[Grandpa Ducky]

With the release of the new Ork codex, Games Workshop (in all their eternal wisdom) decided to massively increase the price of Stormboyz. It used to be 35.00 USD for a box of eight. Now you have to buy some new-fangled conversion kit and a box of boys (totaling up to 52.00 USD) to make a paltry ten boyz. It's plain-old robbery.

Luckily I have a solution: Build your own! Here's my tutorial at scratch-building your own mob of Stormboyz.

Part I: The Basic Rokkit <You Are Here>
Part II: The Stormboy
Part III: Extra Gubbins and Bitz


Part I: The Basic Rokkit

This is probably the more important part of the project, in my opinion. You could just stick a Rokkit on any boy and call him a Stormboy (GW did :*) but if you do, it had better be a very cool Rokkit. This part of the tutorial will cover the basic, no-thrills, Rokkit.

Step One:
Acquire the proper materials. For this conversion you'll require:
-Plastic tubing - I am using 7/16" plastic tubing from Evergreen Scale Models.
-Plasticard (A.K.A. Styrene) - I'm using .012" for the entire thing.
-A very sharp hobby knife
-A hole punch - For small rivits on the rokkit I'm using a 1/16" hole punch
-A hobby/jewelers saw
-A pencil - Not necessary, but will help you a lot
-A compass - Not the navigating kind It's the kind you used back in Geometry to draw circles. Most office supply stores will have cheap ones.
-A tape measurer - I've learned from this project that I prefer the fabric kind. These are usually used for sewing and should be available at most fabric or craft stores.
-Super glue - If possible, a kind where you can control how much you put out. Thin necked bottles usually work best for this.
-Green Stuff
-A tweezers
-A candle/lighter - Fire.
-A handful of matches - Yes, more fire. >

A picture of all my supplies needed:



Step Two:
The first thing we're going to do, now that we are fully loaded for this project, is going to be to grab our tape measerure and mark off the body of our rokkit. I used a 3/4 inch length of tube and it fits the boyz back very nicely. Measure 3/4 inches from the end and mark the tube with your pencil.



Step Three:
Grab your hobby saw and try to cut our 3/4 inch piece off. A word of advice: a clamp or any really firm grab-y thing would help. I lack one and my cut isn't all too straight. Luckily it doesn't have to be perfect. If you screw up a little we can just hide it under the nose cone.

If you really felt like cleaning your cut up, you can just take your hobby knife to it and whittle it down 'til the point where it's flat. It's a good idea to do this to your main length of tube as you'll probably be using it again in the future.

You can see my cut was far from perfect:


Step Four:

To give the rokkit a more Orky feel, we're going to add a layer of plasticard to the rokkit. We're going to out big sheet of plasticard now and we're going to cut a piece out that's about 3/4" x 1 7/16". You might want to go a little larger. It's better to have to large of a piece that too small of one.



Step Five:

Getting the new layer attached is easier said that done (if you're new to plasticard like me). Line up the plasticard and the Rokkit as best as you can and then try and fold the plasticard around the Rokkit. If it reaches all the way around and there's some overlap, good job. You followed directions. If it falls short and can't make it all the way around, double check to see if you're folding the right way. If you are and you still can't reach all the way around, toss the plasticard aside and cut a new piece.

Once you get it all worked out, start gluing. On the opposite side from where the two ends of the plasticard overlap, place a dot of glue. Stick your plasticard there and wait for it to dry. It should look similar to this:



Slowly work your way around, gluing the plasticard layer to the Rokkit. When you get to the point where they'll overlap, stop. You're going to want to cut the plasticard so they don't quite meet, but get very close. Then glue the ends down so the gap shows. If you're confused, scroll down three steps and check out the picture.

Step Six:

We're going to make the nose-cone in this step. Grab the compass you have and a sheet of plasticard. If found that if your nose-cone has an original radius of around 1/2 inch, you'll be set. Set your compass to around 1/2 or an inch and draw a circle on your plasticard. Done? Now cut it out.

With this circle, you're going to cut one quarter out of it like this:


This'll help you fold the circle into a cone. Fold on end other the other and the circle will pop-up into a cone. Simple, huh? When you've got that, glue it. You'll want something that looks like this:




If you're having problems getting the plasticard to fold nicely, you might want to heat it a little. Light up that candle you've got and slowly wave the nose-cone above the flame (quite generously above the flame, actually). Be careful, though. If you've already tried to super glue the piece, then wait until the the super glue dries. Wet super glue is extremely flammable.
Once heated, it should be a little easier to fold properly.

