Despite never having had the urge previously to blog about anything (hey everybody, look at Meeeeeee!), the excellent and inspiring work of others here on Dakka has finally motivated me to do a P&M blog. I'm hoping that by putting my work out there, with some c&c, my painting and modelling might improve. Of course, this will include my current works in progress but I'm hoping to also include pics of older completed works and whole squads together. So far, I only play 40k and only orks (check the signature).
I got hooked on 40k back in the early 90's and painted/played all through high school with a few friends who were also into the hobby. After high school, I took a 20 year hiatus until two years ago when I dusted off my minis to give to my nephew for Christmas. I had a random assortment, and couldn't bring myself to let go of my orks (even though they'd been in a box all that time). I figured I'd give painting another try to see if I still liked it, bought a box of grotz, and now find myself building a new Waaagh! to bring mayhem and ruin to the galaxy. I'm also writing a novel that builds my army's backstory, and after it gets finished and subsequently rejected by the Black Library, perhaps I'll post that on Dakka, too.
So, what can you expect? 1. A fluffy, footsloggin' band of orks (I dunno why, but I'm not into painting big minis or vehicles...yet) led by Gulgog Tuftoof, Defskullz Warlord, Great Ancient God of the Desert, comprised of Skullz and Sunz from the homeplanet and some Freebooterz they met along the way.
2. A slower-than-geological rate of "progress". Disclaimer: regular visitors to this blog (if I get any) may begin to feel as though time is actually moving backwards due to the speed at which I paint/update. RL is hectic, and I don't have much time to devote to the hobby. That being said, the Unofficial Painting Competition here on Dakka has inspired me to finish at least one mini a month, and I've been maintaining that pace pretty consistently for a while now (no way to build a horde army, I know). I'll try to throw in pics of my Oldhammer orks minis periodically to keep it interesting.
3. Obviously, if you've made it this far, you should also be expecting long-winded late night ramblings from yours truly.
After assembling a dozen or so standard boyz in the basic poses, I came across SJM's magnificent P&M blog and vowed that every ork I did from then on would have at least some degree of customization. Kitbashing and converting minis is now more than half the fun for me, and the project that I plan to kick this off with is a squad of custom Tankbustas. Pics to follow...
As promised, Tankbustas! Tankbusta #1 was for the April painting challenge, "The Relic". I've always liked the old-style marine rocket launchers, so I looted one. They must really be relics (or marines don't use rocket launchers) because there's very few pictures of minis with this style of launcher floating about the web. This one came w/ a shoulder pad/arm/hand built in, so I carved it out and added a bit of plastic above the handle to make room for the much larger ork arm. Here's the unpainted WIP and the final shots:
The idea for these guys was that they came from some long-forgotten backwater planet and had gotten good at harassing the local AM/PDF tank patrols when the Warlord's Waaagh! landed, leveled the place, and scooped up the squad for his own frontlines. In case you thought a tank hammer wasn't primitive enough, here's Tankbusta #2 (aka Donkey Kong):
When I decided to do tankbustas, I started researching the history of infantry-based anti-tank warfare and came across the Panzerfaust ("Tank Fist"), a recoilless rifle-type device that fired an explosive shell. I'm going to reshape the business end to look more like the real thing, and add a sight and a cap on the bottom, but here's Tankbusta #3, Ork w/ Panzerfaust and "Can Opener":
There are some really cool images on Wikipedia of these things, among them, this one:
Aye, Donkey Kong is pretty cool. Now for an Ork (or even a grot) in another unit with a cap and a moustache...
What was your intention with the free hand on Tankbusta #1, btw? It looks like one of the hands for cupping a shoota, and seems a touch odd in the current pose.
@Dysartes: it is the hand that normally cradles a shoota. I was thinking that maybe his target was just out of range, and he was motioning it towards him while taunting it. Mainly, I didn't want the arm to cover the whole body the way the original space marine arm does.
aaaaaand, I have an update! Panzerfaust is modeled, and I'm reasonably happy with the way it turned out. The body of the shell has a slightly conical shape, and given the chance to do it over, I would have chosen to give it an even more exaggerated angle, but for a first try, it works and it's now ready for primer (his head and other arm are on sticks, ready for primer, too):
Tankbusta #3 is finally done! Pretty happy w/ the way the painting and the weapon turned out, but I'm still working on my photography technique. Hope you like 'im!
(front)
(Panzerfaust detail)
(left)
(tank backplate detail)
("da Can Opena!")
I've got another standard boy wiv a rokkit launcha in Skullz colors, so I just need one more to make a squad, and I'm thinking of making a boss nob for the June comp, "Mighty Heros".
Tankbusta #4, Da Boss Nob! So June's competition theme is Mighty Heros and Nefarious Villains, and appropriately, I need a boss nob for my tankbustas squad. Hero to the orks, nefarious villain to anyone on the wrong end of the rokkit launcha! I was playing around w/ various bitz, and came up with this:
I really like the pose, and the klaw makes him more dynamic, but it sounds like there's no reason in-game to give the boss nob of a tankbustas squad a power klaw, so I think I'll probably end up going w/ this instead:
Obviously, either way I'll have to modify the kombi-launcha to remove the extra hand.
I prefer the first one with the claw, but as you say it's a bit pointless for the squad build. Suppose it would be a deterrent if anyone considered charging the squad...
Weirdly I didn't even notice the extra hand until you mentioned it :/
I was beginning to feel like the combi-launcha was a cop-out for my Tankbusta Boss Nob. Sure it has rokkits on it and all, but this is the boss nob of my Tankbustas unit aaaand he's being entered in a competition called "Mighty Heroes and Nefarious Villains", so I felt he needed to be more mighty, and... Nefarious! He is smoking a cigar, after all.
I had originally conceived of shoulder mounting a launcha looted from a tank that he had previously destroyed, but the engineer in me wasn't okay with it unless it was attached to some kind of power source. So I got to work on a "plasticard" battery pack. I saw some bread bag tabs lying around and figured they might work as plasticard. It does score nicely, and glues up just fine, the last test is whether or not paint and primer will stick to it.
I still have to attach some wires from the launch lever in his right hand to the pack, and then more wires from the pack to the rokkit launcha itself, but I like the way it's shaping up, so this will be the final direction I take with this mini. If anyone has advice on making/attaching wires, I'm all ears.
Wired (16 ga brass), and finally ready to start painting! I'm going to try something a little different; usually, I use white paint-on primer (b.c. I just always have), but I've got some green paint-on primer, so I'm going to start there this time instead. I'm hoping it speeds things up a little, since there is rarely any white on my minis, but there is always a whole lot of green!
'Ere We Go! The Nefariously Villainous, Ceegar-Smokin' Tankbusta Boss Nob is finished, and I'm pretty happy with the result, considering this was my first real attempt at scratchbuilding anything. As mentioned previously, the backpack was glued together mostly from bread tabs (they take primer/paint pretty well) and the lightning bolt was a thin piece of plastic glued on which may be my new method to make glyphs. Anyway, I hope you like him, and if so, a vote in the gallery would be greatly appreciated! I've also got a Skullz rokkit boy from a while back which makes 5, so I have an official tankbustas squad. I'll try to post pics of the squad all together soon.
July's painting comp theme is "Unleash the Beast", and I need to unleash my painting beast in a major way. I'm not going to customize this one much/any despite my earlier vow, because I have modeled an ork big shoota in the past, and all these fiddly little bits take forever to paint as it is. If I started trying to do any major modeling work, the month would be over before I ever got this lad primed. Starting to wonder what I've gotten myself into:
However, I do need another shoota for my boyz squads, since the rokkit launcha boy got promoted to the tankbustas.
p.s., sorry for the blurry phone photo; you get the idea...
I've probably got 60-some orks painted by now, and this is my first Goff ever. Once I picked out the stormboy head, I couldn't see anything else but the black and grey color scheme. The only thing I have left to figure out is the monocle, because I'd like to do it well, but I don't have any clearcoat-type paints.
He is bringin' plenty uv dakka, but I'm stickin' 'im wiv da Freebooterz, 'cause der ain't no place for any of dem prissy Goff boyz in a proppa Skullz mob.
This is basecoated, metallics, and black wash. Ready for assembly + highlights, then done!
I missed the August competition, because I'm just not that into flyers, and never really have been (particularly ork flyers... just doesn't seem right somehow). In the meantime, I'm trying to bring my freebooterz squad to a full 10-man team, and needed 2 more. Here's the first lad:
...and a proof of the second whom I'm calling "the Outlaw" (inspired by one of the themes which didn't get a vote, "the wanderer").
He's painted, and I'll put the complete pics in my next post. He's kind of a weird sculpt (doesn't having nipples make him a mammal ?) and since he's originally a biker boy, and hunched so far over in typical GW ork style, I had to green stuff on the last two abs in his six pack (he only had 4 to begin with).
Automatically Appended Next Post: Honestly, I'm just way too pleased with the way this guy turned out, and I can't whittle down the photo selection any, so (since it's my blog and all), I'm just gonna plaster this page with 'em:
Just so I can claim that this blog is updated at least once a month, here's what I have(n't) been up to hobbywise:
Wanted to join the "Some Kind of Magic" comp, but don't have a proper mini for it. I'm also not a fan of Queen, so every time I see the title, I think of Muse's "Madness" w/ the word madness replaced by magic so that I can get that song stuck in my head instead of the Queen one. I may post the fluff on the Weirdboy in Waaagh Gulgog just to have something to contribute, since it is a cool theme. Also, if I find an Orruk Great Shaman in time, I'd like to paint one of those up 'cause they're my favorite Weirdboy model out right now.
I have been gearing up for an Armies on Parade event at the local G-Dub for next month. I didn't start basing models until about a year or so ago, so everything before that time that I want to enter is getting based. It's a heck of a process un-gluing ork feet from their bases, pinning them properly, basing them, and then re-gluing, but I've done two sets of 5 minis, and so it's on to the next part of the process which is building the board on which to present my army. I won't bore you w/ pics of old minis just because they've been freshly based, but when I get serious about the display board, I'll start posting WIP's and process-related stuff. Ultimately, I'll be posting pics of the bulk of my army on this blog and the Dakka Armies on Parade thread next month before the deadline. Stay tuned!
September was pretty ridiculously busy for me, so I missed out on entering the monthly challenge (It's a Kind of Magic!). I did however, want to contribute something, so in the absence of a model, here's a bit of fluff - the backstory on the weirdboy in my orks mob:
It was in the Great War on Gork’un where UzWurr earned his current name, UzWurr NaaRun, because he had saved Gulgog’s life. Gulgog was leading a squad of orks that were getting decimated by Blood Axe emplacements, but he was so enthralled by the dakka-dakka-dakka of his big shoota that he stood in an open clearing in the jungle, firing like mad while a Gretchin assistant fed crates worth of ammo through his weapon.
He was so oblivious in fact, that he didn’t notice his entire remaining squad (save UzWurr and the Gretchin) had up and split, while a giant Blood Axe Nob flanked him and raised a cleaver to take off Gulgog’s head. UzWurr let out a furious “Waaaagh!” and threw himself at the Nob, taking the blow from the choppa straight to his own head. The blade lodged into his skull, stopping just below his left eye. Gulgog turned on the Nob and unloaded the last of his ammo at point blank range into the offending ork. This rallied his squad (who had the nerve to seek cover while he was still shootin’), and they began laying down a barrage of covering fire. Realizing he was out of rounds and his friend was wounded, Gulgog shouldered the rifle and dragged UzWurr back to the Skullz encampment.
So many Skullz was getting’ krumped that day that the docs were overwhelmed. The orkish blade was wedged so thoroughly into Uzwurr’s skull that the doc attending to him didn’t dare remove it. However, he was miraculously still alive, and he was obviously favored by the Warlord, so the doc had to do something. The doc bandaged poor UzWurr’s wound as best he could, working around the embedded blade, then surgically removed his one remaining good eye, replacing it with a bionic targeter to compensate for the loss of the other one, just for good measure.
UzWurr ultimately recovered; luckily there wasn’t anything too important in that half of his brain, but the cleaver was now fused to his skull. Gulgog always knew there was something odd about ol’ UzWurr, and the permanent fixture of a cleaver protruding from his head certainly didn’t allay his suspicions any, but his unswerving loyalty clearly saved the Warlord’s life that day.
Finally, some actual hobby progress (woohoo!). Here's my board (literally) for Armies on Parade. It's 12" x 24", and I've cut the hills out of 3/4" pine with a jigsaw. I'm sure foam would have been much easier to work with, but for some reason if there's a hard way to do something, that is what I will gravitate to.
The plan is to flock the horizontal surfaces and paint the angled surfaces on the hills to look like sandstone (or something). Any kind of wood with a halfway decent sanding job looks so nice as it is that now my goal is just to not screw it up. On display will be the warboss, two kannons w/ krew, my Tankbustas, a squad of freeboota shootas w/ kaptin and a squad of Deathskulls shootas w/ boss nob. Wish me luck!
Here's the final work! The board on it's own didn't turn out quite as I had hoped, but it's not terrible. I didn't have much time to finish it, and this is my first attempt at making terrain; prior to this project, the most of the flocking I've ever used at one time was to base a single mini, and this thing took half a ziplock so there was a bit of a learning curve.
I did make it to my local GW for Armies on Parade. The event was lots of fun, and there were some pretty stellar works on display; I didn't win anything, but those who did definitely deserved it.
The first image is resized to be viewer friendly. Warning: the spoilered images are pretty huge, but I wanted people to be able to zoom in on particular minis for a closer look. If there's one anybody wants a detail of, let me know and I'll post an individual pic.
