Ork Battlewagon WIP 2

Not a huge update if you look at the progress on the whole model but I spent a lot of time getting the look on the undercarriage , wheels and tracks just right. I wanted them to look rusty and banged up and I think I have achieved just that. I went crazy with my blister sponge creating the basic rust effect and drybrushed some boltgun metal over it. A little more drybrush over the areas where the orks would walk. I also painted under the hatch (open on photo's) and you can see this truck will not get a "Red Paint Job" but as a little joke it does have RPJ...



The colors I have used are: Dark flesh - fiery orange - lyanden darksun - boltgun metal - tin bitz - gold - mechrite red- chaos black - adeptus battlegrey - codex grey

I will add some dust pigments when the whole model is done as a finishing touch.

Next part to paint is the drivers cab/ cockpit...


Cheers,
Seb

Ork Battlewagon WIP 1

Ork Battlewagon WIP

Two weeks ago I finally got my shipment in from Maelstorm. I had placed an order for an Ork Battlewagon and I had to wait 3 weeks for it to arive. In those three weeks I had plenty of time to think about what kind of color scheme I would paint it and what it should like like. I decided on an all Yellow Battlewogon but with loads of rust and battle damage.

I'm painting the wagon in stages because it's easier to handle and paint that way. I've assembled it so that I can take everything of if I decide to go "open topped" or full armour with battle canon.I can take everything off and change it to fit the specifications on my army roster.

I have also added some armour plating above the rear big shoota's to give them some more protection. I just think it looks better this way instead of the big gaping holes in the sides and top.

As you can see some parts are still in the armypainter yellow undercoat and some part are already painted. It was the first time I used an army painter colored primer and probably the last. Yellow is a hard color to paint and the primer didn't cover properly in some areas and was too thick in other areas. I went over with a can from the DIY store and painted lyanden foundation over that and finished it off with a layer of watered down golden yellow before I started the weathering.

Still need to do the Tusks.....

The reinforced ram will probably not get used a lot because I want to go for a "deff rolla" but it was great fun painting it up. The bad moon icon on the front was done "free hand".

Cheers,
Seb

'Ard Boyz Concept part 2

Ork 'Ard Boyz

It's been a while ago that I published my first 'Ard Boy concept here on my blog and now I'm back working on that project again. I got loads of possitive feedback on my first 'Ard Boy so now I am working on the other 10 Boyz in armour.I aim for a unit of 12 (11Boyz and 1 Nob) so I can put them in a trukk and hurl them acros the battlefield straight into the enemy lines.I recently finished the Nob so now only the normal boyz to go. They all get a WW2 German "Stahlhelm"(helmet) with a spike on top(WW1) and lots of armour plates. I recently played the "Space Marine"game and that featured some 'Ard Boyz wearing shields so I want to give halve the unit shields as well to make them look even more distinctive on the table,

'Ard boyz are just regular Ork Boyz but with a keen eye for metal scraps lying about. They collect them and use them as armour plates. Not exactly mega armour but it gives them a 4+ armour save which is a lot better then the normal Ork Boy T-Shirt save. You can only field one unit of 'Ard Boyz in your army so therefor I'm aiming at a unit of 12 first, if they work really well I can upgrade them to 20 and put them in a Battlewagon but I don't think a bigger unit would work because they would have to get across the battlefield on foot and there are too many nasty AP4 weapons. Close combat is where they need to be and the need to get there asap!

Cheers,
Seb

Zagstruk and his Stormboyz

I've been working hard lately, the problem is that I have been working on about 6 different projects and I haven't kept track of my progress here on my blog. Now it's time to change that and in the coming week I'll post some updates.

First off are my Stormboyz and their boss. Boss zagstruk was my first finecast model and I didn't really enjoy the experience. A lot of bubbles and bend stuff that needed to be straight. The model itself is a great sculpt and a joy to paint all the details. Zagstruk has red armour but to make him fit in with the rest of my army he and the stormoyz now have yellow armour and a lot of rust effects.