Step Seven:

You should now have this:


We're going to jazz it up a little in this step. Grab that hole punch and a piece of plasticard and go to town on it. You'll have to punch quite a few holes (if your luck is similar to mine) since they're so small and go missing nearly instantaneously. Once you have a decent amount punch out, we're going to glue them to out Rokkit and nose-cone. Put little dots of glue on your Rokkit along the seam (to either side of where the plasticard layer meets) and then grab a tweezers. Take your little dots (they're rivets if you haven't guessed ) and drop them onto your little glue dots like this:



I'd add two lines of them for coolnesses sake and then throw some on the nose-cone, too. I like rivets. At this point you should have this:



Step Eight:

You can now glue the nose-cone on. While waiting for the glue to dry, grab some Green Stuff and knead it into a good and green consistincy. Shape it into a cone and stick it to the end of your Rokkit (the end without the nose-cone ) like this:



Now grab your hobby knife and start to 'scratch' the GS away from the Rokkit. This should slightly elongate the flame and give it a good flame-like texture. If the flame gets too long, gently squish it back and keep going.

Couple hints:
-If the GS keeps sticking to either your tools (or you, for that matter), dip them in water. GS doesn't stick to wet things too well.
-While I haven't tested it, I believe that GS that's been mixed and sitting around for a while might work better than freshly mixed up stuff. Maybe throw your GS in the fridge for a bit and then try and sculpt the flames. I'll try on the next Rokkit and try to remember to get back to you all.

Your eventual product should be this, a Stormboy Rokkit:



*Although admittedly they gave them a crappy body, too. They didn't just give you a Rokkit)

[hr]

There you have it, part one of the Stormboy Tutorial!

I was thinking and other uses for the style of Rokkit constuction could be adding some Rokkits or other dakka to a Fighta-Bomma (not that I'm working on one of those, too :-X). The next part will deal with modeling a flying Ork and should be ready soon. I just need to work on my GS skills a little more.

Hope you all enjoyed,

-Grandpa Ducky


Nice tutorial. +1 Karma - Cadaver

[GeekyGator]

Wow, looks great. Where did you get your plasticard?

[Grandpa Ducky]

I bought my plasticard at HobbyTown USA. I'm pretty sure they've got them in Florida. More specifically, the company that makes the plasticard I used is Midwest Products Co., Inc. Here's a linky to their website. Also, the tubing I'm using is from Evergreen Scale Models. Here's their linky.

-Grandpa Ducky

[GeekyGator]

Awesome, Thanks. We have Hobbytown down here, but ours keeps odd hours. I'll have to see about making a stop there.

[Thor{DoH}]

Nice job on the tutorial. It's quick and easy, making it perfectly Orky, especially when you've got to make 5-20 of them. I'll add this to our Ork Library for future reference.

[Grandpa Ducky]

Part Two: The Stormboy

You've got your Rokkit, now you need a boy to strap it to! This part of the tutorial deals with making a pretty basic, flying, Stormboy.
Step One:
Acquire the proper materials. For this step you'll need:
-An unassembled boy - The whole works: head, legs, two arms (either shoota or slugga n' choppa ones), and torso.
-Wire - I'm using some 20 gauge craft wire for beading.
-Wire cutters
-Super glue
-A pin vice - Or some other kind of hand drill.
-A hand file - Preferable nice and flat
-A 25mm base - You know, the ones that came with the boyz.
-A Rokkit - Like the one we made in Part I.
-A Dremel tool - or some other kind of rotary tool. You don't exactly need it, but it'll save you considerable time.
-Metal gubbins - Grab some unused metal bitz from that looted Land Raider Crusader or somewhere. Anything with a little weight to it will work, but you want it small enough to fit inside the base.
-Blu-Tac - Or any tacky stuff that could be used to pose the boy without gluing him. Entirely optional but makes life a little easier. [Not Pictured]
-Green Stuff - You may not need any, it depends on how you want your head posed and your skill with a Dremel.