OhBoyOhBoyOhBoyOhBoy! I just bought my first miniature in a blister pack in 20 years and I can't wait to crack it open. The last one probably looked something like this:
But I got me a Big Mek w/ a Kustom Force Field, and my suggestion (armor) for the monthly unofficial painting challenge got chosen! The title got changed to 'Eavy Metal, which is even more fitting, since this fella is heavy, and made of metal. After a couple month hiatus from the comp (I've been putting in long days and even some weekends at work), I'm super excited to reenter w/ this guy:
The Mek got painted, but not based. Then he fell of a shelf and broke and had to be repaired. Then I got distracted with the idea of sculpting something from scratch, so when he gets based, I'll post better finished-product pics here. There are some pics (taken w/ my phone) of the progress so far in my gallery.
As for this month's challenge (December), it's an open category, so I'm making a bomb squig! I've never sculpted anything from scratch before, but my tankbusta squad does need a mascot, and I've seen enough really impressive sculpts here on Dakka to give it a try. I'd ultimately like to make two, and here's where I'm at so far:
Progress pic # 1
and Progress pic # 2
I think the feet have come out really well so far, and I like the iron gob idea!
Have you looked at some reference pics? This guy is turning out more insectoid than what I usually think of squigs. They're more mono-bodied, if that is even a word (the head and body are all stuck together, rather than distinct parts)
The little guy is finally ready for paint! 'Cept he's not really so little... that's a 40mm base he's taking up. I'm finding that the single biggest challenge I have with making anything out of greenstuff is keeping it to proper scale. Still, this has been a really fun project, and I'm looking forward to making one more, maybe next month.
Finished painting my bomb squig! It is tremendously rewarding to paint a miniature that you created yourself. That being said, there are some lessons learned, and I'm looking forward to making the next squiggy sculpt even better.
As for the modeling aspect: teeth could have come out better, and you can see some finger-prints that need to be smoothed out. It's also incredibly hard to keep these things to scale (he's huge for a squig; that's a 40mm base he's taking up).
As for the painting aspect: I should have used a little more white instead of orange to lighten him up. I wanted him to look a little more fleshy and bone-y, but instead I got firey and Khorne-y. I think I'm afraid to use pink on my models, and shouldn't be in this case.
Without further ado...
Top
Front
Right
Back
Left
Loving your work, great stuff, very ambitious sculpting so early back at it, but a man after my own heart, go for it. Scale is an issue, struggle a lot with it myself. As to the shading on your red, take it deeper with some purple wash, and use the flesh colours to lighten it up, the likes of Cadian flesh are slightly orange but have that balance you are looking for with the non-pink look.
Thanks for the feedback Camkierhi, I'm a huge fan of your work. Purple eh? Another color that I almost never use; it sounds like it's time to expand my pallette.
Also, thanks to Dakka for the bump, I saw my little blog featured on the home page this morning. Movin' on up!
This month I'm looking forward to converting up some Freebooterz for the Rogues and Scoundrels competition, so stay tuned...
So this month's unofficial challenge theme is rogues and scoundrels. I need more shootas, and so I figured a new addition to the freebooter mob would fit the rogue part of the theme. He's also a scoundrel... more on that in a future post. So now it's time for a WIP photo montage (Mon-tage!)
What I started with:
Assembled (sort of) front:
He's a shoota boy, see? Back:
Da blade, da grimace, and da fightin' stance:
and finally, Proppa Green (primed):
More scratchbuilt stuff using bread tabs as plasticard (check the blade) detailed w/ a bit o' green stuff... I think I'm on to something here.
My painting table has experienced a complete takeover by Legos, and since I'm bored and can't paint, I decided to snap a quick photo. In the original post, I promised to regale you w/ pics of my Oldehammer minis, so here are some ork nobz in power armor circa '90-'95. The funny thing about these is that they were sold as ork nobz in 'eavy and in one or two cases even mega armor, but they're smaller in stature than the standard boys are these days. Certainly a big difference from the MANZ of today. Enjoy!
I already posted some pics of this fella in the Unofficial Challenge thread, but here's a couple more just to keep the blog alive. Also, when I made my KFF big mek, I was really proud of the paint job I did on his back, and then covered it up w/ that giant backpack, and since this is kind of the same issue, here's a pic w/o the shoota on his back so you can see the detail there.
I do miss having him on a cork; it was a lot of fun to spin him around and make swishing noises for that giant blade.
Before I launch into the "We Have the Technology" challenge for February (which I already have an idea for that I'm super excited about), I had a bit of unfinished business from November's challenge. I didn't have time then to base my big mek w/ kff, and subsequently, his base was stolen for my squig sculpt. Well, I finally ordered some big bases, and since I wanted something more than just the usual dead grass that I put on every other model's base, I hit up the hardware store. I ended up using the spring and the bolt (which I sawed in half w/ a jeweler's saw) and wanted to incorporate the star washers to look like a gearbox had exploded (I think I'm stealing that particular idea from something I saw here on Dakka, so if it was originally your idea, thanks!) but I ran out of room. I do have some more mek stuff coming up, so maybe the gears will make it onto another mini. It does feel a little strange painting real metal bits to look more like real metal bits.
As for the ork himself, the idea was to make it look like he had just flipped the switch, and the KFF was opening little portals to the warp to create the force field. I think this is one of my best paintjobs to date, so here are some proper pics:
Excellent paint job, really nice style, looks very effective and outstanding detail work. Only thing I would say is possibly add a wash in patches on the base, just to give it a bit of tone here and there, maybe hint at a shadow. It looks great as is and really nice job with the odds from the hardware store, good find and great use, know exactly what you mean on the painting it.
Brilliant job sir, spent a good ten minutes looking at your pics, such great work. thank you.
Thanks for the tips Cam, it's nice to get real advice.
On to February's Challenge, "We Have the Technology"! I wanted to do an ork bussin' two gats sideways for last months challenge, so I combed the internet for the right weapons and found some Sic(k)arian weapons w/ scrollwork and curved clips coming out the handles which I thought would be perfect for an ork Freebooter. Unfortunately, they arrived and I realized that they're nothing but a bunch of grot blasters (stupid weedy 'oomies and yer tiny little gunz). So this month, I'll be making a grot w/ one mechanical arm and two flechette blasters. Since they're both left-hand weapons, it took quite a bit of X-acto work to remove all traces of the 'oomie hand so that the grot's original hand would look like he was holding the handle and pulling the trigger.
The idea behind this little guy is that he was assigned by the warlord to guard a particularly talented but absent-minded mek. Since the mek was extrememely useful, but prone to removing promising bits of enemy tanks whilst they were still in active duty, the grot was given the best weapons his little arms could carry to help keep the mek alive. If I have time this month (it's a pretty big if), I may try to paint up the mek, too.
So here's the whole process on this gun-toting grot. Drilling out the very ends of the gun barrels was a challenge since they're so small, but it had to be done. I even broke out the optivisor to do the scrollwork on the flechette blasters since there's some pretty tiny detail there. I did greenstuff a sleeve for his right arm so that both arms matched. Unfortunately, his (Sicarian) left arm broke off when I clipped him off the wire, and I tried to layer some paint over it, but you can still see the crack in the back view picture. All in all, I'm pretty happy with the end result.
Greenstuffed:
Primed:
Finished Top:
Finished Right:
Finished Back:
Finished Left:
Finished Front:
March's challenge theme is Beekie Boyz, so I'm debating painting something just for fun on my own vs. taking a one month break from the hobby (plenty of stuff to do in RL), we'll see...
So I took a month off (space mehreen comp was a convenient excuse to get some other stuff done), and now I'm back w/ a second attempt at sculpting a bomb squig from scratch (green stuff over a brass armature). I tried to keep him to a 25mm base and an appropriate scale, but he's about the size of an ork, so I've still got to learn some restraint in that department. All in all though, things are going pretty well. I just have to clean up the stikkbommz (I got excited last night about the progress I was making and forgot to remove mold lines before gluing them into his maw) and add his bottom jaw w/ teef. Oh yeah, and base him; I really want to spend some time to get the base right, because he's leaning really far forward which could look really cool if I can make it look like there's a reason for it.
If you're interested in the process, here's the play-by-play. I took a pic before starting each night, so each stage is 2-3 hours worth of time (I'm admittedly not very good or fast at this yet):
Starting point is a piece of brass wire that provides the armature for the legs. The rest is all greenstuff. Here's; the proof pic for the "Primal" comp this month (demented chicken):
Right leg done:
Left leg done:
Right foot done (this is the exact moment that he started getting big beyond his scale):
Both feet done (from demente chicken to misshapen frog, "Froggy went a corkin', he did ride, uh hunh...":
Upper jaw, teeth and nose done:
Eyes done, added a spine and some more muscle to the legs (more angles of this stage in my gallery if you're interested)::
Current status (there's only 1 squig, I just photoshopped the 3 views together):
Some lessons learned:
More armature is preferable to less; it is easier to have an existing structure and just add a little greenstuff over it if possible instead of trying to sculpt an entire appendage from a ball of green goo.
I should have put a pin in his tail to hold him while modelling. Half the reason I had to work in such small increments is that if I got one part to where I like it and tried to move on, I would mash the first part while trying to hold him and work on the next area.
Keep it small!!!! It is really really hard to make something smaller than a standard human in 28mm scale. The first step when you grab a bit of greenstuff should be to cut that bit in half and put half of it back.
Clean all standard GW parts before starting the sculpt so I don't stick them on there in my excitement and then realize they look like they just came off the sprue.
As usual, c&c welcome, and wish me luck, I'm going to need it if I want to finish this guy in the scant number of days remaining in this month.
Finished! I was going to just fill in the bottom jaw w/ teef like the ones on top, but since the theme for the challenge this month is "Primal", I made him a bit more... tusky. Also, here's a couple more lessons learned I forgot to mention in my last post...1. Dip your tools in water often to keep them wet while working; this keeps the greenstuff from sticking to the tool and pulling off the mini. 2. Have an image handy as a guideline. I was looking at the codex bomb squigs for this one, and it came out much more traditionally Citadel squig-looking than my last attempt.
Here's the final sculpt, and the painted version:
Right
Left
Front (A face only a Runtherd could love)
and Painted:
May's painting challenge is over (theme: Boom!) and I was crazy busy the whole month w/ RL stuff, so I got as far as painting both lobbas and all 4 crew, but didn't manage to base the little grotz until after the comp was over. I kinda inadvertently suggested the theme, so I feel inclined to finish what I started. Here's the final pics:
Red and Blue
Brown and Yellow
Da Gunz
Da Grotz
All Together Now
and Lobba by the Lake (I've been experimenting with photographing on reflective surfaces and I kinda like the effect. Too cheesy maybe? You decide. They're not actually on a mirror, just a clear piece of glass.
Process was paint on prime white (I have spray primer black but just couldn't motivate to do it once we finally got some nice days here), several washes of white primer mixed w/ black paint (with these metal minis, I try to mix in a little primer every step of the way to prevent chipping), then metallic dots and drybrush for all the (millions of) little rivets and things. I also noticed that before I started, the color change after washing these guys with a little dish soap was dramatic, so I'm going to make sure not to skip that step in the future for everything I paint.
I quite like the reflective surface. Makes for a very interesting picture.
The beautifully painted artillery and crews make for a very interesting picture too but the glass adds to the visual appeal.
It'd be a great technique for miniatute ships or something water related.
Sorry I haven't been too active w/ the blog, lately it's all I can do to paint a mini and get it photographed for the monthly competition. So I did a mek w/ killsaw last month that I'm pretty pleased with, and may post more pics here if I get around to re-shooting them with a different background (got some feedback suggesting my background should be darker, so I'm going to experiment some). I made a shoebox lightbox and honestly am really pleased with the results (maybe someday I'll post some pics of the setup for it, too).
More recently, I've scratchbuilt a big shoota and cobbled together an ork boy to wield it, but painting will have to wait for another month (maybe next month's challenge "the Brutal"?).
I also whipped up some crates out of wood for objective markers which I'll be painting for this month's comp. If anyone has any tips on how to paint wood crates to look like wood crates, I'd appreciate some suggestions.
I'll probably put some bullet holes and such in them to make them look a little more battle worn. I've actually gotten a couple games in recently with a friend by splitting my ork army in half and now that we've got the mechanics down, objectives seem like a fun way to add some interest to the game.
Thanks for the feedback guys. Here's my super-budget photo setup, the shoebox lightbox:
The French dictionary is my "tripod", and I normally have an overhead lamp (ordinary desk lamp) to shine through the top too, but I just finished my project at 11:45 PM and wanted to just snap something quick without having to mess too much with the setup..
...and the results (final image for July's painting competition, "Fun and Games", my crate objective markers):
A few notes about painting real wood to look like real wood:
If you're mixing paint, mix a lot! Wood really soaks it up; I would paint one side, turn it over, paint the other side, and then come back and the first side would look faded, because the wood had just pulled the paint in along with the water.
This was a rush job but in the future, I think the method would be very very thin coat of paint on primer, wash with a dark grey for stuff to sink into the recesses, then super thin/drybrush applications of final colors (maybe 2-3 layers).
Just buy plastic crates. Carving solid blocks to look like planks is really time consuming (probably more time than they're worth), and painting plastic is easy in comparison to wood.
I am super excited to have them for games, though. My favorite video games ever were the Command and Conquer series, so to have mysterious crates on the battlefield which could change the outcome of the game really appeals to me.
Painting a mini a month is hard enough, finding time to properly photograph them and update a blog is more than I can consistently commit to, so I've got a few minis completed since my last post. For August's "Brutal" challenge, I finished this guy:
and had included another in my proof pic, because I was feeling ambitious and all (2 ork boys in one month, whuuuuut?) and of course it didn't happen in time. I did however, finish him a week or so after the comp ended and finally managed to photograph him:
It's kind of a shame the way that worked out, because wielding that giant mace, I think he fit the theme much better.
