Ork Treadbike - First Painted Model in a Year

Since the last update, I moved across country. I finally have my painting and modeling area setup again and just finished painting my first new model in over a year.

My latest Ork warbike was inspired by this weird thing I saw while searching the internet for inspiration one day last year before we moved.

 Watch out. Bad ork biker comin' through!

A Base For the Biker Nob

It's been a little slow on the hobby front lately, but I did manage to build a custom base for my massive warbiker nob. It is a 40mmn base cut in half and glued to both sides of a long rectangular base. In hindsight, it looks a little odd to have round and square elements on the same base. But overall, this base fits well and helps him fit it better with a mob that is all based. My old 2nd edition bikers are on square bases and my new bikers are on round bases so maybe he will be the keystone that ties the mob together.

Warbiker Nob: Oggo One-Eye

Ol' Oggo One-Eye is a biker boss with power klaw. He lost half his face, an eye, an ear, and a few teeth from a bolter shot to the side of the head, but even with that, he still never wrecked his beloved trike!

After he lost his eye, he put a matching gouge on the eye of his banner pole. But being an Ork, he gouged the side that matched his injury while he was looking at the banner, rather than the same side of the face. But just try to tell him that! It always looks right when he looks at it.

Being a an older, veteran nob, his skin is a browner, mossier shade than the boyz.

He's got a massive trike with Ben-Hur style scythed wheels. 

With his trusty power klaw, Oggo is a wrecking machine up close. You can also see some of his gang badges on his jacket.

A suitable leader for a rowdy band of warbikers!

This was my first real full Forge World model and I have to say, they are a lot harder to clean-up and assemble properly than the normal GW plastics. They are beautiful models, but they take some work and figuring out. I made some small mistakes and had to make some modifications to this kit, as well as having a hell of a time getting the rider in there after attaching the guns and ammo cases. Definitely a learning curve.

As usual, the big photos have made me notice two areas that didn't get quite fully finished so I will make a few touch-ups. (For one, you can see some unpainted green stuff in his right armpit in the last photo where I could not get his arm to fit flush with the body!)

"Big Toof" - Bad Ork Bikeboy

I finished painting my first model since Ava was born. It took awhile, but I am happy with the result.

I call him "Big Toof", a very large and tough Ork with a kustom warbike with his red teeth icon pole. He is almost nob-size, but too much of a loner to lead a mob. He joins a warband when he is looking for a fight and leaves when he's got all the loot he can carry. Right now, he is part of Filgakk's Evil Sunz army invading Xhorik Prime.

I love the way this model turned out. He has so much personality, he could be an RPG character.

He is ready to crack skulls with that big pipe and lug nuts.

Instead of just edge highlighting, I tried to experiment a bit more with highlighting the upper surfaces and shading the lower areas like the light source is above him. 

I dig the over-sized front tire. It gives the bike a laid-back, cruising look.

Lots of exhausts! I have no idea why a bike would need four, but an ork probably figures "If one is good, four is better!"

I love that he is carrying all his gear with him, including his shoota, so he can join any warband and leave when he feels like it. He strikes me as a loner.

The shocks are the springs from two mechanical pencils. The handlebars are a papreclip that I spent a long time shaping (and it still looks crooked)!

More Warbiker WIP

Not much of an update, but with my slow schedule I will be posting any little bit of progress I make just to keep this blog alive!

Here is the biker boss nob's body with power klaw and the rider of the tread bike (arms to be painted separately and added later). The Forge World nob biker kit comes with awesome bikes and nobs, but the only weapons are a choppa and slugga. So I used a klaw from the plastic nob box set, but the arm is a little small compared to the resin biker boss and the pose had the claw right at his side, which doesn't work too well with handlebars in the way. So I went for a more dynamic pose of holding the arm up and back, ready to strike while zooming past on the bike. This also had the benefit of making the arm longer and more similar to the resin arm holding the handlebar on the other side.

I tried to fill the gap with some green stuff, but it looks pretty rough. If I can't fix it up to look more like a muscle, then I might try to cheat and cover it up a bit with a chain running from the shoulder pad under the arm pit.

In other news, I finally applied paint to an Ork for the first time since Ava was born! I didn't make much progress, but I at least put the first touch of color on the warbiker with the pipe in his hand. It will be a slow process, but I'm happy to be painting again.

Warbiker Nob WIP

I finally had a little time to myself and so I started working on a nob for my warbikers. Here is the bike mostly done. It is one of the Forge World nob bikes. The only thing to be added to the bike is a big spiked guard on the front wheel (just waiting to add it later for ease of painting).

I am converting the rider to have a power klaw, but I'll be painting him in pieces and then assembling it because of how crowded everything is.

The big trike with wheel scythes - total Ben-Hur / Bugs Bunny chariot racing style!

Here is the nob biker I am using. He looks pretty brutal with iron plates riveted to his face! Ork Band-Aids!

I just undercoated these items along with my other biker (the one with the visor helmet carrying the lead pipe). I'm looking forward to painting something besides touching up that terrain, which is boring and down in the basement, so not very accessible.

The tread bike still needs a little work to configure the driver and handlebars. The driver is going to have to be leaning down low over the handlebars in order for the arms to reach and I am going to struggle to get his head to be looking forward instead of down. It is going to take some more work, but that is the challenge and fun of conversions: lots of little things that don't quite fit or don't quite work the way you pictured in your head.