I have 15 Stormboyz but so far I have only painted 5 a 100% and 5 for about 50%, the last 5 are still in the box. I hope you like them, I tried to put as much character in each model as I could. Let me know what you think.

Seb

Space Marine Review



Chaos Lord Nemeroth

Recently I have been suffering from a paintersblock. A unit of Ork Stormboyz have been sitting half painted on my desk for ages. Hence the lack of posts here on my blog. So when I saw the latest THQ-Relic video game release "Space Marine" I thought it would be a nice way to get some 40K flavour and inspiration. I have played Dawn of War, Company of Heroes and Dawn of War 2 which are all from the same company as their latest release. I loved the first two games but was really let down by DoW2, it simply wasn't my thing but I still play it sometimes to get that 40K feeling. The enviroment in the game is stunning and overal I think the game looks pretty solid. Because I only had one slightly negative experience with THQ so I thought I'd bust my wallet to get the game.


Now for those of you that have been living under a rock, "Space Marine" is a third person shooter set in the 40K universe. You get to play a campaign as Captain Titus from the Ultramarines or play an online multiplayer game.

Captain Titus overseeing the IG defences

Let's start with the single player campaign. At first you have to get used the the third person camera view but once you hack and slash your way through the first wave of Orks you get used to it. At first you only get a bolterpistol and combat knife but as you progress you get to have a go with all the space marine weapons you can think of. My personal favourites are the Stalker Boltgun, Lascanon and Stormbolter but blasting away with the meltagun can also be a lot of fun. The close combat weapons like the chainsword, power axe and thunderhammer all work in the same way but each does a bit more damage then the previous.

The Ork Warboss

Now without spoiling the storyline for those of you that still want to play the campaign I can say that the storyline is pretty predictable but fun. In this game it isn't about the story or interaction with other characters, it's about killing as many xenos as possible and there are a couple of cool ways to do that. For each enemy you kill you get some xp-points and when you have enough you can unleash your "Fury". It either let's makes you ultra strong in close combat or gives you a kind of matrix effect bullit-time so you can pick off your enemy's one by one in slowmotion with your gun of choice.The other cool thing to finish off your enemies is to first stun them in close combat and then kill them with a special move like we first saw in Mortal Combat.The extra benefit you get from that is that your lifebar will fill back up when you're wounded if you use these special combo's.

Stormboyz on the attack

The campaign was a real blast to play through and takes you through different levels and setting. The game was never really hard but when you die you get to respawn at a save point that is never too far back. It also has a couple of different levels between the normal "shoot'em up"levels where you fly on board a Valkery or ride on the back of a train. The last level when you face off with Chaos Lord Nemeroth is also something different as well and I don't want to spoil it but the ending was a bit dissapointing to me. For me the single player mode was all about soaking up the atmosphere and looking at the cool scenery. The only dissapointing thing to me were the dead guardsmen lying everywhere but they all looking the same.

Then to the Multiplayer. This is where the game is a giant let down to me. I love playing MPG's like CoD Modern Warfare and Battlefield bad company 2 so I had high hopes for this game as I was going to be able to run araound as a Space Marine. But now that I have tried it a good couple of times I think I won't bother anymore and this is why:
1. You have to use steam....
2. There are only 2 MP gaming modes, seize ground and anihilation.
3. There are only a couple of maps to play on, I believe 4 or 5
4. You can't pick the game from a list, steam will find you a spot in some game.
5. It's lagggggggggy most of the times.
6. It get's boring pretty quick

Now I have a decent gaming pc and good internet connection but still I get very laggy games most of the time. I shoot someone in the head with my lascanon but instead of dying it disapears and the enemy pops up next to my and kills me... I really hate the the game fins me a spot in an ongoing game instead of letting me pick one that I like from a list that.

Now there is a cool feature called the customiser. You can play in multiplayer games as any of the main space marine chapters or you can create your own. If you want to unlock all the choices though you have to gain levels in the multiplayer game. Therefor you are very limited in your choices from the start. It's a fun feature for a short while and I liked to create a space marine simular to my own miniture DIY chapter but it's also a very confusing factor in the game. everyone in the MP is using different skins so it's hard to see if it's a thousand sons chaos marine, ultra marine or someones DYI customised skin.

