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...and painted:



I'll update when I get it flocked, hopefully this weekend sometime, since time is running out!

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.



Whole Army (full size image):

Deffskullz Detail (full size image):

Freebooterz Detail (full size image):

Tankbustaz Detail (full size image):

Grot Artillery Detail (full size image):

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


As always, C&C welcome.

Looking good on that squig sculpt, are you planning to flesh out the body a bit?

Always fun to try something that challenges you!

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)

Keep up the good work!

it's a specially-bred racing squig, clearly!...the tankbustaz would fork over plenty of teef to get bomb squigs as fast and lean as that!

 ZoBo wrote:
it's a specially-bred racing squig, clearly!...the tankbustaz would fork over plenty of teef to get bomb squigs as fast and lean as that!

A little fluff goes a long way

I probably will fatten him up a bit. I can't tell you how delighted I am to have inspired a discussion of squigs on my painting blog.

Nice work on the bomb squig. Liike the big orky jaw.

EDC

5 to 1 on Mork's delight...

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.

That's a real bomb-lookin squig

Nice work on the bomb squig.

EDC

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

Nice! Like the hat

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.

Fantastic stuff, subbed to keep an eye on you.

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.

He's looking great, nice work dude.

EDC

You most definitely are on something, I mean on to...ON TO something/

Excellent work. great detailing, love the stance.

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.

Looking good. Digging the Old Hammer orks and the doubled ended spear dude is looking rad.

EDC

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:





Front


Left


Back


Right

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.

Proof:

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...

Akimbooo. Thats an awesome model well done.

Bomb squiggly bomb squiggly bomb...

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.