Seeing the woods from the trees; or Barrels from Drums

I had been putting together my goblins in barrels. These goblins would be carried in barrels on the back of orc blitzers. It was fun putting the goblins together, bu the barrels themselves were proving to be hard work. Turning the rocket packs from the Stormboyz kit in to the barrel meant working with Green Stuff. So far I had tried to approaches.

The first way was to shape stripes of putty and stick them vertically to the rocket pack so it looked like planks of wood.

The individual stripes method

The second way was to roll out a sheet of green stuff and wrap it around the rocket and then press/ shape/ scrape with a sculpting tool the planks. I preferred the second method because I find it quicker and neater.

The wrap around method

So there I was working away with the putty when I had a light bulb moment. I had only recently come to the realisation that kit bashing is about using what already exists in a different way.
The Orruks kit comes with a Drummer, who I had put together as is and intended to use as a cheerleader model. The kit came with 3 drummer sets.

My light bulb moment was to look at the drum in a different way. 180 degrees different to be exact.

That my friends looks a lot like a broken barrel that a goblin would ride in.
The drum came in 2 pieces, one piece has an Orruk arm wrapped around it holding the drum. This was easy enough to saw off and file down. That rough side would go against the back of the Blitzer and be mostly hidden anyway.

I got one of the models I was going to use as a Blitzer and attached the new barrel to the back of it

 I am really pleased with how that looks. Really pleased. I can neaten up the join between the Blitzers's back and the barrel with putty, but that will be a lot less work and much easier then using the putty to the shape the barrel.

I already had made 2 barrels and there were 2 drums left in the kit so that covered all four Blitzers. My only problem was these new barrels required the goblin models to have legs, while the original two I had made need them not to have legs. That meant one goblin was shorter then necessary as I had already cut in half.

Looking desperately through my off cuts. ( When kit bashing NEVER throw anything away) I found one leg, the other was too far gone to reuse.

Looking at the model above I also felt that the pole was too long and grabber to big for the game board. It would interfere with other models on the board and quickly become annoying. So I made the pole shorter and changed the end of it.

My plan is to add a team pennant to hang off the pole. The legs wouldn't be seen, they just added height to the model so it is looking out of the barrel. I glued on a bit of sprue to act as the other leg so the model stood evenly in the barrel.

I think when it comes to painting these models I will paint the goblins separately and then glue to the barrel when both models (Blitzer and goblin) are finished.

Really happy with how the Blitzers are turning out. It makes the team more unique and gives the team character.

Goblins in barrels

Last time a started to put together the Blitzers. Each Blitzer would have a barrel on their back carrying a Goblin. The first goblin I made was pointing a blunderbuss, shooting a ball.

I wanted one of the goblins to be shooting a catapult. Looking at the Gretchin kit there was one that had two arms up separately. After removing the sword and the pistol I got the below.

I felt that this was a good enough pose for the catapult goblin. With the catapult in it's right hand pulling back on the sling with it's left. The bottom part of the pistol would stay to form the catapult. My first thought was to try to make the rest of the catapult from putty. I quickly put that thought away remembering what I had learned from trying to make the blunderbuss ( see previous post). I stared long and hard at the sprues in front of me. Until...

This was part of a "prodder" for the Gruntherd. Do you see it? That U shape. I could use that as the base of the catapult.

I stuck the U shape to the top of the goblin's left hand and then used putty to model the elastic band.

The band ended up looking lax. I added a small round piece of plastic as a ball bearing to the other hand. I think with the band maybe I should have come back to the putty after it was half set. I like that the goblin is wearing a baseball cap. The head position is a bit awkward, but I think it was the best I could do with it.

The third goblin was more straight forward. There was a set of model arms raised.

 To this I simple added what I call a "grabber"

I also tried a different method to make the barrel. instead of doing strips of putty and rolled out flat sections and wrapped it around the cylinder. Then used the edge of a sculpting tool cut/indent the pattern/ shape of the wood planks. This was bit faster to do and gave a thinner finish. I think it looks neater then my first attempt.