All and all I think every 40K player should have this game but I think you shouldn't have it just now for top dollar/pound/euro. Wait for it to end up in the budget bin and get it cheap a couple of months from now. The game will still lool just as good and you'll have fun playing the campaign. The campaign is good but not hard or challenging so once you're done with that there isn't really anything left to play as I think the MP is just a pain in the neck.

My rating 5 out of 10 because half of the game (single player) was very good.

Cheers,
Seb

Painting Ork Skin Tutorial

Click to enlarge

Over the past months I have been asked the same question over and over: "How do you paint Ork Skin". I have replied to those questions but I thought it would be nice of me to make a dedicated article on how I do it.
The way I do it you get a light colored skin tone but it isn't bright. The key to this is GW's foundation paint "gretchin Green" and normal plain water. I can't say it enough that you need to water down your paints to get the best result. undiluted paints tend to look "thick"and messy and most of all they obscure the finest detail of your models specially if you use multiple layers.



So here's my step by step recipe:

-First basecoat all the Ork's skin with watered down Gretchin Green. I use 60%GG & 40% water, because it's a foundation paint it has loads of pigment and diluting it will not make it transparent but will make it flow easily and will give you a thin layer.

-Then I wash all of the skin with Devlan Mud wash. I also dilute this to 50/50. You don't have to dilute it but I prefer it so it doesn't look too thick.

-Next I paint all the raised areas like muscles with the same paint I used in the first step.Make sure the wash is completely dry or it will become messy. just leave the deepest areas as they are. this will create the first bit of definition.

-The next step is mixing up Gretchin Green with Bleached Bone and again dilute the mixture it water. I use about 60%Gretchin Green and 40% Bleached bone and water this down again to get a nice flowy paint. I use this mixture to paint the higher areas leaving just a bit of the previous layer visible.

-The 5th step is highlighting the most raised areas and edges. For this I use a mixture of 30%Gretchin Green and 70% Bleached Bone but I water it down quite a bit so it becomes a bit transparent and blends with the previous layer.

-The last step is to blend it all together a bit and for this I use Thraka Green wash that I water down a lot. 20% Thraka and 80% water. If you leave the Thraka too thick it will puddle in the deepest areas and Thraka Green has the nasty habit of leaving a very light color. If you dilute it like me it will blend all your layers together nicely without any nasty side effects

As an alternative you could experiment with the color of washes. I sometimes wash a model with Greyphone Sepia to finish it up or use a purple wash instead of devlan Mud in the 2nd step.

This is a very simple guide on Ork Skin. Of course you can add extra detail by painting in the veins or tattoos.

Cheers,
Seb

July Round up

The fact that I'm writing up July's news round up on the 4th of August really sums up my blogging activity at the moment. Somehow I have lost momentum and I'm struggling to get back into it all. I have a ton of work on my hobby desk and I have finished a couple of projects but I find it hard to find some time to make some nice articles of it all.

I'm working on my Waaagh almost daily but the sheer numbers and the level of detail I want to put in every model makes it a slow process. In July I finished 10 Boyz and 2 Nobz, I have acquired some new models and assembled and based those.

My blog is still attracting a lot of people thanks to Google. People look for something that happens to be on my blog and they then stick around to have a look at all my other stuff. The Linked-within widget is priceless! I also had some of my articles linked on some forum so all and all it wasn't a bad month considering I only posted three articles for the whole month.

I got a lot of nice feedback on my Boyz and Nobs but my video on "Zagstruk"hardly got any hits nor comments. I guess I took a chance of actually putting my first video together but no one is interested. I have therefor seized recording the project.It's too much work recording and editing, time I can better spend working on models. Too bad but lesson learned.

In august I hope to complete Zagstruk and his 10 men Vulcha squad and I'll get some conversion work done on an old War buggy.

Cheers,
Seb