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Hi, my name is Hugo, and I used to paint and play back in the days of RT and 2nd edition. I had an Ultramarines 40K army, and a big Eldar Epic force, but around 2000 I kind of lost interest, and stayed away from the hobby for 14 years before finally returning a couple of years ago. This time I decided to go with Orks, mostly because I love the models, and all the modelling opportunities they provide.

However, having a family (with two wild little grots) doesn't leave me with much time, so progress have been fairly slow. So far I've managed to put together a couple of Speed Freeks mobs (will post photos of those later), but the latest project has been to build a mob of Wildboyz out of Savage Orcs. Now I have finally finished the first 10, which I thought I'd share with you guys.

So, what I have done is basically that I have repositioned the arms of the Savage Orcs to give them shootas, and then filled the gaps (often at the back) with green stuff.





Then I've painted them in a rather limited pallette; Ork skin, bone, leather and rusty metal. And on top some white warpaint.









Next up is their ride:

Wow I love these wildboyz! Crisp and ckean jobs! keep up the good work!

Mate, those look awesome. I've been thinking of doing something similar with mine, you've definitely convinced me I should.

I love these, to the eBaymobile!!

Thank you mazik765, Joyboozer and Dez!

Apart from the Battlewagon, I now also have these little guys on my painting table. Gotta love 'em, so much character. I thought about maybe doing "Wild Grots" to match the Wildboyz, but figured I liked these guys so much that I'd just make them regular Snakebites. Maybe I'll do some Wild Grots at some point later.



Go ahead, punk. Make my day.



You talkin' to me?!

I definitely like that the Savage Orc bodies aren't as hunched over as the 40K Orks tend to be. That posture was something I addressed when I made my own Orks, and I wish the 40K Orks shared that more upright look.

I've always wanted to do something like this for the Snakebites clan, but it seems really expensive... :(

You could buy some Goblins and/or Wolf Riders to do some Snakebite Shenanigans!

I love the look of these guys! That's exactly what Snakebites should look like. I like that Battlewagon too, but it should really be a Squiggoth!

@Veteran Sergeant: Yeah, the Savage Orcs poses are really great - a lot of dynamic motion, you can tell that they are newer sculpts (although I do love them, the Ork boyz are starting to show their age in comparison)

@RadiationCurse: Not that expensive, really. If you've ever made a mob of slugga & choppa boyz, you should already have a bunch of leftover shootas. And that's really all you need, everything I've used apart from the Savage Orcs themselves are leftovers from the standard boyz sprue.

@Dez: I have considered using Forest goblins, but I'm not a big fan of the models. They're very static, and not nearly as characterful as the 40K Grots. The Spider riders are a bit better, but they all have riding legs, so then I'd have to use both Forest goblin and Spider rider parts, and THAT would be a bit too expensive...

@Brother SRM: Thanks! Well, I have a fluff reason they couldn't bring any Squiggoths - they had to buy the Battlewagon from their Evil Sunz allies to not to be late to the fight...

I love the look of these guys. I have two boxes of savage Orks waiting to be painted myself. Thank you for sharing, these are an inspiration. Keep up the good work!

Really nice stuff, always nice to see an army where not only has the painting been done very carefully, but the modelling aswell. Love the cheeky conversions from savage orks!

Oh I really like seeing this wild/feral/snakebite ork style, so underused!
Keep it up, looking forward to more

Those are amazing!

Totally awesome!
cant wait to see some of the world's best painted gretchin too!
beautiful work all round.

Thank you Cleatus, STG, Tobber1202 and thenoobbomb!

@theCrowe: World's best painted gretchin? Oh, I don't know if I can promise that. I'll do my best though.

I haven't had much hobby time lately, and I'm still on the fence on whether I make the grots into Snakebites or Evil Sunz. But it's leaning towards Evil Sunz at the moment - maybe there is a way to use those Spider riders anyway. The forest goblins have been taken OOP now, so I guess they're out of the equation.


Anyway, believe it or not, today marks the 16th anniversary of my Orks. I started my first real job on April 1st 2000, and to celebrate, I went to the GW store and bough a box of Ork boyz, a metal nob and a Wartrakk with the intention to start a brand new Ork army.

Now, an Ork army 16 years in the building might sound impressive, if it wasn't for the fact that I actually only painted a handful of boyz before putting them back in the box, and then leaving the hobby for 14 years. Work, parties, girls and eventually kids and mortgages kind of got in the way. But a couple of years ago, while on paternal leave with my second son, I figured that maybe it was time to start up the hobby again, and there they were - my Orks.



So I built a few more boyz, put a PK on the Nob, and got them a Trukk (because no self-respecting Evil Sun would go into battle without some kind of transport, right?).







