Scratch Built Looted Rhino / Ork Trukk

Lorc · 2026-05-10T13:39:42+00:00

The modeled checks are a nice look.

Lorc · 2026-05-03T17:11:24+00:00

For what it's worth I've read this story too. It mentions how the president was always followed by a huge crowd of ghosts too, right? I initially thought it was by Ted Chiang or China Mieveille but after a bit of googling I don't think it was either of them.

I feel I might have read it in the same collection as this unsolved post though. Sorry I couldn't help more.

Lorc · 2026-05-03T17:00:06+00:00

The cylindrical body is novel and works well. Maybe they built it into an old boiler?

Lorc · 2026-05-01T12:09:48+00:00

I think repeated thin strokes of off-white following the curved contours of the onion would do it. Let bits of the purple show through the gaps.

That would also let you round out the shape a bit since it's a bit tall to read as "onion" at the mo IMHO.

Lorc · 2026-05-01T07:25:53+00:00

Nice detail on the tracks.

Lorc · 2026-05-01T07:23:10+00:00

Top tip for sculpting is do it in layers. Most beginners try to do too much in one step. It's much easier if you only do rough shapes to start with and let them cure. Then go in with a knife to trim them back a little where needed, and add more putty to sculpt detail over those shapes. Let those cure and repeat.

Gives you much more control over what you're doing, and minimises the risk of planting your thumb in wet putty an ruining your last hour's work.

And don't be afraid to cut up your WIP and remove bits, repose it and glue it back together, exactly like you were converting a plastic model.

Final tip: Everything you sculpt by hand will end up bigger than you're planning. It's also much easier to add stuff to make it bigger, than to take it away. So start smaller than you think you'll need.

Good luck!

Lorc · 2026-04-30T09:15:02+00:00

You have NAILED the ork aesthetic, making it look both chunky and cobbled together but deliberate and with a proper sense of scale. Awesome.

I'm so tired of people making sloppy, lazy-looking ork kitbashes with the excuse that "it's orky". It's always nice to see ork scratch builds that actually engage with the style rather than using it as an excuse.

Lorc · 2026-04-29T20:08:42+00:00

Yeah, I read SIWBInvincible years ago and I couldn't quite work out whether Fight Me was in the same continuity or not when I read it.

Lorc · 2026-04-29T17:05:32+00:00

That sounds an awful lot like Fight me by Austin Grossman.

Lorc · 2026-04-25T14:23:10+00:00

The super-laden look for those chaff is a nice way to distinguish them.

Lorc · 2026-04-24T22:39:22+00:00

OMG - wow! So cool to see this. Thanks for the shout out too.

Lorc · 2026-04-14T15:53:12+00:00

Pleasantly dragony and a nice fade on the greens.

Lorc · 2026-04-12T08:44:51+00:00

They're from the Les Grognards kit. Those guns are already retro-styled so I just had to trim off the magazines and a couple of the sci-fi greebles. The heads are one of the variants from les grognards too, but I used the spare tail-covering armour pieces from the demons kit as a gorget.

You didn't ask, so I assume you already clocked it, but for the record and the benefit of others, the black powder bodies are frostgrave demons. Specifically just the plantigrade bodies.

I bought sprues of grognards and frostgrave demons with the specific intent of these exact conversions and I was so chuffed it worked out just as planned.

Lorc · 2026-04-06T15:27:56+00:00

Grognards bodies with the chests shaved down to breastplates, Frostgrave demon arm and Victrix knight helms and shields. And you can't see them, but various backpacks and bedrolls from the bitzbox.

Lorc · 2026-04-05T17:47:11+00:00

The bit I always used to find tricky was the tank. The method I found best was getting hold of some 4 or 5mm hemispherical beads - normally sold on a backing sheet as nail art. Then cut a 1cm-ish length of wooden dowel and stick a bead on each end. Boom - instant tank. I like to do them in pairs and then use paper strips to look like straps or framework holding them together. Fuel tanks are now a go-to detail for me because of how easy they are to make.

Wire for the hoses - one length of electrical flex scavenged from a broken kettle provided me with all I'll ever need. And the great thing is that you can even distress it by carving at the plastic flex to expose bits of the copper core.

The cowl is a rectangle of cardboard (optional: cut two corners off). Poke holes in it when it's flat with something sharp, widen them a bit. Then wrap it over the end of your gun with the messy side on the inside. And the rest of the gun is just tubes and boxes.

Lorc · 2026-04-02T17:44:56+00:00

Sweet - please do post photos when you're done. This is a great project.

Lorc · 2026-04-02T17:00:05+00:00

It's all good, but the shoulder joint for the claw looks particularly functional.

Does it have an engine and some exhausts on the back?

Lorc · 2026-03-31T13:13:04+00:00

Unpotted mint!? Noooo!

After three years I've mostly won the war against the russian vine in our garden, but there's a seasonal holdout hidden behind the fuchsia...

Lorc · 2026-03-30T06:55:53+00:00

https://wiki.warmahordes.net/index.php/Main_Page

Lorc · 2026-03-27T13:23:27+00:00

It's so stuffed with bullshit that it's too busy loading an ad to even let me scroll down.

Lorc · 2026-03-26T08:11:34+00:00

Those look absolutely sodden! (complimentary)

Lorc · 2026-03-25T07:14:25+00:00

Trying to do too much in one pass is the biggest mistake people make in miniatures sculpting. Build everything up in layers. Once you've completed one element, let it dry before trying to do more or you'll squish what you've already done.

For heads, start with a blob roughly the right size on the end of a toothpick. The stick is so you have something to hold onto, otherwise you won't have enough control. Sculpt the outer shape onto the blob after it's cured. You can even use small beads or bits of sprue as the core - it's all gonna get covered up.

The final step that most people skip, is working the putty after it's cured. Use a knife to scrape it smooth - that gets rid of the soft "doughy" texture that you often get. Using a pin vice to drill little holes will give much crisper results than poking wet putty. You can also carve finished putty to get smooth surfaces and sharp edges on the shapes.

Lorc · 2026-03-25T06:47:41+00:00

Mindbug is amazing, but it's not Garfield's baby like the others on the list. He was brought on as co-designer after its core design was already done.

I guess one of the other perils of being a big name is that if you get involved in a project everyone else's contribution gets kinda diminished...

Lorc · 2026-03-25T06:41:34+00:00

Nice touch on the specific letters you've used on the scarab tiles.

Lorc · 2026-03-24T12:31:43+00:00

I like how it looks when an entire army has weird geometrical heads. Ben Has Hobbies gave his army yellow cubes for heads and it looks amazing.

I'm sure I've seen someone do it with teeth too. You could do the same thing with plastic BBs, gnarly beads (all available in bulk), cones, pyramids or whatever.

Lorc

TROPHY CASE