Terarr-Attak Stompa; aka "Utter proof, if ever it were needed, that I am insane!"

[SotonShades]

Good morrow ladles and gentlespoons,

Once upon a yesteryear I wrote a datasheet for a new breed of Stompa, something only a mind truely warped by the stuff of Chaos could dream up. Or at least someone off their rocker on Squig-brew. May I present, the Terarr-Attak Stompa:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8357/8384138230_8e8803af4c.jpg (http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8357/8384138230_d6ffb4bebe_o.png)

(Click on the picture for a bigger version that you can actually read!)

Now, the fluff is a little loose, but the rules are pretty balanced I think. Some of you may be thinking that the picture is a little off, maybe even photoshopped! Erm, well sort of. It might have been created in Publisher... Newho. Thanks to a recent impulse buy, I have the stompa and am actually going to start building this monstrosity. It almost certainly won't look much like the picture, but it will certainly have the mad-cap, mek-built, scrap construct vibe to it!

So, what do you all think? Comments, Criticisms and referrals to good mental hospitals are all welcome.

Shades

[Cap'nSmurfs]

Definitely build it. World needs more Mekaniaks.

[Wolfshade]

I think it ticks all the boxes.

Crazy
Unlikely to work
Causes mass devastation
Likely to destroy itself and/or large chunks of your own army

Of course it will need to be red to move faster...

[SotonShades]

Don't worry Cap'nSmurfs, the build is all ready under way!

Speaking of which, photos!

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8465/8384593988_2b72626e86_c.jpg

What I iz dun so far!

I have thus far managed to build the body and head without a single drop of polycement, friction welding the sections together instead. However I ran out of plastic rod, which is why I started posting pics! A few of you may have noticed that that isn't the standard head...

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8327/8384593376_5238131ddc_c.jpg

I've made the head out of plasticard and tried to make the face as orky as possible, so a huge jutting jaw, over hanging forehead and tiny little eyes. I also have him smoking a cigar... Except that is going to be a gun! Probably the Gaze of Mork. I may add some wires and stuff to the barrel to make it more interesting, otherwise it will probably look more like a Kannon.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8472/8384592912_d8a07662b9_c.jpg

I've used a variety of flat and curved panels. Hopefully part of the charm is/will be that it looks like the orks have simply tried to make a head more based on the shape of the scrap they had available, rather than shaping the panels specifically. As for the over-sized disk on the top? Well, my Big Mek with a Shokk Attak gun has a top hat, so...

[Fizzybubela]

It looks very British as far as I can tell!

[SotonShades]

I also have him smoking a cigar... Except that is going to be a gun! Probably the Gaze of Mork. I may add some wires and stuff to the barrel to make it more interesting, otherwise it will probably look more like a Kannon.


Probably :p

[Fizzybubela]

Probably :p

I should really read the whole thread before posting shouldn't I. :D

[KrewL RaiN]

That head looks very smug. Who wouldn't be if they had a cigar that went dakkadakka boom

Also love your rules, that is so very Orky.

[isotope99]

It's going to be a surprise for the enemy when he tellyports across the battlefield into combat.

Also MONOCLE!!!!!! DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[SotonShades]

It's going to be a surprise for the enemy when he tellyports across the battlefield into combat.

Also MONOCLE!!!!!! DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, the Big Mek with the top hat does have two monocles... Might just have to follow suit!

At this rate I shall have the most steam punk stompa ever!

Waaaagh, gud Surrr!

[guitarangry]

I like those rules may have to give them a go sometime :) I will look forward to seeing your progress on this

[SotonShades]

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8367/8389214085_8d51a2653b_b.jpg

It'za gud day ter STOMP stuff!

[Brakkart]

Isembard Kingdom Brunel would be very proud... or horrified.. probably both! What a great idea for a project.


The hat can be practical too, rim of the hat is an observation platform/gun deck and the top opens with a missile silo inside... "Look out, it's about to blow it's top!!"

[SotonShades]

Haters Gonna Hate,

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8467/8391022126_5e26c5f989_c.jpg

STOMPAS GONNA STOMP!

Yeh, I was originally just extending the legs and swapping the feet so the Stompa was a little more different from others...

I'll also be extending the armour down so the stompa looks more bulky, rather than just leggy.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8235/8391018016_39a27b9aaf_c.jpghttp://farm9.staticflickr.com/8499/8391018380_225400bc84_c.jpg

while the legs are both actually fairly similar in construction (how complicated do you need to make a hollow box?) I wanted to make them look far more Orky, so that meant looking like different constructions. So one is fairly hollow, with various support pillars, while the other has armour on all four facings, with a few extra bits of bracing. For both I need to add glyphs and/or armour panels so they aren't just made of solid, flat sheets, but the basic form is there and the stompa is free standing :D

That is it from me for today. Might have a go at a monocle quickly, but probably we shall see. Comments? Criticisms? Anyone turning this guy into a Meme, or are you going to wait for me to finish building this monstrosity first?

