Porky models - Ork (3) - Body 1

Here then are the torso and legs of the first Ork, more than planned. I decided to keep it simple and avoid any cutting and repositioning for this first model, only adding elements. One of them, the extra armour plate, needed the torso and legs to be connected.

The pics first.

From front to back, left to right, the added elements are the battery pack, an extension of the strap on the right leg, a pouch with some grub – which might actually be grubs, or rather grub squigs – and the extra armour plate.

It's worth mentioning I angled the surface of the right arm socket to avoid the shoota moving across the face. You can see this in the rear view. The torso was also positioned leaning slightly to the left to accommodate the mass. I'll have the head facing a little left too, so the focal point is further from the shoota and nearer the stikkbomb, and to help this the torso is not square with the legs, but turned a few degrees anticlockwise.

Some commentary on the individual parts for those interested.

The battery pack was the remaining piece of the slugga - waste not, want not - removed carefully from the hand. It was then shaped to fit the leg and tidied up by shrinking an existing panel, adding an end panel and closing off the end of the groove on the front. It's been added here to make use of another extraneous strap, but is still well-placed to receive the trailing ends of the two cables running from the shoota. It's oversized and boxy partly to suggest Ork technology and partly because I wasn't confident I could reduce so small an element without damaging it.

The strap was made in the same way as the strap for the stikkbomb arm. As before, it was necessary to keep the greenstuff wet and make sure the initial connection to the model was secure at all times. Patience was needed because a change to one part of the strap often meant a change was needed elsewhere. I ran it back into the right leg and had it touch the ground for extra strength. The surface is not as smooth as I'd like, but this can be disguised at the painting stage, not least by not drybrushing it.

The pouch was shaped in more or less the same way as the tooth on the stikkbomb arm. I started with a bulb of wet greenstuff, teased out one end, then folded this end back towards the bulb. The whole pouch was then secured to the model mainly by pressing delicately into the top of the fold with the end of the modelling knife, which had the effect also of creating an opening for the pouch. The pouch was also pressed into the space between leg and belt, being careful not to leave any fingerprints. To avoid flattening when pressing in this way, I've found it best to start with the object excessively rounded - when pressing down, the model then flattens into the correct shape. To strengthen the connection I also pushed greenstuff into the space between the base of the pouch and the leg and belt, and smoothed it off where it might be visible.

The extra armour plate was as smooth a sheet of greenstuff as I could create laid more or less flat on the rump and tucked up against the belt. When I was comfortable it was secured, I worked on getting it into a similar shape to the armour plate on the back, squaring it off and adding damage. I also added three rivets by finding three smooth crumbs of dry greenstuff and pressing them into the plate. The pic is too poor to really show this, but the third fell out and left a depression, which will be turned into a hole when painted. One of the rivets in particular looks rather clumsy, probably because the crumb wasn't quite dry when pressed in, but this kind of imperfection can be dealt with at the painting stage too, by highlighting the imagined point only.

When the plate had dried a little I went back and added the links connecting connecting it to the harness. For each link I took a very small amount of greenstuff, rolled it out slightly into a tiny sausage and bent it carefully into a crescent. I picked it up by one end with the tip of the knife and secured it in the centre of the ring with that end first, before curving it over the ring and fixing the other end in position.

One general point would be the power of visualisation. I've found if I think through what I want to do before starting, the whole seems to go more smoothly. It may never run like clockwork – and reacting quickly is part of the fun – but it's something I bear in mind.

Again, much of this has an application beyond Orks, and even beyond sci-fi settings. The strap, pouch and plate are suitable for miniatures for use pretty much anywhere.

The head is underway and I hope to have him complete soon after.