending and stuff apart from the cabling and the backpack ropes. Most colours had a final glaze to brighten the colours. I generally avoid full washes and drybrushing as they're unpredictable and messy, except on the metal which takes a thin black wash nicely. Colourwise I was aiming for fairly bright and contrasty (as that's what I like), with traditional 0rk colours i.e. green and red - hence it was roughly based on the Evil Sunz DOW scheme. There's a few deviations from DOW colours due to practical issues or laziness.
Ummm yes....celebratory curry tonight