Shades

[KrewL RaiN]

Oh that stompa head makes me smile lol

[Wolfshade]

Why do I think that this stompa needs a walking cane?!

[eldargal]

That is adorable.

[alshrive]

given the current climate i advise giving it snow shoes or ski's. a skiing stompa....... hmmmm idea's are happening......

[SotonShades]

More STOMPA!

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8050/8393655416_892c7343a9_c.jpg
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8236/8392568997_42f95c8545_c.jpg

As I said I would, I have extended the armour to cover the legs a little more (honest I am not a prude...) to make it look more like a larger Stompa, rather than just a Stompa with weird legs!

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8213/8392567167_cb2634854e_c.jpg
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8223/8393652960_4c2c60f39d_c.jpg

I have also added an access ladder at the rear. There is one in the kit, but it didn't look remotely long enough, and I have much better plans for the looted rhino/land raider door that comes with the kit!

You can't really tell from these pictures, but I have added armour panels to the legs so they match up with the body more aesthetically, and textured some of the panels with groves, battle damage and some pitting from when the metal was being beaten into shape. Once I have added some rivets, hopefully the whole lot will blend together so you shouldn't spot too easily where GW ends and Shades begins.

I do have a few more pictures is anyone is particularly interested, but I will probably be working on him more over the weekend anyway, so pictures of newer bits will probably be more interesting. As always, comments and criticisms are welcome (though no more saying he is adorable, EG; it is a terrifying machine of utter destruction and mayhem!)

Shades

[eldargal]

You need to make a bow tie for it.

[SotonShades]

Damn it EG. When you are right, you are right!

I would also go with Wolfie's suggestion, but he needs his arms for guns :P

So, today's to-do list; Bow-tie, Monocle, GUNZ!

Think I even have a good idea for how to make the bow tie without it just being simple there for the sake of it being there!

[Tzeentch's Dark Agent]

Damn it EG. When you are right, you are right!

Except when she is wrong and won't admit it. :p

[eldargal]

I'm very rarely wrong, and when I am it is because of sleep deprivation or inebriation.:p

[Tzeentch's Dark Agent]

She won't even admit it now. :p

[SotonShades]

Now now children, no domestics! Or I won't show you pictures when I have done the next few bits!

[SotonShades]

Like a Sir

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8053/8394620327_7a3ef849b3_c.jpg


More Dakka, cummin suun :D

[SotonShades]

So, after a little research on the old interwebz, it looks like this guy is now more accurately classified as a gargant;

http://images.wikia.com/warhammer40k/images/d/d9/Gargant_Size-Chart.PNG

Terarr-Attak Stompa or Terarr-Attak Gargant? Neither rolls off the tongue that well...

[Houghten]

It's less accurately classified as a Gargant, that being a catch-all term that covers everything bigger than a Mega-Dread.

[Denzark]

It brings to my mind that floating alien bogey with the moustache in Farscape - the one who farts helium.

I like it.

[SotonShades]

To-do list complete... sort of.

Bow-tie, check.

Monocle, check.

GUNZ! Well, two of the many.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8475/8395820645_881d2ddf94_b.jpg
Duz wun feel lucky, Yuuff?

Yep, the Deth Kannon and co-axial gigashoota have been mounted. You can't quite see in this picture, but I have also added some further detail to the Gaze/Cigar of Gork.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8357/8396871250_cf9bbcc1c1_c.jpg

They don't quite line up unfortunately, but it's not like it would improve orkish accuracy. I will probably but the ammo hopper on for the Kannon. Haven't quite decided yet.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8233/8396892122_93cf94fea7_c.jpg

Just like the legs, I have extended the arms by building completely new ones. I tried to make them look as ramshackle as possible with only fairly basic spaced armour on top. You can even see fuel/hydraulic/control lines exposed. I did try to make the elbow hinge look like it could actually work. In fact, the plates in the lower arm aren't directly attached to those from the upper arm. If it weren't for the rest of the gubbins (such as the original stompa arm now acting only as an actuation armature... yeh, that kinda shows the difference in scale!) the hinge would actually rotate freely.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8195/8395811519_4ae4de2591_c.jpg

Not at all an orky attempt at making a fist for the stompa. It's a control room. I might actually have to add a view port in the finge... I mean front. With some bands of armour... shh. You can also see some more of the arm construction in the background.