Then, for last month's "Armor Up" competition, I decided to try my hand at scale mail armor which was primed white and then just laid over with successive very thin black washes. I also tried some NMM (see also: grey) on his weapons:
Pretty happy with the way he turned out. The funny thing is I think I figured out the image sizing issues I was having, although of course I figured out what was going on after I had posted my final pics to the comp page and was headed out of town for the weekend just as the comp was ending. I took the photos from appropriately far away that the whole mini was in focus, and then cropped them in photoshop to what I thought was the right size, except that in PS, I was viewing them at 1/3 or 1/2 actual size, so by the time I posted to Dakka, they were blown up big enough again to make every brushstroke visible and chalky-looking. Long story short, I think I am finally getting my photography sorted out, and have high hopes for next month's images.
All 3 lads are part of a Freebooter Sluggas squad which is now half done:
Since I need to finish out the squad, and since October's theme is "Fright Night", and since giant green monsters who also happen to be pirates (or pirates who also happen to be giant green monsters) feels pretty Halloween-y to me, you can expect more Slugga-weildin' Freebootin' Gitz shortly. As always, C&C (and gallery votes!) always welcome.
Here's a quick update; October's (generally spooky-themed) competition entry was another freebooter slugga to keep plugging away at this same squad. He was done in a "headhunter" theme, and I'm pretty pleased with the results:
Then, for November's "Hold the Line" competition, I made a veteran "skarboy" for the same squad:
and now, since the squad is almost up to 10 models, for this month's challenge, I'm working on the nob for the mob (here he is assembled, primed, and kinda almost base-coated):
I offer these WIP shots as an insight into my process so that other aspiring horde army commanders might follow a completely different path altogether, given that I paint at the rate of 1 ork boy per month. At this rate, I should have my army done by the time GW releases the (11th ed.) ork codex!
I also have something extra special planned for the next post, so stay tuned! C&C always welcome.
So in my last post, I promised something special, and here it is! I was digging around in my parents garage hoping to find some of my old RT stuff, and didn't find any sourcebooks (I had a first ed. Call of Cthulhu RPG, Freebooterz, etc) or troop models, but I did find my old battlewagon!!! It's in pretty bad shape, but it still has the mast with the marine crucified on it, the mastodon skull hood ornament (with suitably orky nosering), and the chrome rims on the front wheels (wth was I thinking? I guess it was the apex of the gangsta rap era...):
It's a good day to be a warlord. Maybe I'll fix 'er up for this March's "Space Marine" competition and return this particular marine "to his post".
Also, here are the finished pics for last month's open challenge, my freebooter nob w/ slugga, bosspole and klaw:
I'm pretty pleased with the results. I don't know what I'm going to do this month; don't have time to paint three minis which is the minimum for this month's comp, we'll see.
the chrome rims!! ...y'know, I've been tempted for a long time now to do up a trukk or a battlewagon or something in some sort of stupid, orky "pimp my ride" style, probably as a transport for some flash gitz ...big gold wheels (preferably "spinners" ), some kind of gaudy paint job/interior, a huge sound system, loads of superfluous screens and stuff...just full-on all-money-no-taste hotrod/boyracer abomination ...I feel like that could be kinda great, in an utterly awful kinda way
Do it!!! Transpo for flash gitz is a perfect excuse to go totally over the top. As for this wagon, I think I’m going to try and add a bunch of different platforms and levels so that it actually holds the number of models that it should in a game.
This month's theme was "A Few Good Men", and I tried for the minimum entry of 3, but only managed to get 2 painted. So no competition entry, but these two complete a couple of mobz so that I now have 4 complete squads of boyz (1 ea. Deathskullz shootas and sluggas, and 1 ea. Freebooter shootas and sluggas). I've been getting a few requests for full army shots, so those may be forthcoming if I get the time. Without further ado, here's what I finished for the month of January:
Captain Hook (I ran out of the arm bit that cradles the shoota, and had the thought that there was nothing more pirate-y than a hook hand, so...)
and a new Deathskullz slugga boy
The first time I saw da Goff Rokkaz live in concert, I was like:
I hope you like 'em, if you want to see them before paint, there are proof pics in my gallery.
I'm looking forward to next month's challenge, because the big shoota that I modeled up a while back is finally gonna get painted. C&C on all this stuff always welcome, thanks for stopping by!
This month's challenge is "Carry a Big Stick" and I needed a big shoota to back up my recently completed freebooter sluggas mob, so this was a perfect opportunity to put paint to a mini that I modeled up back in July. Pics:
(Lookin' down the barrel of a gun...)
(Tuffer dan Tuff)
I scratchbuilt the gun out of bread tabs, sprue, brass tubing, and a couple of GW bitz. I got a comment earlier that it was maybe too plain, but I researched machine guns before I made it, and there's really not much to them beyond a box and a barrel.
This was also my first attempt at doing the heat effect on the barrel and I still need a lot of work in that department. I think it naturally would work better on a true metallic instead of the dirty black wash I've got on there but I'm intrigued enough to give it a better shot next time.
I also wanted to step up my basing game a bit and am almost more pleased with the base than the mini. The bricks are made from the same wood that I used for the crates a few months back, and I kind of stippled them until they looked right. Still kind of new to static grass, too but I like the effect.
Hope you like him, as always, feedback is welcome.
I've mentioned it several times before, but I'm building out my ork army so that I can split it evenly down the middle and play orks v. orks with a friend of mine who isn't into the hobby (*yet!). My Deffskullz shootas are lead by a nob w/ a kombi-skorcha, so Da Mutineers (my Freebooterz) needed a similarly kitted nob to lead them. I already had the standard ork nob kombi weapon and wanted to customize one. The last time I bought 'oomie weapon bitz, they ended up being too small for even the rank and file ork boyz (so I gave 'em to da weedy grotz), but I figured with "Primaris Marines (read using a manly tone of voice)" being bigger, surely their weapons would be suitable for an ork nob right? Not so:
Is we orks gettin' bigger, or is da 'oomies gettin' scrawnier? Next you're going to tell me that the rinky-dink weapon on the left does more damage in-game, but it is us orks whose "gestalt psychic field" makes things happen just cause we say so right?
But I paid my teef for the bit, so I had to use it, and I'm pretty happy with the result. As I model these lads, I imagine their backstory, and since this guy is a freebooter w/ a Bad Moons color scheme (first Bad Moon I ever painted), I pictured that he had the traditional "too rich for his own good and too big to argue with, so he was ostracized and became a freebooter" upbringing. I picture him using the flamer to light his cigars more often than he actually uses it in combat (if anyone out there wants to model a big ork doing just that, you would be my internet hero).
I've been focused on this one mini since April which means I haven't been able to enter the competitions, but I've been enjoying taking my time. The approach has been to start at his boots and work my way up, getting each part just the way I want before moving on. Enjoy, as usual, C&C always welcome.
There's a couple more pics in my gallery if you're interested.
I was actually going to put down the brush for a bit because I've been waiting patiently for the 8th ed. Ork codex and I've got my army pretty much where I want it. I'm at kind of a spiritual fork in the road about whether to continue painting or pursue other things with my few nightly hours of free time per week.
Then my brother mentioned that he's been playing D&D games, and his birthday was in June, and he consistently plays a female half-elf rogue and the Unofficial Painting Competition's theme for June was "Blades in the Dark". So yeah, I painted a non-ork and it was strangely satisfying ( Quiet you gitz! ).
I had to buy some elf flesh, some purple, and while I was at it, I got the idea to try out an ink wash on the purply parts (I've never used inks before). This model is super tiny, but was a lot of fun to paint. I even got out the optivisor (5x I think?) which I normally don't do because it was a gift and I wanted to do the sculpt justice. The hobby-related business boils down to this:
1. These models are tiny, and have atrocious mold lines, but the detail is good so they're worth the effort.
2. I built up a nice range of shades on the cloak and literally a half-drop of ink applied twice washed all that out, but I feel like there is some extra depth there when you look at it, and in the end, it's a nice looking purple. Will have to practice more with inks. Do you go back and highlight after? Water the ink down more so the stuff under it shines through more? I dunno. Needs more investigation.
3. I am happy with this model until I look at photos of it. Then I realize I probably could have added more detail; the finished product in the pictures looks cleanly basecoated but not much else. For example, I had a little rouge on her cheeks, but it got covered up in one of the layers.
4. The base is actually wood. I flayed the top layer off of some backing material (for bookshelves and such), cut it into strips, glued them to a piece of paper the size of the base, glued the whole mess to the base, poked some nail holes into the part where the boards come together, then painted it with successive washes of XV88. Super happy with everything about it except the scale. The boards could have been even thinner, but maybe she's on a giant ship or something.
5. Pics:
The cape before the wash (mini is basecoated, nothing else):
To give you an idea of just how mini this mini is:
Painted up another boy. I read a thread on here about ork players quietly disappearing. It's all just stratergy; just when you 'oomies has got yer hands full with the great rift and all the horrors coming at ya, and you've forgotten all about yer oldest and greatest enemy, wham! Gee Dubs is gonna drop our codex and you'll realize we been here all along, painting more boys fer da Green Tide.
Here's my latest:
I suspect a lot of other ork players are in the same boat as me, just waiting to see what the codex has in store and what new models we're going to get. Orktober happens to be my birthday month, so I have high hopes about getting a codex, maybe the Kill Team box set, and perhaps even a box of something new and shiny for the Waaagh! In the meantime, C&C (and gallery votes!) always welcome, and thanks for stopping by!
One of the things you can do while (not so) patiently waiting for your codex to drop is to revisit your older stuff. I had a squad of Skullz sluggas that was comprised of a few newer-painted and based models, and 8 that were done before I cared about basing. I'm thinking about bringing the Waaagh! back to Armies on Parade this year at my local GW, so if I based these 8 ladz, I could bring another full squad and not have to make excuses or hang my head in non-based-minis shame.
It was really fun to take a closer look at these guys (I hadn't really paid much attention to them since finishing them the first time) for a couple of reasons. 1. is that each of my minis becomes its own character or personality to me, and I was reminded of how much I liked these ladz after I assembled and painted them. 2. is that it showed me how much I've progressed as a painter in the last 5 or so years. These minis are atrocious compared to my current standard; gun barrels are not drilled, the paint looks chalky and thick (I was using some old Tamiya something-or-other that I don't think was meant for individual figures), the details (like the eyes) are not cleanly delineated, etc. I'm by no means a stellar painter now, but it's a pleasant confirmation that my efforts towards improving my skills have yielded better results.
I tried at first to break the superglue bond with the base using a chisel-point x-acto, but it worked better to just grab them by the legs/waist and break them off with my fingers (although you do have to use some caution as the legs will bend and break at the ankles if you're not careful). If you're attempting this, try one foot at a time, wiggle them a bit, maybe bend the base away from the foot... you'll get a feel for it.
The basing itself was a pretty slap-dash job, but as a squad, they look a million times better now and at the very least are table-ready/presentable.
One of these days I still plan to take proper photos of all my squads, but here are the 8 I re-based along with a grot (who got moved from infantry to artillery duty) and Maxwell the Mek, both of whom got the same treatment:
(^Holy Flock Batman), and... Finished:
If I base 8 more grots, my whole army (except for some Oldhammer metal ladz that I don't use for anything) will be based. So yeah, still here, still tuning up the army, still waiting for just the right moment to unleash the Waaagh! and remind humanity that their hold in this 'ooniverse is tentative at best.
It is funny how a little effort on the bases makes so much of a difference. Also agree totally that going back to old mini's we painted long ago really does show us what really matters in the painting game, our own improvement.
BTW It's funny, we collect the army with a million faces and we treat them completely as individuals, I have several dozen Zogs and Nobby's, but they are all individual as I paint them, adding tiny little details that no-one else will ever notice, but to us they are special. I think it has to do with orks, we have way more models than anyone, but Marines are just a mass produced tin can and have to have special characters to make any individuality, but orks are different somehow. I used to have a grot meat shield back in the day, 80 gretchin with autoguns, can get more "the same" than that, but every one was different in my eyes, I had the lucky bugger who shot at serious range and killed a SM Captain, the unlucky sod who died first shot evey game he ever played. and the small group known as the undefeated, who managed to survive every game I tabled them in. Ah those where the days. Anyways great work carry on.
@Cam: Yeah, I like the P&M threads about speed painting rank and file troops because of the range of times quoted by ork players. I’m getting “faster”, but a single ork boy from sprue to finish still takes me at least 8 hours and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I agonize over every bit and position choice trying to imbue the model with a theme of sorts that gives them personality and makes them unique. If you take the time to pick out every buckle and don’t let any two adjacent items (eg boots and pants) have the same color, an ork boy becomes a real commitment, but this is what I enjoy and do to relax. Thanks for posting, it’s nice to know others out there feel the same.
Finished my basing project, now my entire army is on bases that are at least passable for say, Armies on Parade. The last holdouts were actually the box of grots that got me back into the hobby after a twenty year hiatus. I only broke one foot in the process and discovered that those chisel-point X-acto blades work better upside-down (put the bevel side against the base and the flat side under the foot, and the minis break off relatively easily). And I have the first grot sniper model ready to go (it's happening GW, whether you put it in the codex or we have to homebrew our own rules for them). The funny thing is I'm getting better at basing the more I do, so now the best bases in the entire army belong to the lowliest troops.
I turned this:
Lookign good! I prefer a more neutral brown for the base rims though, but that's up to personal taste, of course. Have you expeirmented with rhinox hide or something similar?
Thanks for the feedback. The black on the base rims is intentional; it’s just the aesthetic I’ve settled on. To me it keeps the idea that the minis are still individual sculptures or works of art.
My October/November project was this guy. It's a good day when you post a pic whose tags are Ork, Slugga Boy, Kilt, Mohawk. Happy with my greenstuff work, proofs:
and painted:
Comments, criticisms, and (especially) gallery votes are always greatly appreciated.
I also went a little crazy (for me). I know some of you drop a ton of teef on this hobby regularly, but I usually buy a few bits at a time. At the end of October, I bought my ork codex, got the index off eBay the same day for $5 (gotta keep my KFF Big Mek, lobbas, and kannons, dontchaknow?), aaaaaand bought the Kill Team starter set. Painting the terrain alone in that set will keep me busy all winter (I'm about half way through assembling it all), but now I've got AM and GSC to build/paint, too! It's fortuitous timing though, because I've recently discovered that another friend of mine is just starting 40k, so this should be a good intro for both of us, since I've only played three times (all 7th) in the last 20 years. Still here, gonna pause with adding boyz for a while though, until I get my Kill Teams up and running.
