Wargaming Ninja Turtles: Sekret Projekt: ''Da Wing''

So my Keizai Waza (see: Nuclear Launch Detected ) went back from the ''work in progress'' to the ''to do list''.

Why?? Because the week in Vegas (see: Gama 2012 Report ) went between me and the painting of the squad...It is that easy. Although Keizai Waza is still in my top priority, my attention shifted to my ork army, a favorite of mine, that will see intense action during Arena Montreal: http://arena-montreal.com/

Arena Montreal was for me the occasion to try and build for my army something I really wanted to do a looooong time ago:

Flying Trukks.

Here's ''Da Wing'' a flying trukk, made of a plastic glass, foam, debit machine rolls, a big shoota and a robot ''r2-d2'' style, probably looted at some Tau encampment and ''upgraded'' by da boyz.

Let's go step by step on how to build ''Da Wing'', ideally, I wanted 3 of them to make for a really impressive diorama and to be the only mean of transport for da boyz = have a stronger theme for the team at the tournament.

Step 1: Materials and tools

For ONE Wing you need:

Materials:
-1 Plastic Glass

-1 Plastic Wine Cup

-3 Kinder Surprises Eggs (eat the chocolate, give the toy to your kid, keep the egg for da boyz)

-1 Insulation Foam Sheet (1'' thickness)

-1 to 2 plasticard (aka styrene sheet) tubes
-2 plasticard rod very thin shaped like rivets

-1 to pack of styrene sheet (thin like paper)

-1 styrene sheet (yep, not a pack) thicker (thick enough that it doesn't fold)

-3 small debit machine rolls (the plastic thing in the middle of them)

-2 Warhammer 40k Leman Russ' Dozer Blade

-1 Warhammer 40k unidentified bit, probably a dozer blade's support.
-More Warhammer 40k bits (armour plates, ork guns, etc...)

Tools:
-Super Glue
-White Glue
-Cutter (or exacto)
-An old mousepad

Where to:
-You can find the top 3 materials at a local supermarket
-The insulation foam can be found in a renovation store
-Plasticard and styrene sheet (its the same) can both be found online or at a local hobby shop
-Small Debit Machine Rolls (the center) can be salvaged at work if you get the opportunity to change them or ask your boss nicely, else, find bigger plasticard tubes.
-All the Warhammer 40k bits can be ordered on their website...or found in you collection, or you can trade for them, or bought on e-bay, etc. If anything, you probably can skip them and and scratchbuild the bits with plasticard.

When:
-When you bought flowers, chocolate and did a massage to your wife/girlfriend.
-When you finished your university homework
-When the kids are at their grandpa's
= When you have a day off!! (and by one day, I mean one day)

Step 2: Get ta Work ya lazy gits!!

-Measure your foam, cut wings in it. Once one wing is done, use it to draw the shape of the other wings in the foam.
-Once your two wings are done, glue one to the plastic glass using white glue (as superglue will melt the foam). You can scratch the surface of the plastic glass with the cutter in order to give glue a grip. It can take some time to dry
-Then you glue the debit machine roll/bigger plasticard tube on the wing and on the glass, superglue on the glass and white glue on the wing.
-When that's done, glue the dozer blade, it should touch the ''engine'' but be aligned with the edge of the glass.
-Put the unidentified (dozer blade support I think) bit aligned with the glass' edge and touching the dozer blade, glue to it with superglue. Take one ''engine'' and glue it to it. bits (refer to second picture below).
-cut the plasticard tube into 2 small tubes that can go from one of the dozer blade's clip to the wing. glue them to the dozer blade with superglue.

You got one wing done. Repeat the process almost backward: start with the dozer blade, then the engine and then the wing, ideally both wings should be aligned...But if this is not the case then you'll say this plane as adaptable wings (and that's why we glued these plasticard tubes ;)) In the case where your wings wouldn't align, try and get them to be more downward as it gives a more aggressive feel to the model.

Now the cockpit and front: glue the top part of the plastic wine cup to the glass (in my case they fit perfectly). To make the model more aggressive and give him some ''fighter plane look'' I glued to small triangles cut in the thicker plasticard (yup that's what it was for) on the wine cup.

Now, with absolute luck, it should look like this:

If it does, then you got yourself a ''Blorkade Runner'' frame. Yup, that 's not ''Da Wing'' anymore because this model doesn't look like a wing at all so I changed the name.

Step 3: Better put some more armor plates on dat boss!

If there 's one thing I like about ork vehicles, it's the ramshackle look and the fact that orks put tons and tons of small metal plates to create the shielding.
Now you don't want these beautiful wings you spent so much time building to melt when you'll spraypaint the basecoat of you Blorkade Runner and you sure as hell don't want to use more of that nasty white glue that takes so much time to dry!!!
Well bad news boy: its time to use that slowpoke-drying white glue one last time.

But first cut in the paper-thin plasticard in shape of the wing, do that 4 times (for top and bottom), now cut stripes to glue on the side of the wings.(front, side, rear)
As you're a genius you'll probably have removed a rectangle from both pieces that go on top of the wing in order to have them fit with the engines.

You're ready? okay its time, and I promise its going to be the last time, use that horrendously-slow-drying white glue and glue the plasticard on the wings.

Next on the list is the windows. I thought a long time as whether or not I should put some on the cockpit or have my orks fly ''blind'' using some radar/sonar/orky technology. I decided they could use all three AND have small windows.
As we already glued the cockpit to the body it was too late to (apologize) build an ork pilot and have plastic windows giving a view inside.
Instead, I did ''old school tank windows'', same as the one you were doing as a little kid.
Then I aligned and glued them on the Blorkade Runner.

It should look like this.

Now there 's no picture of the next step but basically you're cutting rectangles and squares (and sometimes triangles) in the thin plasticard and putting it almost everywhere on the frame. Some squares overlap others, do not hesitate to put useless and exaggerated armor: orks love it and it will probably work!!

Step 4: Everyday I'm riveting...

You really need to like your project and go the extra mile now because this next step is about to change your world: You're going to cut and glue rivets and the Blorkade Runner's armor plates.
And by that I mean hours and hours of breathing superglue fumes while your fingers can't get a hold on the small rivets.

If you're up to the challenge there 's no time to lose: take the old mousepad, the cutter and the plasticard rivet rod and cut a ton of them. Then put dots of glue (with a toothpick or the glue bottle if it 's precise enough) where rivets will go. Don't put it everywhere as it will dry. Only do 5-6 rivets at a time before doing putting more glue.
Use the very pointy tip of the cutter to gently poke a rivet, put it in the dot of glue.
Now you got the technique, use it until the Blorkade Runner has all its plates attached.

Rivets!!

Step 5: Almost Done...

So after long excruciating hours of gluing rivets to the Blorkade Runner, it should finally look like a true GW model or even better!
Don't rejoice too quickly: there's still a lot to be done but that will be in part 2 as I didn't had the time to finish this project (university got in the way).

In the next episode:
-how to build a turret out of a kinder surprise egg
-how to close the back of your Blorkade Runner (and hopefully make a ramp to allow the boyz to get out)
-how to use a Citadel Flight Stand for your Blorkade Runner.
-Other cool tips and tricks.

Until then, here are some pictures of my almost complete Blorkade Runner, Kaptin Zugnut (my ork warboss) as agreed to pose for scale purpose and because he's awesome.