So that is it from me for today. Fairly productive I think. Hopefully tomorrow I might get on to doing the Terarr-Attak Kannon itself, as well as adding in the other guns and supa-rokkits. If you really want, there are some more pictures on my flickr photostream (http://www.flickr.com/photos/63487083@N06/) to tide you over until I get some more done.

Keep leaving comments and saying nice things. I like it a lot lol.

Shades

[SotonShades]

Ok, so it is fair to say that the Terarr-Attak Kannon is a little more complicated than the other parts of the build. At least in terms of number of components if not the actual arrangement/method of putting them together. I also have a small public service announcement about the friction welding technique I have been using;

TAKE REGULAR BREAKS!

The vibration of the rotary tool bouncing and skitting across the plastic will give you pins and needles in your hand. It is something you should be aware of when using any vibrating tools. I have been welding now almost non-stop for several days and you can physically see my right arm quivering below the elbow. Unsurprisingly, I won't be doing any more tonight.

Ok, meat and bones of the post. Well, I started off building the main barrel of the Kannon. I don't have any tubes of suitable diameter, so I made one, welding a rectangle of plasticard into a cylinder and using the handle of a small hammer and my hair drier to heat and form the plastic so the joint wasn't stressed and therefore likely to break. To match up with the Shokk Attak gun, I added the front turbine from a very generously donated Valkyrie Engine. I then made a couple of circles of plasticard and a largish tube to make an axle around which the barrel could freely spin. I spaced them so that were just inside the ends of the barrel and welded them firmly to the axle tube. I then placed this inside the barrel, slotted an end plate on the axle as well and welded that to the
barrel. The end result? Well, not quite as smooth and free rotation as I would have liked, but it certainly moves!

Following this I made a large disk to mount the axle, and thus the barrel, too. I then beefed it up with a second disk and a wall between them, the the axle welded to both disks. That is were things started to go pear-shaped. Well, box shaped... I tried to build a weapon housing to go behind the disk, almost as wide and slightly taller. This was the result;

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8336/8399652882_6bdcd63ace_c.jpg

A little on the chunky side, even for this extended Stompa! I had to have a rethink, and opted to go with something of a similar height, but considerably less bulk. I also decided/was convinced to mirror the hand/kontrol box from the left arm, so built up the L-shaped housing you can see below, placing the hand between the disk and the leg of the L;

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8374/8398572599_7839183f87_c.jpg
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8214/8398571267_5ee936cb12_c.jpg

I used randomly shaped panels to maintain the scrap look of the stompa, overlapping and welding from the inside and outside of the housing. I also textured one of the panels by holding the welding rod perpendicular to the panel and keeping it in constant motion, changing direction randomly every fraction of a second. I have also mounted smaller disks around the main disk to match up to the Shokk-Attak gun model slightly more.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8080/8399654118_8dfc8f5ed9_c.jpg

Here is a quick size comparison.While the main disk still has a similar frontal area to the box housing I did before, the bulk of the gun has been massively reduced. the hand is roughly as far forward of the body as the left hand is, though slightly higher, which should make the Terarr-Attak Kannon look more menacing than the Deth Kannon, but only time will tell. Obviously I still need to build the arm to actually hold the Kannon up, as well as the warp vanes (similar to on the datasheet above and the Skokk-Attak gun model) and a plethora of other details on the gun itself. Not to mention a large tube so suck up the 'ammunition'... Plenty still to do then, but not tonight.

As always, let me know what you think, any suggestions you may have and so forth. Hope you have had a good weekend,

Shades

[Godless Zealot]

Looks very dapper and suitably killy too! Keep it up! :)

EDIT: but no need to rush! Keep to your regular breaks! ;)

[KrewL RaiN]

It can be hard to take breaks when your in the "creative zone", so make sure you force those breaks on yourself hehe!

[Dlatrex]

Like a Sir

More Dakka, cummin suun :D

That is horrifically charming.

[SotonShades]

Right, mini-update (sans images unfortunately). I have added more "arm" to the Terarr-Attak Kannon gun housing and have built up five pylons that will be the arms on the spinning barrel. Still need to add more electronic looking gubbins and the spheres on the end before attaching them to the gun. I also need to find somewhere with decent ridged cabling to go between/around/to them once thy are attached. I do have some guitar wire for the thinner bits, but I want something suitably chunky and industrial looking as well. Still, I have to take my Granddad into hospital for a routine check-up tomorrow, so I should have at least half an hour to myself in town...