Since getting Kill Team, I've devoted all my hobby time to building the terrain. It's a pretty amazing set; fit-up was clean and easy, and it looks great, particularly if you stack it up like so:
There's even enough to use for a normal game of 40k if you spread it out a bit. I finished assembly last week, and got a game of Kill Team in with a buddy of mine who plays Eldar:
Neither of us had played before, and it was late on a week night, so we made it through army listing, one complete round, and a little bit of the second. Now that we know the rules, I can see how you could get a game in in not too much time, so I'd definitely recommend Kill Team to anyone (like me) who doesn't regularly have time for full-blown 40k. Also, I'm excited to build up the Admech team that came with it, and once I finish the GSC too, I'll have 3 factions (counting my orks) to choose from. Those are pretty much my priorities; now that the terrain is built, even thinking about painting it is a bit daunting, but at least I can put it on the table and use it.
First game was a blast, and afterwards, I kept thinking about what I would change to my list, tactics etc., but the only takeaway I kept coming back to was, "That was awesome!"
I can't wait to get another game in, and now that I'm more familiar with it, maybe I'll do a proper batrep next time.
As to the terrain, bit at a time bud. Spray the whole thing dark grey throw a drybrush over it and wash with black. Will look good enough for now and you will enjoy the feel in game as well. Big difference playing on proper terrain and stuff just not quite there. Later you can add all the details.
...<|Enable Skitarii Kill Team Photo Dump|>...Commencing...
It's been quite a while since I've posted, but I've been busy, and actually doing hobby-related stuff to boot! I now have a regular MtG night every other week or so, managed to get a game of Gloomhaven in (the most awesome game evar), and got my second game of Kill Team in too.
On the p&m end, I've been working my way through the Skitarii from the Kill Team starter set I bought last year. The theme for my squad is that a small, elite group of rangers who call themselves the Ghosts of the Machine God have been clearing the horrors that now infest the streets of Vigilus for quite some time now. They have gotten quite good at sniping from afar and setting up ambushes, but nonetheless are down to only four remaining members. A squad of Vanguard including an alpha eager to prove himself and expand the size of his command has volunteered to find and reinforce their fellow Skitarii. Since the rangers are veteran snipers, they long ago learned that the red of their coats gave them away too easily, and so they now wear theirs inside-out. This conveniently separates the rangers form the vanguard in-game and I think it adds a nice thematic touch. I got 2 rangers done before January's painting comp, 2 done for January's painting comp, and was trying to get 3 vanguard done in time for February's "Into the Breach" competion, but I just finished them this weekend. I took a proof pic on February 4th:
and finished March 24th, meaning that I'm still keeping pace (exceeding, even!) my mini-per-month goal. Here's the rangers:
The Vanguard (front and back):
...and the squad as it stands:
I've been trying to up my basing game, so I've started experimenting with things like cogs and chain:
Now all that's left is to finish 2 more (Alpha and Plasma Caliver-weilding gunner), and I'll have a whole new faction to play in Kill Team!!!
If you're interested, there's more pics in my gallery.
Comments and criticisms always welcome, thanks for stopping in.
Disgusted to see this, but they are excellent work bud. Love them bud, really are great work. Like the scheme, and the basing is very well done, not to much, just about right.
Got my Skitarii Vanguard Alpha done in time for this month's competition. The super zoomed-in pictures reveal every flaw in my paintjob, but at arm's length, I think he looks really good, and he definitely stands out as the leader of my almost-finished AdMech kill team. I picked the weapons because I thought they looked the coolest, and once I read what they did, I got enamored of the idea of lighting someone up with the phosphor pistol as the charged and then clubbing them with the arc maul once they got in range - it's a nice visual. Pics:
On the Battlefield:
The lack of decals in the Kill Team box set is kind of a let-down, but it gives me a chance to practice freehand and pin-striping I guess. I took four or five stabs at that stupid cog and then said feth it, this is as good as it's gonna get. Plasma-caliver weilding heavy gunner should be done in the next couple days, and then I'll try to post pics of him and the whole squad together, since he's the last model I need to finish for it.
So I finished my plasma caliver-weilding Vanguard gunner:
That blue plasma effect is a lot of fun to paint. He was also the last troop I needed to paint to finish an AdMech Kill Team.
In December, I started painting Skitarii 2 or 3 at a time; 6 months later, I have a completely new faction to throw down with. This is so exciting! And now I'm looking at other AdMech models thinking, this could be the start of a whole new army (well played Gee Dubs). Here's the completed squad:
I'm feeling the need to get back to making orks, but I still have all the KT terrain to paint + a whole squad of GSC. Decisions, decisions. Whaddy'all think?
Back to painting an ork 'cause I needed a big shoota and I'm done wiv painting 'oomies. Finished in time to actually post to the competition this month too, which I'm particularly proud of given how crazy my life/schedule has been lately.
This was a fun little conversion/kitbash of a heavy stubba I've been wanting to loot for my orks ever since I saw it, and since one came with the Kill Team box set, the GSC lads will just have to choose the other heavy weapon options.
I tried some Spellcrow legs for the first time, and the fit and details are really nice. The "Death Guard" shoulder pad is something I cobbled together from the shoulder pad I clipped out of the Mark whatever rocket launcher from way back when, the tusk of some beastie, and a couple of spikes from the giant orc mace that comes with the fantasy boyz.
I really like the feel of this guy; the running pose is more dynamic than the usual hunched over footsloggin' GW style, and this mini just has the feel to me of the artwork that got me interested in orks back in the day in the first place. I hope you like him as much as I do, C&C always welcome.
I'm working my way through painting the Killzone: Sector Imperialis terrain that came with the Kill Team starter box. I normally shy away from painting anything bigger than a Nob which might explain why I've had this stuff built but not painted for months now. This month's competition theme is Wild World, so it's a perfect excuse to overcome my fears and paint an actual part of the wild world of Vigilus.
To prevent myself from overthinking this and taking forever getting it done, I decided to follow the Warhammer TV video on YouTube as closely as I can (Duncan gets his painted in under 10 minutes on YouTube, how hard can it be, right?). The only downside is that whenever I see "Killzone: Sector Imperialis" (I watch the video every night before and after I paint a step), I get the Dead Kennedy's song, "California, Imperialis!" stuck in my head.
Rather than paint through all the steps on a couple pieces at a time, I am painting all the pieces at the same time, and I have had about enough time each night that I paint to finish one step per night. Without further ado, here's the pics and a little commentary/lessons learned for each step.
Ready for Priming:
I used some old pieces of wood I had in the garage and covered one side with two-sided carpet tape, leaving enough space on the ends for "handles". This way, I could pick up all the pieces and manipulate them to ensure good spray paint coverage on all surfaces. If I get the bug to paint up a number of orks en masse, I will definitely buy some green primer and hose them down rather than my usual paint-on per individual model primer method.
Primed:
All of the pieces stayed on the tape except for the big guy which took a nose dive when I tried to turn it almost upside-down. The primed models look so much better than the plain plastic that if you have a set of terrain assembled but haven't started painting it yet for any reason, at least prime it, you'll be glad you did. I almost called the project finished right then and there because I didn't want to screw it up, but I soldered on.
Heavy Drybrush and Basecoated Flooring:
My heavy drybrush is a little heavier than Duncan's heavy drybrush, probably because I didn't have any paintbrushes big enough and had to appropriate a couple from my kid's stash (the ones in the picture below literally say "Crayola" on them, the hallmark of true quality brushes). In fact, I was worried that it was a little too heavy and wasn't going to look very good.
Heavy Drybrush Close Up:
The spot where the floor met the walls and pillars looked crummy, too, but the next painting night, I tidied that up and was back to feeling like this just might work.
Cleaned Up Lines Where Basecoat Colors Meet:
Last night I did the first wash of Agrax Earthshade:
At this point, I would say these buildings are "battle ready" or whatever GW is calling tabletop quality these days. The shade tones down the drybrush contrast nicely, but my advice would be to check on it every few minutes as it dries, because it continues to puddle after you stop painting. I sucked up anywhere it was puddling with a brush and then went to bed. Today there are obviously places where a little more continued to run and collect in certain recesses, but it's not super-noticeable, and I'm still happy with the overall progress. Notice too, how much paint is (not) left in that bottle; that was a brand new pot, and the whole set so far has used over half of it. I think there's another step that requires even more of it, too. The heavy drybrush used about half a pot of Ushabti Bone.
Next is picking out all of those little mechanical bits with metallics. Thanks for looking, I'll try to post more updates as I get nearer to completion. I even have my first game of 8th ed. scheduled for this Sunday, so these ruins may have even more bullet holes the next time you see them.
After a couple of skirmishes on Vigilus, the fighting between the Aeldari of the Rimas Nadir and Waaagh Gulgog has intensified into raging battles.
That is to say, after playing a couple of games of Kill Team, I finally got my first game of 8th ed. 40k in. Both my buddy and I are still learning the game and time was short, but we got two glorious complete rounds in. Not only that, but between his scenery and mine, we were able to cover the table in some pretty legit and painted terrain, and his army is getting closer to fully painted, too.
Both armies face off across the battlefield:
Aeldari Deployment:
It was 1100 points which for my footsloggers is a stoopid amount of models on the table.
Ork Deployment:
There was tankbustaz and bomb squigs holding objectives:
Da Big Boss himself, da dok, and a couple a meks leading da shoota mobs:
Slugga squads waiting for Da Jump:
(the headhunter behind the statue is my proxy Weirdboy)
A buncha weedy grotz:
and Big Mek WarpRokka with his SAG that my 15 year old self converted and painted, and my current self still gets a laugh out of:
I'll be back with more terrain updates as I'm still working on it (metallics are finally done!), and after that, my next project is gonna be somethin' speshul...
Finally 100% finished with my Kill Team terrain!!!
If you're just tuning in, I mostly followed what Duncan did on Warhammer TV for this. The only change I made was substituting a vallejo silver for the highlights on the silver bits (instead of the Necron compound he used) and instead of retributor armor for the eagles and such, I used a base of brass scorpion with a layer of skullcrusher brass over it. If I had it to do over again, there is one thing from his method that I would change, and that is to not waste time with a second wash of agrax earthshade over the silver bits. Maaaaaaybe it makes them look a tiiiiny bit more rusty/weathered, but if so, it's extremely subtle, and counts for a wasted evening in my book. It does help with the bronzy/brassy bits, just not the silver ones. Really, the best sequence of operations would be to do both kinds of metallics before even the first wash of agrax earthshade, because then they'd just get covered in it along with everything else.
Sidenote: I still can't drybrush for beanz. I was way too heavy handed with the screaming skull for the last highlight and now my whole buildings are lighter than I would have liked, but whatevs; I'm done and it will still look killer on the table top. There are photos of each stage sprinkled in my gallery if you're interested.
For a big project like this, it definitely felt like a slog at times, but ultimately, it was a lot of fun, looks amazing now, and upped the scale of what I consider doable.
(Tada!):
Remember when I said I'd be back wiv somefin' speshul? Remember when I found that old 2nd ed. battlewagon in my parent's garage? Well, just look at 'er now! I wanted to remake this thing and use it in games as a Trukk so that it would actually carry a dozen orks plus the big shoota it's supposed to have as standard equip (that'll be the topic of a later post). I stalled out a bit because I couldn't figure out how to make the back end work (the main hold can easily hold 9 orks, 10 is kind of a stretch, so I have to have more capacity somewhere). This is still definitely WIP and has a loooong way to go, but my goal is to get the modeling done before the Pacific NW rains return for fall/winter so that I can spray primer it while the weather is still nice and then spend the winter painting and detailing. As usual, comments and questions, and suggestions are welcome!
After a whole lot of tinkering (and making/gluing tiny brass rivets), I'm finally happy with the build and declaring this stage of the project done. I was going to primer it, but the smoke from the nearby wildfires is preventing me from going outside, much less spray painting anything, so that'll have to wait, which is a shame because I'm dying to put brush and paint to it. Since the last update, I've added glyphs and some little details to help pull the whole thing together and make it more orky and hopefully more realistic.
The finished product, Beekee Bob has been returned "to his post":
Door glyphs, "Dis way to da Waaagh!":
Other glyphs, property of "Gulgog Tuftoof", engine built by BigMek "WarpRokka", and da gunner (to be added later via magnets) "Grimgob":
I couldn't come up with a name I liked for the driver, so the backstory is now just that when it's time to go to the front lines, they grab some random speedfreak (dere's always plenty muckin' about da camp) and tell him he can drive. The glyphs serve as words of inspiration for the driver, "dis way, fasta!, kaboom!":
Ladders on the back to get up to the upper levels:
The trukk is primed! Now I have something to work on all winter
I've got everything on a handle of some sort that I can hold while painting, and then I stuck all of the components with their handles onto a piece of wood using some 2-sided carpet tape for spray painting. We finally got some nice weather and the smoke from the wildfires is gone so it went on ok and dried nicely. I'm still a bit heavy-handed with it though, I feel like with more practice I could get a thinner coat and keep more depth in the details. Pics:
Thanks for noticing, it makes my day when my stuff periodically pops up on the dakka homepage. I need to not stand on my meager laurels though and find the motivation to paint. The trukk project is moving forward at the pace of a grazing grox but I’ll try to post an update here soon. I was actually all fired up to paint tonight and then I remembered that Wednesday is not a painting night. Maybe I can muster the same gumption tomorrow night.
