Wazdakka Gutsmeg's Rather Nasty Waaaaaagh!!

And there we have it!  My Orky Boyz are finished at last and I have to admit, I will be very sorry to say goodbye to them!

It's been a long time coming and a lot of hours of work, but here they are:

Well, I suppose now it's time to say goodbye to my (rather big) green-skinned friends and look for a new painting project...

(And of course finish my Space Wolves...)

Anyway, more soon and for the last time for what could be a long time...

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!

(Oh, and just a quick note for any readers who were directed here from my eBay listing - please, please, please have a look through some of my previous blog posts, which provide a (hopefully) fascinating look at the painting process for most of these miniatures, right from the undercoat up to the varnish.  As you will see, it's not always been the easiest and most painless journey and there have been many bumps in the road, but I think it'll show you how much love and care has gone into getting these Boyz on the table....  If you have any questions at all, then feel free to either leave a comment here or email me from the eBay listing!)

WAAAAAAAGH (-zdakka)!!

And now to bed!

Wazzdakka's Kumin' Ter Get Yer...

Or at least he will be very soon!

All is proceeding ahead of plan so far, so he should be finished by Sunday night, all being well.

Really proud of him at the moment and I've not even touched up any of the fine details yet.  As you can see from the picture, once the glue on the head is dry, I just need to paint the flesh on his face and in his mouth, the metal gubbinz on his head as well as the auspex glass.  After that, the hair, teeth and remaining bony bits (including the skull on the base) will all be painted in the same colour as on the Ork boyz - which luckily passes quite well for hair and teeth and... er... bony bits...

Finally, I just have a couple of bits of cabling that I need to do, but I'm not sure what colour to paint these as I don't want too much red or black.  The trouble is, I don't really know what colours will complement the pallette without clashing.

Then of course it'll be time for the touch-up of all of those little mistakes before painting round the edge of the base and blasting him with varnish.

Really, when I write it all down, there sounds like there's still quite a lot to do...



Meanwhile, on Fenris...

DISASTER!!

I went into GW today to buy the paints I need for the Great Howling (yes, they were open!!), but they have run out of Space Wolves Grey paint.  It's a conspiracy, I swear!

The more worrying thing is, I searched for it on the GW website, but it is no longer listed with the rest of the paints - it simply does not appear in their product range anymore.

No need to panic yet though as I'm sure it's just out of stock - or something to do with their rebranding of the paints - I noticed in the shop today that the colour paints are now starting to be sold in the same pot design as the washes and Foundation paints.  This is brilliant for two reasons.  Firstly, the smaller pots will fit into my case much better (hurrah!) and secondly, because the new pot lids are clear plastic, so it'll be much easier to pick out the colour that I'm looking for (double hurrah!!).

Still, I will not sleep easy until I manage to get my hands on some more precious Space Wolves Grey...

Space Wolves Grey: The Colour Of Compromise

The board is set and the pieces are moving... Well, actually, there isn't even a board, let alone pieces...!

BUT!  I have finally pinned down the colour scheme for my Space Wolves armour, and I think it strikes a good balance between looking good and being fairly quick:

1. Spray with a 1:1 mix of Shadow Grey and Space Wolves Grey
2. Paint a 1:1 mix of Fenris Grey and Scorched Brown into the recesses
3. Neaten up the previous stage with the mix from Stage 1
4. Drybrush with Space Wolves Grey
5. Drybrush with a 1:1 mix of Space Wolves Grey and Skull White

Now, although there are quite a lot of mixes involved in that, I intend to buy up all of the paints I need and then pre-mix them into bigger pots - so that it's much easier to keep the colours consistant.

As to where I'll find these bigger pots, I'm not quite sure what will suffice.  With that in mind, I'll hopefully be having a chat with someone from GW this afternoon... Maybe they can point me in the right direction.

Anyway, here is the result of the armour test:

He's certainly not going to win any painting competitions, but I don't think he looks too bad - especially when you consider there'll be pack markings and Great Company markings on there as well.

Yeah, not bad at all.

