Necromunda Cody's Turtle-works

[codysaville]

Why a turtle-works? Well between my role as a father, my small-part time ebay/tcg store, and my full-time role as a PhD student I don't have a ton of time to work on stuff. However, I do regularly get small patches of time to do stuff, and I'd like to share my work (mostly for encouragement, but partly for the potential benefit to othres).

I'm admittedly terribl at painting so a lot of my work will stop progress before that point.

My first post is of an old bracket for my car radio. I just keep old stuff with potential in a box and put something together now and then. Took some card (posterboard but if I had plasticard that would be better) pieces and glued it haphazardly to make a barricade. @dnalloht said it almost looks orky, which is a fine compliment.

 

[codysaville]

I've had my Ash Waste gang for a long time. I ordered them by phone from GW mail order (yeah I'm that old). However, my two heavies both came without guns. About 20 years late I decided to do something about it.

Unfortunately I don't have any pre-conversion photos for this project.

This is an old space marine heavy bolter, I think it was called the Ox bolter or something.

I clipped and filed the hand off the top and glued it straight on to the mini. I covered all the nastiness with some thick thread to look like rope and used cheap jewelery chain to kinda chain it to the guy. A chopped up ork shoota barrell on the end gives it the heavy stubber look.

Looks better than it did without hands methinks.

 

[codysaville]

Here's what my AWN gang currently looks like.

The leader in the center was done by a friend of mine. It's a super great conversion. His oxygen tank is a flamer backpack. The sash is a thin strip of masking tape.

My daughter is about 3.5 and wears a dress every day of her life. She loves looking beautiful but also likes to play rough and getting dirty. I let her play with my mini's often so that she will stay interested in them and want to play when she's older. There have been a few arms and such that have broken off but I just glue them back on and TRY not to make it a big deal. Here shes is in her Elsa dress playing with my DA marines.

My sons interest in the hobby is currently only from a taste/texture perspective, but that will change....

poor lascannon (Sorry about the goobers on his face, it was a hard month for the poor guy)

One of my better looking makes is one I did last weekend when @dnalloht was over. It's a wooden bridge made of popsicle sticks. (Sorry about the crummy pic here)

After gluing some together to make a long bridge I drilled holes in the sides and stuck in some small nails. Then used jewelry chain across the nails to make it look like a railing/handhold of some kind. Looks good. (here shown with my goliath on @dnalloht 's foamboard tiles)

Now to make a few more....

 

[nooker]

Oh, dude, make sure those minis don't have lead!! Although can you imagine a chaos bestie coming out of the warp and then sucking your your lascannon. Man talk about feeling inadequate!

I hope you can help your daughter develop a thick skin so she can deal with the misogynists in our hobby. Help her to kick them in the nuts at least figuratively, but I'm good with literally.

 

[codysaville]

I don't know what I was thinking but I've decided to join Yak19, the bit box chalenge. Over there I posted this image of the work area I have in our garage.

There's various bitz and gubbins strewn about. I'm really hoping I can find stuff to make something useful, like a part of my upcoming pitslave gang or a hired gun or two.

While I was taking the shot of my bitz boxes (more like bitz mess) I shot a pic of my completed (mostly) armies and gangs which sit right next to the table.

Active projects and incomplete items are at the top with my Van Saar & AWN on the top right. Then Imperial Guard below that and DA marines lowest.

With the DAngel's (above) you can see a partially painted drop pod. That thing was actually scratch built by a very talented friend. The paint job was by my 3.5 yr. old girl. She loves painting on paper so when she saw me at it once it was natural for her to switch mediums. Mostly she just lathers the paint on while I frantically try to even it all out. Right now I have her help me basecoat the big stuff - tanks, dreads, the drop pod, etc. Its worth an uneven paint job on a few of my mini's to have someone to pay against when I get old.

Here she is dressed as snow whit painting my dreadnought up. She kept dipping the brush in the water and then in the paint so some of it was supper thin, lol.