Speaking of hospitals; unfortunately my mother had a nasty fall on the ice today walking to work (conveniently at a hospital) and has several injuries and a couple of broken bones, all of which means she is relatively helpless at the moment, so I shall be her slave for a couple of weeks at the least... That means very little time to work on the Stompa, or any of my other projects for that matter, so this might be the last update for a while. Still, when I can get her sat in front of a good film for a couple of hours, I might be able to escape to do a few bits ;)

Shades

[White Tiger88]

I demand he has a Cup of Tea for a CC weapon.....

[eldargal]

I like that idea, then yo ucould make a tea caddy deffdredd.

[guitarangry]

WOW this is coming along quite fast and nicely. Hes looking rather Dapper now.

[Fizzybubela]

Nice! :D

[SotonShades]

PROGRESS!

Not a lot, but still...

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8361/8432979500_31ac703d21_c.jpg
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8471/8431891981_d50559588d_c.jpg

Here are the pylons I mentioned before, now attached to the barrel of the Terarr-Attak Kannon (which I have now welded in place as it wasn't really spinning in a worthwhile way.) As you may or may not be able to tell, particularly from the second photo, they are roughly evenly spaced around the circumference of the barrel but all sit at slightly different distances back from the end. Didn't want too be too accurate/neat when building something Orky.

The spheres on the end of each pylon are beads of a cheap bracelet I found at my local supermarket. I still have a load left over If I decide to add some more bits on, which I am fairly likely to do given how much barrel there is with nothing attached. I still need to find some cabling (which I have yet to find) to attach to the pylons and may still add some further control/conduit boxes nearer their bases. Not quite sure on that yet.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8223/8432977888_0119042ff9_c.jpg

I am beginning to think this beasty is going to be an absolute -*Censored by the Inquisition. A clean mind is bereft of Heresy*- to transport. Still, hopefully it will be worth it.

Shades

[alshrive]

with the remaining beads why don't you add some Dalek-Like Bauble decoration to the armour?

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JIiSIOQi1Q4/Tt1LhmmphiI/AAAAAAAAAjo/zW3UEEWevjw/s640/dalek_extreme_closeup_The_Taybor.jpg
edit; added picture for clarity!

[SotonShades]

Don't really have enough to make it worth while. Maybe one the next stompa (yes there will be a next one...)

[Cavscout]

Soton, I believe every "gentlemen" carries a pocket watch. Maybe a chain and and something Orky like a glyph!

[SotonShades]

Soton, I believe every "gentlemen" carries a pocket watch. Maybe a chain and and something Orky like a glyph!

How did I not think of that? I even own a pocket watch IRL... Thus proving I am in fact a gentleman myself.

Some how I will get one onto this monstrosity, thanks for the idea.

[KrewL RaiN]

The pocket watch can dub for a ball n chain! What time is it? ITS TIME TO WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHHHHHHHHH *smash*

[guitarangry]

I think the pocket watch would have to look like an old fashioned time bomb. A clockface straped to dynomite :)

[SotonShades]

Mork or Gork have blessed me of recent... I think that might have been why the Omnissiah struck down my laptop, but still...

The Terarr-Attak Kannon is attached! With a huge amount of scaffold lol.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8233/8453484776_a99f0d7097_c.jpg

As you can see, I managed to find some ribbed tubing. They actually came of a flex-light LED USB lamp. Well, two of them. Nice little find in Poundland (which I guess is our equivalent of a Dollar store for you Yanks).

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8528/8453483900_071fc4617c_c.jpg

I wanted the Kannon to look suitably supported, being significantly more massive than the Dethkannon on the other arm. I did consider blocking some of the area between the beams in with armour plating, but it didn't feel right. What I will be doing instead is filling out a lot of that empty space with cables and tubes. Since I took these photos I have also added a shoulder guard, similar to the one on the left shoulder, though significantly more 'kustom'.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8385/8452392415_5a25fc20f5_c.jpg

As you can see, I all ready have some ducting for control cables and the like, as well as some extra detailing on the gun itself.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8232/8453485926_b4e4bb1e17_c.jpg

Last but not least for today, I have a close up of a loose cable. It gives you a slightly better idea of what the ribbed cabling looks like as well.


So, what still needs to be done? More details for sure, as well as the cabling between the hull and the Kannon I mentioned. I also want to include one of my favourite elements from the Shokk Attak Gun; the 'ammo' tube the Mek has in his free hand hoovering up grots. However, to match up to the rules, I will have my (much larger) tube feeding in to the back of the hull, not far from the access hatch.

That is it from me for now. As always let me know what you think. It's doubtful I'll be doing too much more to it this weekend (loads of family stuff going on with Grandparents turning 80!) but I'll keep you lot posted on my progress as and when. By the way, I have purchased supplies for the pocket watch, which I intend to make look like it was a town hall clock that was looted!

Shades