So in addition to finishing my trukk, on a personal note, I am ending a nearly 30-year abusive relationship. That's right, never again will I ever buy a Citadel paint pot of anything thicker than a shade or a wash. No more dried paint in the hinge causing fresh paint to ooze out onto my fingers. No more dried pots of paint that really aren't that old just because I didn't (or couldn't) get a proper seal the last time I used them. I'm going dropper bottles and never looking back, and to support me, my family even got me this for Christmas:
As for the trukk update, I found some pics of the original state of affairs, and my musings on how to make it actually carry the 12 orks it's supposed to:
(a pile of bitz and a bag of plasticard)
(this guy's always ready to go)
For the Dakka December painting challenge, I painted up the gunner and driver. I was quarantined because of a suspected Covid exposure (luckily, it turned out to be a scare and not a real emergency), which gave me a ton of time to just focus on the Trukk project, so I got them painted up in record (for me) time.
Wot're you lookin' at?
Since he's a Kromlech figure, I even tried my hand at magnets for the first time so I can remove him if for whatever reason I end up going to an event in a GW store.
As for the trukk itself, it was a lot of fun to give a 20+ y.o. model a fresh paint job, and I tried a few new things after alternating my quarantine time painting and watching Zumikito Miniatures YouTube videos. The exhaust pipe was my first attempt at NMM, and I like the technique, but I learned that I need to learn how to blend first. I'll be trying more though, I do like it. I also tried to make it look really rusty without resorting to special weathering paints (since I don't own any). This too could be improved, but was a good learning experience, and going forward I'll be developing it more so that my orks don't look quite so crisp and clean. Other features are that the door opens, and you can remove the cab top to see into the cockpit. As usual, questions, comments, and gallery votes would make my day, enjoy!
Oh yeah, and lest I forget...
The Unfortunate Fate of Beekee Bob
Beekee Bob was the only survivor of a Space Wolves squad that had the misfortune of meeting Gulgog TufToof in hand-to-hand combat. His battle brothers were all given heroes deaths at the hand of the great warlord's klaw, but alas, he was cleaved in half by the power axe in the Gulgog's other hand whilst it was at full charge, which had the effect of cauterizing his grievous wounds as it sliced its way through him. Left for dead, he was eventually found by the lootas and burnas as they combed the battlefield for scrap and unarmed (and un-legged), was still trying to fight the foul xenos bare-handed as they approached him. They admired his fighting spirit and were awed that he survived a fight with the warlord himself, and so made him their mascot and chained him to the mast of their trukk. In true grim-dark fashion, his super-human physique won't let him die, so now he charges into battle against friends and foes of the Imperium alike, praying for death or a miracle that might return him to his chapter.
It’s great to see that old battle wagon get new life. I always wanted one of those so badly - based on the picture in the Codex: Orks but could never find one. Those are still great wheels. Good job.
And I really like the Kill Team terrain as well. I’ve painted my Sector Mechanicus but not my city ruins yet. I like yours and may do something similar. Priming with a colored primer is the way to go!
Greg job rescuing that old wagon! I remember thinking that they looked so cool in those WD battle reports, yours is even better for being able to fit all of the Ladz in!
Thanks all for the comments.
@The Riddle of Steel: it absolutely makes sense on big stuff like vehicles and terrain to invest in a spray can of the primary color you plan to paint it.
I have been trolling ebay for quite some time now waiting for an ork kommando with burna NIB to appear at a reasonable price, and finally got lucky. This is one of the last metal ork minis that I really coveted and am super excited to add him to the army. He's got a slot in my next Kill Team game, if I ever get another game in that is (stupid Coronavirus, ruins everything!).
The paint job isn't my best, it's a combination of breaking his arm by accident and pinning/greenstuffing/regluing him back together late at night while the paint was still wet then trying to redo over the damage, but he'll look pretty solid at arm's length on the tabletop.
I'm naming him Bernie in honor of the man with the mittens who's been getting so much internet love lately. That glyph on his backpack may be my favorite detail on any ork model ever.
That's one good looking ork man. Must feel good to finally nab hold of him and you've done him justice - the glyph looks great and the detail on the gauge is super impressive.
I really love how you can slop every colour in the box down on an ork and it still comes out looking natural.
Well played grabbing this classic guy. He's got tonnes of character even behind the welders mask. I can see why you wanted him. And that glyph on his back is fantastic.
Hope you get a chance to use him soon. May all your opponents be feeling the bern!
Been a while since I posted I guess. I tried to enter an Ork Nob with Waaagh! Banner for the February painting competition, but didn't get very far. My usually slow pace of painting has been slowed even further by a crazy work schedule and feeling somewhat hobby apathetic. I really enjoy hobby time and feel better on the nights where I get out my stuff and model or paint, but lately I just have a huge amount of inertia to pull the basket off the shelf and get creative. I think a large part of it is that I haven't had any hope for in-person games for a while, so it was kind of like, why bother. But, I'll be fully vaccinated shortly and want some new additions in the army list to show for the year+ since my last game. An ork yelling WAAAGH! is good motivation for an aspiring warlord.
I've got the nob himself done, and have started on a base which I'm pretty pleased with so far. Pics:
Also, as an aside, a friend of mine was asking about how I got such clean white backgrounds. My photography ability is about as average as my painting ability, but for those who might be interested, here's what I've got and how I take my photos:
The standard advice I've seen for a background is a sheet of white paper that curves slightly.
Lamps are 2x daylight bulbs with parchment paper "diffusers" to cut down on the glaring reflections that would occur with direct spotlights. There's supposed to be a third one directly overhead to completely eliminate shadows, but I'm too lazy to get another daylight bulb and plug in a third lamp.
I use my phone in a tripod with a remote control. No matter how steady your hands are, they will still shake and result in blurry photos. The tripod is a must.
Lastly, I have a feature on my phone where you tap the screen and swipe up to increase the exposure. I move the slider just until the shadows disappear. Any more, and the image gets washed out.
I do Photoshop my images, but not my paint job. What this means is that I black/white/grey balance the photo to account for poor lighting and the fact that I'm using an old phone and not a real camera. However, I do not change my paint job any. I feel like it's disingenuous to airbrush out painting faults to present oneself as a better painter than you actually are. I post here for constructive criticism so that I can develop my skills.
It's a pretty budget setup, but I'm happy with the results. As always, questions, comments, and criticisms welcome. After I'm done adding to the base and painting it, I'm going to scratchbuild a Waaagh! banner, so stay tuned.
I love the old metal kommando with burna. Great model.
Thanks for the run down on your photography setup. Your results turn out nice. I agree with you about exposure being key, but I haven’t tried the parchment paper trick and I also don’t have a tripod. Good tips.
Finally got this guy 100% finished (what, I only started him in February!)
My concept for the banner was to make one of those optical illusions where if you look at the left and right side separately, it looks like Gork and Mork facing off, but the whole thing together makes a single ork skull. It wasn't quite so successful as I had in my head, but I'll leave the idea out there to hopefully inspire more skilled hobbyists to try something similar.
Here's some process steps on the Waaagh! Banner:
(wiv rivets)
and the final pics:
Hope you like him, as always, c&c welcome (preferably gallery votes too, I love seeing my dudes on the Dakka home page). See you next time!
Great looking banner mate, good to see it go from sketch to finished product! In the top pic at the slight angle I can definitely see an orks head in profile too.
Lovely basing as well. Thanks for sharing 8-) I'll swing by and give them a gallery vote too
For anyone who didn't catch the Dakka Unofficial Panting Competition this month, here's my entry for the theme "rebel scum", Gold Toof da Flash (Git):
I looked up how to greenstuff a tricorn hat, then realized I was over thinking it and just went for it. They're not difficult, and I'm sure that subsequent ones will be even better; this one looks a bit more Aussie slouch than pirate to me, but it works.
As an aside, since there seems to be a raging debate right now about monopose minis, I would like to express my opinion that the old ork boys kit is still what a box of minis should aspire to. Detail and quality are pretty impressive (and with the current CAD design/injection molded technology available, they could be even more impressive). With the weapons provided, you have the option of making them all either of the available loadouts (in this case, all sluggas or all shootas), and you can use the leftover bits to customize the next box you buy. The split with legs, torso, arms, and head is ideal because it maximizes the possible combinations, particularly if you're keen to kit bash with the fantasy version of the same army (provided there is one). Lastly, you get heavy weapons and a nob for gravy.
I've heard that the new ork boys kit only provides enough weapons for a certain mixed loadout (i.e., 3 sluggas, 7 shootas) which if true, is rubbish. I am handy with a jeweler's saw and set of rifler files, I have greenstuff and am not afraid to use it, but a hobbyist shouldn't have to resort to sawing things apart just to customize their army, nor should they have to buy two or three kits just to build the squad the way they want to. I of course have enough boys that it might be worth buying the kit to fill out some of my existing squads, but if that were all there was and I was a new ork player, I'd be a bit cheesed.
Anyway, that's just my two cents. Next up is a nob on smasha squig from the beast snaggas box I got mostly for the codex. I'm not a fan of any of the models in there with the possible exception of the smasha nob. I'll probably grudgingly add the squighog boys to the Waaagh! too because my army is too character and elite heavy and badly needs some fast attack and heavy support, and since I have them already, may as well put them to use. If I do get the whole squad painted up, then I can select heavy support next and my ork army will be complete! Well sorta, I've been dreaming of building up a squad of burnas forever, and if you buy the loota/burna box, you may as well build up the lootas too, right? Then there's the new kommandos which are truly want-worthy. ...and that new mega armored warboss is pretty boss. Really, it's just the beast snagga aesthetic that doesn't float my boat I guess.
Thanks for listening to me rant, hope you enjoyed the latest paintjob. See you next time!
This month's unofficial Dakka painting comp challenge was heavy metal, and this dude looked pretty metal to me. As I've mentioned, I'm really not a fan of the beast snagga aesthetic, and I really wish GW hadn't gone to the pig-nosed ork aesthetic, but this guy speaks to me. He's the one beast snagga ork that GW got right. The pics don't show it, but I managed to remember to practice my blending with this guy and I think I'm getting the hang of it. Hope you like him:
(Basecoated rider)
(Completed Base)
and the finished product:
So I guess I am getting a bit attached to these squighog boys after spending the time to assemble, spray (mephiston red), and wash them (drakenhof nightshade):
I've even named them Teef, Turbo, and Stitch.
The one thing about the kit that I just couldn't get past though was the gretchin with that idiotic pneumatic squig launcher. I think even 13 year old me would have thought that was a bit too far. So I've converted him to be carrying a webber instead, and he's got a stikka strapped to his back now that he might be able to wield wiv both hands, but mostly he carries for the convenience of the ork on the front of the squig:
I have to say, as someone who is familiar with things like CAD design and injection molded plastics (although admittedly, plastics are not my area of engineering expertise), I am very impressed with the amount of work that GW has put into these sculpts. I still prefer the aesthetics, poseabilty, and swappability of the old kits, but you can't deny that many hours went into the layout of these components on the sprue with an eye for ease and smoothness of final assembly. I'm curious, has anyone who has assembled these bothered to greenstuff all the parting lines on the model, or do most people just live with them?
More squighog madness inbound as I progress through painting these lot up. Thanks for dropping in!
Well, I still have all six riders to do, but the squighogs are done and on bases waiting for their crew. I'm really pleased with the way these turned out, especially the bases (which took two veeeeery late nights to complete in time for this month's painting competition), the skintones, and the armor plates. This was also my first time using decals, and I wish I had picked some larger ones for Teef and Stitch, but I like the process and will be using them every chance I get on those stupid back plates on the standard boys. Sure beats fifty attempts to come up with a mediocre freehand.
They're coming straight for us!
"Stitch"
"Teef", yelling, "WAAAGH!"
Rare footage of a squighog stepping on a lego:
"Turbo"
Taking flight:
As always, questions, comments, and criticisms welcome. Thanks for stopping by!
They’re adorable! In the way that huge raging semi-mechanical fungus-bred squiggling mounts can be adorable.
I love Turbo’s little stunt-ramp water jump base but you’ve done a Great job on all of them.
Because you mention the small decals the only thing i’d suggest is maybe a freehand (or decal if you’ve got them) checkerboard border around the small decals on those white plates. Some little red and yellow triangles or a nice black and yellow evil sunz flame motif, or more of the classic blue and white checkerboard but just a stripe down one side or underneath the icon.
I thought I was never going to finish these in time for the December painting competition. With only an hour here and there at night to paint, I was starting to feel like batch painting six miniatures was sucking the joy out of the hobby because despite working on them all month, any one mini never seemed very far along. Then I got saved by the holidays. I was fully expecting that I would have little to no hobby time during the days that I had off, but I was pleasantly surprised and made a lot of progress at the very end. Now it feels really good to have a whole squad done which represents three months worth of competition entries (Nob on smasha squig for September, the Squighogs for November, and the riders for December).
I am still working on smoothing out my blends and feel like I'm slowly getting better, mostly just by remembering to thin my paints every time I dip the brush into my palette and learning to control thinner paint better once it's on the mini. The images here are smaller so it doesn't jack up the thread, but click through to the gallery and you'll see what I mean. My favorite part of these sculpts is that they all three have different types of hides thrown over their shoulders as a trophy, 1 furry, 1 feathers (I picture a deathworld cassowary or something), and 1 like lizard skin or something.
I am also going to take the month of January off from hobbying because I've got another art project to work on that's a higher priority.
Hope you like the boys, questions, comments, and criticisms always welcome:
Before I get started, a quick plug for an online (onDakka for that matter) RPG just for fun since we could use a couple more players. theCrowe is running an orky brewhouse bash here: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/804886.page It's super simple, submit your ork character's name, clan affiliation, and select a drink and let the good times roll!
As for my latest painting endeavor, still Skullz, but going a little more sneaky style. Several months ago, after seeing the Octarius Kill Team trailer (which is straight up amazing if you still haven't seen it) I pretty much had to get the Kommandos box from that set. I was trying to get these done in time for the June painting comp, but they kind of spanned June and July so I didn't really feel right entering them for either. Maybe if the theme is relevant next month, I'll paint up the next two in time to enter them.