 

[trollmeat]

I can't help but read "Cody's Turtle-works" as "Codex Turtle-works" :-D

also, you have so many unpainted minis that could easily be sacrificed for bits!

 

[Azzabat]

@codysaville Fair play to you for letting her be creative. A+ on the parenting skills.

@nooker I know a lass who painted up (extremely well) her Dark Eldar army in bright pink. Her reason for pink was that when she beat the boys ... she wanted them to be in no doubt they were beaten by a girl!

 

[codysaville]

I've been thinking of buying some of the 30k emperor's children and painting them with her. That way she can have a pink/purple army without making my OCD twitch.

 

[trollmeat]

Slaanesh pink, Tzeentch purple

Tzeentch is prolly the better option due to it being the changer of ways, hoarder of knowledge and master of manipulation. A good inspiration for any human worm baby.

 

[codysaville]

Slaanesh pink, Tzeentch purple

Tzeentch is prolly the better option due to it being the changer of ways, hoarder of knowledge and master of manipulation. A good inspiration for any human worm baby.

You crack me up! I may just gloss over the whole turn to evil Slaanesh thing. That conversation can wait awhile...

 

[dnalloht]

Yeah, slaanish she can pass on... Still cracks me up that my little guy wants to paint too. His is random colors in random paterns though.

 

[codysaville]

Yak 19

I had some time to look through my bit box. Things may not be as easy as I thought; but maybe it wouldn't be as fun if it was too easy.

Anyway, I found this guy from a hand me down set of bitz I inherited from a friend.

Someone went and choppered his arm off before I even got him. However, looking at him, I think he would make a great leader for a pit slave gang. So i rummaged through the mess for ages and came up with this combo.

My goal is to take the saw from that lonely ork arm and put it on the other gubbinz there and make an easy chainsaw arm for my aspiring Chief.

Commence cutting and filing...

 

[codysaville]

I stole a grenade launcher from an imperial guard sprue for his left hand. For the arm/hand I have a catachan heavy arm, will need a little green stuff and a pin to hold it on.

I'm kinda stuck though. I can't decide to stick with the grenade launcher or switch to a flamer for his main gun. This is a pit slave chief, so the two melee slave tools will make him a HtH monster. A flamer & side pistol would compliment that well. However, chiefs are one of the few gang members allowed to take longer ranged weapons such as rifles and such. Equipping him with the grenade launcher would give the rest of the gang good fire support.

Thoughts?

I also can't find my glue...

 

[codysaville]

To get a third arm I went with a backpack-type attachment on his back. I started with a marines pack and whittled it down some. Then stuck on a cut up meltabomb for this.

I try to drill and pin as much as I can to make it somewhat sturdy.

The space marine pack wasn't jiving for me so my next attempt was with theend of an ork shoota, which made it look better IMO.

Sticking it on there, it just looked a bit too clunky. Like he was gonna hurt himself if he actually used it.

I decided to sit on it for a bit.

Meanwhile the kids were still getting high marks at childhood. A fridge break-and-enter and subsequent peanut butter mauling by BugBear...

...and great zen artistry from the Goose....

...that even included the house.

 

[dnalloht]

Lol, thats great.

 

[codysaville]

My whole quandry of what to do with my pitslave chief was really helped along by RJ when he dropped the mini and it sploded. This gave me a fresh restart. After more thinking and a few ideas from @Redslayer while he was here I decided to go with this old necron arm I got from a craigslist purchase.

I drilled a bigger hole in the shoota-pack on his back and stuck the base there and put the hammer in the other end as shown.

This was the first use of the green stuff roller I got for Christmas and the tubes really helped this guy come together. I still need a lot more practice with the sculpting though. My poor skills in all forms of artistry are why I chose to be an engineer, anyway. I don't expect to win Yak19 or anything but getting into the competition and having a deadline made sure I got this done instead of letting it linger for five years.