Oh, and here's Wazzdakka so far:

I would love to get him finished this weekend, but that will rely on me being awake enough to put in quite a late night on him tonight.  I'm just waiting for a Devlan Mud wash to dry on the brown bits before I start highlighting them up, and then it'll be the Boss plate on his front and then the skin.  After that, just a few fiddly bits...

All good at the moment!

On My Feet... Just...

Well, I'm up and painting at last, although even now I can still feel Nurgle's slime-ridden, knobbly fingers pawing at my shoulder.

I think one of his finger-boils just burst pus into my ear...

Still, I'll not be beaten!  That said, this is just a quick post before I crawl back into bed.

Okay, where to start?

First of all, I've finished the metals on Wazzdakka, with (if I do say so myself) some rather lovely weathering on some bits of it.

I think (but can't be sure until tomorrow when the wash has dried) that I've also finished his reddy-brown trousers.  I wanted something quite dark to keep in with the pallette of the rest of the army, but then also something that was a little bit richer and would stand out more.

I then left him for the night while I carried on painting my test-Wolf,  Fell Fang.

Ater applying the initial basecoat of 1:1 Shadow Grey and Space Wolves Grey, I then applied a 1:1 wash of Scorched Brown and Fenris Grey (not Shadow Grey as I believe I said in an earlier post).

The White Dwarf painting guide then just asks for a Space Wolves Grey highlight, but I found the wash I'd put on seemed very rough and rather messy, so I have decided that - you know what - this is MY army.  I'm not going to spend months painting armies for other people only to do a quick get-'em-on-the-table job on my own.

God knows, I've spent so long this far on them, there's no point in rushing now.

So, that said, I re-applied the basecoat to tidy up the wash and then I intend to highlight up with Space Wolves Grey and then a 1:1 Space Wolves Grey / Skull White mix.

This is actually very similar to the scheme used on Njal, but the key difference is that the mixes are much simpler.  When I come to paint the bulk of my army, I am considering dropping the 'wash' into the recesses, and simply painting the shading in, which although it is a lengthy process, cuts the tidy-up stage drastically.

We'll see how it goes on that one...

Anyway, here he is so far:

Good night!

Curse You, Nurgle! Curse You!

Well, what a disappointing painting weekend.  I had probably twice as much time to spare as I usually do, but instead of being able to make the most of it, I was struck down by Nurgle's Rot.

Bleeaaargh!

Oh, the best laid plans...

Never mind.

I did manage to almost finish the metals on the Ork Warboss - now lovingly known to me as Wazzdakka Gutsmeg - leaving only a light drybrushing of Chainmail and then some 'Eavy Metal-inspired rust effects on some parts of the armour.

As a little side-project, while the washes were drying, I also did the basecoat on one of my Blood Claws.

It's a bit of an experiment as I'm using the three-stage method listed in White Dwarf, telling you how to get an army painted and fielded as nicely but quickly as possible.

For the Power Armour, it is simply a Space Wolves Grey / Shadow Grey mix, followed by a Scorched Brown / Shadow Grey (I think) wash, followed by a Space Wolves Grey highlight.

I have to admit, I'm a little bit dubious of the technique, having spend so long painting five or six stages onto Space Marine armour.  The question is, when I'm painting lots of lovely miniatures for other people to use, am I going to be happy with three simple stages for my own armies?

That said, I think I'll wait until I see the finished result before I pass judgement.

When that will be, well, only Nurgle can tell...

I'll hopefully get some pictures up (and some more painting done!) if I feel better later...

Aaaaaaand.... STOP!!!!

That's it.

Finished.

Done.

Finally.

Njal is painted!  I have a commander for my Great Howling!

I've done as much as I can, as well as I can and though he's by no means perfect, he will definitely do.

Rather proud of him, if I do say so myself, so I think we'll leave him at that.

No doubt (like the Green Glade Hackers) I'll be coming back to him numerous times to fix all the chips and scratches that he's sure to pick up on the battlefield (well, gaming board).

Anyway, no time to sit and be smug...

On to the next project... FINISH THOSE ORKSES!!!

I think the first job of the evening will be to patch up the undercoat and start on the metal...

Compared to Njal, I'm hoping this one'll be like a holiday.

Now where did I put that head...?

Pieces of Eight.

Now that the Deff Koptas are under my belt, tonight sees the return to Njal Stormcaller.

