Recycling GW Miniatures

I have been thinking about it a lot and I have been looking on the interwebs for information "how to" do it but now just recently I took the plunge and finally started recycling my painted Space Marines. I have painted up these models about 3 years ago and some of you might have seen my models here on my blog. They look alright but they don´t really `Pop!` on the gaming table. Also I always play them as vanilla marines and I have bought the Blood Angels codex to see what that was all about and now I want my own BA army.

I have plenty of marines to make a good start although some conversion work is needed, the biggest challenge however was that my models are all painted up and I want to strip them of their paint job and get a nice clean model to start over again. On the internet you can find loads of topics on this so I started reading about brake fluid,nailpolish remover and all sorts of cleaning liquids. The problem was most of the named brands weren´t available here in the Netherlands. I did find one topic in dutch on a product I know they sell in my local supermarket, it is called `Blue Wonder`. The name on itself sounds very promising so I bought a bottle and tried it on 5 SM Terminators from the assault on black reach set.


So this is how I did it:

I started off with a test batch and decided my AoBR terminators would be the best to try it on. They have the best armour ,right? no seriously, I think they won't be used much in my future BA lists so I might as well try this product on them and don't have to worry about Melting space marines..

Here is a pic of the "blue Wonder" stuff with all the dutch writing on it. Apparently it will make everything shine and new and will degrease everything, It will clean everything effortless in one go. WOW this is pure gold in a bottle. It also says it is 4x more concentrated. "Concentrated 4x more then what it doesn't say,.... water maybe??



I just put the terminators in the plastic cup and added just enough of "Blue Wonder" to drown them all. I then let them soak for about 24 hours and got a toothbrush to brush the old paint job off.

And it worked! A lot of the paint did come off effortless and only the layer of primer stayed on the model. Only in some areas where I used foundation paint and where the paint filled in narrow gaps it was a bit harder to get everything off. I put them back in the "Blue Wonder" for another day and then picked off most paint with a toothpick to reveal the smallest details. However not all of the paint cam off but it is certainly good enough to paint over again, just don't expect Golden Daemon level.

Stripped Terminators

Over I rate this product with a 7 because I had to brush quite a bit to get everything off, I didn't get everything off and although it's a cleaning product I didn't like the smell that stayed on my hands for hours after.

Any of you guys have a "Wonder"product of your own then please tell me because I want to try different options.

Cheers,
Seb

Wednesday W.I.P.14

It's one big Orkfest here at the Warpaint Studio. I'm slowly building my Waaagh up to an apocalyptic horde that should be finished by the end of the year. To keep the pressure on and motivation high I have sugested a "Tale of Four Gamers" competition at my local gaming club. This idea was received with loud cheers but so far only two other painters have entered the competition so we need (at least)one more. We have not yet set up the competition rules and I'm looking for a good format to use (any help is welcome). We agreed to aim at a 1500points army by December wich leaves us with a monthly goal of 150points. We are currently debating the rules and trying to get more people involved so more about that later.

So what have I been doing in the past week. I finished my Ork Wasboss from the assault on Black Reach set which I think is a pretty good achievement. I painted him up pretty quick and he turned out just the way I wanted. He'll be a fierce leader of my WAAAGH!

After I finished him I looked at my workspace. It had became cluttered again and plasic frames were everywere. I went to the shop and got me a load of big plastic crates and small tackle boxes. I franticly cut everything from the sprues and ordered them neatly in the tackle boxes organised by army and parts. The crates were filled with pieces that I will use for making terrain.

And then of course I started on some more Orks. I still had some Assault on Black Reach Nobz lying about so I undercoated them and start working on them this week. As you can see I have converted all but one of the Nobz slightly giving them Powerklaws,big choppa and extra bitz of armour. They look just a bit more interesting this way because I think they looked a bit dull before.They will fit in much better with my other Nobz now.

Seb

Ork Warboss Skrapsmacka

AoBR Ork Warboss

I just finished the AoBR Warboss. If you follow my blog you might know that I was working on the Assault on Black Reach Warboss and you would have seen wip pictures of him. If not and you want to have a look at the earlier stages then have a look here and here.

I think the conversion of the chainsaw in the Powerklaw worked really well. I also added a chainsaw blade to the gun to make it more menacing.

I think he will look like a Proppa Boss in my Ork army, what do you think? let me know in the comments below.

Seb

AoBR Warboss W.I.P.

You might have seen in one of my earlier posts that I bought the Assault on Black Reach Warboss and a couple of Nobz. Since then I slightly converted the Warboss making his powerklaw a bit more menacing and I created a base that will fit in with the rest of my Ork horde.

only the "Base paint" done 

When the black undercoat was dry I started with what I call "base painting". This means I paint everything on the model with a single layer with the darkest or deepest color. It's a good way to see what the model will look like eventually.
One of the prominent colors I use for my Bad Moons is of course sunburst yellow but that's a real hard color to paint with because it just doesn't cover at all. What I do is I mix up sunburst yellow with Lysanden Darksun foundation paint and when that layer is dry I layer some diluted sunburst yellow on top of that to create that popping yellow color.
As a spot color I use Liche Purple you can see that color coming back on my models here and there. It's a nice contrast color to the Sunburst Yellow.
I find the best way to make good looking teeth and claws is to start with Graveyard Earth and work that up to a mix of Bleached Bone and Skull White. In the picture you can see that the base color is graveyard earth.
Orks should always be green but I think a muted green or realistic green looks a bit nicer then the bright Orks you see around. I use Gretchin Green foundation paint as a base color and work it up from there. you will get a light green skin from that. I do wash the skin with Devlan Mud, Gryphonne Sepia and Leviathan Purple in between each layer and I do dilute some washes. I will talk about that more in a later post.

Now that the Base painting is done I check for errors and correct them if needed and then I will start to apply some washes but more on that later...

Seb

AoBR Warboss and Nobz

I'm scouring the interwebs to build my Ork army El Cheapo and I found someone selling the AoBR Nobz and Warboss for about $15,-. A steal and a great addition to my small Ork force.
I got them in the mail on Friday so after work I opened up the package. They were all cut from the sprue but all complete, The Assault on Black Reach set is made so you can basicly model the mini's in one single way. They don't come with a lot of extra bits and weapons but I still have some left over from my other Ork Nobz so I wanted to see if I could use them.

So here's what they look like straight from the box:

But after only two hours this is what they look like now:

AoBR Warboss and Nobz converted

I must say that most small conversions were straight forward swaps but I did have to cut some limbs in order to make it all fit. The only two things I changed on the warboss is his powerklaw and he now has a chainsaw attached to his gun. The nobz required some more work by giving two of them Powerklaws and other weapons but I also buffed them up a bit with extra armour plates and shoulderpads. Right now I still need to remove the moldlines(I hate that) and assemble them because now they are just bluetacked together, then theyll be ready for the undercoat and they'll look much better after that. 

The AoBR Nobz looked smaller and with less detail then the Nobz I already have but like this they blend in very well I think. Oh' and ofcourse most time went in creating the bases again. More info on that in my topic on Trashy Ork Bases.

Seb