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Custom Gorkanout! @ 2020/10/25 22:52:26


Post by: Killatores




Since I saw the new bladeguard models, although I liked the idea and the mini, I knew I wanted to make a conversion of them. Looking at the stormcast models of age of sigmar they seemed to have the right dynamic poses and size, and I managed get a really cheap group of them in Ebay.


From there I heavily modified most of the mini, removing age of sigmar symbols, changing the neck area to accommodate bigger space marine head and removed the arms completely.
My initial plan was to use gravis helmets, or at least primaris intercessors or supressors, but all of them where way too big for the proportions of the mini. Helmetless primaris heads worked well, and a mixture of hellblaster helmets and other non-helmet heads worked quite well.
With blues stuff I made molds and I duplicated 2 sword arms (gravis captain and deathguard terminator). Same thing for the shields, which the Ebay bits only had one. Thanks to a forgeworld ultramarine door set I rescued from a second hand rhino, I made many pieces and experimented with different shield designs. Being able to make mods and modify the pieces even when not fully cured really shines here, making things that otherwhise would be almost impossible to do.
I used blue stuff for the molds, and milliput standard for bigger parts and green stuff for thinner bits. Milliput is a bit too brittle, but green stuff is a bit too flexible, but with a metal clip inside the swords it really works well. Is much more expensive than milliput though, so for some details I rather use the cheaper material, and be a bit more carefull when cleaning it and glueing it to the model.



The trickiest part of the build was to get the sword arms and shields in the right poses. I had to cut and ajust for almost an hour each to get them to fit correctly, and I am quite happy with the result. After getting that done, the rest was to apply imperial/ultramarine symbols, and make the minis a bit more techy, otherwise they look a bit like medieval knights. A pistol and granades on the belts worked quite well, for example.
There is a thin balance between too much details and too little for this type of elite unit, and I guess is down to preference.
I would love feedback on those minis to improve for future projects

On the tabletop I might used them as a Judiciar (sword on shoulder and Hourglass on shield guy), lieutenants or captains. Since the model is so converted it can´t be exactly determined as one or the other, so it works to represent both.
I've just started painting today with my terminators, and I hope to finished them before the end of the year (I am a slow painter). Painting might be difficult in some areas like between the shield and the body, which is something I though before building. The placement of the arms was quite complicated and I did not want to risk any gaps or miss-poses, so I will find my way around that issue with a pacient brush, and a "if you cant see it well, the detail does not matter that much" policy. I did manage to get a couple bits to detach correctly, and those are going to be much easier to paint separately (such as the shield of the guy with the plasma gun)

I made some turnaround videos but I do not know how to upload them easely here, specially without annoying external links. Any ideas?


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2020/10/26 00:32:49


Post by: bantha_beast


 Killatores wrote:


With blues stuff I made molds and I duplicated 2 sword arms (gravis captain and deathguard terminator). Same thing for the shields, which the Ebay bits only had one. Thanks to a forgeworld ultramarine door set I rescued from a second hand rhino, I made many pieces and experimented with different shield designs. Being able to make mods and modify the pieces even when not fully cured really shines here, making things that otherwhise would be almost impossible to do.
I used blue stuff for the molds, and milliput standard for bigger parts and green stuff for thinner bits. Milliput is a bit too brittle, but green stuff is a bit too flexible, but with a metal clip inside the swords it really works well. Is much more expensive than milliput though, so for some details I rather use the cheaper material, and be a bit more carefull when cleaning it and glueing it to the model.



The conversions have turned out quite nicely, especially the extra bits you've added. For future reference if you have green stuff and milliput you know they can also be mixed together? Cures hard like milliput but with a bit more flexibility, although it depends on how much of each you use.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2020/10/29 10:58:08


Post by: Killatores


Started painting process a couple days ago, and I wanted to do a dailysh update of the process.
I am also painting 20 terminators (10 normal + 5 TH and 5 LC), 3 terminator characters, and a dreadnough. 30 models in total, which is quite a chunk.

All of them except dreadnought

Custom made terminator chaplain. I do like the old and new minis, but they are quite expensive to get. I also wanted to make one of my own, so with using molds I made the necesary bits, and kitbashing a bit I got a nice result.


He gets on my terminator character line up, including a terminator librarian which I already painted months ago.




Thanks to my bluestuff cloning I managed to get a rounded number of terminators (I lacked 3 of them), and made a bunch of shoulder shields, shoulder pads, purity seals and other details to decorate the minis.
I never got around to finish this terminators since I had other projects. With the new codex, though, they seem to be a really good option to bring them on the tabletop and purge the enemies of humanity for good.
And yes, my thunderhammer are going to have a glowing lava effect on them, because that looks cool.





Automatically Appended Next Post:
Now for the dreadnought.
I had an old dreadnought painted but I was not happy with it. It looked alright for my 16 year old me, but 10 years later does not hold up that well. Paintjob was messy, the overall shape and pose relally standard, nothing too interesting about it. Thus, I remade it almost from the ground up, and I am pretty happy with it now.
The front of the torso have been completely redesign with a skull as a face, and the armor panels have much more interesing shapes than before.



Standing next to his brother:


I always hated the standard pose of the legs for dreadnoughts. It's a A"" pose which although gives some height to the mini, it makes it look super static. I personally much preffer to do a couple cuts on the knees, and give the legs a bit of a bend. This gives much more weight to this walking tank, and the overall pose is more dinamic than otherwhise. Also, you want to always magnetize the upper body and the arms, obviously.
Now I can swap the parts from one dreadnought to the other if I feel like it



Automatically Appended Next Post:
DAY 1:
Primed and black coat to the bases. really straight forward. Some old minis had already a decent base coat so I did not touch those that much.


DAY 2:
Greys. I like to do this first on the bases, so later when I clean up the blues I already have the base painted, which can get messy with the dry brush.
I did some wetblending on all the white areas and pre-coated the purity seals, so later coats of paint with less coverage have an easier time to get the color through. I do not know much of the wet blending will show throught the next step of white, but at least I have a decent base to start from. It is also a good oportunity to practice the technic without warying too much about the end result, and with this I have gotten a bit better at it, getting some creamy blends.


DAY 3
Golds! A ton of golds here, specially on the bladeguards. First layer was a copper color which has a lot of coverage, and the next one is a semi-dry brush of a brighter gold tone. This step took me a bit longer since although I am messy and going as fast as I can, there are a ton of details and fine lines to at least cover. I will need to have a couple days just for cleaning up the base coat after all the base colors are in, but is worth it!


DAY 4
Reds, browns and skin. Nothing fancy. Brown for some ammo patches and the faces, skin tone over that brown over the faces. My reds have terrible coverage, so I had to mix them with evil suns to get some color on the mini withough doing 5 layers on them. Thus, the capes look a bit brighter than they should, almost looking already at their maximun brightness, but I will turn down that later.