I have to admit, it's quite difficult to come back to a character miniature after a little while away.  Even though I knew I was doing it, I simply couldn't help procrastinating, considering and - quite frankly - putting off starting again.

When I did eventually get around to beginning work on him, it started with a bit of repair work.  You see, where I'd carefully pinned and glued Njal's arms into place (certain that they were stuck fast), Njal seems to have had other ideas and decided to move his arms, leaving a rather unsightly gap between his upper arms and the inside of his shoulder pad.

Luckily, I managed to fix it fairly seamlessly with some very careful putty-work (or, I'll be honest, Blu-tac work) and a black undercoat.

After that, I started to paint the Psyber Raven - quite a good bit I felt, as it was completely independent of Njal, so I didn't have to begin immediately with any sort of continuity of flow or brush-work, and also because it is a fairly simple but large part of the model.  I'm hoping to finish the raven tonight and thus give myself a bit of a morale boost and kick up the backside to hopefully get the whole model done in a few days.

I started by painting the raven with a 1:1 mix of Chaos Black and Regal Blue, gradually layering it up to pure Regal Blue.  To try and give it a bit of shine to its feathers, I then did an edge highlight of Fortress Grey, toning it down afterwards with a thinned Badab Black wash.

I'm now waiting for a heavy 1:2:2 (very approximately) glaze of Regal Blue, Liche Purple and Chaos Black to dry before contemplating the beak and claws.  I'm hoping that firstly, the glaze will just give a hint of atmospheric colour to the feathers, distinguishing them from the much flatter beak and claws, and secondly, that it won't dull down the grey highlight too much or I may have to re-apply it.

I just have to tell myself, 'Don't make the highlights too bright.  Subtlety, subtlety, subtlety...'

What's The Emoticon For 'Hums "Ride Of The Valkyries" Very Loudly'?

Hurrah!  Twenty-eight down, one to go!

In an uncanny blast of speed, I've managed to finish the three Ork Deff Koptas off tonight, leaving only the Ork Warboss left.

Unfortunately, he seems to be missing a base... Perhaps he should ask old Njal about that one...

Still, Njal does now have his arms and Psyber Raven glued on, so hopefully I'll get on with him tomorrow night - and maybe finish him in the next three or four days - give or take some alterations to his modelled base, which I'm still not satisfied with...

Anyway, here are the finished articles:

More news tomorrow!  Happy gaming!

Fly, You Fools!

As promised (loosely), here are some pictures of the Deff Koptas so far.

As I said in my last post, they're not finished yet, but are starting to look quite nice...

All together now...

WAAAAAaaaaaaagh!  DAKKA!  DAKKA!  DAKKA!

All Quiet on the Blogging Front...

Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say I've been quiet, more that I've been less noisy.

That is not to say that the Ork Deff Koptas aren't coming on a treat.  I've only got a couple more bits to finish on them - namely, a Chainmail highlight of all the metal bits, a Blazing Orange highlight of the reds, followed by a Baal Red wash, and then a few bits of cloth to paint (in the same manner as the teeth and fur).  Finally, I just need to add some weathering to the exhausts and some wear-and-tear to the black paintwork and we'll be done.

I'm not planning on getting any painting done today, as I have a Blood Bowl game tonight against a very cool looking Lizardman team.  Plan of action:  Break the Skinks. Oh, and avoid the Kroxigors.  And the Saurus.  Basically, keep back!

Hopefully, I'll get a match report up tonight as well as some photos of the Deff Koptas so far.

But, the overall plan is (and pay attention to see if I stick to it!):

Thusday:  Metallic highlights.

Friday:  Red, cloth and weathering.

Saturday:  Final touch-ups and varnish.

With a bit of luck, I might fly through some of these bits and be finished on Friday...

We shall see.

Waaaaaagh!! Dakka! Dakka!

Well, I seem not to have gotten through quite as much as I'd hoped to this weekend, mainly due to not being entirely happy with the metallic basecoats.

Having washed the metals with Badab Black, they didn't come out as dark as the metallics on the rest of the Orks, so I added a further coat of Badab Black and the Devlan Mud.

