Somewhere near Pythos in the Pandorax System....
"Supeem Warboss Fork -- pleez check dis! Dey iz turnin' to ram us!"
Fork, the Supreme Warboss of the Yellow Orks turned to his Nav Boy's display; and focused on the blue craft on the image. As its prow swung toward his Ork Hulk, Da Ruinin' Runcible, a huge grin dominated his expression. "Lovely, dey IZ comin' righ' to us!"
Turning to, he bellowed, "Nav Boy! All reactys to full! All ahead frank!" And, then drawing in an Ork lungful threw back his head with a full war-cry: "Waaaaagh!"
An Explanation:
Back in August when we ran the Ork Train at the Reno Summit Warhammer Store, Mr E, (the store warboss) challenged us to take part in the Armies on Parade event in October.
The problem, of course, was "how do you fit an Ork Train on a 2 foot x 2 foot base? The answer we came up with was to use 3 dimensions. After thinking of a while we had realized that if we created a model of the inside of Supreme Warbosses Fork and Spork's Hulk that we would have plenty of space for the train.
Yet, as we started thinking about how to create the hulk out of foam, we felt that it would be fun to have something in the background to give nice contrast to our Ork lootings.
Write-up Part I -- Creating a Crimson Fists Frigate to be part of our Ork Hulk :)
Our friend Mr. M has beaten us with his Crimson Fists enough times ("preferred enemy Orks" rings in our ears) that we needed a little bit of modeling revenge. And, we chuckled a bit as we imagined what might take place if a hapless (and smallish) Crimson Fists Frigate should try to ram an Ork Hulk.
The Hulk would win in the crash of course -- and after spawning to make up for any losses in the hand-to-hand assault which would inveitbly result -- the Orks would loot the remaining hardware from the Frigate.
So, we thought that it would be fun to make at least one wall -- or section -- of a Crimson Fists Frigate as an incorporated part of our Armies on Parade display.
How to do it?
We spent some decent thought pondering how to integrate the Space Marine's Frigate. And, finally went with using the wall of the frigate as a "background" for the section of the hulk.
And, we figured we could make something pretty gothic looking if we used a set of the scenery building pieces.
Then, at the local Game Kastle's swap meet we found this: And, if we split it apart, we figured it would make great pieces of a Frigate!
We were worried that it would look flat, though. So, we had the idea of making it with two flat sections one sloping up; the other sloping down. We noticed that lots of Battlefleet Gothic ships have that diamond-shaped cross section....
So, we built a plywood frame.... Here is the back-side of it. Two pieces of 1/4" plywood attached to 2x4 pieces which we trimmed on a band-saw to match the angle we wanted.
Then we covered it with plastic.... We were wanting the surface to look like a space ship. We knew that wood grain would be hard to cover up. We plastic sheeting at Home Depot which looked nice. Plus, the ribbed structure puts small ridges in it -- which end up looking a LOT like the welded hull of a ship.
Once we had covered our wooden frame with the plastic, we realized that this plastic was not super easy to glue to. We tried plastic glue out. Did not bond (just stayed as a liquid on the surface of the white sheet). Since this is a very large structure, we were worried that super glue would not create a very elastic structure. So, we did some quick testing....
Of course our old friend epoxy would certainly bond. But, we didn't have a lot of time before the Armies on Parade event -- and we would be in trouble even with the 5 minute curing epoxies.
Luckily hot glue turns out to do a really super job of bonding 40K plastic to the white sheet material. In the trial (below) we glued a tank turret piece on and could not budge it after 30 seconds!
Well, at first we were thinking to build our Frigate out of pieces of Imperial Buildings -- such as some of the terrain sets. Mr. E had pointed out that the windows on those have quite a "gothic appearance" - just like Battlefleet Gothic's Imperial ships.
However, when at the Game Kastle swap meet we spotted a cast-aside Fortress of Redemption we new we had found some better raw materials!
Breaking the Fortress apart turned out to be pretty tricky. In the end, we used hot water to weaken the glue bonds - and then pried things apart. We ended up with all of the pieces intact (for the most part).
