Ork Weirdboy Battlewagon

A new project started, not Nurgle, but thought you might like to look see? Introducing my Son to Epic Space Marine, a whole bunch of vehicles that i'd totally forgotten back came flooding back. And out of them, one i really liked back then was the Ork Weirdboy Battle Wagon, with the bizzarro notion of bunging a psychic Ork at the top of a tower and wheeling him into the fighting so he can peer out and use his mind powers to attack the enemy. I've been looking around for a new scratchbuilt project, so thought i'd have a go at making one, not in the Epic scale, but for the regular-size troops. Thinking i'd start with the best bit first - the tower itself - i had a good rummage through my bits box, and came up with this:

Its something i started yonks back and it was supposed to be the head of an Ork Killer Kan, that i never in the end got round to, but figured it'd make a logical start for this other Orky device. What you've got here is the body of the old MPC R2D2 body, turned upside-down and i've cut out a panel and backed it with a piece of Plasticard that i'd drilled holes in to make a viewing window. The two blue blobs are the olbigatory sticky jewels, the black strip is a cable-tie and the top stack is a very much cut down external booster engine from the Airfix Space Shuttle kit. This part was going to be just a chimney of the Kan, but here i think it'll be a an observation tower for the Ork inside to climb up and look out from when the enemy is too far away to be a danger. On the back you've got another sticky jewel and a much cut down part of a chassis from a 1/24th truck kit:

So that's what i started with. The new parts to this build started with putting a lip area to the bottom of the tower/R2D2 body and then a flange around that. Another rummage through the box turned up a blue tube from our daughters broken toy hoover, which had the benefit of being IP Plastic and therefore regular kit glue worked on it no probs. Once cut to the right size, i removed a section at the bottom of it for a doorway, added some yellow go-fasta stripes to add a bit of detail, and a smaller white plumbing pipe to the rear of it:

And here's where i am right now - i've added orky teeth to the lip area to give it a bit of character, half a 1/35th WW2 barrel to the body to break it up a bit, some buttresesses under the lip and a cut-down part of the Airfix Girder Bridge at the back - this is where i'll be adding more tanks etc to make it nice and busy.