This was one of those rare occasions where I had a complete vision going into it (namely the blue camo clothing combined with a slightly darker than my usual color scheme) and the results are exactly what I had in mind. Normally I spend way too much time staring at the minis, paintbrush in hand, wondering if the boots should be brown or black leather (and what color should the shirt be?) For basing, I wanted the guy on the left to look like he was transitioning from the beach to inland terrain (since he looks to me like a navy seal or something) and thought the other fellow would benefit from some light cover. As far as blue camo goes, I did a bit of research on the topic before hand, and it's precisely the ridiculous kind of thing you would expect from an ork kommando (particularly a Deathskull Kommando, blue and white camo? Consider it nicked!). If you ever want a good laugh, look up on a forum or two what most servicemen have to say on the topic.
Anyway, I hope you like them. Comments and criticisms welcome, as I will probably be implementing the same scheme for the rest of the squad.
Nice camo pattern. I reckon there must be a planet somewhere in the 40k universe that it’d help with. Maybe on Fenris to hide amongst all of the Wolves?
Thanks all for the comments, it’s great to know that there’s people still interested in my painting progress!
Up next is the next two kommandos from the box. I was on the fence about whether or not to make the specialist boyz or just the standard ones since I mostly play 40k these days (if anything) instead of Kill Team, and in some cases, the standard boyz are actually as cool or cooler than the specialists (see for example the alternate build for the breacha boy, he looks dope!) and the comme boy was the least interesting to me but the painting competition theme this month is helping hands and he best fits the bill, so…
It’s a horrible photo, I know, but it’s just a proof pic and this is the first time I’ve posted directly from my phone rather than processing them on the pc (quick and dirty, eh?)
Funny thing is, after building the comms boy, I’m now pretty enamored of the sculpt, similar to what happened with the squighog boyz. At the risk of sounding like a fanboy or something, GW is doing some pretty cool stuff lately. Despite my best attempts at being jaded and cynical, once I get these more recent minis assembled, I can see what they were going for and frankly, they’re killing it. Except of course for kill rigs, those things are still and will always be goofy and awful imo.
Stay tuned for more late night rants and stealth boyz!
Late night rants? Quick and dirty pics direct from your phone?
But we are dakka and this is how we roll.
The only reason to get the real camera equipment out is when you’ve out-done yourself and you really want to show it off but you know you’ll probably only see 8 views and 2 gallery ratings for your efforts.
Anyway, looking forward to seeing more painted orkses. Maybe your enthusiasm for the comms guy will grow with a little painty attention.
@theCrowe: lol, 8 views and 2 votes for all my efforts sounds about right
@Olthannon: I looked at blue camo schemes online to make sure I got the blocking as close to real as possible, I'll take your comment as a sign that I at least got close
@Cam: Yeah, but we all know your "quick and dirty" blows my "month worth of effort" out of the water every time : )
and now, since it's been a month since I finished him, I suppose it's time for a proppa update on the Comms Boy.
<Crackle of static, some feedback, and then indiscernible shouting on the other end of the line>
Comms Boy: Wot's dat boss? Right then, you got it!
Kommando Nob: Wot'd 'e say?
Comms Boy: 'E sez, "More dakka, den get stuck in and krump 'em proppa!"
Kommando Nob: Pffft, typical.
Comms Boy: Why, you got a better plan?
Kommando Nob: 'Course I do. I sez we drop down dat ravine dere, sneak up on da fort, and den slit dere froats while deyz sleepin'.
Comms Boy: I like da sound of dat, proppa sneaky like eh?
Kommando Nob: Dat's right, proppa sneaky like.
<Loud feedback, and more irate indiscernible shouting on the other end of the line>
Comms Boy: Er, is dis fing still on? Yeah, 'course boss. Nah, we'll do it your way, 'course we will. Kommandos out.
I've been using the kommandos box as an opportunity to try out new techniques, and had this guy basecoated when I decided to give my hand a try at OSL since he actually has a light on his gun and all. So I went back and blocked out the areas that I thought should be reflecting the red light with white paint on primer, then started layering on dark red and highlighted up from there. Then through watching videos, I learned about the notion of making the scene that the mini is in night time to explain how the lighting effect can be so profound and started mixing blues into the highlight colors of things like his skin tone. For a first attempt at OSL, and as a learning experience, I consider this effort a success although obviously I could continue to refine the effect on this mini and my technique still has a long way to go. I'm calling him done though, and the funny thing is that on the tabletop, all of my orks are in the desert in broad daylight, but this guy is so sneaky, it's perpetually night for him. Pics:
I really like the OSL, it’s come out super effective! I hope it’s helped you appreciate your lowly coms ork that wee bit more. He’s a nice looking mini.
Okay, so big catch up time.
Finished the Octarius Kommandos Snipa Boy but not in time for the "That's not a gun..." challenge.
Picture a rooftop in the war torn far future of the 41st millenium.
Spoiler:
Now picture an ork sniper.
Spoiler:
Now picture an ork sniper on a rooftop in the war torn far future of the 41st millenium.
I didn't like the fact that this guy's pose put his gun below the level of the base meaning it was under the ground or something, so I landed on making the base look as much as possible like he was standing on a rooftop with the barrel hanging over. It also allowed me to leave most of the base completely uncovered, as the natural texture is kind of roof-like anyway.
Have you ever had a mini where the more paint you put on it, the worse it got? He was that mini. It all started with a spray primer disaster wherein the spray paint was coming out of the can intermittently in thick blobs. Me being me, rather than test on a sample piece of cardboard or something after repeatedly attempting to fix the problem, I doubled down on a bad situation and kept spraying more gunk on him until most of the detail was filled in. This left him kind of blobby and awful to begin with, and subsequent layers of paint really only served to fill in more of the sculpted details, which is why he has that "my first mini" look (and apparently I missed painting one of his teeth too, no excuse for that one). Anyway, he's done, and I'm more happy with the base than the mini. I also tried to Zenithal highlight this guy since I'm trying out a different technique for each of these kommandos so far. I only had zandri dust instead of a light grey or white, but he's a kommando so I figured khaki was appropriate as a base coat. I probably just should have left him in the primed state as some kind of artsy sneaking around in the dark thing since painting him was all downhill from priming on. I did learn a bit about the way light hits things from the experience though and will probably try it again in the future (better luck next time, eh?)
Spoiler:
I also finished the slasha boy that I started back in September. Since he already had blue, black, and green on him, he didn't get entered into the October competition, but I did finish him within the month. I'm super proud of my paintjob on this fella, and his special technique is my first foray into NMM on the gun and the knife. I fink 'e looks dead sneaky:
In general too, I'm trying to think more about source lighting which is actually kind of liberating since you don't have to highlight the whole miniature, technically only the side that the light is coming from.
So what's next for ol' Gulgog? Well, I just had a birthday and got another box of kommandos, which is fantastic since I was hemming and hawing about building the special weapons lads versus some of the alternate builds which in some cases I actually like better (like the fella below), so now I can build both with reckless abandon!
He's locked, loaded, and got everything a kommando could need.
Oh yeah, and with these last two done, I now have a full squad of 5 for games (no more proxy kommandos for me):
I got a game in and realized as I was making my list that what this squad really needed was the nob, so I glued him up and painted him for the December competition (Action Jackson will just have to wait). Since I have a second box of kommandos, I'm thinking I might try a bit more converting with the next batch and maybe even try to make them freebooterz or something, we'll see. Without further ado, pics:
Well, in keeping with keeping da boys in line, the other thing I noticed I needed more of when list building for games was bog standard slugga/choppa nobs. So for those of you who come for "that proppa orky feeling" and stay for the inane ramblings of a madman, I present this based and painstakingly base coated bog-standard ork slugga/choppa nob:
...and some inane ramblings:
I wanted to capture this stage of the process for a number of reasons. I'm not really a conventional wisdom (or any kind of wisdom for that matter) kind of guy, because I learned to paint minis in something of a vacuum before the advent of the internet and for a while I prided myself on having a unique style that wasn't something I learned on YouTube. Admittedly, I have been watching a lot of YouTube tutorials lately, and after fussing with the minute details and new techniques on the kommandos, I wanted to do this guy quick and dirty and see what following the "standard rules" of painting got me.
1. I used the biggest brush possible for every section and didn't worry too much about crossing the lines where one color meets another. This works a lot better than my typically obsessive stay in the lines and use a pinstriping detail brush for everything approach. Cleanup at the intersections of each color only took a single half-hour painting session.
2. I pretty rigidly adhered to an inside-out method where I painted the deepest recessed stuff first and worked my way outwards. This too worked really well, but was also only possible in large part because I premeditated what color I wanted every different section to be. I often start with the boots or the skin and decide what color each section will be as I go which I think is in large part why it takes me so long to complete a mini; I am frequently affected by artist's block.
3. This guy was a pre-assembled GW free mini of the month and I suspect that he was glued together using plastic glue rather than super glue so removing him from the base or fixturing different sections to paint separately wasn't an option. On a mini this open, I don't think I would have painted him in sections anyway, but I do like at least doing my bases separately - he does look a little sunken into the terrain which I don't like and it's a pain to glue flock around the feet. It's also a lot easier (IMO) to remove mold lines and sprue chunks before assembly (no care whatsoever was spent by the assembler in this respect, although given the number of these that the GW employees have to churn out last-minute, I'm not placing any blame). Lastly on this point, to paint him I mostly just held him by the base or the tip of his slugga for as long as I could get away with it but eventually I had to glue him to a cork because I noticed parts of the paint were rubbing off in the more handled sections.
4. I focused on getting him to a fully base coated state before doing any washes, highlights, or other effects. He is now "battle ready" in that every section is at least the base color it's supposed to be. For example, I considered doing a checkerboard on his left shoulder pad, and may still do so, but rather than leaving it blank, I slapped a bunch of leadbelcher on it figuring that it's metal anyway, and I could paint over it rather than leaving it bare primer until the details stage. Now that the base coat stage is completely done, I am going to go back and wash, highlight, freehand, whatever.
The funny thing about all this is that I'm still probably at least six hours into this paintjob and nowhere near done. I paint-on primered him white since it's too cold and rainy here right now to do any spraying outside which means that he took more time than he could have if I had sprayed him black and featured more black in the color scheme. I've been looking at the ork nobs on the GW website and frankly, it's a little disappointing how little time they spent on the box art for this kit - spray black, leadbelcher all the metal, green skin, and add some washes and checkers and call it done. Although if I want to improve my speed (which I do), I'll probably have to make similar concessions. This guy already has 9 colors - 4 shades of brown (leather, wood handles, khaki shirt, horns/teef/nails), silver, brass, red, black, and blue. I'm going to get him done over the next couple of weeks and enter him in the January Dakka painting comp.
On a non-ork related note ( ), I saw a picture of a Skitarii squad on the Dakka homepage and was like, hey, that looks a lot like the ones I painted! Turns out it was and I had forgotten I had even taken the picture. Meanwhile, it's been garnering nearly 2,000 views.
Spoiler:
It's interesting to me how the internet works in this respect that as something sits it accumulates distribution. The views and votes I get on this site are far more a function of duration than sensation.
Anyways, thanks for stopping by, I'll post the final pics of the nob before the end of the month.
(/rant)
So after bitching about GW's lack of detail on their nobs, I did the obligatory washes and highlights on this guy and honestly kind of lost my momentum to keep adding detail.
So I slapped a few decal glyphs on his shoulder pad, stuck a bosspole in him and called him done. (The bosspole thing is another item that came from in-game experience; my last game it was really nice to be able to easily differentiate the nob in each squad because they all had bosspoles even though they're not technically wargear any more in ninth). I actually finished him a week ago, which is record time for me, so maybe there is something to not overthinking each mini if you are trying to build up a horde army. I hope you like him, he was a blast to paint!
Oh yeah, it was my first time using tufts too (much easier than bunch grass). I wanted to make it blend in a little better than it was in its unpainted state, so I tried adding a wash of agrax earthshade which made it clump together more than I would have liked. Next time I think I'll do the same because I like the effect on the color but I'll water it down a lot more.
Oh what a great Nob you have! Honestly though great job. Really like him. I think it's a difficult balancing act with the details, yes they are a character figure, but they are way too prolific to paint each one to golden standards for a large army. By the time you have a decent squad of them and they are added to each and every unit, they are adding up! But then again all your models are too a high standard so to make them stand out a little is hard.
Time to finish out this squad. I've got 6 boys and the nob makes 7, so another 3 will round it out to 10. I'm going to try to paint them in a batch but I've found in the past that I don't really have the patience for three (two works, but three at a time?) so we'll see how it goes. There's two more bog standard kommando slugga boys
Spoiler:
...but the real update is this fellow. I've wanted to know how compatible the new monopose kits are with the old school ork boyz, so I set out to convert one. The last ork I painted up got me in the mood for a more dynamic pose, and I noticed that one backpack in the kit has no explosives in it, which can only mean one thing. This guy's got the charges in place, and the whole thing is set to blow, so he's beating a hasty retreat. Ever seen an ork in full sprint? Despite what the Ghetto Boys may have to say on the matter, this fool can run fast:
As you can see from the copious amount of greenstuff on his sides, the answer to "how compatible" is "not very to not at all". Arm swaps should be a cinch although you do have to file the kommando arms flat to mate with the old torsos and greenstuff over the ragged bits since the old torsos had torn sleeves while the kommando arms have proppa sleeves. The head requires quite a bit of drilling material out the back to fit the neck into but can be relatively seamless. The bedroll on the backpack majorly gets in the way of the legs and while I was trying to join the torso to the legs I realized that I prefer the newer more upright look over the old stick out the booty style, so rather than chop off the bedroll, I put a fairly long pin into the torso and greenstuffed a pretty huge gap.
As usual, questions and comments welcome. Thanks for stopping in!
Reading through this thread has been a lot of fun, I think you give your orks a lot of character and it really shows. I can't wait to see what you'll be up to next.