This has given the metals a really nice tarnished effect, so hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to start the highlights that I'd hoped to do yesterday and today.

Never mind!  It'll be worth it in the end.

Here are the basecoated Deff Koptas so far:

I'm still hoping to have them finished by the end of the week, despite playing Blood Bowl on Wednesday night and also having to do some repair work on my Wood Elf team before then...

Gentlemen, Paint Your Engines!

Wow, after a tremendously busy few days of painting, I can definitely see the light at the end of the Orky tunnel.

By the end of last night, I had managed to finish off the Ork Deff Kopta pilots, leaving me to then throw myself madly into painting their insane flying machines.

As you can see, they're not looking too bad so far...

But that was just last night.

Today I have managed to (almost) complete two out of the five painting stages listed on the Games Workshop website.

Rather simply, I have painted Scab Red onto all of the red bits, and Boltgun Metal and Tin Bitz onto all of the metallic parts, leaving the remainder of the Kopta bodies Chaos Black.

Now, I have thrown on a liberal wash of Badab Black (about 40% water) over everything except the pilots and am waiting for it to dry before I can do the same to the undersides.

After that, it is simply a case of doing a couple of layers of highlights, basing, and a few of bits of rag and material that aren't really covered in the original painting guide.

And then, done... And onto the Warboss!!

(After he has managed to somehow take down Njal, who has claimed his base for his own...)

More pictures tomorrow!

Funda-Birds are GO!

 

So, having left Njal to quietly weep in the corner for a couple of weeks (and hopefully no more than that!), I made a start last night on the Ork Deff Koptas.

They really are awesome miniatures - mainly for the fact that they look so cool, but are so simple, with very little detail.  That's not a criticism - it takes a real pro to sculpt a model so reservedly and yet have it look so nice.

Anyway, the starting grid:

(Please feel free to add your own chopper sound effects while reading this...)

I've broken the miniatures down into several stages.  Firstly, for ease of packaging and transport, I'm going to leave the rotor blades and the bases loose, as they are easy to take off and on without doing any damage to the paint job.

As for the colour schemes used, I'm going to paint the three pilots in the same palette that I've used for the rest of the Orks in the set, but I'm a big fan of the Deff Kopta Painting Guide on the Games Workshop website, so I'll be using their method to paint the actual flying machines.

The pilots' arms will be glued on just before I start the Ork skin, but while I paint the browns and blacks, I'm going to leave them seperate so that I can get into all of the hard-to-reach places on the main model.

Anyway, last night, I managed to get all of the blacks done on the pilots - basically, just their trousers and gloves.  The process was as follows:

Chaos Black.

1:1 Chaos Black / Codex Grey.

Drybrush Codex Grey.

Devlan Mud wash.

Badab Black wash.

Once they had dried, I basecoated all of the browns with Scorched Brown and then washed them with Devlan Mud.  I then left them to dry overnight.

Having a few minutes spare this morning, I painted Bestial Brown onto these bits as a mid-tone:

Hopefully tonight I will be able to apply a 1:1 highlight of Bestial Brown and Snakebite Leather and then an extreme highlight of pure Snakebite Leather.  After this, I'll wash over some thinned Devlan Mud before re-applying the Snakebite Leather when it's dry.

If I can finish that tonight, that'll leave me clear to start the Orky flesh before finishing off the finer details of the pilots later on this week.

And then the fun bit really begins...!

Don't Leave Me This Waaaaaaaaaay-ay-ay-ay!

Well, despite being about to go back on what I said the other day, my hand has been forced.

Having finished the main body of Njal, excluding some much-needed repairs and touch-ups, I was going to have a bit of a break and start on the Ork Deff Koptas.  However, being very eager to finish the first miniature of my Space Wolf army, I spray undercoated the remaining parts of Njal, with the intention of gluing them on and making a start on them tonight.

There is only one problem with this - my superglue has turned into some sort of primordial goo and is now sitting at the bottom of my kitchen bin.

Given that it'll be a little while before I get chance to go out and get some more, Ork Deff Koptas are GO!

Anyway, here's the 'finished' Njal body:

Don't worry Njal, I won't forget you.  I promise!!

Just a Bit of a Break...

I've decided that I've started to become a bit impatient and rushed while painting Njal.