Since I finished a bit earlier, I did a quick test for the energy swords. Although I think my brush strokes need to be thinner (my white has terrible consistency), I think I got much closer to the result I want than in the past. Before I struggled a lot to differentiate the blue of the sword and the blue of the armor. This one has a much different look, and although it lacks some brightness, I believe I can sell it even more once I do object lighting on the mini and the base.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2020/11/03 22:43:06


Post by: Killatores


DAY 5
Still basecoat stuff, this time bone colours. I've been working on a couple other projects, so I slowed down a bit my painting progress. I'll get back to it soon, I really want to finish the base coat and give the first washes before the end of the week.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2020/11/03 23:47:59


Post by: Flinty


Looking good,.and well.done on keeping it all.going!

The self.cast stuff is blending in really well.



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2020/11/04 15:50:36


Post by: Killatores


 Flinty wrote:
Looking good,.and well.done on keeping it all.going!

The self.cast stuff is blending in really well.


Thanks!
Yeah, I am pretty happy with the results I got with my new mold method and materials.
I do have some pieces I made years ago that really don't match the same quality, but with the paintjob I expect it to make up for them.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2020/11/11 14:06:39


Post by: Killatores


Moar updates
Cleaned all the basecoat, did another pass on the greys-whites and bone parts


Good old washes.
Now the fun begins with all the wet blending, details, ilumination effects, highlights and finishing touches. Its going to take a while!



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2020/11/12 08:56:18


Post by: Killatores


Now the true fun begins! I generally find basecoating a bit tedious other than the choosing of the paint scheme/color design of the model. I see it as if it was a manual priming of the miniature before you start actually paining it.
I started with the blues. Only 2 minis of 30, but good progress.
I managed to reduce my blue wet blending to 1 step, instead of 2 that I was doing on the past, which cuts the work by more than half.
I did the most complicated model right at the start, the terminator Marneus Calgar, which is probably one of my favorite miniatures of the ultramarine range. It would be perfect if it was 20% bigger. I tried to do some non metalic metals on the blues. First attempt at this, not too bad, I'll bring up the contrast after applying decals and the highlightiing will help a lot to make the effect pop a bit more.
28 more models to go!






Custom Gorkanout! @ 2020/11/16 10:44:24


Post by: Killatores


More progress on the blues.
On Saturday I got the 10 standard terminators done, and then I noticed that the blue color I was using on the lighter tones is too vibrant compared to the other minis in my painted army.

Rant about the wrong blue
Spoiler:
The reason of why that happened is because I am using a new paint (electric blue-game color) for those lighter blues instead of the mix I used before (white+alaitoc blue- citadel). The first blue has much more saturation.
I bought this paint to do plasma and energy sword effects (flourecent green and yellow from the same brand gave me extremely good results), but it turned out to be less saturated and brighter than I expected, so I repurposed it to do my wet blending without mixing paints, thus having and easier time on my pallete and getting more consistent colours.
The difference was not noticable at first, but the more I look at it the clearer it became that I had to change it to suit the tone of the rest of the army. Looks good for characters, though, it gives a small extra punch to the blue that makes them stand out just enought.


Here you can see a comparison of the 2 tones. On the left, the more vibrant one, on the right, the one I use on my army. The mini on the middle is painted half in one color, half in the other, so its easier to see the difference. the light on the photo does not help that much to show the difference, but I think its noticeable enough.


I made a couple comparisons and I decided to re-paint my standard terminators lighter tones with the correct blue, and managed to finish the lighting claws termis as well.
I was hoping to finish the blues this weekend. This mistake cost me a day, but I learned to always double check the colour consistency when changing anything on the formulas.
Thunderhammer terminators started, but I hope to finish the blues of the batch in a couple more days.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2020/11/19 17:17:23


Post by: Killatores


A bit tired of so much blue, I made the energy weapons.

I went through some experimentation, but I didnt get a result I was happy with. This concpt art was part of my inspiration, specially the powerful feel and the brightness of the weapon, iluminatin the armour of the soldier.

My attempts, though, did not look that bright, and although some of them got that powerful feeling on the lighting effects, they where not quite right.


At the 4th try, thouhg, I got a base that worked much better.
I used the blue I was using as a midtone as the darkest tone, went to pure white for a good portion of the blade, and blend with fluorescent yellow.


I am quite happy with how the energy weapons look now. They do have a slight green tone to the blade which I am not completely keen on, but I think it achieves a nice effect. Blue plasma and blue armour does not make for nice contrasts, but this greenish color really stands out on the crowd. It also looks bright and somewhat powerful.


Compared to my first power sword painted, I think its a huge improvement. After finishing this project I will go back to a couple minis in my army that have energy weapons and paint them


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2020/11/19 17:52:46


Post by: Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll


Those power weapons really do look fantastic!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2020/11/19 21:59:51


Post by: Killatores


 Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll wrote:
Those power weapons really do look fantastic!

Thanks! Most of the credit goes to yellow fluorecent paint from game collor, it makes for some trully cool effects with little efford.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2020/11/19 23:06:50


Post by: Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll


If you're feeling up to it a little OSL from the blade would kick those up even a little bit further! They look so bright, my eye is expecting them to be shedding light


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2020/11/20 00:46:36


Post by: Killatores


 Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll wrote:
If you're feeling up to it a little OSL from the blade would kick those up even a little bit further! They look so bright, my eye is expecting them to be shedding light

Yeah, thats exactly my plan. First I want to finish the whole normal shading of the mini, and then do the OSL on top. I want it to be sublte but strong enough to show the brightness of the weapon.
I did some OST practice with a secret santa we did at work. I need to select the pics I made and made a propper post on miniature showcase.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2020/11/20 01:01:17


Post by: Argive


 Killatores wrote:
 Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll wrote:
If you're feeling up to it a little OSL from the blade would kick those up even a little bit further! They look so bright, my eye is expecting them to be shedding light

Yeah, thats exactly my plan. First I want to finish the whole normal shading of the mini, and then do the OSL on top. I want it to be sublte but strong enough to show the brightness of the weapon.
I did some OST practice with a secret santa we did at work. I need to select the pics I made and made a propper post on miniature showcase.


How did you do the green goo base on this?
Looks very vivid and toxic. I dig it. I like to use a lot of toxic themes on my bases so always looking for new knowledge .


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2020/11/20 08:51:04


Post by: Killatores



How did you do the green goo base on this?
Looks very vivid and toxic. I dig it. I like to use a lot of toxic themes on my bases so always looking for new knowledge .

The base was modeled with milliput, and the painting is many, many layers of Fluorescent green and some fluorescent yellow, both from game color. I'll do a post about this mini project once I have the time to sort out the pics I made before sending it.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2020/11/20 15:15:25


Post by: Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll


That's a very cool project, I can't wait to see your posts about it!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2020/11/23 11:11:37


Post by: Killatores


Blues finished!
Whites got another pass. Everythime I look at them I feel like they should be whiter, this is the 3rd time I have done a pass on them. Hope this one is the final one (that is what happends when you change formulas on batches of minis XD)
Started the golds. I'll do first the dark to midtones, and then do another pass of bright tones.
I have plans to add freehand symbols and little paintings, but that's going to get done after all the shading is done (except last black blaze), and before highlights.