Procrastination time. I am doing a genestealer neophyte for this month's Doomsday themed challenge, and between a bunch of travel and work stuff, I'm having trouble finding the motivation. Also, I'm noticing that the nice thing about the new scale orks is that as my eyes get older, the details are about as small as I can see/paint whereas these 'oomie-sized minis feel a bit too small and fiddly. I'm hoping to find my muse and get some paint on him but in the meantime, ork kommando photodump!
These are the last three orks for my first box of Octarius Kill Team Kommandos, so after 10 months painting an average of a mini a month, I now have a complete squad. I can't escape the feeling that I would have gotten more votes if I had time to take and post these pics for the competition but again, work and travel and stuff prevented me from posting anything more than a quick snapshot of the three together. The other thing with photographing and posting is I remember that there were a couple of bits I still need to go back and paint (looking at you bloodaxe insignia on the slugga and teef on the backpack loops). At any rate, I hope you like them:
Other planned procrastination activities include learning how to do a compound image in Photoshop so I can put the whole squad together on one page.
Thanks all for the comments, it makes my day to know that people are interested in my hobbying.
Thanks for the comments all, glad you like the camo, I had a lot of fun painting it. It's pretty simple really, I basecoat the entire area to be camo in a pretty neutral blue that subsequently gets washed with Drakenhoff Nightshade which turns it into the dark blue. Then I pick either the light grey or the light blue (doesn't matter which) and create the little patches of color, aiming to fill ~1/3 of the area. Lastly, you take the third color and fill in another 1/3 of the area, overlapping some of the 2nd and 3rd color while keeping in mind that the dark blue counts as the negative space.
It's a bit of a cross post, since I posted this on the finished minis thread, but here's the group shot of all of them together:
I gained some pretty crucial PhotoShop experience doing this collage and love the way they all look together as a squad.
Now it's on to something completely different. For last month's painting challenge (Doomsday), I painted up a GSC Neophyte Hybrid with a heavy flamer. I wanted him to look appropriately industrial and grimdark, so I went with the safety orange jumpsuit, and did what I'm calling a "reverse highlight", basically adding brown to represent mud anywhere that he might have scraped up against the walls of the mines. I wish I had time to further the details on each of these, but I don't, and they're not worth enough points in game to justify fiddling with them endlessly. As usual, C&C welcome. He's the basic color scheme I'm going with for the whole squad, and I have another primed up for May's competition (although I have even less hobby time this month than last).
As an aside, if you are reading this and don't participate in the monthly painting competition here on Dakka, you really should. It's extremely constructive and not at all competitive (in the sense that you have to be a great painter or anything). I credit it as the primary motivator that keeps me on my mini a month pace (slow though that may be, it's better than zero minis a month!) and the community that participates and comments is a fantastic group of folks.
That's a beautiful group shot mate, well done. Must feel great to have them all done and be on to the next project!
I've never ventured into the painting comps on Dakka - mostly becuase I'm lucky if I'm actively painting for 2-3 months of the year - but I will head on over to take a look for some inspo at least - thanks for the tip!
Thanks all for the comments!
Here's another cultist for ya:
I'm having fun painting these, they go pretty quickly now that I've figured out the paint scheme that I like. I also gave this guy a bionic arm because the painting challenge theme last month was "Mistakes Were Made" and I figured an industrial accident would add to that. Also, despite being a super simple kitbash with a bit of greenstuff work to make it more believable, it was a good reminder that half the fun in this hobby is making each one uniquely my own.
Here's the update on my current state of the hobby. For June's centennial-issue "Celebration" themed painting competition, I decided to bring the fireworks with this little guy:
Guess what?
Squig Butt!
I was super-pleased that in the voting thread comments, people picked out everything I was going for in this mini. Subtle fade from purple to orangey-red, check. Custom basing elements, check (someone even said the base looks like a "mini-diorama", which is about the best compliment you can get on a base IMO). Little details like the burning fuses of the dynamite, check. Bugged-out eyballs and captured the utterly deranged look of this sculpt, Check!
Then for July, I couldn't find the motivation for hobbying. The comp theme was "renewal" and coincidentally, there was a thread here on Dakka discussing the current state of INQ28 which I've only somewhat recently discovered, and each time I delve into, it renews my interest in pursuing a smaller-scale, more narrative version of the hobby complete with kit bashes, conversions, and the "average human in the grimdark far future" scale. This rekindled my interest in progressing my GSC Kill Team unit and I found in the kit a hand with dynamite in it. Continuing on with the theme of a company of miners slaving away in horrible conditions, and prone to industrial accidents, I figured the backstory on this guy is that he was told his job was setting charges to dig deeper into the crust of Vigilus ("What happened to the last guy?" he wonders) and in a not all too uncommon incident, lost most of his face when a charge went off too soon. I'm increasingly liking the idea that not everyone in a GSC army is actually tainted by Genestealers, but rather the appeal of joining up with the rebellion and casting off Imperial oppression could capture the imagination of anyone with a grudge and a dislike for their current living situation. So maybe this guy is part alien, or maybe he's just a pissed-off average Joe. Here's the kitbash (sorry for the blurry photo, my phone is usually much better than this, although admittedly, I did not break out the tripod for it since it's just a proof).
However, the competition theme was a tie between "Some like it hot" and "Suns out, guns out" and since I have an ork kommando wiv burna that I could build up for the former, and this guy better fits the latter, he may be waiting in the wings for a month before he sees paint and joins the revolution. Thanks for dropping in, and stay tuned for more!
Two months behind on updating, so I daresay it's high time to revisit the ol' painting blog.
Last month's challenge was Some Like It Hot (dangit, I had just finally gotten that song out of my head too!) so it seemed appropriate to paint up the mini that suckered me in and sealed the deal on that Octarius Kill Team kommandos set.
...and this month's challenge was Sun's Out, Guns Out so I figured I'd paint up another starchild waiting for the big day to arrive.
I looked up a few lens tutorials on YouTube and the funny thing with this was that every single one had effectively the same method for painting round lenses, no variation whatsoever. Not surprisingly I suppose, because it's pretty foolproof (I am the fool in case you need proof). I even nailed the other eye so I'm no longer intimidated by painting tiny 'oomie eyes, although admittedly, I'm sure it's much easier to paint one than try and make a matched pair both looking in the same direction:
I'm always trying to up my basing game too, and lately my thing is to try and put the miniature in a setting that relates to their situation. So everything in front of the burna boy is charred or actively burning, and I put this fellow on a pile of rubble. If you ever want a reminder to be grateful that you don't live in a warzone, do an image search for "war rubble". There was an article in a 28-mag I read that gave me the idea for the broken glass, and it's a cool effect that I plan on using more of in the future.
As always, questions, comments, criticisms (and of course gallery votes) are welcome!
Apparently, while I slept my own little corner of the web quietly crept past 40k views which is pretty exciting. Thanks all for the views and comments over the years!
@gobert: yep, just cut up packaging. Dig around in your recycle bin with an eye towards something that is clear, flat, and the kind of thickness that isn't too flimsy but that also isn't too thick that it'll seem out of scale. Cut it into pointy shards (aka triangles), then just glue it on.
Once again, I'm cookin' up somefin' speshul, but the way things are going, this one's going to be a WIP in the ol' mekshop for a loooong while, so it may be radio silence from me for a bit. Thanks again for stopping by, it's really great to get this kind of support for something that I love doing.
I almost forgot, I finished another two cultists, too:
Cheers, I’ll look out for suitable packaging and give it a try sometime. Cultists look cool, and colour me intrigued by the big project… WIPs are always welcome in this corner of dakka!
Gulgog Tuftoof presents a curious confluence of events. I've still got somefing speshul in da works, but in the meantime, I realized that I'm only two burnas short of a squad (there's a joke about my mental acquity in there somewhere) and I have a second kommando box so that's one in the hand so to speak. The painting comp theme this month is From the Shadows which fits the kommando thing pretty well. It's too damp and cold here in the PNW to spray prime minis, so I bought a bottle of ProAcryl Black/Brown paint on primer. I rewatched the LOTR trilogy to help stay up for New Years and honestly, this stuff makes the mini look like it just came through Saruman's twisted uruk hai breeding process so I'm feeling some good orky painting momentum building. Haven't painted over this primer yet, so I can't 100% endorse it yet, but it went on smoothly and I do like the color/effect so far. Happy 2024 all!
So here's da latest burna, "From da Shadowz..." I wanted to take at least one photo that captured the theme, so I pulled out some terrain that he could emerge from:
Tatoo:
...and a detail of another decal in my usual photography style:
I also just finished an Octarius Kill Team Kommando slasha boy kitbash today. I was hoping to get him done in time for the competition, but at least if I do complete a squad of burnas, now my kommandos won't be a man (or ork) short:
I love the way his face turned out, I painted the mask with a base of leadbelcher and then stippled on some ushabti bone, then covered it in several washes. Happy with my lens technique on this one too. The base was a rush job, but it'll be quick to redo the black around the base next time I break out the paints.
Speaking of which... da meks are done with their speshul assignment so I'll post some photos when I get a chance, but I'm a little terrified to put paint to them as I'm pretty emotionally and financially invested at this point and don't want to screw them up. Stay tuned...
All right lads and ladies, 'ere it finally is. Cutty has emerged from da mekworkx wif somefing speshul fer da grotz (dey likes dakka too you know).
Presenting, Gnot Tanks!
Gnot Tank 1:
Gnot Tank 2:
Gnot Tank 3:
Gnot Tank 4:
I've finally put all the CAD skill I've developed over the last 17 years to some good use (and by that I mean hobby use). I modeled these up and had a local rapid prototyping shop print them up on an MJF machine. I probably should have gone SLA since the surface finish would be better but I didn't want to deal with the sprues. Now I get to paint them and hopefully not mukk it up. Questions and comments always welcome, thanks for stopping by!
Cool burna boy pics, but those grot tanks are ace I’d not heard of MJF printing before, a quick google makes it sound cool. Was it a work contact that you used?
@Tzurk, thanks, and yep it's a good feeling. Now that it's painted, I have it on my desk and can't stop looking at it.
@Gobert, thanks. I'm a mechanical engineer, and we actually have an MJF printer at work which is where I heard about it, but we can't print personal stuff on it (although I'm trying to change that) so I had to have a local rapid prototyping shop print them for me (and paid for them myself). For future builds, I need to figure out whether there's a material or method that yields a smoother surface finish (if you look at the pictures, you can see there's kind of a crosshatch to it). If not, I may go SLA in the future and deal with clipping off the supports and filing the surface to remove the support nubs. The advantage of MJF is there isn't any of that. The resolution is stellar though, all of the detail from the CAD model is represented in the physical model, and most of the features like rivets and bolts and such are less than a millimeter across.
Here's the first one painted. I had to paint over the Deathskull decal because the color mismatch between the racing stripe blue and the decal blue was huge, but I learned that you can use the decal as kind of a template and paint right over it. Also, I've only ever done one other vehicle, so this is kind of new territory for me, and I wanted it to look appropriately chipped and rusted as befitting a vehicle of orkish (Deathskull at that) design, manufacture, and maintenance (or lack thereof) so I tried the sponge method for the first time. As with most of my first attempts at a new technique, I'm satisfied with the results but also appreciate that I've got more to learn by trying it more times and have lots of room for improvement yet. At arms length though, this thing looks fantastic and I'm inspired to keep knocking these out so that I can field them in a game soon.
Yeah, the lack of supports is a cool feature. I quite like the cross hatching texture. It came out really nice on the side of the tank. It looks nice and orkishly weathered too
One more Gnot Tank painted, this one is going to be the leader of the squad. Still working on my weathering technique but I'm generally pretty happy with the way this one turined out. I've got rokkits up top representing every clan in camp too:
As always, questions, comments, and criticisms welcome. Thanks for stopping by!
I can feel a new plot arc for “Give it yer best Grot” coming on.
I'm still working on getting these printed at my work for a discount rate, so buying some might be a possibility if the shipping cost doesn't make them prohibitively expensive.
As for Giving it Yer Best Grot, I wrote a bit eulogizing my tanks this morning and will post it once this next tank is finished (it's looking pretty sweet so far if I do say so myself, and should be on track for the comp finish at the end of this month).
@theCrowe: Don't you have some other stories to finish first though?
Other stories? …like what? The Tonks final hasn’t been played yet so that batrep is still one for the future.
The ork brewhouse racers aren’t generating much interest,( unless they are, and I didn’t notice) and my Burrows & Badgers comic is going as quickly as my drawing skills will allow. Meanwhile the boy has other plans.
theCrowe wrote: Other stories? …like what? The Tonks final hasn’t been played yet so that batrep is still one for the future.
The ork brewhouse racers aren’t generating much interest,( unless they are, and I didn’t notice) and my Burrows & Badgers comic is going as quickly as my drawing skills will allow. Meanwhile the boy has other plans.
@theCrowe: I guess I was thinking of the Brewhouse Bash initially, maybe I'll put my next bit in there to kick it back up to the top of the list and hopefully the other racer's consciousness too. And the Give it Your Best Grot thread is kind of mid-story too, isn't it?
@Syro_: Definitely join in the mayhem if you feel so inclined, it's been fun to develop a story or even just interject a character and let them get carried along!
(The backstory in my head so far)
Spoiler:
Part 1 A DeathSkullz Tank
BigMek Cutty plunked the last rivet in place and took a step back to admire his work. He circled the little tank appraising it from top to bottom. It was just a bunch of leftover scrap that he had assembled in his usual style. He would pick up one bit that caught his eye, maybe a tread or a plate of armor, then affix some other bit and continue in that fashion until he figured it was finished.
The treads and the main part of the carriage for this creation had come from some ‘oomie tank. Cutty then added a great big rokkit turret from an ‘oomie emplacement, wired in the controls and got all the mechanisms working together. Then he sealed up the sides with armor plating.