Then, we started trying some layouts....
Right away, we had the idea of using the building skirts along the bottom of the top portion of the Frigate. Then we noticed that we had just enough of those skirds to put some right-side-up -- and another piece reversed.
After some trials fitting we started hot-gluing things down. This is a good point to add that we ended up purchasing a little band-saw about a year back to help with another project. That turned out to be HUGE for building the frigate. We were able to carefully trim sections off of the Fortress's pieces with nice repeat-ability. And, it really helped with the speed of construction.
As we started gluing things down (and that's hot-gluing, mind you), we took a break and showed our progress to Mr. S at GameKastle. He gave us several additional pieces of advice: 1) work on making sure that the Frigate doesn't look like bits glued to a board; 2) use the two color spray paint trick; 3) always work on building your narrative....
So, one thing we did was carve out the white plastic where we had placed access doors so that they looked realistically indented. That did help a little bit with the appearance. The biggest factor though (in hind-sight) was deciding to make the Frigate's walls out of two angled pieces. It still allowed us to have a wall at 90-degrees to the Hulk's shell -- but created more interesting internal angles for viewing.
Part of the grand plan was to have the Fist of Vengeance in a condition where it had *just recently* rammed the Orks' Hulk - and the Orks were gearing up their looting efforts. So, one idea was to create a cargo bay at the bottom.
We found a plastic salad container (from Trader Joe's grocery store) which looked pretty good as a cargo bay. Then we added bay doors slid most of the way open.
Then, we started priming everything black as Mr. S had instructed.
We didn't want the Frigate to look perfect - so we were planning for a blast hole on the upper left portion. We used a "hole saw" to cut a hole in the wood behind the plastic. Then used a heat gun to melt away the plastic surface.
We did this after we had put on our Space Marine blue coat from the top angle -- and Alien Purple from the underneath angle. So, we primed the blasted hole black again. And, this ended up creating a nice "charred" look!
Here is our blaster hole - thanks to our heat gun!! Mr. S had suggested that a heat gun held nice and steady up close to plastic would have a nice effect - and sure enough! What we did was heat it up and then poke it with a screwdriver to make it look "blown inward."
For the final painting, we decided to keep things simple. We used some nice red to paint a few accent items -- such as the Crimson Fists logo and the ship name. Decided to also paint the ribbons on the large side-of-ship statues as well.
And, lastly, we used magnets and washers to mount guns onto the turrets. We decided that any good Space Marine's Frigate would be sporting weapons like Plasma Obliterators -- so we borrowed our Ultramaries Obliterator for this mission. :)
And, here it is with the turret-guns magnet mounted.
So, that's the story of building the Fist of Vengeance Frigate section for our Hulk.
More writing to come -- we'll write-up building the rest of the Ork Hulk.
And, of course, much more work to be done. Ideas at this point:
- Build internals for the frigate on the reverse side of the model!
- More painting? Although we liked how this ended up a bit muted for a background piece
- Add Orks and Grots working the surface over. (That IS the reason the "F" is bent on the "OF" in Fist of Vengance -- we'll have a grot pulling it off.)
And, not really sure what to do about the fact that the Crimson Fists seemed to have used a pretty unconventional spelling of "Vengance". For now, we'll keep it. Fork and Spork are enjoying the humor of Space Marines spelling something the way Orks would do it!
"Supeem Warboss Fork -- pleez check dis! Dey iz turnin' to ram us!"
Fork, the Supreme Warboss of the Yellow Orks turned to his Nav Boy's display; and focused on the blue craft on the image. As its prow swung toward his Ork Hulk, Da Ruinin' Runcible, a huge grin dominated his expression. "Lovely, dey IZ comin' righ' to us!"
Turning to, he bellowed, "Nav Boy! All reactys to full! All ahead frank!" And, then drawing in an Ork lungful threw back his head with a full war-cry: "Waaaaagh!"
