More Space Ork Raiders

Just a quick post this week. I've been clearing a couple of things from my painting queue including two more 1980s Space Ork Raiders which have been an ongoing project for some time now.

The painting time for these two was approximately 2 hours per model. I was a little bit disappointed with this as I was aiming for more like 90 minutes, and I have another  8 minis to go on this project. As usual I am painting these as closely as possible to the box art. It can be a bit tricky because the main picture on the box isn't actually of the models.

There is a picture of the minis on the back which is what I'm working from, but it is rather small. The two mins that I have completed today are on the back row, second from left and first from right.

The box also includes a very simple painting guide... Of course all these colours are long obsolete. I am quite pleased that with my effort to reproduce the scheme, although the 1980s Games Workshop scheme has a bit more neon green to it which I haven't quite nailed. If I was starting again I would try introducing something like Moot Green from the current range into the scheme.

Here is my collection of Rogue Trader Orks. Most of them are from this Space Ork Raiders box, except for the Warchief "Boglob" who is from my Combat Cards project.

Of course, 40k Cat came to join me when I took my photos.

Grukk Again, Competition Results

After an utterly chaotic (but massively fun) weekend in real life I am not only a day late but I'm afraid I don't have any models finished. Instead, here is another picture of Grukk who finished second in our local store's painting competition.

In this picture he's on my desk at work waiting to go into the shop in my lunch break. Eagle-eyed readers will be able to work out my real first name...(!). I started this blog using a pseudonym because I was a bit embarrassed about getting back into 40k in my 30s but I don't care any more and regular post shots of minis on my personal Facebook.

Anyway, back to the competition. Although I did take the top spot, when I went back to the shop Grukk had been put on display next to my Painboy. It is great to have two minis on display at Games Workshop and I am far prouder of this than a grown man really should be!

This was my favourite entry in the competition, by James Whitney, which got third place. I think that the subtle conversion work to take this mini from fantasy to 40k is absolutely top drawer. I didn't even know this mini existed until I saw this, so I've added it to my "to paint" list. I am going leave it as fantasy model rather than trying to recreate what James has already nailed!

Grukk Face-Rippa

I've become a bit of an Orkspert in recent months it seems... Here's the finished Grukk, to go along with the Painboy, and the Rogue Trader Orks that I have been working recently. My apologies for the awful pun. I have done somwhere between 12 and 20 hours on this mini and I am a bit frazzled. There's a Work in Progress post on this model from last week too.

This is another mini that I've been asked to paint as closely as possible to GW version. There are a couple of bits that I have simplified, but overall I don't think it is a bad job of recreating the original at all.

Looking at the comparison shot I have actually made my life more difficult by doing much finer checks than on the GW example. Oh well, it was a real test of my freehand which I have been working on a lot recently and my confidence for simple geometric stuff like this is pretty high now.

This top view shows the full extent of the checks on that shoulder pad. They ended up a touch distorted because to make things simpler I was always following the line of the armour plate. Overall the effect is pretty nice and very orky!

This view shows off some more of the freehand on this mini. The power klaw has tiny checks and "teeth" as well.

I'm also rather pleased with the way that the leather on the weapon holsters has come out. This is my usual black / Stormvermin Fur mixtures in various layers up to pure grey for the highlight. Also, there are some more checks! Now wonder I couldn't see straight at the end of the week.

One last view. I wasn't very happy with the quality of these pictures. I needed to get him finished to go into our local store painting competition, which meant that I was taking the pictures late in the evening. I use a little video camera light for these shoots, but without the natural light to help out my little setup struggles and you end up with too much shadow. When he's back from our stores display case I may yet re-shoot these.

Orky Business

My Ork Painboy from a few weeks ago is currently on display in our local Games Workshop. I've always fancied putting something in their cabinet but never got round to until Poot took matters into his own hands and presented the mini to the manager.

I've let myself off having anything new finished for this week, even with the extra day off work for the bank holiday, because I want to finish the model I am working on at the moment to the highest possible standard. The model in question is Grukk Facerippa from the recent Stormclaw set. I am thinking about putting him into our store's painting competition, but my main motivation is to do the very best I can on the mini and not rush it for blogging purposes.

I don't usually like to post WIP shots, but I had taken a few for the "client" so I thought I'd stick em up. I'm reasonably pleased with these checks but I will be very glad when they are finished!

I am currently trying to develop my freehand and I'm getting reasonably comfortable with simple shapes like these, although I have simplified the design somewhat (the 'Eavy Metal version has three teeth on the weapon stock).

I'm using the current GW scheme for the skin which works really well. In the picture above I've done three of the five steps and its already looking rather nice even if I do say so myself.

I am very impressed with this sculpt and I am very glad to have had the chance to paint him. I am thinking about adding the Space Wolf character from the set to my "portfolio" but being a limited edition mini he's already rather costly on eBay.

One of the features of the GW version is the weathered bronze which I've approximated using Nihilakh Oxide.

Here's the squig which is nowhere near finished except the tongue... I am working inside outwards.

Ork Painboy

I think that the Ork release has probably been my favourite wave of new models since I got back into playing, and I've been tempted away from my vintage minis for the third time in recent weeks.

This is another of GW's excellent single sprue character models. I've been so impressed with these that I've even been tempted by a couple from the fantasy range. I've already done this Chaos Lord and I've got the Nurgle equivalent edging its way closer and closer to my painting table.