Fortunately, this tank had a hatch so that a driver could get in and some little stairs leading up to it (that was Weezul’s idea). It was not uncommon for him to completely seal up one of his creations in armor and have to cut a door later after its absence and necessity had been pointed out to him.
Suddenly it dawned on him that no ork (not even a yoof) could make it through the hatch, much less fit inside. His faithful gretchin minder was busily cleaning and oiling his twin flechette blasters at a nearby workbench.
“Oi, Weezul, wanna drive dis fing?”
“Nah boss, how’m I gonna keep an eye on you if I’m sealed up in a tin can?”
“Oh, right. Fink one uv da uvver grotz wants to?”
“I’m sure I can scare someone up.”
“All right, give it some blue paint fer luck, and so everyone knows it’s a Skullz tank then.”
Cutty had already lost interest and wandered over to a nearby scrap pile to look for his next bit of inspiration.
Part 2 The Bad Moonz Tank
Weezul found a willing driver for the tank all right, the grot that everyone just called Runt because he was barely even gretchin-sized. More of a snotling really, but he could speak and think like a gretchin and was the only one in camp small enough to fit comfortably in the driver’s seat of Cutty’s tank. The tank was almost all engine and the working gubbinz of the turret and there was barely enough room left for both Runt and the controls to drive the thing.
Runt however, was delighted. His entire life he had been belittled and forced by the other gretchin in camp to do the tasks that no one else wanted to do. Now he had a tank!
The first thing he did after firing it up was to run over his two least favorite gretchin rivals who were too oblivious arguing over a bit of scrap to even see him coming. Weezul saw that both the machine and the driver he found for it were obviously up to the task of killing things and considered it a job well done.
What he hadn’t considered was that word of a tank built just for a gretchin would spread like wildfire amongst the other grots in camp. A few days after the original grot tank left the workshop, he was paid a visit by Yella, a pompous, conniving little git who got his sense of self-importance from the fact that he served as ammo runt for a huge Bad Moonz nob named GoldMaw da Butcha.
Yella snuck up behind Weezul while he was focused on watching Cutty do his work.
“Oi, Weezul!”
Weezul nearly jumped out of his skin, that voice when unexpected was like getting shivved in the liver. He knew who was addressing him before he even turned around.
“‘Ello Yella, what do you want?”
“I wants a tank. A grot tank! And tell Cutty not like that hunka junk he made fer Runt. I wants a proppa orky killin’ machine wotz fit fer a proppa Bad Moon ork like myself.”
“You ain’t an ork Yella, you’ze a grot just like Runt is. You got da teef fer a tank?”
Yella’s lips curled into a snarl at the insult but he knew that he had the advantage in this bargain.
“‘Course we gotz da teef, we’z Bad Moonz, ain’t we? But since you’ze in an insulting mood, Cutty’s gonna make dis tank fer us fer free, and I’m keeping da teef.”
“Wot? Nobody gets nothing outta this workshop fer free Yella. Unless you’ze a Skull that is.”
“Is that so? You want da Butcha coming down ‘ere and asking fer it in person?”
Weezul bristled. Cutty wouldn’t put up with another ork trying to bully his way into a free tank and might even be able to take on da Butcha in a fight, but that’s not at all how it would go down and he knew it. Instead, da Butcha would come and bully Weezul, and Cutty would be too lost in his work to notice.
“Calm down, Yella, we’ll make yer tank then.”
“That’s right you will. And proppa too, I wants it big and killy, wiv twice da rokkitz you lot put on Runt’s tank!”
Yella puffed up his chest, turned on his heel and left.
“Dat git’s gonna git it one of these days,” thought Weezul, “and I’m gonna be the one to give it to him”. He just had to figure out a way to do it without any of the Bad Moonz knowing it was him.
Part 3 The Evil Sunz Make a Tank Too
BigMek WarpRokka set down his paintbrush and took a step back to admire his work. He circled the little tank appraising it from top to bottom. It looked dead fast, and dead killy, too, wot wiv da rokkits up top that he had pulled off the suit of one of those curious blue fellas. His last trukk had been on the wrong side of some of their rokkits so he knew they were the bizness. And then there was the paintjob…
Rokka became a BigMek amongst the Sunz clan not just for his know-wotz of vehicles and forcefields and such, but also because he was da fastest racer and da toughest in a brawl for decades. These days though, he spent most of his time in his workshop.
If you needed a tune-up, or a real flash paint job with extra flames and some pin-stripey bitz, Rokka was unrivaled. Sure he had taken up the DeathSkullz blue once ol’ Gulgog had become Warlord back on Gork’un, but he wore it over his trusty Sunz red coveralls. If you was a Sun the day before a race, you could count on Rokka to have saved some of his extra-speshul Sunz red paint for your ride to make sure that the Sunz lads came out on top.
He also increasingly spent his evenings around the campfires drinking and listening to the ramblings of the runtherdz as they tried to instill the camp with propper orky knowledge and kultur. Any Sunz runtherd worth his hair squig would inevitably get around to the tale of why Sunz vehicles were all red, on account of the sacrifices made to the dying sun of the original ork homeworld.
Rokka had started out his paint job on the tank by just coating the whole thing in red. The tank itself had started out as a bit of one-upmanship. If those other mek gitz could make a tank for their grotz (which admittedly, was a ridiculous, and un-orky thing to do), he could make one too, and it’d darn sure be fasta than the rest. He had to paint all of the rokkits red too so that their target would have a harder time dodging out of the way.
The rokkit launcha though was already a bright orange, which worked out okay, and he could always just paint it red too, but that runtherd yarn about the dying sun was rattling around in his head and he couldn’t seem to shake it. Something about it fading despite all the efforts and sacrifices of the original orks had grabbed a hold of his psyche. So he started blending the red slowly up to the orange, and now…
There was a low whistle behind him.
Startled, Rokka spun around. Sitting atop a pile of scrap was Likkle Spanna, his faithful grot assistant. There had been plenty of times that Rokka had wished he could whistle; it was an appropriate response for a flash new ride, or a race well won but he never got the hang of it. Grotz had a way of learning useful tricks like whistling which is why you had to cuff ‘em every now and then to remind them who really ran things.
“Yeah, whoddya think?”
“It looks dead fast boss.”
“‘Course it does, I built it, and it’s got my speshul red on it.”
“Looks dead killy, too, wot wiv da rokkits up top and all.”
“Yeah, those blue gitz made some pretty good dakka, huh?”
There was a lull as the large and small greenskins admired Rokka’s handiwork in reverence. Rokka hated to admit it but the thought of his homage to Sunz kultur going into battle and getting all scratched up was downright painful. Surely there was a better use for it.
“Say, Spanna, wot would you fink about racing dis tank?”
“Racing it boss? That’d be Ace!”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, you wouldn’t even have to use da rokkits if we was racing dem uvver grot gitz. We’d blow ‘em off da line!”
If Rokka was pleased with himself before, now he was downright delighted. Instead of wasting his evenings listening to the runtherdz yammer on, he had just invented a whole new form of orky entertainment. A buncha grotz racing and blowing each other up was sure to be a big hit in camp. Why, you could even place wagers on the little buggers too…
Part 4 A Goff Tank
Grot tank races were indeed a huge hit in camp. They spurred an arms race of sorts with each mek devoting their free time to churning out faster and deadlier tanks. The gretchin pilots got proficient at driving them to their limits as their ork overlords demanded better and better performances to clinch the win for their respective clans.
It was inevitable in an ork camp on the edge of an active warzone that the tanks would be pressed into battle, and they proved to be devastatingly effective when formed into small squads. So as unorky as the notion of giving a grot a tank was, eventually even the Goffs wanted in too, and they built their tanks in typical Goff fashion - all armor, no nonsense.
So here's the whole process on the last one. I needed a driver since this was the only one of the four tanks with an open hatch. Quick rummage through the bitz box yielded a pair of arms and a head, but no torso. Some of the other folks in the monthly competition have inspired me to work on my sculpting, so I figured a new torso would be a good place to start. A bit of sprue, some paperclip sections and:
I think I did pretty well, although I did have to add a couple of layers to get the surfaces really smooth. I discovered that one of my kids actually had a whole set of ball end shapers with color shapers on the other side. These things were indispensable, and it took me a try or two to stop touching the mini with my fingers (his back permanently has the artist's thumb print for posterity). The result of the extra layers is that he went from being a weedy little grot to being a stim-chem fueled, gnot tank race winning, diesel little grot, so I've affectionately named him Diesel. I also sawed him off a little too short to fit in the hatch properly and had to go back in and add a waistline and the beginnings of his trousers.
Here he is painted. I was a little rushed towards the end because I wanted to get him in under the competition deadline, so the blends could be a little smoother, he could probably stand a couple more coats of highlights and washes, but whatever, the squad is finished now!
Then there's his tank... I got really into the checker theme and I feel like a made an 80's Vans sneaker (a little too off the wall, maybe?)
...and here it is finished:
My office got rearranged a couple times and I lost use of the surface that used to be my photo setup location. However, I noticed that we now had a white bookshelf whose lower shelf could be easily cleared temporarily when needed, and it suited my clip on lights perfectly. This was the easiest photo shoot setup I've had in perhaps forever:
I'll try to get some pics of the whole squad together, I'm awfully glad to have them all done. Next month's theme is footslog, and I'm really looking forward to getting back to modeling and painting infantry cause that's really my jam, although it's looking like I'll have very little in the way of free hobby time. Thanks for stopping by, keep it orky!
Finished annuver shoota boy fer da Waaagh! This one is replacing the fellow I did a long time ago with the dual-bladed hand weapon. I love that miniature but he's just not practical on the tabletop; he mostly has to be sideways to maintain unit coherency.
This was for July's Footslogger challenge. I waited until mid month to even start him because somehow I wasn't inspired despite the topic being the single most relevant keyword for my army ( ). I was out of town for a week, back for a day, and inspiration hit so I modeled him up, and then promptly left town for another week, leaving me not much time in the month to greenstuff and paint him, but I did manage to get him done in time and am digging the end result. Hope you like him too. I had to shim up the torso from the legs pretty substantially and then greenstuff his waist line to hide the gap, file down his left shoulder to fit the torso, and sever his right arm at the elbow to repose it, then add a sleeve to his right arm since the kommando kit with the gun arm has a sleeve, but the old school boyz are all bare-armed:
Thanks all for the comments, it's been a month and a half so I reckon it's time for a little update.
August's Beep Boop competition theme threw me for a loop until I started researching bioniks and cyborks and got inspired like midway through the month. I was out for a couple of weeks too, but I'm happy with what I accomplished. There's always a point during painting a miniature where I have really thin translucent coats sketched out and it looks really good/promising but still needs more paint to make it look more than just primered. I get the sense that the layers just need to be a little thicker to really sell the whole vibe and all I have to do is not screw it up by glopping on too much and making the paint job too thick. With this guy I managed to keep it simple and appropriately thin for the most part.
As an aside, all the brass bits are brass metallic paint, but lately I'm leaning more towards grey for the more standard metal bits instead of metallics, so that's what all the non-brass metals are - a combination of greys and washes. I also bought some orange iron oxide watercolor that is the bulk of the rust effect. He and the last guy I entered put me solidly mid-pack in the competition standings which is a step up from the bottom third where I usually skulk.
Here's a couple of process pics in addition to the final results:
September's theme is Absolute Unit, and I've been wanting to finish my Skitarii Kill Team which has been one man shy of an absolute unit for like a year now. The last to join the squad is the sniper specialist, wielding the transuranic arquebus, the only weapon in the game that you can fire away from your target, it will transnavigate the planet and still arquebus uranus. For this one I'm really leaning into a rubble type base similar to what I did for the demolitions specialist of the GSC Kill Team but I want him to look like he's found a nice niche in the debris that provides a little cover and stability for his shot. Since taking these pictures, I've added more debris and textured the whole pile with sand to tie the various elements together.
There's another thread where someone was asking about how to keep minis from looking like they're sinking into their bases, and I explained my method of pinning my minis to a cork to use as a handle and painting the base separately. This guy takes this even further. He's got a pin in his foot that's long enough to go down into the cork, but I marked and drilled the base using the pinhole in his foot with a little blue paint (for good luck) before gluing the pin into the mini. This way, I could run the pin through the base into his foot and build up the scenery on the base (using the cork as a handle for the whole shebang as I did) and would know exactly where the mini was going to be so that I didn't put debris in that would obscure him or interfere with him. I can still pull the pin out of the cork, pull the base off the pin, and then re-insert the pin into the cork and have a handle to paint the mini separately from the base, then pin the mini back to the base and glue him in when it's all said and done.
Oh yeah, and yes I did drill the barrel of like a 1mm diameter weapon because I'm obsessive like that:
Great kitbash on the Ork. I would’ve never guessed it was NMM, could’ve sworn it was a dark gunmetal! Good work on drilling that gun barrel, must’ve been tricky!
Thanks all for the comments, glad you liked the cybork.
And now for something completely different...
Here's my latest work, still footsloggin', but he's in my "non-orks" gallery. Finishes out my Skitarii Kill Team and will be my entry for the Absolute Unit-themed competition this month. He's not the torso (and legs? I don't remember) that you're supposed to use for the arquebus, so he had a slightly strange position and I had to do a bit of the ol' cut, file, and replace which is why his left wrist is made of brass tubing and he's bussin' it sideways (gangsta!)
I'm calling this one "snapshot", because sometimes the opportunity presents itself, and you don't have time to set up the little arquebus support stick, you stabilize on the terrain around you and take your shot.
I think the lesson learned on this one is that if I really wanted to push a mini to the best of my ability, I would take pictures, analyze what needed improvement, and then keep going. I'm super-stoked with the way this guy turned out (particularly the base), but I could still add some broken glass, maybe a bit more debris, blend in the rust a little better, whatever. Maybe one of these days I'll pick a mini and see how many hours I can put into improving all the little details before I go mad.
Thanks for stopping by, and as always, c&c are welcome!