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!

When I Say 'Blood!', You Say 'Bowl!' I Say 'Blood!' -

Oh, alright then.  Well I thought it was cool.

Anyway, me and the Green Glade Hackers had a great night tonight at the Chelmsford Bunker, competing in two awesome games of Blood Bowl.

The first was against coach Erik Cooper's brand new Halfling team.

It was a great start to the game when one of my Wardancers, the Golden Tornado, managed to kill one of the Halflings stone dead on the first Wood Elf Block of the game.

'Stitch that, Frodo!!'

Having an innate understanding of each other, Erik's Treemen were rather kind to my team, knocking them down hard, but struggling to injure any of them.

There were plenty of Halfling grenades being launched around the pitch by the Treemen (some of them even having the ball occasionally) - one of them resulting in a rather impressive touchdown.

In the end, the Hackers danced gaily to a 3-2 victory.  Result!

But why then, did most of them end up dropped back in Athel Loren by an ambulance cart?

Well...

Following their victory against the Halflings, they decided that it would be a good idea to accept the challenge of a passing Chaos Dwarf team, coached by the maniacal Matthew Sherwin.

They weren't much bigger than the Halflings, so surely it'd be okay...

What followed was a brutal war of attrition which resulted in one VERY dead Hobgoblin (double-sixes rolled for both Armour Penetration and Injury!  Raaaa!), three dead Wood Elves and four languishing in the KO box for most of the second half.

By the end of the game, cut short by a riot, I had four players on the pitch.  One on his back and three on their faces.  I think the word that springs to mind is 'CRUNCH!'

Still, it was a hillarious game with some comically-failed and ill-judged attempts to score on both sides - my favourite being two Bull Centaurs actually managing to throw an accurate pass, catch it, run for the Endzone and then trip while trying to score - made even better by Coach Sherwin forgetting that he had a Reroll until after the end of the half!

In the end, I think the Hackers came out of it rather well, only losing 1-0 to the beardy beasts.

We're starting to develop a real animosity towards Chaos Dwarves.  Damn them and their Tackle skills!

The tough games are really starting to take their toll on the players.  Many have developed a great deal of wear and chipping that needs to be patched up before they play again.  I varnished them quite heavily when they were first painted, but a little more definitely wouldn't hurt.  I just don't want to ruin the paint job...

Never mind, our next game is against a Lizardmen team.  A bit of Skink-bashing may be called for.  After all, they're softer than we are!

I say 'Blood!' -

Oh, forget it.

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...