Eleven Headless Orks

Right now, as I'm eating my carrots with my left hand, I am rubbing a hard numb, bump on my right index finger. I am not injured, I know exactly what it is and it causes me to smile. It makes me think of my desk at home.

Most of the time my desk is pretty clean. It is small and even a little clutter seems to cover the whole thing and I often need to have a place to sit a book or my iPad or the Darth Vader coffee cup, which I use as a stand for my webcam. So, it is rare anything on my desk, except for the button which causes Scar to proclaim he is surrounded by idiots, draws the attention of the kids. Over the last couple weeks, though, that has not been true. On Friday my nephew, Nick, asked just to look at all the stuff on my desk.

Probably for as long as I can remember, partially because I am a boy and partially because I can appreciate a megalomaniac, I have been trying to amass an army. This has taken a dozen different forms, but the most recent is growing flood of inch tall, green skinned, leather clad and rusty gun wielding Orks. It is a portion of this army which has been placed and organized on my desk. The portion which I am getting ready to face off against my friends who have also been amassing their armies.

If it was just a matter of buying these miniatures, I don't think I would enjoy it as much as I do. Sure, I could by these things pre-built and painted, but they would never feel completely like mine. They would be a mercenary force. So, I've been building the Boyz (a kind of Ork) I need to flesh my army.

When you buy these figures they are in bunches of pieces on dark gray plastic frames. If you have ever built a model, you have an idea what I am talking about. They are unformed, waiting to be put together. Nothing, yet. This weekend, I opened a box of eleven Orks in this incomplete state.

Saturday, I used a tool, which is like a wire cutter, but the blade it turned so you can cut very close to a flat surface, a sprue cutter, to separate the Orks soldier bits from the rest of the plastic. I organize them into tins. Heads in one and chests in another. Legs and right arms and left arms. Then a tin just for all the little extras, like stikkbombs and armor plates. There is an infinite combination of ways these can be put together. Every combination a choice I can make, a way to take them from generic bits to something which is mine.

This takes pretty much my free time on Saturday, so it is not until Sunday evening, yesterday, that I begin assembling the bits. I start with a black stand, which I glue legs to. You can tall from the position of the feet the way the Ork is facing or moving. You can imagine the ways they might twist and turn. It is from these legs, everything else is built. From there, you add the chest or torso piece, some I put on straight forward and upright, like they are standing. Others I lean forward like an action pose and others I twist a little bits, swiveling to a leading foot, or looking behind. I like to drop a little of the special glue that wields the legs to the torso an move it into a position which looks right. Once this is done, you find a right and left arm which go together and capture what you are trying to do with the rest of the body. Last night I limited my option to shootas, which is a medium gun Boyz carry, some right handed, other left. This part is tricky, because you need to keep the gun low enough it won't interfere with the head, but you also need to make sure the open bracing hand can slip underneath the front of the Shoota. To make this a little harder, these parts of very small, and have to be held while the glue sets.

This is where that spot on my finger also certainly came from. It is the extra glue from the wield between a shoulder and a chest. It is where I had to end last night. So, right now beside a rusty looking Trukk, flanked by dirty, axe and chainsaw wielding Orks, sit nearly a dozen dark gray Shoota Boys waiting for their heads, a little paint and a chance to show some Space Marines what they are made of.