The fourth goblin got interrupted by a barrel brainwave I had. More of that next time.

The Barrelling Biltzers

Blitzers

For the four blitzers of the team I had already formed an idea of what I wanted them to look like. I used the Orruk Ardboyz kit as the main basis of the models. I also had a 40K gretchin box and 40k orc stormboyz. Looking at the models on the various sprues a picture started forming in my head.

One of the great things about the Ardboyz is that they are from the the same range as the Orruk Brutes which I used for the Black Orc Blockers. Size wise the Ardboyz models are smaller then the Brutes so on the game board the models will look the the right proportions to each other.

An Orc blitzer with a barrel on it's back in which was riding a goblin. The goblins would be in a number of poses "assisting" the blitzer in some non legal fashion. Rules wise they are just Blitzers but background wise it would give the team a unique ( I hope) visual representation.

I started by blu-tacking a model together with all the components, to see if it would work.

 For the photo above I took an Ardboy model cutting away any weapons. I then took the rocket pack from the Stormboyz set , cut a gretchin in half and put that in the top of the rocket barrel. Originally I only put the model together to see if it worked. I didn't want a Goblin with a gun as that would have looked out of place. Looking at the model above, however, gave me an idea. I could turn the gun into a blunderbuss! A blunderbuss would fit fine in the bloodbowl setting I think. I could make a cone out of putty and add it to the end of the gun. I could then add a ball to it so it would look like the goblin was shooting the ball.

I am pretty pleased with this idea.

The Orc models were easy enough to put together and didn't involve much modification. Just weapons removed and arms posed. The Goblins in barrels would take much more work.

The Stormboyz kit has rocket packs. I put together the central circular piece and cut off the other rocket parts that were attached. In the photo above you can see the circular body with a fin still attached which I cut off later.

Next I shaped some strips of putty and put them vertically on the rocket body. This was an attempt to make planks, to make it look like a barrel. See photos below for work in progress.

I wasn't sure if I was getting the barrel plank look I wanted so I decided to leave the barrel and concentrate on the blunderbuss. I thought I could model the cone/trumpet piece out of putty and stick it to the end of the rifle. I thought wrong.

When I started this project I knew that I was pushing well beyond my skill level, But trying to model with the putty has been a nightmare. Size, proportion, shape, all these things to take into account. What I thought would be a simple task was in fact beyond me. I was pretty frustrated with myself at this point and was ready to give up on the project.

But then it happened. Staring despondently at the sprues on the table; I had an epiphany. Those rocket packs had a cone shaped exhaust piece. CONE SHAPED! Suddenly what I was supposed to be doing became clear. Don't try and create some thing from nothing/scratch. Take what already exists and reuse it in a different more useful way. Stop looking at the plastic bits as they were originally intended and look at them as potential pieces for my model.

From the photos below you can see that if the that plastic piece was used as it was intended the cone bit would be on the inside

I glued it 'backward to the end of the rifle and got the beginnings of a blunderbuss.

From there I was happy to use the putty to join the pieces together shape wise.

I am quite please with how it has turned out so far. I need to be neater with the putty. As you can see I also carried on with the barrel. It is far from perfect, but I can live with it. I have an idea I want to try for the next barrel anyway. Still need to add a football to the end of the blunderbuss.

Liquid Green Stuff

I bought a pot of GW liquid green stuff. To use to cover over/ smooth out the chain mail on the models. I found it quite useful. It takes a number of layers to build up, but the effect looks much smoother then what I was getting with the putty. It also covers up finger prints in the putty, which I seem to get a lot of when using the putty.

I actually find the putty frustrating to use. It sticks to my cutting mat and/or the metal sculpting tools, resulting in it being difficult to get the putty to stay on the model as I want it. I bought some rubber tools used for working with clay, and these give a much cleaner/ smoother finish. I am also wondering if I should work the putty on a baking sheet and seeing if adding water will make it easier to work with.

New set of rubber sculpting tools