This is another of Poot's minis that I've painted for him. As usual he wanted it as as close as possible to the GW scheme and he provided all the recent Orky issues of White Dwarf as reference material. As you can see, if you were going for a proper pro-standard you'd use some green stuff where the head meets the neck.

The syringes on this mini are great fun. I think I could have made them a bit prettier, but I am always painting to a timetable for weekly blogposts and it was time get finished. I've been wondering recently if I should be taking more time over some minis - for example there's a fairly hideous highlight on the vertical bit of red piping which wouldn't have gotten past quality control if I wasn't in a rush...

As I paint more and more Orky gubbinz I get more and more confident with checks and I'm pretty happy with these. Generally I have been working on improving my freehand which until recently had been non-existent because I was too scared to even try it.

Ork Flash Git

I mostly paint ancient models that the vast majority of people have forgotten about, but for a while I've been waiting for GW to release a brand new kit that I really like so that I could paint it the minute it was released and be up to date for once. The Ork Flash Git kit fitted the bill, so I took one of Poot's into protective custody for painting. As usual, he wanted it as close as possible to the GW scheme.

Regular readers will now that I'm a bit of a closet Ork fan, although I don't think I will ever have the patience to paint an entire horde (ain't nobody got time for that). All the orky accessories on this mini are great fun, particularly the bionic arm, pirate's hat and targeting squig.

I spent an inordinate amount of time on this model and it felt like my hands were going to fall off at one point, but I still forget to drill or paint the barrel. Poor show. I did do a nice job of the squig's cross hair though I say it myself - although it is far from perfect I decided to leave it rather than redoing it and making it worse.

The highlights on the leather are based around matt black with increasing amounts of GW Stormvermin Fur mixed into it as you go up through the highlight levels. I think I even added some bone to pure Stormvermin for the final highlight.

In this shot the light makes the leather highlights look pretty unsubtle but they are nicer in real life I promise!

This shot shows how far the spent shell casings stick out of the model. This is a lovely bit of detail in the kit; Poot described it as "dramatic" which sums it up pretty well. However I don't think that they will stand up to play wear as they are very delicate and are held on with the tiniest dab of poly cement.

As usual 40k cat felt the need to investigate the photo shoot.

How to Paint Rogue Trader Ork Warpaint

The internet is full of orks at the moment with the new models and the codex release. As usual, I am bang on trend and have prepared a tutorial to help people recreate the warpaint that features on the box from the original Ork release in 1987 - nearly thirty years ago! Barely a day goes by without people asking me for this tutorial. Honest.

It's a pretty simple process really but I though that it was worth writing up.

There are no prizes for guessing that I work from a black undercoat. I block the eyes out a this stage using a foundation yellow so any mistakes can easily be tidied up.

Next the red areas get their base coat. I used GW Khorne Red which I actually prefer to its Vallejo equivalent. A liberal amount of black should be left in the recesses to recreate the Rogue Trader look. This probably easier to see in the next step when the white is introduced.

The first coats of white go on. In this picture it has had a couple of very thin coats of GW Ceramite white. It goes on a bit chalky, but that's not a problem because it will be tidied up later. With this step, the bits you don't paint are as important as the bits that you do. A really nice strong black line should be left in the recesses - the ears and jawline are particularly good examples.

It's a bit tricky to pick this up in the picture, but the next step is to build layers on top of the white and red sections. The white just gets a nice thin coat of GW Skull White (yes I still have the old one) to take the chalkiness out of the white give it a nice finish. The red gets a first highlight with a 1:1 mix of the base coat with a lighter red. I used Vallejo Scarlet but there are probably two or three reds in the current GW range which would do the job.

There's no point doing any more work on the white now... You can't really highlight up any further! A nice final highlight goes on the red. Pure Vallejo Scarlet was my choice.

The next step is the most difficult but also the most satisfying. With a very thin brush, and black line is added to the areas where the red and white meet. It adds to the black in the recesses to make the final look of the model really strong, and give it the Rogue Trader style that we are looking for.

This is the brush that I used for this step, and for all the freehand experiments that I'm doing at the moment. It is a Winsor Newton Series 7 Miniature 00 which Poot let me try out. I've been really impressed with it and told him that he's not having it back!

The finishing touches are some GW Bloodletter Glaze over the red areas, and a touch of wash in the eye sockets. This boy is ready for the Battle at the Farm!

This is the mini from the box that I was trying to reproduce. As you can see I made a mistake and picked up the wrong sculpt! Oh well... Finally, a couple of shots of my two warpainted Orks. Waaaaaaaggh!

Project Update: Space Ork Raiders

Now that my Captains Project is out of the way, I've taken the chance to make some progress on another one of my long term projects. I managed to find a complete, boxed set of Space Ork Raiders from 1987 which I gradually painting up as closely as possible to the way that they appear on the box.

This is one of GW's earliest sci-fi kits, and there isn't a great deal of variety in the sculpts, so the box picture features a couple of the troopers painted with really striking war paint on their faces to distinguish them from their otherwise identical pals. This is my effort at recreating that and it was a really fun paint job to do. Here a couple of views of the two newly completed minis.

Here is my small but rapidly expanding gang of Rogue Trader Orks, including "Boglob" from my Combat Cards project. He has now been re-based to match the rest of my vintage Ork warband.

"Why is that Ork fully painted apart from the face?" I hear you ask. Well that is because I have decided that what the internet needs is a tutorial on how to paint 1987-style Ork warpaint! The technique I used is very simple but very satisfying and I think that it could be used for loads of different minis so I've decided to write it up. It'll be up in a couple of weeks when I'm back from me hols.