A picture of my assembled supplies:


Step Two:
First thing we're going to do is assemble the boy. Now the idea is to make him look like he's flying so the first thing I'd do is to either lay the torso 'face down' or turn your head so you can get an idea of what it's going to look like. Grab some Blu-Tac and stick his arms on they look good and dynamic. I had the slugga on my boy nearly leveled and then the chainsword raised above his head like he was getting ready to swing at something.

The legs I had splayed out behind him because whenever I pictured Orks flying, they're quite far from graceful. I put them on a little crooked to try and translate that gracelessness to the tabletop.

For the head I chose one with a helmet. I figure he's going to run into quite a lot of stuff and might want to protect his head. Attaching the head is where you might want some Green Stuff. I put a little under the head to elongate the neck and let my Stormboy look forward a little more. If you don't care, then you can just skip that step.

Here's how my boy turned out (Ignore for a couple of seconds the hole in his chest):


Step Three:
Grab your pin vice. We're going to drill a hole in the Stormboyz lower abdomen for the flying base to attach to. You'll want the hole deep enough that it won't fall apart but not so deep that you drill straight through him.



Step Four:
You'll want to grab your Dremel tool now. If you've got one, attach a head that is roughly the same size as the body of the Rokkit we made. If you don't have one, attach whatever kind of head you'd use to carve away some plastic and quickly offer up a prayer to Mork and Gork.

Our goal in this step is to get the Rokkit attached to our boy. If you just slap the Rokkit to the back of the boy, it looks a little dorky. Enter the Dremel tool. We're going to carve a recess into the back of the boy so the Rokkit can rest a little tighter to the body. It's largely a trial and error thing, take some plastic off, then dry-fit your Rokkit. If you take off a little too much, grab your Green Stuff and use it to fill in.

My boy ended up looking like this:


Next go and get your Rokkit and make sure it fits well. If it does, proceed to glue it on. Yay! The Stormboyz done! Let's tackle the base, next.

Step Five:
Time for the base. It's pretty simple. Find your basic 25mm base and take your pin vise. We're going to drill a hole right in the middle.



Next cut off a length of wire. I used six inches because I wanted to add some weight to the inside of the base, but in retrospect, five or four and a half inches might have been better (I had a little too much excess wire). Stick it in the hole in your base but leave maybe an inch and a half to two inches sticking out the top (depending on how high you want your boy to fly. On the bottom, bend the wire at a right angle like this:



Proceed to wrap the wire around on the inside of the base to add some weight and stability to it. When that's done, stick the top wire into the hole in your boyz chest, add some glue, and your done!




Tips:
-In case your Stormboy keeps tipping over, it might be a good idea to add a little weight into the base. Grab those metal gubbins you've got and glue them into the base. You might need to file them down to make the base sit level, but that should solve the problem of tipping.
-You'll want to be careful with these babies now, they're slightly breakable. Bend that wire back and forth enough and you'll snap it. While I haven't tried to repair one yet, it shouldn't be too hard. Assuming it snaps at his chest, either yank the wire out of hit chest and make up a new base or pull the wire out and have a slightly shorter boy. If it snaps at the base, I think you'll be stuck making a new base all together.


[hr]

There's Part II!

Enjoy,

-Grandpa Ducky

[Jormungard]

You could glue a nickel into the base and drill through the nickel, and put the wire through that.

Oh. Right. That's illegal. Don't do that.

^-^

[Grandpa Ducky]

Originally Posted by Jormungard

You could glue a nickel into the base and drill through the nickel, and put the wire through that.

Oh. Right. That's illegal. Don't do that.

^-^

That's funny. Right next to my Dremel is a nickel and a penny that I contemplated sticking in the base. The nickel fits great, but would require that I super-glued the wire in it since it takes up all available room. The penny would fit better, but it's still just slightly very illegal.

Thanks for the suggestion, though,

-Grandpa Ducky

[Thor{DoH}]

Great job on this Ducky. I do think that Stormboy is a bit high up though. Even with a good counter-weight, the slightest incline would knock him over. However, the tutorial is nicely done!

[Grandpa Ducky]

Thanks again, Thor.

Yeah, he does tip over a little bit on inclines, but how often do you find inclines in 40k? And after testing it out, he can handle a edges your bound to find on a board (side walk edges come to mind). Hills might be a problem, but he still can take more an incline that GW's Stormboyz, sadly enough. So I still topped GW, my goal.

-Grandpa Ducky