After that @Redslayer and I got to building some terrain for the real mini's.

A few blankets on top and this will be a great hideout.

 

[spafe]

orrr.... it could become the next frame for a 3d hive to play on... jsut saying...

nah, hideouts are way cooler!

Great conversions though dude, I like the end result for the 3 armed bandit!

 

[codysaville]

Ok, I'm ready to dust my stuff off. After last-years significant & unexpected health-woes, I am ready to jump in for a few more posts (at-least). I still have stuff to put up here from when @Redslayer was in town. While I was working on my Pit Slave leader, we also finished several other models...

This was the mini that started it all. I think I bought and painted him in the early 2000's. The problem with this guy is that big pesky saw arm always falls off; a frequent problem with old pewter models. So we drilled into his shoulder, stuck a piece of thick metal in there (I think it was a small penny nail).

We actually drilled the hole through the buzzsaw and into the shoulder, because the saw arm is so thin. Can hardly see the change, but it hasn't fallen off yet. And yeah I know better now, THIN YOUR PAINTS.


This next guy was solely from another bits box raid. I couldn't tell you what all went in to this, but I do know that is a melta bomb on his back.

I really wanted to use that hammer, and I think this works. Looks cool. @Redslayer put this guy together. The hammer head and saw blade are both Kromlech.

Won this guy in an eBay auction in 2016; he came painted. Added the tubing and a chainsword. May go back and shorten the sword later. I still use this guy as a techno and call it a chainsword.

Ever since I got the roller from Green Stuff World I have wanted to use it on everything.


Here's our way of improving the old/original Goliath plastic mini's. The buzz saw is Kromlech again, the pistol is a prize of my collection: one of the official Necromunda weapon sprue's.

Pitfighter #1. This guy is using some old Catachan bitz I've had, 2 Kromlech arms, a cut up Space Marine backpack and A tactical sarge's head.

The above definately do not compare with the other great stuff I have seen by @ClockworkOrange or @Loriel, but for a non-artistic engineering type I am happy with how they came out. @Redslayer was far better at chopping and gluing that I was, too. With the Leader that's a pit slave gang of 6, so still would like another techno and a second pit fighter.

The last thing I want to post here is again dated, but something I am still excited about. I taught the Goose Princes her numbers with dice so we could start her gaming early and in 2017 it came to fruition. We played our first game of Warhammer together 9 months-ish ago and for a dad it was really fun.

The simplified rules we used really matched her comprehension well and her 10 space marines ran over my Imp Guard. I used dice with actual numerals on them, no pips, so that we could still practice her numbers. She was really good at picking out the 4, 5's, and 6's she needed to obliterate her foes.

After this, she put my DAngels on the farm and had them save some farm animals!

What I am also quite pleased about, is that at 4 years old, she mostly understands how to be gentle with the mini's and still have fun. NO PLASTIC CASUALTIES!!! And now I don't really need to be too angsty or overbearing about stuff when she plays with my toys.

 

[ClockworkOrange]

Good work sir!

Although you obviously have not seen enough of our tribes skills if you are singling me out! I insist you spend the next 3 weeks reading your way through the modelling threads as penance!

 

[Loriel]

Well thanks for the compliment, it really gives positive influence during these dark cold days of winter.

They look great and atleast in my opinion are as good as any of my pit slaves

As a father of three the games with children always make me smile. I still havent managed to corrupt my eldest one enough for actual game but my second child seems to have more ... intuitive? ... interest on the subject. However i have to say that one of the most funniest father/daughter/miniature moment for me so far was when my eldest daughter wanted me to build mu necromunda venice and she played with her littlest pet shop in the necromunda and i filmed it when she was playing this "youtube styleway". We concluded that we never published these epic episodes of the series "petsit nekromundassa" (it translates to petshops in necromunda)

Tldr: keep up the good work