So, basically this was the first mob I finished, about a year and a half ago now. Since then I've also finished a few Deffkoptas and a Tankbustas mob, in addition to my Wild boyz, and then there are all the building projects I started... Well, I'll post more about that later. This will have to do for now...

I've started painting "da Green Beast" as I've come to call it. The first thing I did was to try out the hair spray method on the reinforced ram. I sprayed it with a metal primer which I darkened with a few coats of Earthshade and Sepia. Then I sprayed a layer of Purity Seal, and on top of that a layer of hair spray. Then, when that was dry I painted Straken green over the hairspray, which I then scraped away using a moist drybrush. This was the first time I've used this method and apart from the horrible smell of the hairspray (that stuff is way more noxious than any paint or thinner I've ever used), it was fairly easy. However, in the end I decided that I'd rather strip the paint and start over again and try some regular spongeing instead. Mainly for two reasons (three if you count the smell); one, the contrast between the metal and the Straken green was not strong enough, and two, this method is probably better used on large, flat surfaces than the curved and rivet-filled Battlewagon ram.

It looks ok in the photo, but in reality the contrast was very weak and the results were rather meh. So, I've put it in a tub of liquid soap to strip it and start over again.



Anyway, I've started with the wagon proper, and man, do I wish I had an airbrush! Bristle-painting all the nooks and crannies on this thing is taking ages, especially as I need to do two coats to properly cover the primer. I've gone with Loren green instead in the hope that the darker color will contrast better with the metal I plan to use for show wear and tear. I will still use the Straken green for highlighting though. I thought this would be a rather quick job, but I realize now that this green beast is going to take a while to get done. It kind of makes me dread tackling the Stompa and the Kill Krusha tank I just managed to get my hands on...

I really like that Trukk. The Battlewagon is a huge kit. I tried scratch building one, and I'm pretty sure it has infinity bitz.
Keep at it, you'll get there. I haven't seen many green Ork vehicles (go figure). Will be interested to see how this turns out. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks, Cleatus! Yeah, I figured that if the Wildboyz got to decide the color of their ride, they'd make it green, like the great beasts back home. Plus, green is best!

Wow, just wow

Cool. The tribal Orks looks amazing! Keep up the great work!

EDC

Nice evil sunz. Looking forward to seeing more work done on that battlewagon.

Thank you JustALittleOrkish, evildrcheese and Warboss_Waaazag!

So the Big Mek and his painting grots have been busy with the Wildboyz' Battlewagon. Straight out of the Mekshop it looks a little like this. A light Earthshade wash, and some drybrushing with Straken green gives it a bit of depth.



But no Ork vehicle is going to stay in this pristine condition for long, so I did some sponging with Rhinox hide mixed with a few drops of black, and then added metal highlights with Leadbelcher to give the impression of chipped paint. Now it is starting to look like it's seen some action.



Next up is adding rust, and then dust and mud, at which point the main job is done and it's time to start with the detailing. This is certainly taking some time - I spent around 4 hours yesterday night on the sponging, and another 2 hours tonight on the metal highlights, but I'm taking my time and enjoying the process.

I'm painting the body, wheels, tracks, ram and turrets separately, but this is how it all looks at the moment when everything is kinda stuck together. I think it is coming along nicely, and more or less along the lines I imagined it. This is the first time I've tried sponging, and there are a few other techniques I'm going to try for the first time, so this is kind of about discovering new ways to paint for me. For example, in hindsight I think I might as well have skipped the Straken green drybrushing because it doesn't really show through the chipping, but there you go, you learn something new every time.

I love your green and white theme, it looks fantastic on the boyz, and looks fantastic on da wagon. Aside from the glyphs on the sides, are you going to do any more block sections of white? Perhaps some checks and dags? Waaagh on my friend!

Thanks Lorax! Well, I had originally thought about painting it a bit like the Wildboyz, with white painted "tatoos" on the hull, but then I came up with the idea with the shields instead. But now maybe it's a bit too plain on top, so maybe I'll add some warpaint there. I would have to redo the weathering on that area, but that should be easy enough.

These are looking great. I really like the stylistic, very fine highlighting on the Wildboyz, it looks absolutely fantastic.

Thank you, Hivefleet Oblivion!

Not much, but a little progress tonight. I made a rust wash by thinning down Skrag Brown with half water and half acrylic medium. I think it adds some depth to the green color. Maybe I overdid it a bit, but I plan to tone it down with some washes, the metal will get some highlights too, and then there's the dust as well, so I think it will look ok in the end. I tried doing a few warpaint things, but I'm not sure - they need to be weathered anyway, so I'll decide if I keep them or paint them over once I've done that.

The rust doesn't seem like it's too much at all. I'd leave it.

Oh yeah. Just look at that big green wagon, it's beautiful!

EDC

Love the look of the rust.