The Iron Gargant / Liborkty Prime WIP: Part 3

The past few weeks I’ve been walking through how I built my Morkanaut/Gorkanaut conversion.

Part 1: Chest and hips

Part 2: Connecting the torso and hips, adding legs

In part 3 I will be walking through the arms, head, and some additional details within the Iron Gargant.

Head

Let’s start with the head.

I used the basic gorkanaut head with some modifications. I added the visor from the deffdred, and for the jaw I went for a random piece of armor that served the purpose. I think it’s part of a turret or something.

Naturally, I can’t leave well enough alone, and the head didn’t look orky enough. So I cut some pieces of plasticard to serve as teeth for the gorkanaut. I also cut a hole within the chest for the head to fit into. It’s not glued down or anything, so I can turn the head to pose it, and I can add blue tack if needed.

Back and Shoulders

Next: Liberty Prime throws nuclear bombs from a rack on his back. That was one of my main inspirations so I had to model it in the Gorkanaut. I used the dozer blade rails you find in Leman Russes and Chimeras ( I have a bazillion of them, no one seems to use them), and if it’s a little messy above it’s only because I’m going to cover it all up again anyway.

Cover it up like this! Just some nicely damaged plasticard to hide all the crappy messy conversions.

Next, I decided to work on the Gorkanaut’s shoulder pads. When it comes to generic shapes like these, I don’t have a specific bit I want to use. I just rummage in my bits box to find something that seems like it would be a good fit. Which is why it’s so important to have a huge bits box. You never know what is going to end up being useful.

Anyway I found… I think it’s the canopy of a storm raven? I have no idea where I got it, and I have no idea what I would have used it for. But I saw that by cutting it up I’d have the good start for two shoulder pads, and that’s what I ended up using.

Here it is with a lot more plasticard and rivets.

Honestly, that’s more or less what converting is. Looking at things, reducing them to basic shapes and volumes, and seeing what else they could be used as. And then dressing it up with enough bits that no one can tell the original purpose.

Arms

That carried on with the arms. One of the arms I think was a film canister, but honestly I don’t remember. It is just a generic tube, anyway. Then it was just adding enough bits that it doesn’t just read as a tube. I bought a lot of onager dunecrawlers, and mainly just used the legs, so here’s an opportunity to use some of the extra details.

If you see the top of the arm was a knight’s leg. It was one of the bits I had to upcycle, so I’m glad I got a good use out of it.

The other arm is made out of Gorkanaut bits, but it still looks pretty different compared to the stock model. That’s because I bodged two different arms together. The long arm piece is supposed to go with the klaw, but I’m saving that for another build. So instead I put the megablasta bit onto the upper arm.

How did I fit it together? Well, apparently the dakka forearm is about the same diameter as a 32mm base. It needed a little bit of trimming, but I was able to wedge the base at the back of the forearm, so serve as a place to anchor the rest of the arm to.

The other part of the forearm was from a riptide bit that wasn’t used by a friend of mine.

A bit of glue and greenstuff and it almost looks like it was meant to go together!

And here’s a side view of the dakka arm. With more tau bits, because cool dakka bits that are easy to loot are the best bits. 😀

And that’s the whole thing Gorkanaut (or Morkanaut) converted into Liborkty Prime! Or the Iron Gargant. I still don’t have a good name for him. What do you prefer?