In 20 days I am leaving the UK for a couple months for holidays, and I wanted to finish this batch before leaving. I dont think I'll be able to finish it, so I will need to wait to see them all finished.
While away, though, I want to paint at least 10 intercerssors, since my army is lacking a lot of troops after scouts where moved to elites.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2020/11/23 22:07:42


Post by: IGtR=


These guys look awesome with their blades - en masse the effect is most striking

Thanks for sharing!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2020/11/26 09:09:32


Post by: Killatores


First gold pass on all terminators.
I'll wait for the bladeguard, characters and dread after I finish the second pass to see exactly the end result before applying it to them. I expect it to work well based on my past experience, but after some time without doing it they might end up looking a bit too yellow and I would not like to repaint those bladeguard guys. Once the brighter yellos and whites get in the look changes quite a lot, but I might need to put some brown back in.



Also took a moment to think about the symbols, specifically Ultramarine right shoulder pads. My ultramarines have right white shoulder pads which makes decaling a bit annoying since there are no black squad markings, so I always need to either paint the decals black or hand draw them. Terminators have the Crux Terminatus on the shoulderpad that would normally have the chapter symbol though, so that complicate things a bit.
The ultramarine symbol is a bit extrange to freehand and get a good consistency from mini to mini: I always get the proportions differently. For terminators, though, the elite ancient status of the mini might justify the different shapes, and might give some personality to each guy, adding variation in an othewhise detailess area of the mini (almost all my Termi right shoulderpads have no features.). If there is any big group of minis I would do this to is my terminators, thus it might be my opportunity to learn freehand symbols to improve my painting skills for the rest of the army.

There are some options of non-white ultramarine symbol decals, and even the white ones would work since I did not do my shoulderpads that white this time, for better or worse.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2020/12/03 16:00:16


Post by: Killatores


Terminator golds done, just in need of white whilights, which would come with the edgehighliing pass over the whole mini. Also did the ultramarine symbols in the shoulder pads, most of them freehanded, some added by casted bits.

This is the difference between the first gold pass and the second. First I go from the base metalic cooper with a black wash to a yellow, and then on the 2nd pass brighten the yellow up to look more like gold.


Now, as a jump to another of my posts.
I tried to stay only painting until finishing this batch of minis, but I just have no self control XD. I enjoyed way to much the building of the converted bladeguard that I had to jump in to do a sternguard/veteran conversion.
If you are interested on cheking it out, please go here:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/794405.page#10999491



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2020/12/09 09:28:45


Post by: Killatores


Golds finished, at last.
On the edge highlighting stage they get the last pop in contrast and definition of the shapes, but so far quite happy with how they look.



I will be traveling back to spain at the end of the week and depening on my suitcase space I will be able to transport these minis with me to finish them off during Christmas. Otherwhise I would need to wait until I get back.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/01/24 22:10:45


Post by: Killatores


Hi, I have been away from the forum for a while, But since I was able to travel with my minis and paints, I managed to work on them
I took a break on posting since I was working on another project, but I got back to this batch and is getting quite close.

Did quite a lot of tweaks and minor passes, such as on the faces, improved thunderhammer look, general tweaks to shading and other areas before moving foward.
Next went all the decal and text work. Decals where quite interesting to do since I wanted some uniqueness to each mini. For the text I did black text with a permanent pen, and white text with a brush. I believe I could have got a better result on the black text using a brush as well, but the pen is so much faster and easier compared to the quality of the black paint I got. Texts is probably one of my worst skills and still have a ton to learn. I just simply cant get my head to write letters that do not look wonky, curved or badly proportioned, even with pen and paper!

Did a quick edge highlighting pass but I stoped after the first level since I realized that I had to paint the lenses before I did the highlights on the whites, thus, better do the lenses first.
Spent a day doing the lenses and eyes of the minis, quite fun aspect of the painting that brings some detail to the mini. Not the best at it, but I got a simple method that work well for what I need.
Some examples:











Automatically Appended Next Post:
After lenses I I moved to doing the edge highlighting of most of the mini, finishing with pure white on the corners and upper areas of blues, and specially golds.
the way I do NMN is not too good, but the white highlight at the end makes it look so much different, dont know why exactly. Just a small dot of white makes the whole thing look more gold-ish rather than yellow metal, probably due to the increased overall contrast and making the brown areas more obvious.











This is the stage I am at currently, quite happy with the progress. I would want to pay more atention to edge highlights and texts on the future, since those do not exactly look as I would like. I struggle doing thin controlled lines specially on flat surfaces, and text is just a skill that I do not have XD.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Things to do next in order:
- Highlights on the greens, including energy cables on thunder hammers.
- Bases
- Battle damage pass - mostly blue armour.
- Mud pass
- Object lighting of energy weapons <--- HUGE!

I believe I know how to do the object lighting thanks to a couple tests I have done. It should be pretty straight forward thanks to the fluorecense-type paints I am going to be using, which behave much more like a thick glaze rather than a paint. I hope this will make those energy weapons particularly impressive to see on the tabletop.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/01/25 14:22:03


Post by: Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll


Those are good lenses! This is a lot of models to have on the painting table at once, your pace is fantastic considering that!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/01/26 15:24:53


Post by: Killatores


Highlighting greens? Done
Not many greens to hightlight, just some leave crowns and power cables. The one that took a bit longer was the one on Calgar's shoulder.
It was a decal but it really did not look right as it was, so I painted over it free-hand usind the decal as a rough guide to end up with a much better result.


Bases? Done.. ish
Basically dry brushed and highlighting some of the stones and done some of the details on them. Nothing fancy, and probably some stuff left to be done on. Want to move on to more exiting stuff.

Battle damage? Done
Quick pass on all the minis filling any big space or interesting opportunities for a couple scratches. Not good at doing battle damage, but it looks decent enought to not make the minis look like its the first time they have seen battle.









Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mud pass ... ready?
This one is really simple but connects the mini to the base a bit and adds some reality to it. I'll do it as soon as I have a moment for it, maybe later today.

Object lighting: HUGE and scary.

I have only done this once with a test model and although the process semmed really easy thanks to the paints I was using (fluorecent green and yellow by Game Color, which work more as a dense glaze than normal paint), I really dont want to screw this one up XD. My idea is to do exacly the same process but with more yellow than green, obviously.
If you have any tips or recomendations I'll love to hear them before starting this in a couple days.

Here is the test mini I did some time ago.


I took some reference lighting photos that look quite interesting:





Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/01/27 13:20:46


Post by: Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll


Those reference lighting shots are really clever! I wish I had a light I could use to do that, it would be so helpful!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/01/27 23:15:45


Post by: gobert


As Gwyn says, great idea on the reference photos. I’ve very little OSL experience, certainly not on this scale, so can’t offer any advice. So good luck!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/01/28 15:12:15


Post by: Killatores


Any finally, the Object source lighting comes and... Im quite happy with the look on this first model
Wanted to get the look right first before doing it on everyone.



