Gargant: an Epic Man Against Machine Story - Part 2.

Okay, so all the preliminary stuff was done.

The casing, or bottom section of the gargant was suitably beaten up and reworked to resemble a battle-hardened war-machine. I placed as much battle damage on this bottom piece as I thought the Gargant could aesthetically bear. My idea was that this was the spot that would receive most damage as the Gargant crashed through buildings and fortifications, and took weapons fire. Higher sections would consequently take less damage and have a cleaner aspect.

The casing was given a black base coat in preparation. I tend to use brushes more than anything else. I don't own an airbrush. They worry me. I don't seem to be able to get the damn things to work properly, and they tend to spit at me. I may come to terms with air-brushing eventually, but at the moment we agree to disagree.

So, out comes the No.8's. A massive dry-brush ensued, with several layers defining the details, and reminding me what had been added. There was a fair amount of detail, especially at the back, which had received two additional constructs, but more of that anon.

Then areas were masked in a rough checkerboard pattern, and several pale tones, based on black, tan and increasing amounts of white, were applied leading to an off-white highlight. Don't forget, this is a big piece, so colour will cover a larger area and therefore stand out, especially white against black. Having brilliant white would be a little stark.

This shows the base of the Gargant almost completed. As you can see, too big for the light box. There are better pics so be patient. The feet are attached, the huge phallic cannon is in place, and you might just make out the honking great chainsaw armature jutting out from the side. This is one of the surprises I mentioned in Part 1.

I just felt the casing was a little barren in front and though it had firepower in the cannon, needed something that could cause a real mess of any opposition close-up. Imagine a Lumberjack Special hurtling towards your specially commissioned command Rhino. That would put the wind up anybody.

This pic gives a pretty good idea of the paint job. The checkerboard pattern slowly disappeared under the weight of rust, dirt and smoking ruin, becoming more symbolic than defining. The plates were given different colours in some cases, to emphasise the salvaged  and repaired nature of the Ork philosophy. For example one shows part of an imperial eagle. Can only imagine what that may have been ripped off.

The feet having some colour stand out a little, like the Gargant is wearing it's best sneakers. They had been painted nearly two years before I did this whole process, but they proved too pristine and so I beat them up a bit and made them a little more deadly. I thought of having impaled bodies on the spikes, but that may be gilding the lily. Leave them wanting more, I say.

The chainsaw is built straight from the box, being a part of GW's plastic Gargant. Nice and nasty.

A word about rust. Some may say that I have gone overboard with the application of rust, obscuring what would otherwise be spaces for beautiful Ork graffiti and other scintillating objet d'arts. To them I say, fie on you. I'm kicking this pig, go get your own gargant.

The base colour for the rust was Model Master's Rust, with the addition of yellow and white for highlights, and Tamiya XF-8 Flat Blue for shadow.

The cannon was enhanced with more bits from the GW plastic Gargant as well as two Forgeworld resin gretchin. Not much to say about this, it's an extremely overbearing lump of firepower, and protruding from the beast's belly as it does, leaves little to the imagination.

At the back I wanted something a little more business-like, more domestic. In my mind this is where the garbage bins are kept. So we see the back door, with a steam powered mechanical something next to it, probably to open the big sliding back doors that have the yellow and black stripes painted on them.

Jutting out from the back is the verandah, or back porch, made from a large piece of flooring again from the GW Gargant, and for the wall a section cut down from the GW resin barricades, with three heavy weapons added from the Forgeworld Ork weapons pack.

And on the other side is a small gretchin turret, taken from the GW plastic Ork truck. Basically when the porch was test-fitted, I realised that there was a huge empty space and the whole thing felt out of balance. So yet again I, the intrepid miniaturist armed only with an Exacto and a dream, attacked a defenceless plastic toy and denuded it of all dignity.

Don't care, looks great.

And that is that to date. The next piece of casing (the next level) will include window treatments, interior decoration and a crashed land speeder - maybe.

Stay tuned, boys and girls. Best is yet to come.

Cheers
Peter C.

PS. Encore again. Love this piece. Another for Mr.Pearson and apparently a favourite of us both.

In all things, humour. Else what is it all for.

PC