Mek Lab - Custom Painboy

Mek Gearsnik is having some medical issues - something about a Deff Dread engine housing and an angry Warboss resulting in his skin being ripped off...  At any rate, he can't be with us at the moment, but his understudy is ready to take charge!

Please welcome his assistant, Mek Pounderpa!

"De orderz 're pilin' up faster dan a grot runz from a hungry nob.  Since dis lab needz Mek Gearsnik ta heal up faster, we gonna construkt a Painboy.  Dis completed Doc will staple Gearsnik's hide back onta hiz bones much betta dan me 'nd our grot crew 'ere have done.  I hope so anyway... 'cause hiz sreamin' 'nd beggin fer deff iz gettin' on me nerves."

Custom Painboy

How a few bits and spare parts are transformed into a grubby-looking painboy that will fix up your ladz right proper for just a few paltry teeth!

Construction Steps

Step 1 - Assemble Body

The body for this painboy will be the bottom half of a runtherd body I picked up on eBay for $1 and a broken Mage Knight figure I got for about 20 cents for the head and top of the model.

The pot belly of the runtherd and legs will be nice for a well-to-do ork doctor, while the stump of an arm will be great for a bionic composite dok tool arm.  Of course, the hand with the pliers is just too perfect for words, since everyone knows that the first step to any orkish treatment is to remove all the patient's teeth to pay for the costly operation!

I chopped the runt herd first, hoping  that I would get it right.  Since I only had the one runtherd body, I'd make do, even if I blew it.

The Mage Knight figure was popped off of his base using a chisel and hammer (works great if you are gentle).  Then I cut around some of the items hanging off of his belt that I wanted to keep and cut off the runty little legs.

I then put the two pieces together and carved both halves to fit together and sort-of match the lines of the dude where the two halves come together.  He looks very odd - this ork has two waists!  Or a very disgusting-looking fungus-beer-belly.  His body looks a little too long for his legs and out-of-proportion.  Hmm...  I'll hide that later...

Step 2 - Build the Dok Tools

Next I opened the many boxes of bitz that I have collected and assembled a small pile of odds and ends that I thought might be useful.

I found a small gear, some plastic wire, a straight pin, toothpicks, small tubes, interesting bits of plastic, a sequin, and several lengths of sprue.  I also will use some plain white paper, bamboo shies-ka-bob skewers, and some fibers taken from my spool of rough, sisal twine.

I use a rotary tool with a super-fine bit to drill a hole down the middle of a likely-looking section of sprue.  To go with this I use a craft razor to carve the stump on the ork's arm to end in a small peg.

This takes a steady hand and some luck, but it all turns out fine.

Wait a minute... I check the fit of the bionic arm when the body is on top of the legs and (horror!) it doesn't fit!  I'll see to that!

I cut the stump off of the ork's body.  With a bit of shaping on the arm I find the angle that I want and super-glue it back into place.

Of course, that leaves a gaping hole where the fellow's elbow should be and that's no good.

Waiting until the super-glue is completely dry, I carve a bit of insulation foam to fit the gap.  A bit of glue-all and some work with the pin vice to get it into position and we're good to go!

Building the bionic tool arm is next.  I have a nice bit of sprue that will fit snugly onto the stump of the ork's arm, but it needs a bunch of cutting tools, not to mention the infamous 'urty syringe (so that lots of puny humans can be poisoned).

I carve up another piece of sprue to look like a scalpel and use the pin vice to add a couple of screw holes.  With some work, I get a small length of the bamboo to fit in the middle of my small gear and attach them to the side as a buzz saw.

Snapping off the end of the straight pin, I work it into the bit of plastic tube and it becomes the needle for the 'urty syringe.  The tank of vile goop that will feed this needle is a broken electronic component I yanked off a circuit board once upon a time.

Step 3 - Stitching Legs onto the Body

We're ready to glue the legs onto the body and see how it looks.  I use super-glue for the initial adhesion and add a belt of white glue to beef up the weird double waist this mutant has.  At this point I am really hoping my idea to hide this feature will work...

He stands up!  You can see that he is about the same size as a nob - and that's good, because that is what he is supposed to be.  The orc boy in the background is there just for scale.

I also should say that the Mage Knight figure was missing something besides one hand.  It really didn't have a face either.  Flat as a pancake.  I'm hoping to put a surgery mask over most of his face to hide this ugly truth.

Step 4 - Painboy Costume

Scrubs!  The doctor needs them and he shall have them!

I make a tattered apron and mask out of bits of white paper.  The pin vice pokes some holes in the corners and a few strands of sisal twine serve as excellent ropes to hold them into place.

I use white glue to attach the twine to the inside of both the apron and the mask, so they don't move about or show later.

Now it is time to paint.  The final painboy has lots of leather straps and odd medical paraphernalia hanging all over him.  The sequin makes a great light with mirror that looks old fashioned and doctoresqe.

The apron and mask get some special attention with layers of brown, dark red, and bright red to show that this painboy has had lots of practice in the past and quite recently.

The 'urty syringe gets a double coat of paint.  First bright green and then a custom-made wash of yellow to make a gross-looking mixture of foul colors.

The tools and his body are splattered with gore as well.  What a messy worker!  Well, when the bullets are flying, you don't get extra points for neatness, do you?

Step 5 - Final Assembly

The moment of truth comes when I attach everything and see him in all his glory.  The apron does wonderfully at hiding the strange belt line and the mask does pretty good at hiding his flat features.  All in all, I'd call this a success!

Keen!  He's ready to get to work!