Most of the merit goes to the paints, fluorecent green and Yelow from Game Color.
They work more as a thick glaze, making the process white easy. You can paint with a lot of coverage in the areas you want, then with water smooth the edges a bit, and when it dries it turns down a lot allowing some transparency. 1 layer of green 70/30 paint/water, and one layer of yellow did the trick so far, although I might be adding some more yellow in some areas.

Something to note is that this paint gets more saturated the more light it hits it. With barely any light you barely can tell is there, but if you put a spot light on it it goes overdrive. In normal lighting conditions looks quite good, not as radioactive as with a flashlight on it, but no so turned down that you can barely spot it for a couple metters.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
So, did the rest of the guys.
As said above, process went quite smooth thanks to the paints. Still want to do tweaks to it, but overall quite nice.
I am planning to only use this for energy swords. I could use it for plasma weapons as well, since it solves a lot of the same issues (not having blue glow over blue armour, looking powerfull.. etc), but since combi-weapons are a thing, I really cant put that much glow on the minis that could have that plasma part changed for any other weapon. I could do the glow much smaller for those combi-plasmas, but I would need to experiment a bit with it.

Please give me your thoughts on it so I can improve this for the next miniatures.



Here some more close up photos of each mini with this effect. This pictures are made with a light quite close to the mini, so it looks really saturated. Normally would be around 25% more subtle:




























Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/01/28 15:35:09


Post by: Killatores


I'll be practicing thunder hammers next. The effect will be much smaller, and the paints I'll be using are quite different


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/01/28 16:10:31


Post by: Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll


Those are even better than I was hoping for! That's some fantastic OSL, I absolutely love that 1st Company look!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/01/30 11:09:52


Post by: gobert


They look great! The fluorescent paints seem to work really well for OSL. Does the glow of the paints last after they’ve been taken out of the light?


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/02/08 10:40:17


Post by: Killatores


So, pretty much done!
I'll be touching little details as I do a last look mini by mini before applying a varnish, and after that, some grass on the bases will finish these ones off.
I'll take proper pictures of the minis once I have finished them all off rand I am back at the UK with the rest of my army.






As one of the lasts things I went through the minis and added some eyes on them. Generally I dont paint them since there are quite closed to the point where I think they look even better without the pupils in, but I took some time with some of the more open eyes.I am not good at this and the results are not super amazing, but good enough that they might show during tabletop games.





Automatically Appended Next Post:
Pretty happy with the results. I learned a lot during this batch and I am looking foward to improve for the next ones.

Some thoughts:

Positives
- Conversions, cloned bits and custom minis worked amazingly. I need to make sure to have sharp edges where needed, but otherwhise the quality and look of the results is great. Many of the minis in this batch have several bits made out of cloned parts, and a couple minis are completely cloned and noone could tell judy by the quality of the mini.
- My bases although consistent, could have more interest, adding some 40k elements such as city ruins, concrete revarb, pipes or other urban elements. I did some of that in some of the minis, but they are still too much "stones with skulls" bases.
- Non metalic golds are great. Could be better in terms of smoothness, reflections and other advanced details, but the overall tone and look for the minis on the army hits the mark for me.
- Power swords look is spot on. Defenitely what I was looking for. OSL was amazing on the energy swords, all thanks to the paints I was using. On the thunder hammers it was much harder and I need to figure out the right consistency for glazing, since I struggle with leaving a mark on the edge of the painted area. The thunder hammer effect looks alright, with better OSL would look even better.
- First time free-handing stuff went alright. The ultramarine symbols look good for what they need to do, and the skull on my captain is not terrible, although it could have been much better with a different background, more color or some other motive, such as a sword, a fist or anything else the complement the main skull.

Negatives
- Battle damage could be better. I will practice a bit on other minis before doing it on marines since I think It does not look as good as it could yet.
- Blues are alright and smooth, but could have a bit more contrast. Since these minis are so dense with other details, is not such an issue, but on more "blue" minis I need to keep that in mind.
- Text do not look great. At a distance they might have a pass, but on close up they are pretty terrible, particularly big written words.
- My edge highlighting needs to be much more fine. I went a bit too wide in a lot of areas and it shows.
- Faces are alright, but should be much better. Since I have painted primarily space marines, skin is not something I have painted often and I lack practice.
- Decal work was fun and varied, but a bit annoying to work out on curved surfaces. Thanks good most of my shoulder pads where detailed with something else. I will definitely try out some decal products on the future. I have been avoiding them, but at this point I want to see how much of a difference they make.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/02/08 11:14:30


Post by: Killatores


MOVING ON!
(This is a post I started time ago but left it until I finished the previous batch, but I'll move it here to have everything in the same place.)

Next batch has half juicy minis, half normal minis.
10 sternguard converted from Age of Sigmar minis, 15 tactical marines (5 of them magnetized for special weapons/torso swaps) and 3 "assault inceptors".

Sternguard:
I had a blast conversiong bladeguards from stormcast miniatures and I just had to jump into making a sternguard unit. You can see the bladeguard conversion at the start of this blog.


For the sternguard I picked up 10 easy to build stormcast minis in Ebay, plus some shoulderpads and helmets from actual sternguard and got to build them.
My hole army is going to have primaris-sized infantry, but keeping first born elements. Not only it looks cooler and can make for some conversion work to make the minis more personal, it is also a way to use the same mini for multiple purposes.


Each of this pairs are made out of the same easy to build miniature. Was quite fun to come up with ways to make them look different. There was a particular harder one that had a female body, much thinner than the other, which needed a change on the upper body, and biggening of the legs and hips.



Last guy lacks the head of the thunderhammer since I still waiting for the bits to come through the mail :(

Some attention to the back of the minis too, having them packed with all the weapons they need to please the emperor. Backpacks, combi-weapons and bases are not glued for easier painting.


Since sternguard, sargents, etc get to use combiweapons, I got 6 of the minis equiped with a combi-weapon set up that can be swapped. This are converted intercessor bolter rifles, and I still need to add the magnets to in.
I have done this in a similar way for my tactical marines with special weapons, but with another method. That stops me from swaping special weapons from one unit to another, thus more work since I have to do 2 sets of special weapons, but it does have a better look on the completed mini.



BUT...
Something that might be noticeable when compared to my non-elite infantry is the size of the minis:
Sternguard left, Tactical marine-intercessor right. The sternguard are a bit bigger, but the most obvious difference is base size.


This could have some tabletop implications, but I believe it to be worth it. Here there is a comparison of squashed untis, and although there is a difference, dont think would be a problem outisde of tournament competitive matches. On the positive side, though, not obly makes the mini look so much better, but it also fits if I want to use them as characters, such as captains, luitenants, or even sargents.


Side note
Looking back I am quite happy with how I am progressing on the hobbie. Almost 10 years ago I builded the right mini as a captain (not painted), and It gets smashed by the new version

Same goes for painting. Left my first ultramarine ever painted, right a bellow average intercessor I painted a couple years ago:



Automatically Appended Next Post:

While in a pause on the previous batch I managed to get the base color and wash for this next batch. Is a nice change of rithm that helps me keep focus and motivation.