Fork and Spork's Hulk - Da Ruinin' Runcible - With Looted (Failed Ramming Victim) Crimson Fists Frigate as Background.
An Explanation:
Back in August when we ran the Ork Train at the Reno Summit Warhammer Store, Mr E, (the store warboss) challenged us to take part in the Armies on Parade event in October.
The problem, of course, was "how do you fit an Ork Train on a 2 foot x 2 foot base? The answer we came up with was to use 3 dimensions. After thinking of a while we had realized that if we created a model of the inside of Supreme Warbosses Fork and Spork's Hulk that we would have plenty of space for the train.
Yet, as we started thinking about how to create the hulk out of foam, we felt that it would be fun to have something in the background to give nice contrast to our Ork lootings.
Write-up Part I -- Creating a Crimson Fists Frigate to be part of our Ork Hulk :)
Our friend Mr. M has beaten us with his Crimson Fists enough times ("preferred enemy Orks" rings in our ears) that we needed a little bit of modeling revenge. And, we chuckled a bit as we imagined what might take place if a hapless (and smallish) Crimson Fists Frigate should try to ram an Ork Hulk.
The Hulk would win in the crash of course -- and after spawning to make up for any losses in the hand-to-hand assault which would inveitbly result -- the Orks would loot the remaining hardware from the Frigate.
So, we thought that it would be fun to make at least one wall -- or section -- of a Crimson Fists Frigate as an incorporated part of our Armies on Parade display.
How to do it?
We spent some decent thought pondering how to integrate the Space Marine's Frigate. And, finally went with using the wall of the frigate as a "background" for the section of the hulk.
And, we figured we could make something pretty gothic looking if we used a set of the scenery building pieces.
Then, at the local Game Kastle's swap meet we found this: And, if we split it apart, we figured it would make great pieces of a Frigate!
We were worried that it would look flat, though. So, we had the idea of making it with two flat sections one sloping up; the other sloping down. We noticed that lots of Battlefleet Gothic ships have that diamond-shaped cross section....
Our concept for the section of Space Marine Frigate. 2 feet wide, 2.5 feet tall. Angled so that it looks a bit Gothic. We were thinking to hold it against the "rock" of the Hulk using magnets....
So, we built a plywood frame.... Here is the back-side of it. Two pieces of 1/4" plywood attached to 2x4 pieces which we trimmed on a band-saw to match the angle we wanted.
Here is our plywood frame. We painted it grey. Ran out of time to do anything more fancy. Going forward, we'll coat it with plastic and create some "insides" of the frigate for the Orks to be looting....
Then we covered it with plastic.... We were wanting the surface to look like a space ship. We knew that wood grain would be hard to cover up. We plastic sheeting at Home Depot which looked nice. Plus, the ribbed structure puts small ridges in it -- which end up looking a LOT like the welded hull of a ship.
Here is the plastic sheeting we used. Pretty inexpensive at Home Depot. Cuts very easily, etc....
Once we had covered our wooden frame with the plastic, we realized that this plastic was not super easy to glue to. We tried plastic glue out. Did not bond (just stayed as a liquid on the surface of the white sheet). Since this is a very large structure, we were worried that super glue would not create a very elastic structure. So, we did some quick testing....
Of course our old friend epoxy would certainly bond. But, we didn't have a lot of time before the Armies on Parade event -- and we would be in trouble even with the 5 minute curing epoxies.
Luckily hot glue turns out to do a really super job of bonding 40K plastic to the white sheet material. In the trial (below) we glued a tank turret piece on and could not budge it after 30 seconds!
Here is our gluing test. Plastic glue didn't work. Hot glue was great! (And, hot glue was really fast -- certainly compared to epoxy!)
Well, at first we were thinking to build our Frigate out of pieces of Imperial Buildings -- such as some of the terrain sets. Mr. E had pointed out that the windows on those have quite a "gothic appearance" - just like Battlefleet Gothic's Imperial ships.
However, when at the Game Kastle swap meet we spotted a cast-aside Fortress of Redemption we new we had found some better raw materials!
