Tuesday 26 August 2008

Let's Paint Some Ork - part 3

A nice easy stage this, washing the whole mob in a brown murky colour. You could use Citadel washes, though I find my own version adheres better. It's a mix of black and chestnut wash (Coat d'arms of course), plus some Tamiya clear orange, plus glaze and matt medium. Mix the whole lot to the consistency of an ink (or the Citadel wash is a good guide to thickness). Then slap it on all over. Try to avoid putting on too much, or you might get pooling in some areas, but otherwise it's a fairly slap-dash phase.

I suppose this is similar to dipping the figures, a bit more controlled but the same principle. These boyz could easily be based, matte varnished and charge on to the battlefield. But I like to go back and highlight some of the main areas, plus add more weathering, little details, etc.

Monday 25 August 2008

Let's Paint Some Ork - part 2

The base coating step is completed. The skin is Coat d'arms (CDA) Olive, belts and straps are CDA Dark Leather, the gloves CDA Chestnut. The bindings and fur trims are Foundation Khemri Brown, the teeth are Dheneb Stone. The boots are a dark grey (mixed from black and cream).

And so ends the most boring and (depressingly) the least productive stage visually - all the colours are now there but there is no shading, no depth. That comes in the next stage.

Thursday 21 August 2008

Let's Paint Some Ork - part 1

In my best Viggo Mortensen voice, "Let's paint some ork." After spraying them black, it's base coating stage, the most boring phase of painting a model. I tend to get the biggest feasible brush for the job, put on some music and grit my teeth. Painting along to an hour of music on a CD makes it slightly more bearable.

First thing I did was paint all the metal areas Boltgun Metal. Then I painted the trousers with Coat d'arms Green Grey, followed by the vests in Field Grey. I think I mentioned in a previous post that I was getting a German World War 2 vibe when I was constructing the boyz, so I am going with that for the uniform. When the browns and greens are added, it will warm up the palette. I hope!

Wednesday 20 August 2008

Shootas assembled

The squad of shootas is now fully assembled. I have added the bases - a few bits from the urban basing kit and sand, nothing too elaborate as the orks are big boyz and cover most of the base anyway. I have also sealed the bases with a mix of pva, water, black paint and a tiny spot of washing up liquid (I have a jar of this mixed up for all my basing work). I don't usually apply this until after I have painted the model, but it makes sense to do it first as it's a messy stage.

Most of these are assembled from the sprue with little modification, though I did try to get the boys to be more upright, shooting with a purpose, rather than hunched over. Some of them have a foot up on a rock to achieve this. The most elaborate conversion is the rokkit launcher, or rather his launcher arm, made from a pistol, a chopped-up fantasy axe, metal stikk bomb and various other plastic gubbinz.

Monday 18 August 2008

Shootas

I spent a fair amount of the weekend assembling my first squad of my first ever 40k army; a twenty strong mob of ork shoota boyz, with nob, big shoota and rokkit launcher. I used the bits from an ork mob sprue, some older ork stikkbombers and some fantasy orc parts too.

I am toying with the idea of painting them in a World War 2 German palette, with mostly grey uniforms, with splashes of red armour here and there. It sounds drab, but the green skin would certainly lift the scheme and possibly stand out more on a neutral backdrop. Or I might just go with a Goff scheme (mostly blacks, with very little bright colour), since I can't help thinking of Motorhead whenever I look at the warbiker models. Whatever I choose, I want to try some new weathering techniques on them, especially when it comes to painting the vehicles.

Saturday 16 August 2008

The future's bright, the future's green

I have started building my first ork mob. Using the ork boyz sprues and some old stikk bombers I picked up on ebay, a squad of 20 shootas is slowly taking shape. I decided on shootas as the upcoming Black Reach mob is armed with sluggas and choppas, so it seemed sensible to take advantage of the shootas on the sprues (not that I have a clue about what performs well or otherwise, I just like variety in my armies). I spent about an hour today putting together a rokkit launcher boy, converted from various bits, including some odd parts from the orc fantasy sprue. There's also a big shoota in the mob, a very easy conversion achieved by adding an extra barrel to the gun. Just four more boyz to put together (and 20 bases), then I get painting.

The main problem is deciding on a decent skin colour. I don't like the very dark green in the codex, nor do I like very bright green. It has to be something that is quick and easy but also quite realistic (if green skin can ever be realistic)!

Wednesday 13 August 2008

Old Grumblers

These dwarf longbeards have been sitting partially painted in my glass cabinet for too long, so last week I decided to finish them off. They were painted quite quickly, less than an hour per figure, so there are some short cuts. By concentrating most of the effort on the skin and beards, the unit looks good for relatively little effort.

There's a couple of mail order only minis in the front rank, which could equally be used as stand alone heroes. The rest are metal longbeards, with a few plastic weapons swapped to make the unit look a little more varied.

Edit: The curse of the newly painted unit strikes again! Maybe it just happens to me, but it seems that whenever I field a newly painted unit in a battle, it invariably suffers a horrible fate. The first time I used a freshly painted organ gun, it exploded in turn 1. The first time I used a painted hero, he was cut down like a young beardling. And the first game for the painted longbeards ended in similar fashion, driven from the field by a unit of Bretonnian knights of the realm. In previous (unpainted) games, they had never once flinched. Bah, grumble, grumble.

Friday 8 August 2008

Black Reach

Tom and I wandered into my local GW shop yesterday, to have a look at the Assault on Black Reach boxset. The guy behind the counter was really enthusiastic about it and got the figures out of the cabinet to show us. The models are very impressive, very detailed and very easy to assemble - most are one-piece or just a couple of snap together operations. The orks in particular caught my eye, the koptas and warboss look really good, I could feel my painting senses tingling.

After impressing us, he then talked us through a demo game of marines vs tyranids. It was fast and furious and good fun. I was almost tempted to order a set then and there, but with a month to go before release I decided to order online and save a bit of cash.

After seeing the contents of the boxset and seeing the models up close, I am most excited about the orks. Even though I already have fantasy orcs and had previously discounted them, I have decided they have far more character and painting potential than the tyranids. So I will start my 40k career with orks and marines. I have painted plenty of greenskins in the past and know a few short cuts that should help me get them on the table fairly quickly. The marines will be a whole new ball game for me, but I am itching to try out some new techniques on them and have a few ideas floating around my head.
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