A note about the assault inceptors. This is obviously a miniature that does not exist on the tabletop, thust a conversion I will be using in the tabletop for different roles.
The main one could be vanguard veterans (I'll convert 2 more with lighting claws, probably), but they can also work as captains, sargents forjumpack units or other characters
A more complete post about the conversion here:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/789508.page#10843714



Automatically Appended Next Post:
A note about the tactical marines.
These are, as shows, intercessors with a different helmet, and some light conversions to make them a bit more unique.

I always looked at the art of tactical space marines and compared to the minis, they looked out of proportion. After a couple tests I decided to make my hole army's first born marines with primaris bodies. (some exceptions, such as pilots in landspeeders)
First of all, this looks soo much better. Second, it cuts in amount of work and storage. Now, instead of a unit of tactical marines and an unit of intercessors, I just use the same minis for whatever I need in the tabletop.

Comparison of old marines vs new marines:



Just as a show, this is how different some units can look with conversions:


Furthermore, I decided to magnetize most of the special weapon carriers so they can be swapped. Devastators are a clear example for this. If I need more minis on the table, I can make more magnetized legs to keep up with the upper body options.

The results are pretty seamless, and the magnets so strong that you cant separate the 2 parts by accident when playing:

A small issue with this strategy is that elements in the mini that go from the upper body to the lower body need to either match with all legs, or cant be there at all. This is a small handicap though, particularly with infantry with not as much level of decoration as these.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Finished the weekend painting the blue shading on 10 guys, 5 per day. I take around an hour/hour and a half each, but once the blue is done, 90% of the shading is done!


I'll see if I can finish up all the blues before 2 weeks time (Pretty busy between the week).


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/02/08 14:31:57


Post by: Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll


What an update! Everything looks fantastic so far. The Inceptor idea is a great idea for making Jump characters, I might steal that. Especially since if you run squads of 5 Inceptors, that leaves you with a spare inceptor for every squad of 5.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/02/08 15:16:27


Post by: Killatores




Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll wrote:
What an update! Everything looks fantastic so far. The Inceptor idea is a great idea for making Jump characters, I might steal that.

If you want to try it out, make sure to glue the jetpack to the front half of the torso with a bit of an angle to give more space to the helmet area if you want it to look like in these conversions. It just happends to connect really well with the easy to buil
 Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll wrote:
Especially since if you run squads of 5 Inceptors, that leaves you with a spare inceptor for every squad of 5.

That was my first idea XD I just wanted to make a smash captain, but in ebay it was so much cheaper to get 3 inceptors than just 1 in the sprue. When I got them, I just converted all of them, the 2 "unwanted" ones as body guards or something (originally I had them planned for a 5 man squad of inceptors), and now I am planning on doing another 3 to complete a 5 man vanguard squad + captain
d ones, don't know how much you would need to change on the complete kit.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/02/18 22:00:02


Post by: Killatores


Cant paint that much now with work, exercice and having games over tabletop simulator on the weekends, but here is some progress.
Blues done!


Also, some white and red shading on the basic infantry, since I couldn't stop myself from trying out the latest addition to my hobbie tricks...

Micro set and micro sol, for decals.
Probably I am super late to the party, but up until now I have always applied my decals with water, and cutting them down a lot just to achieve a result that is not absolute crap, particularly on rounded surfaces such as marine shoulderpads.
I never used decals before since you could see the different shine between paint and decal. Then I learn that with varnish you solve that. Then I learned that a glaze over the decal, specially white ones, integrates them into the mini way more than left alone. And now I tried this products, which I was really skeptical about it... but I cant recommend them enough.
If you are on the verge of trying them out, particularly if you struggle with rounded surfaces and your decals, just buy them.

The results are surprisingly good, having a perfect application first try, particularly with these decals that I would have never been able with a good finish with my previous method. And I just ended up doing some more for the fun of it.


Next stop, gold non metalic metal, finish all the whites and all the reds, specially on the sternguard veterans.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Little side project:
Since I am staying in Spain for a couple more months (Covid in the UK is getting worse), I took a look on how many minis left I have to paint before buing more (my collection is in the UK and I just brought what I though I was going to be able to paint).
The remaining minis are some orks, the first guys from my on-building and not-painted ork army.
For a while I have had a good idea of how I want them to look like (evil sunzs, got a full library of reference images for them).
On the modeling side I want to put some conversion on most of the minis of the army (I have some crazy ideas for when I come back), as well as muzzle flashes, explosions, smoke and other special effects to bring more craziness and interest to the minis, as if they where in the middle of the action.

Color scheme reference for all the infantry, with some more vibrant greens on the skin, maybe.


I started to flesh out some of the basic color scheme with some grots and orks. Base color + wash for now.
You can see in the top left a gretching skin painted with really vibrant greens (using the same fluorecent color I used for the energy swords), but I do not like it. Thus, after watching some tutorials with the results I want, I ordered a couple proper ork green paints, and as soon as I get them I will be trying recipes out.
Coming out with the right color scheme and recipes for the first minis of an army is a cool part of the process, and I learn a lot experimenting outside of my comfort zone.
Admittedly my ork army is going to be more a fun modeling and quick painting projects rather than what I am doing with my marines, where I try to put as much efford as my mental healt allows, but I still want to make them look cool on the tabletop, with some extra effort on center-pieces and characters.

Big fan of the grot with the explosion on his base, you can almost hear him screaming like a mad squig.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/02/20 19:54:27


Post by: gobert


Hmm, I might have to shell out for some micro sol/set, I’ve heard others extoll it’s virtues. As for the Orks, I really love the vibrant skinned grot, but then I finish the highlight on my works with yellow, so that’s probably why! Good luck getting through the minis you have with you


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/03/02 11:43:44


Post by: Killatores


Moar stuff!

Managed to get through a bunch of things this weekend and last week. Did all the non metalic metal golds, shaded the reds and whites, did all the lenses and gems, texts and scrolls and applied all the decals.
Some of these details might look a bit off right now, but with the black glaze over decals and the highlighting, particularly around the eyes, will fix most mistakes, and give more definition to the shapes, and some extra punch to the golds.

Decals
Decals were super fun to work with with the micro set and sol, specially on rounded surfaces, which I had a bunch. Having a bood library of decals makes combining them quite cool, and I am even interested on making my own ones with a printer or something. I need to look into it.
For the squad markings, since I did not had black decals, I placed the white ones as a guide, and then "free-hand" over them with black to get the desired result.

Variation
Something I would mention is that the basic troops are generally one of the first units to paint on your army and because of that sometimes can be a bit too vanilla (unless you know what you are going to be doing from the very start). My ultramarines started quite "by the book", but I have been adding some elements that now make them a bit more distinct, and I am quite happy with how unique this troops look now. Some small conversions and adding variation on the decoration of the armour while painting really makes a difference

Texts?
Until now, for the texts I was using a permanent pen. It was really consistent on the results, fast and easy to work with, but it lacked a bit on getting a really fine line and making the lines with more variation to simulate texts. It also was terrible for free-handing anything. Thus, I tried to use the brush this time, and I am really happy with the result so far. I did it instead with a fine tip, with a flatten tip that made the lines on its own, controlling a bit where the contact was made to get different lines of text.
I also gave it a go with free-hand small text. Most of the time it did not work that well, but it's going to be something I'll work on.