Here is the donor Fortress of Redemption. Turned out to be much easier to take the turret sections apart than the tower itself....
Breaking the Fortress apart turned out to be pretty tricky. In the end, we used hot water to weaken the glue bonds - and then pried things apart. We ended up with all of the pieces intact (for the most part).
Then, we started trying some layouts....
Right away, we had the idea of using the building skirts along the bottom of the top portion of the Frigate. Then we noticed that we had just enough of those skirds to put some right-side-up -- and another piece reversed.
Trying layouts of our pieces. Part of what we tried to work out was anticipating where we would put a blast hole in the side of the Frigate.
After some trials fitting we started hot-gluing things down. This is a good point to add that we ended up purchasing a little band-saw about a year back to help with another project. That turned out to be HUGE for building the frigate. We were able to carefully trim sections off of the Fortress's pieces with nice repeat-ability. And, it really helped with the speed of construction.
Our trusty Ryobi mini-bandsaw in action. Turned out to be extremely useful for trimming the pieces in a nice and straight fashion.
As we started gluing things down (and that's hot-gluing, mind you), we took a break and showed our progress to Mr. S at GameKastle. He gave us several additional pieces of advice: 1) work on making sure that the Frigate doesn't look like bits glued to a board; 2) use the two color spray paint trick; 3) always work on building your narrative....
So, one thing we did was carve out the white plastic where we had placed access doors so that they looked realistically indented. That did help a little bit with the appearance. The biggest factor though (in hind-sight) was deciding to make the Frigate's walls out of two angled pieces. It still allowed us to have a wall at 90-degrees to the Hulk's shell -- but created more interesting internal angles for viewing.
Here is the Fist of Vengeance with most of the components glued. Still some work to go on the cargo bay....
Part of the grand plan was to have the Fist of Vengeance in a condition where it had *just recently* rammed the Orks' Hulk - and the Orks were gearing up their looting efforts. So, one idea was to create a cargo bay at the bottom.
We found a plastic salad container (from Trader Joe's grocery store) which looked pretty good as a cargo bay. Then we added bay doors slid most of the way open.
Then, we started priming everything black as Mr. S had instructed.
We have most of the black primer on. Turned out using 2 cans of black primer for this project!! Got the cargo bay doors fashioned at this point - ready to prime again :)
We didn't want the Frigate to look perfect - so we were planning for a blast hole on the upper left portion. We used a "hole saw" to cut a hole in the wood behind the plastic. Then used a heat gun to melt away the plastic surface.
We did this after we had put on our Space Marine blue coat from the top angle -- and Alien Purple from the underneath angle. So, we primed the blasted hole black again. And, this ended up creating a nice "charred" look!
For the final painting, we decided to keep things simple. We used some nice red to paint a few accent items -- such as the Crimson Fists logo and the ship name. Decided to also paint the ribbons on the large side-of-ship statues as well.
Here is The Fist with the red painting done.... Also, have the cargo bay put together....
And, lastly, we used magnets and washers to mount guns onto the turrets. We decided that any good Space Marine's Frigate would be sporting weapons like Plasma Obliterators -- so we borrowed our Ultramaries Obliterator for this mission. :)
And, here it is with the turret-guns magnet mounted.
And, here is the finished Fist of Vengeance!
So, that's the story of building the Fist of Vengeance Frigate section for our Hulk.
More writing to come -- we'll write-up building the rest of the Ork Hulk.
And, of course, much more work to be done. Ideas at this point:
- Build internals for the frigate on the reverse side of the model!
- More painting? Although we liked how this ended up a bit muted for a background piece
- Add Orks and Grots working the surface over. (That IS the reason the "F" is bent on the "OF" in Fist of Vengance -- we'll have a grot pulling it off.)
And, not really sure what to do about the fact that the Crimson Fists seemed to have used a pretty unconventional spelling of "Vengance". For now, we'll keep it. Fork and Spork are enjoying the humor of Space Marines spelling something the way Orks would do it!