Not because I'm desperate to get him out of the way - on the contrary, I'm really enjoying painting him - but because I'm getting too complacent with the smaller details.

The black piping is a great example.  I have vowed to go back and repaint it properly, but I'm going to take the night off painting tonight so that I can come back to it tomorrow and concentrate a little bit better.

With this in mind, to stop me rushing when it comes to the arms and raven (yet to be attached), I am going to stop painting Njal once the main body is finished and then go on to paint the three Deff Koptas that come in the Black Reach box-set.

Once they are done, I'll come back to the rest of Njal before starting on the Ork Warboss - after all, Njal is standing on his base at the moment, so I can't start him until Njal is finished anyway!

Anyway, I'm off now to meditate on how much work is needed to become a Golden Demon winner...

TA-DAAAAAAA!

The Nobz (and heavy weapons Boyz) are finished!  Hurrah!  Break out the banners!  Let the flags unfurl!  Pour the champagne!

Alright, so it's not that exciting, but it does mean that I've only got four more miniatures to paint before completing the Black Reach box-set.

Okay, the 'four miniatures' happen to be three rather large Deff Koptas and a massively-detailed Ork Warboss, but the end is in sight!

And here they are:

A couple of points though - Obviously I was so eager to eat my celebratory bacon sandwich that I took the photographs before the Bestial Brown around the bases had dried (I promise it's dry now!).  Also, I liked the look of the power axes as they were (and don't ever recall seeing lightning on Orky ones) so I left them without any complex electrical decoration.

One final point about them - we're not out of the woods yet.  I still have to varnish them tomorrow and if last time's disaster is anything to go by, I may be back here tomorrow night, touching up the metals and the browns.

It'll definitely be a light spray in the morning.

I've decided to hold off on painting any more Orks until next Monday, giving me four days to concentrate on Njal (that might stop him moaning).  Mind you, there is an England game on Friday night, so there'll be no painting then, and I'm not around on Saturday night either, so I bet the Stormcaller still won't be happy.

I told him to shut up and do the ironing.  I don't think he's speaking to me now.

You Don't Bring Me Flowers Anymore.

Njal's got the right 'ump.  He says I've been neglecting him, and I suppose he's right.  I haven't come back to his armour now for a couple of days, but I think with good reason.

The truth is, I'm so close to finishing the Nobz (tomorrow night with a fair wind and a bit of luck), that I just want to get them out of the way so that I can spend a couple or three days concentrating on Njal before I start work on the Deff Koptas.

The Orks are doing tremendously well, with loads of work done on them today, and here are the pictures to prove it...

Firstly, I managed to complete the Goblin Green layer on their skin (above).

And then I finished the skin off with a 3:1 layer of Sunburst Yellow and Goblin Green (again, above).

After that, I painted the eyes (Blood Red, Sunburst Yellow dot, Baal Red wash) and the auspexes (at least I think that's what they're called - basically the lenses in the Orky bionic eyes).  I'm really proud of the way that these turned out.  I used a very basic method of Regal Blue followed by Enchanted Blue, with a final highlight of Ice Blue before adding the essential Skull White dot of reflection.

After that, I began work on the teeth / nails / hair / bandages (pretty much anything that was left, really...).  I ran out of time on these, but began with a coat of Bestial Brown and a highlight of Snakebite Leather.  Tomorrow these will all be finished off with highlights of 1:1 Snakebite Leather and Bleached Bone, Bleached Bone and Skull White.

So as not to waste a second, I also used PVA glue to stick the gravel to the bases, so that - left overnight - they'll be ready to blast with Bestial Brown and Bleached Bone tomorrow.

When all of these odds and ends are finished, I just need to paint the one or two skulls and the blades of the power axes.  For both of these, I'm going to try the formula for painting the stone on Njal's base.  I'll then decide whether to add any bolts of electricity to the power axe blades.  I probably will, maybe an etherial green....

Lots of bitty things left, but hopefully, like I said, finished by the end of tomorrow.

One final photo tonight, to show off one of the pretty lenses...

And then Njal, all my time will be devoted to you.

I can almost hear him now.  'I know you love me, but are you in love with me?'

Give me strength!