What is next?
Shading only needs the light black glaze over the decals and lower legs to finish that cenital lighting and merging it all together. then the bases, which should be quite fast to paint, and the is off to highlighting, battle damage and weathering, finishing touches and done!
Quite exited to see this ones finished, my army has lacked its basic troops since scouts were moved to elites, and I quite happy with the look of this tactical marines, which I use in all TTS matches now.
The sternguard is a favorite unit of mine and it was a conversion project that worked amazingly well. The assault intercessors/captains/vanguard veterans are a great addition that started as a conversion idea, and now might show in some of my games once I have the squad completed when I get around to get the extra 3 I need.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Super quick update on the orks
New green color paints arrived and I did a quick test.
On the photo it looks a bit different from how it looks in person, but there is quite an improvement with the new recipe. More natural, the green, grounds, red and purple colors blend together quite well even though I am doing layering( from a 6 inches away it looks quite smooth), and it takes around 15 mins per mini to do all the shading on the skin, when I am being careful and slow, which is quite acceptable.
I am going to be testing a bit more, adding more tonal variation and detals on the reds and purples, but this is exacly what I was looking for to do my ork skins.

The green paints are Moot Green and Elysian green from citadel.

On the right, grethcing the the previous colors, on the left, grething with the new colors. Both orks have the new method, although one has lighter areas than the other.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/03/02 13:11:26


Post by: Warboss_Waaazag


Beautiful ultramarines! Nice, crisp, practically glowing Grots. I like the yellow/red hair blend. I find, with my own Orks, that inconsistency is the best kind of consistency. Variety is good.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/03/02 16:18:43


Post by: Killatores


 gobert wrote:
As for the Orks, I really love the vibrant skinned grot, but then I finish the highlight on my works with yellow, so that’s probably why!

Yeah, thanks. I will try to add more yellow to the sking on the lighter areas. Currently I am using bone and might not have as much punch as it could, or maybe mixed with a bit of white it would get the right in-between.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Warboss_Waaazag wrote:
Beautiful ultramarines! Nice, crisp, practically glowing Grots. I like the yellow/red hair blend. I find, with my own Orks, that inconsistency is the best kind of consistency. Variety is good.

Thanks! Yeah, I am planning to purposely add inconsistency on the skin of the orks (some darker or even close to brown, some greener, some with spots...), both for variety and for "lore", since "the greener the meaner".
First I want to hit a base that I am happy with and then diverge from it without making the minis look like they are out of style from eachother.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/03/02 20:23:03


Post by: gobert


Cool idea on the varying skin tones of the Orks, the bright base will be a good starting point too.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/03/03 22:02:47


Post by: IGtR=


Ork skin looks fantastic, and very vibrant

Thanks for sharing


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/03/05 12:27:30


Post by: Killatores


Dadas las respuestas respecto a la piel de los orkos, he acabado la piel de los grething.
Espero acabarlos este fin de semana en algun tiempo muerto, y asi tener la primera unidad del ejercito acabada!
Les faltan unos toques a los rojos, amarillos, negros y metales, y luego hacer las bases.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/03/09 11:56:41


Post by: Killatores


Adding more okry stuff.
Basically made some mixes with the greens and bone paints I got to make 2 or 3 different skin tones for the orks. I will be probably adding more variations as long as they look okay all together from a far.
Painting those guys is super fast compared to the ultramarines, so I get to experiment more.
I will be working on finishing the reds and yellows, but do not expect wet blending everywhere as I do with the marines.
I need to come up with a decent basing painting strategy. I want it too look like orange-yellow-pale desert without expending too much time on them.






Automatically Appended Next Post:
Quick ultramarine update:
Edge highlights level 2. Did level 1 for 10 guys, level 2 for 5 guys. I hope to finish all the edge highlighlights this week, and get ready for weathering and finishing the minis soon.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/03/11 22:07:34


Post by: Killatores


Blue edge highlighs level 1 and 2 done. I will be doing level 3 and 4 (pure white) on the following days, hopefully also highlighting all white and golds.
Next would be small edge highlights on all other colors before moving into weathering. Its getting close to done!



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/03/12 21:40:49


Post by: Killatores


Well, this is the day we all have waited for: First batch finished!
Yeah, the terminator one, the one that I left to varnish and add the grass but never got around to do it.

Not too much to explain here, mostly eye candy. I just got too evolved on the new projects to completely finish the previous one. I took some nice pictures with my father's phone camera, so the quality this time should be as good as I can get it to be. Mostly general shots, not many close ups.
I had some of these terminators in a box for years and now I am glad to see it all finished and well varnished to jump into the tabletop when we get the chance to do it.
I think the painting quality could be a bit better, particularly on cleaning up some details, but as big group of minis to play with and not just for display, I am really happy on how they will pick up the attention of anyone at the other side of the table.

Hope you like them!




Some pics of the squads too

















Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/03/13 14:43:43


Post by: Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll


Absolutely gorgeous. Is that runneable as one super tough heavily armoured army?


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/03/14 10:39:18


Post by: Killatores


 Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll wrote:
Absolutely gorgeous. Is that runneable as one super tough heavily armoured army?


Cheers!
On its own it would be a legal 1500 CP heavy army (needs 2 vanguard detachments), which would probably a ton of fun to play on the tabletop.
With some additions to get to the 2000 points (aphotecary specially), a couple changes and tweaks see some good play.
When I finish the batch I am currently painting I can make a 2000p force that is a bit more balanced

This ones is what I have painted back in the UK

And there are reinfercements yet to get painted when I get back. This was my army as I begun painting a couple years ago. More than half if it has been take care of already!



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/03/20 15:15:21


Post by: Killatores


Second batch finished!
You know the drill: Edge highlitghts, battle damage and mud, tweaks and bases.
The overall quality of this batch was a bit less demanding compared to the previous one, but still happy to get through it with this results. Sternguard could look a bit better, but I am terrible at painting white. I do like the tactical marines, thoguh, getting some uniqueness to each mini both by small conversions and paint job.
I will definitely be using this troops a lot on my games.

