Killa Kans Completed

I finished some Killa Kans today:

...you'll probably notice that two of the models are plastic, and one is metal - the metal model came with the lot of Orks I bought off Craigslist.  After I built my list, I decided I wanted to field three Killa Kans, so I had a choice - did I want two buy the box of three Killa Kans that GW sells and have one extra?  Or buy two separately? After considering it for a bit, I decided to get two more separately - believe me, if I had any idea how much hassle the metal model was going to be, I would have just bit the bullet and bought the plastic ones (but more on that in a second).

After looking around I bit, I checked one of my favorite bitz sellers on eBay and found they were selling individual Killa Kans cut off the sprue:

I was able to get both of these for about 1/2 the price of the three-Kan box.  Thanks to GW having a pretty thorough assembly guide on their website, these went together pretty easily:

...the major exception was the back plate of the "canister" section - there is a tab that is molded along the bottom lip that needs to be trimmed off, or it throws off the angle at the top, and the "lid" can't be glued on.

Now, the metal one.  Sheesh.

As I've mentioned before, the first Orks I bought came from Craigslist - the guy gave them to me as a pile of bits in a shoebox.  It looked to all be there, but most of it was loose in the box or cut from the sprue, partially assembled, etc.  I dug out the Killa Kan model, did my best to clean it up, and glued it together - and came up with this:

That can't be right, can it?  The left arm looks like it's missing some major structure.  Regardless of whether or not it's supposed to look that way, I didn't like it.  (edit: after looking at page 78 of the Ork codex, it appears that is right.  Looks silly, though).  The first thing I did was to get out some styrene tubing and brass rod to mock up a structure for the left arm:

Then I glued it in place & trimmed it down:

Next, I drilled some holes at an angle in the "arm" & the side of the Kan:

(You can see in the above pic that I also added a bit of guitar string going from the power pack to the weapon as a little detail).

I was trying to find a way to mimic the look of the "strut" on the other arm - I accomplished this with a section of styrene tube & rod:

...then I trimmed it to length & inserted it in the holes I had drilled:

As with my previous projects, I added some rivets for the sake of appearance:

Next, I scavenged some shoulder pads from an 'Ard Boyz Armour Pack that I had no intention of using:

To clean up the bit of brass rod sticking out from the far side of the weapon, I trimmed another section of styrene tube and slid it over the rod:

...and I plugged the hole with one of my rivets:

...and I added some rivets to the outside:

After I broke the pole off the back three times, I got sick of it and decided to pin it:

I also added a Forge World brass-etched logo on the lid:

...it still needs a ton of filing to be ready for primer, but it's built, and I'm pretty happy with how it came out.  But man, what a hassle...