Ever since the preview was released for the Nomad, I've had a concept in my head for a pose. I want a "gladiator" style pose. You'll usually see big bad characters in this pose. One foot up on a rock / skull / hill, pointing their sword and waving to their troops to surge forward with the other hand. You know the one. The Nomad is so posable I think I can pull it off pretty easily. Let's dive in, shall we?

Parts

The Nomad comes with the following parts:

• Left Leg
• Right Leg
• Lower Torso
• Upper Torso
• Boiler with Smokestack
• Smokestack top
• Head
• Left Arm (bent)
• Left Hand with Buckler
• Right Arm (straight)
• Right Hand with Sword
• 50mm Base (not pictured)

If your kit is missing any of these parts, contact the PPS Front Desk for a replacement.

Footwork

With the legs already separated from the lower torso, the worst part of converting a jack is already done. Simply glue the legs to the rods on the lower torso in the position you desire. In this case, I wanted the right leg forward. My basing scheme for my Mercs doesn't really have any features to pose the foot upon, but I'm not too worried about it. I would have to chop up the leg to get it to look right and I'm just not that ambitious with this project.

If you're interested in my basing, it will be covered in a future article. They are modified Epicast resin Flagstone bases. You can see my article on the basics of working with Epicast bases here: Working With Epicast Resin Bases.

Is That a Smokestack or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

I'll be honest here, I'm not really crazy about the tall stack on the Nomad. The first thing I decided to do was leave the top crown piece off. Then I drilled out the flat part on the top of the stack. That reduced the height just enough for me to be comfortable with it. Next I glued the boiler assembly to the main body. In hindsight, I knew it was a mistake to do that just yet, but I get glue happy sometimes. You can see here that the best fit is when the lip on the boiler is over the main body. Really great fit in fact.

Arm Wrassling

Here's why I should have waited. I needed to cut off the collar for the arm and move it to the front so the arm can point forward. Whoops! Luckily I was still able to manage a clean cut with my saw. Lesson learned!

I can't stress this enough when cutting pewter: patience. Don't rush or force it. If you take your time and stop every minute or so to check your alignment you will do much better than if you hack away madly. I want to reuse this collar, so I need it intact.

By cutting along the seam exactly, I was even able to keep some material in the bottom of the collar to attach the arm to. I drilled a hole for a pin in the wrist end of the arm before gluing it into the collar. After this, I drilled two holes in from the backside for pins that roughly correspond to the two upper arm struts. All of my pins on this 'jack are 1/16" brass rod.

With the arm prepared, I needed a place to attach it now. To do this, I needed to know where the shoulder socket would be. Next stop: attach the upper torso.

Forward Lads!

With the rounded sockets on most of the joints it's pretty easy to play around with positioning until you find something that works. In this case, I wanted the right shoulder elevated above the left as if the Nomad was throwing his whole arm into the pose. I drilled a hole into the stem on the lower torso and glued in a pin. Next I drilled a corresponding hole in the upper torso at an angle so that when it sat on the pin, the shoulder was raised. This is a pretty easy way to get more motion out of just about any warjack model, not just the Nomad.

With the shoulder in place, I played around with the arm until I found a spot that I liked and marked where the pins should go. One snag though, there's a thin armor plate over part of the ball and it will run right under part of the arm. It's hard to see in metal form, but it will be painfully obvious once painted. Solution? Needle file!

I filed the plate back so that it comes down at a straight angle and gave me enough room for the collar on the arm. With the non-bilateral nature of the Nomad's armor, it won't look out of place when compared to the left shoulder. If I was concerned about it, I would shave down both sides to make them even. Once everything was prepared, I glued the upper arm in place.

The standard ball and socket joint for the wrist doesn't really allow for pointing it forward, so I'll have to fill in the gap later with putty. (This makes for a really tall model, so transporting it will be an issue. He'll most likely stay in my Lair for home games and just looking cool on the shelf.)

The Eyes Have It

I cannot stress this enough, head position sells a pose. If you are attacking something or pointing somewhere, you are looking in that direction. All of my hard work would be wasted if I were to just attach the head looking straight forward. The ball and socket joint on the neck is highly posable. Use it! I also recommend pinning the head with this type of socket, as the head can easily pop off if knocked wrong.

Pretty Pose

The only thing left to assemble is the left arm and that is pretty straightforward. Here is the final pose:

Patch Job

Now my bodgers need to pull out the putty and fix the holes I've made. Unfortunately they're all on vacation so I'll have to do it myself. I'll start with the collar on the right arm. It's easy to fill and smooth with putty. I should have used brown stuff, but I had the green already mixed for another model.

Now I pull out the brown stuff to fix the shoulder ball. There's a number of reasons to use brown stuff here. It dries harder, files smooth and is easier to work with. (I think.) Once it has set, I file it smooth and feather the edges into the metal surrounding it. Once this is done, I use a toothpick and apply a thin layer of super glue over the surface. This will keep it from falling off if it gets knocked and helps to smooth any imperfections in the surface for a nice clean finish. Once this dried I filled in the gaps in the wrists. Done! Ready for primer!

 I was having so much fun with this Nomad I built my second one. I was able to get a very dynamic pose using only stock parts, no cutting. See what you can come up with!

Until next time.

--YW7--