Some eye candy pics:














With that, in about 4 months, I got builded, converted and painted over 2000 points of marines that join the ranks of my army, thinning the amount left to do.
I have a few more projects for my ultras
- Paint Devastators and hellblasters,
- Get some primaris dreadnoughts
- Finish my bikes,
- 4 vehicle full magnetization and conversions +landraider
- Finish vanguard squad
- assault intercessors
- Heavy intercessors/erradicators

This are all the marine minis I got with me, so more ultras updates will need to wait until I go back to the UK. I'll be painting some orks (got 40 +20 gretching with me now), but I will soon need to either get more or do a quick trip to the UK.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/03/21 01:00:23


Post by: gobert


Fantastic work as ever. The quality that you knock out at such a high rate is amazing. How many hours a week do you spend painting them? The reds on this latest batch are great, they have a very regal look, what paints did you use? The Orks won’t take long at your current pace, but hopefully travel becomes easier to allow you to collect more of your minis


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/03/21 10:00:16


Post by: Killatores


 gobert wrote:
Fantastic work as ever. The quality that you knock out at such a high rate is amazing. How many hours a week do you spend painting them? The reds on this latest batch are great, they have a very regal look, what paints did you use? The Orks won’t take long at your current pace, but hopefully travel becomes easier to allow you to collect more of your minis

Thanks!
I generally spend an hour a day 3 times during the week, and some weekends maybe 3-4 hours on the morning or evening, depends on what's on my timetable. Since I paint in batches, I can measure how long a particular step takes for mini and maybe squeeze a couple between one work and gym. It might not work for everyone, but since there is not that much decision making for most of the steps, I can just listen a potcast or some youtube while painting and blast on.
Reds were made with a blend between mechrite red and evils sunz scarlet, although there are some black blazes in the mix too. I find a bit hard to get a nice edgehighlights for reds. You generally get a shy pink or an orange, which is not necesarely what I preffer for this ultras.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/03/21 13:55:52


Post by: Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll


This really is one of the best armies that I've seen put together in such quick order. There's not a single half-assed unit in the army!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/03/22 21:11:58


Post by: Killatores


 Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll wrote:
This really is one of the best armies that I've seen put together in such quick order. There's not a single half-assed unit in the army!

Thanks, glad you like it


Automatically Appended Next Post:
No marines left! Running short on models, but still have 40 orks and around 20 gretching to work with.

My orks are going to be much faster to paint since I am looking for a more functional yet pleasing result rather than go for my best with every miniature. I will still put more time on some key units, but I will be focusing more on conversion and effective painting rather than

Already started some of them to find the receipt to use for the basic infantry, and I am quite happy with this first exploration. Still need to do more experiments, but looking good so far.
Skins are looking alright, explosions and muzzle flashes look decent, did some edge highlighting on the reds with oranges and yellows which looks pretty cool, and I like the overall color balance of the basic boyz.
I am mostly troubled by the bases. I did 3 versions (redish, light brown and grey stone), and so far I am not exacly decided. I believe I would like desert light brown/bone color, or red/orange dust. Suggetions and tutorials are welcomed, specially easy and fast ways to do them.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/03/28 09:34:59


Post by: Killatores


Quick update:
3rd placement for my bladeguard veterans on a painting contest organized by Wargames Castellano, a spanish warhammer discord group that I joinded some time ago. Great comunity to share painting, play games and discuss miniwargaming. I remecomend any spanish speakers to check it out!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/03/28 12:48:45


Post by: The Riddle of Steel


Nice work on the Orks. I like the variety of skin tones. It is of course more realistic but it can be hard to take the time when you are trying to paint huge mobs. The muzzle flares turned out nicely as well. Very fun and Orky. I can practically smell the dakka!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/04/10 20:28:36


Post by: IGtR=


I know I am a bit late, but awesome job on the ultras. Such a crazy army, and in such a short amount of time!

Thanks for sharing


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/04/17 20:17:06


Post by: Killatores


Quick update.
Today I sit down and painted on a flash a couple of flashkids I had around (I'll need them for kill team games with a friend). It seems that when I am an not painting 50 mins at once I can get stuff done quite quickly!
Quality of the paintjob is not amazing, but good enough so it looks flashy on the table



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/04/18 10:38:31


Post by: gobert


Those two are certainly flashy! They really live up to their reputation


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/04/18 17:57:51


Post by: IGtR=


Very flash, and always good to have a change of pace after a big project


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/05/09 19:47:59


Post by: Killatores


I'll be going back the UK by the end of the month, back to my pile of unfinished miniatures and half-done projects. really exited for the new ork codex, and that will probably have an impact on what I will be building and painting soon.
With the lastests ork news I got myself some time to continue with the ork boyz that I got with me. Base coat, washes and first pass of cleaning of the skin. I do not want to put too much time on the basic troops (compared to my ultramarines), and but the skin is probably the most important to make look decent.
Same method as before for the base, (flat gree, brown wash and purple wash with some skin tones on elbows, lips and knuckles), and now I will be building up 3 or 4 fast layering layers on top to give contrast.
I will be experimenting a bit with the reds and yellows to see if I can get away with some quick blends to make them look better. Really happy with the result on the flaskids and I want to use the same quick tricks on the rest of the troops.



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/05/10 13:25:14


Post by: IGtR=


Orks are looking good. You are right to try and limit your painting to 'nice contrast' rather than your best work, as you can end up completely burnt out.

But then, given your prodigious work on the ultras, it is clear you can work to such a high level across a whole army, so I would love to see such work! These guys are looking well on the way to looking on the much snazzier side for orks

Thanks for sharing


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/05/10 20:22:37


Post by: Killatores


Commented this previously but finally got the "official" diploma on the 3rd place in a painting contest with some of my ultras, organized by Wargames Castellano, a spanish speaking Discord miniatures channel.
A lot of nice entries and fun pieces of work there, check them out if interested



Automatically Appended Next Post:
 IGtR= wrote:
Orks are looking good. You are right to try and limit your painting to 'nice contrast' rather than your best work, as you can end up completely burnt out.

But then, given your prodigious work on the ultras, it is clear you can work to such a high level across a whole army, so I would love to see such work! These guys are looking well on the way to looking on the much snazzier side for orks

Thanks for sharing

Yeah, thanks!
My minimum bar for the orks is going to be the one I set with the flashkids. After the base coat and washes on the Boyz is time to make them look nice rather than just fill out the colors on the right places.
The center pieces of the army are going to be my main focus painting whise, and I have plans for some nice conversions everywhere. You might be able to spot some basic ones on those orks, half of them coming from fantasy miniatures.

Vehicles and some of the monsters are the ones I will focus the most on. I am a bit unexperienced with bigger models since my ultras are mostly infantry, but I will try to learn as I go. Thinking about getting an airbrush.
Any recomendations?


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/05/13 06:23:01


Post by: osjclatchford


this whole thread is bursting with all kinds of awesome!
thanks for putting me onto this.
your termies have so much energy in them. real action packed!
the stormcast hybrids are a thing of beauty. seamless conversions that look like official gw kits (well more like something fw would have designed.) I love that they have the knightly prescence of bladeguard but with the roman influences of ultramar!
painting it tip-top too!
more please


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/05/14 14:17:28


Post by: Killatores


 osjclatchford wrote:
this whole thread is bursting with all kinds of awesome!
thanks for putting me onto this.
your termies have so much energy in them. real action packed!
the stormcast hybrids are a thing of beauty. seamless conversions that look like official gw kits (well more like something fw would have designed.) I love that they have the knightly prescence of bladeguard but with the roman influences of ultramar!
painting it tip-top too!
more please

Thanks man, glad you enjoy it, and hope you don't mind if I take inspiration from your work on future projects as well
I am looking forward to keep working on a bunch of things when I go back to the UK in a couple of weeks. The new Ork Codex might decide where I start, although I also have some infantry units and vehicle projects coming for the marines.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/05/30 19:17:02


Post by: Killatores


Back to the Uk and exited to get planned and new projects going!

