How I scratch-built a Klawstompa in a week

The big addition to my Orkfest army is done, and it took me a week.  Is it the best scratch-built Stompa on the net?  No.  Is it the worst?  HELL no.  There's some serious crap outt here, but I'm pretty happy with him overall...espically since he was cheap.  Mind you, the picture here doesn't really do it justice, because I'm not really set up to take pictures of something that big.  That's an Ork boy next to it for scale.  I thought it might be too small until I put him next to this guy.  I think it's just right.  So how did I do it?  Well...




Warning: lots of pics ahead

I started with pink insulating foam.  I cut the general shape for the base to start and worked my way up.  Once I got a good stack I realized it wasn't tall enough so I added one more.  They were glued together and shaped with my foam knife (I use a dollar store bread knife because its serrated.  One day I will get a foam cutter, but I use foam so rarely it's not worth the cash)  I added a rectangular head and I was off.  I then started the body panels, using a medium tyhickness cardboard liberated from where I was temping a few weeks ago.  I cut them all at once, numbering them as I went so I knew what went where.  These were to be hot-glued so I wanted to do them all at once.

All the panels were attached, forming the outer shell of the big guy (see left).  I then used some card as seams, filling the gaps between the panels.  Every strip was exactly 1 cm thick.

I then used some plastic tubing from the local hobby shop to fashion some Big Shoota barrels and attached them to the front.

Then I wanted to give it a more ramshackle and Orky look so the body was covered in random armor panels.  Orks love rivits so I used straight pins to both reinforce the skin and give it the right look.  The paint I was using doesn't like metal, so when it chips off there they will really stand out.

The arms started off with a triangular framework, 2 per arm.  All the plastic I used was on the thin side to make cutting easier, but almost everything had to be doubled up for strength.

The forearm was a simple strip, which I then reinforced with more tubing to give the appearance of hydraulics.  The klaw was two pieces, put together in a similar style as the Nob Klaws on the GW kits.  They were attached by cutting a slot and putting it in with more hot glue.

The flamebelcha I wanted to look like several linked flamer nozzles.  I started with more tubing and added a piece of wire, bent to look like the igniter (it helps to have a wife that makes jewelry...I have wire everywhere)

They were attached to the beast's chest and angled for optimal spray.

The twin-linked Big Shoota was cut from an AOBR Warboss that's being converted into mad Dok Grotsnik. 

Added a face and some exhaust tubes coming out the back and he was ready to be painted.  I also threw on some glyph plates from the Trukk Sprue.  The whole thing was primed black, then the panels were done in varied shades of green.  A few were done in metal and of course Goff checks were freehanded in a few spots.  I think this beast is ready to rock for Orkfest in a few weeks.