Tread Bike Rear End Update - WIP #3

I did a little work on the rear end of the bike. I figure the big tank would be a massive fuel tank and make the smaller tank is some sort of nitrous oxide, or Orky squig fuel equivalent, to help the engine get extra power.

I'm pretty pleased with how the tanks fit on the back and how the fuel inlet line enter into the body pretty seamlessly.

However, the rear end is a little rougher looking. There was a wide gap on either side of the tread because of how I had to separate the two halves of the bike to fit the tread under the rider's seat. To cover some of the gap, I added some plates with bolts. I tried to make it a bit more Orky by using two types of bolts, but I didn't think to do that until I already had a bunch of the brown ones on. Maybe I should remove a brown round one and replace it with a black hex bolt so it looks more homemade. I still need to do some scraping and touching up, especially around where I drilled the exhausts, but it is looking decent.

I also added a little rear facing glyph. I like to imagine it means something equivalent to the middle finger in human culture! If you can read this, you're too zoggin' slow!

I looked hard at extending the exhausts with plastic pipe to help balance the rear end of the bike relative to the massive guns on the front. But it just didn't look right because the marine bike exhausts have those rectangular slits and I couldn't make mine match them.

So I think I am about done with this bike other than smoothing out some rough areas. I will paint the rider and handlebars separately so I can reach everything and then glue them together painted.

Tread Bike Update - WIP #2

I've been doing a little work on my Ork tread bike and making some slow progress. Because of the width of the tread, I had to split the sides of the Space Marine bike, attach them to either side and then fill in the gap with plastic. I tried to use a little Green Stuff to model the seats. After it dried, I tried to smooth it down with a small file. It will probably look crappy, but it is good modeling practice for me and not too important since most of it will be hidden by the rider.

It still needs handlebars and a rider, obviously. I probably won't add the rider until I get the bike painted so I can more easily reach everything. The front is a little crooked, but I suppose that is not the end of the world for an Ork vehicle. 

I also need to do something to rear end to make it a bit more Orky, but I don't have any ideas at the moment. I suppose I will dig around in my bitz box and see if I get any inspiration. 

It won't end up as the coolest bike in my army, but it will definitely add variety, at least. And a true Ork army should have as much variation in the models as possible!

Ork Tread Bike WIP

While browsing the internet to try to better understand how motorcycles look and get conversion ideas for bikes with treads (to use some of the old 2nd edition bike frames I still have), I cam across this little gem. The Modern Mechanix cover looks like something straight out of Fallout. I have definitely found the inspiration for my next Ork warbike!

The tread from the old Wartrakk is a perfect fit.

The tread is so wide that I will need to fill a gap between the sides of the bike. Should be a challenge to make it look decent.

Obviously, I am not very far along. I just have a basic outline for what I want, but it should be fun to see where it goes from here. I don't have a master plan. I am just going to release my inner mek and start building. If it ends up a little wonky, no big deal. If it totally sucks, I will scrap it. But hopefully it becomes a unique bike for my army.

Ork Biker Update: Modeling Finished

I'm finished building the first of my current batch of Ork bikers. I really wanted a grot shooting the guns from the platform behind the rider, but I just couldn't find a decent pose. The problem with the guns being in the back is that inevitably, the driver and handlebars are in the line of fire! So I went with a forward-mounted dakka gun instead and then loaded up the rear platform with supplies and a banner pole.

I would have loved to have both hands on the  handlebars, but I couldn't find two arms that were symmetrical enough. So he got a nice pipe to crack 'eads in close combat.

I like the rifle wrapped in a fur and tied to the side. It gives this guy a lot of character, like a lone wander in an RPG.

My favorite part of the model is the huge front tire and the shocks on the forks.

The bigger handlebars allow him to ride in a relaxed position like he's cruising on a Harley.

The only bit from the new bike box is this front plate with the headlight and spikes. 

He took a lot longer than I ever planned to spend converting a single biker, but I just kept running into so many dead ends on things I wanted to do. It was slow, but I'm pretty happy with the final result, other than I added a platform to the back for the grot gunner and now it looks bigger than it should be since there is no gunner. Oh well, those things happen when you convert on the fly.

I can't wait to get paint on this bad boy! But first I am going to build a few more. Some will be pretty much stock out of the box and others will be more extensive conversions.

WIP Ork Biker

I am starting my next project: Bad Ork Bike Boyz! I have four bikers and they've been fun and fairly effective. Plus, as an Evil Sunz warband, these guys should be a core component. So it is time to build them up to a proper-size gang.

I'm really happy with how this first one is turning out so far with the oversize front wheel, shocks and  big handle bars for cruising to the battlefield. The handlebars are a paper clip and took about an hour to shape (and they're still a bit kittywompus!) but I like the effect. It kind of reminds me more of a Harley.

Obviously there is a ton of work left to go, but wanted to share the progress so far.

For the guns, I am thinking about having a grot standing on the platform on the back firing a pivot-mounted gun. It seems tough to drive a motorcycle and fire the guns with one hand, while cracking skulls with the other.  I tried to figure out a way to model both hands holding the handlebars, but I couldn't find or model two that looked symmetrical. 

The grot platform gunner may be a bit too clunky for a bike, but I'll play around with it and see. I also like the idea of lots of gretchin riding on the bikes and vehicles of a Speed Freaks army.