First of all, a big issue I had with my hobbie on my flat on the UK is that I did not have any dedicated space for it, although I was dedicating a ton of time for it. So, some re-structure of the furniture and now I got at least a table close to my working desk fully dedicated to building and painting models. I used for eating or sititng down and talking with friends before, but due to the current situation of the worl, that has not happened for a while so at least I make good use of the space.
If you look at all the early photos in this blog you can see how little space I had before, litteraly wrestling my computer screens and the edge of my working table to manage to get stuff done.
Is nothing fancy, but makes a big difference. I'll try to get some drawers and stands to keep my paints, tools and others organized and clean too.


The second big thing is storage for my miniatures.
Cardboard boxes with bubble wrap is free and userfull, foam miniature carriers are great to transport your army safer, but none of them are practical to get your models accessible and stored in your house. Sometimes you just want to look at them, and if you have to spend 20 minutes looking for them and playing tetris to get everything back to what it was... its just so unpractical.
Thus, I ordered some plastic big boxes and magnets, and I'll be oranizing everything in a much neat way. I have seen a ton of recommendations for this method and It's probably exactly what I need, both for storage and accesibility for both WIP and finished minis.
Minewhile, though, I had to unpack everything from under the sofa and bed to start planning what will go where while the order arribes


Now for the miniatures! I took these photos and sit down to write this update because I literally run out of glue, I have no safe gloves for my putties, and the orders I need to keep doing storage stuff have not arrived.
I'll be doing a bunch of building after such a long time just painting minis.

Quick update on my devastators, I builded some more getting up to 12 (10 new and 2 already painted).
I am particularly happy of this solution to mass infantry weapon specialist minis, since you'll rarely have that many of them at once at the table, but you want to have then for your list building.
Magnetizing at the hips opens up a lot of options, and if you need more, you can add more legs, or add more upper torsos to the mix.

By the way, the only acceptable way to build Hellblasters is with the heavy version. I really dislike the dark imperium models where its just an intercessors with a different rifle. And apparently everyone uses these ugly ones. Give them some love, please!

On a last note.. it's me or gluing devastator weapons is the most fustrating thing ever? It looks so simple, but unless you leave them to dry for a while, the glue keeps failing over and over untill you have both arms, torso and backpack on place. The conversions here are super basic to stay in line with my "everything have primaris bodies now" marines, I'll probably add some minor details later.



A little more marines come from my vanguard veterans. Some of you might remember me converting some inceptors, and now I will be finishing at least one squad... or maybe two, depending on how fun of the basic inceptors I am. Barely worked on this due to running out of glue, but I hope the news are exiting XD


On some more exiting news, blood bowl models look awesome!
I have played the PC game 1 and 2 a bit, and I was looking at the black orc miniatures.. and they look like they would be awesome nob conversions. They look chunky af, and with some 40k bits they might be some of the coolest of the boyz.
I have not seen conversions using these models before, if anyone has seen them please send some links to check them out.
You can see here a comparison with some of my really old nob models. The nob box is great due to most of the bits being awesome, except for the bodies, which are as borring as they could be. The dynamic poses and proportions of the BB black orks is really tempting me to buy 30 of them xD


Now the elephant in the room. Well, the 3 of them!
What you can see creeping into the previous pics are 3 home made redemptor dreadnoughts. Those come from a tabletop simulator list that I played for fun with a friend, which ended up being really fun and powerfull to play. I've been making the bits for a couple months and now in the UK I have builded the models, now just lacking decoration and basing.
Due to the structure, weight and massive size I have drilled holes on the legs and added steal rods to reinforce them, and now they seem rock solid. Having 3 of them also allows me to get some variation on the poses, and different decorations to each one. I dislike the vanilla version since its so basic on terms of detail and posing, and wanted to do something a bit different.
Maybe in the future I make a character-like one with a more impressive and over-the-top pose and decoration.



And finally, talking about big home-made minis coming from random tabletop games, here is a whild one: 2 squiggoths on the making!
I am trying to wait on doing any ork stuff since I first want to see what the new ork codex brigns, but these 2 seem like amazing building projects. I made a list using 2 squiggoth carrying flaskids (another of my favorite units in the ork roster), and it was both fun and exiting.

The big issue is that the GW models have great detail, but the pose is as boring as it could be. 3rd parties or ForgeWorld not necesarely offer a better solution. And all of them are expensive af. Looking at the models , I though to myself... Ez, I can do that myself!
So I managed to get 2 3D printed gigant squig heads that will be the start of the miniature, and from there I will model the underbody and legs, and build the castle on top, with as much orkyness as I can.
This is not going to be a fast to complete project (I have not even starting ordering the bases for the finished mini, the milliput or all the plasticard), but I just wanted to announce it so you keep checking the updates on it
I have a lot of ideas and it will need a lot of exerimentation, but hopefully it will be well worth!



As a final note, I also have space marine tank magnetization and conversions, ork vehicle scratch building and ork infantry standarization projects ,but those will come on a later date.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/05/30 19:51:23


Post by: gobert


Looks like you have plenty to keep yourself busy. Did you bring back all of the stuff you painted in Spain? The Squigoth builds sound cool, what sort of pose do you plan to give them?


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/05/30 20:33:51


Post by: Killatores


 gobert wrote:
Looks like you have plenty to keep yourself busy. Did you bring back all of the stuff you painted in Spain? The Squigoth builds sound cool, what sort of pose do you plan to give them?

Yeah, got everything with me. I'll be doing some whole army photos and show the progress from last year to now, as well as an "inventory" of what I've got with marines and orks to organize myself moving foward. I got a bunch of ideas for both, although marines are going to be more aimed to completing the army, while orks will depend more on the up-comming codex.

For the squiggoth poses I will try to do a couple of drawings to visualize it better. (or maybe 3D poses if I find a good skeleton for to represent the right proportions), but basically the one with the mouth open will be widely charging forward, fast and furious style, with a bunch of orks excited for the impact on top of him. The other one will be walking foward, with the crew having a hard time making him follow instructions, or doing repairs on the armour. Some orks shooting guns and looking thought holes on the weapon ports, maybe a fun mini-scene here and there.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Quick first sketch idea of the charging Squiggoth. I am not the best artist, but I belive it gives an idea of what I am going for. I'll do another one for the 2nd squiggoth tomorrow.
Details and scale may vary when I make the actual model. I want to keep the size of the model relatively accurate to the official one and I depend a bit on the bits and my ability actually pull it off. I have never donr a model like that, so this will be a fun experiment. What are your thoughts?



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/05/31 08:57:50


Post by: gobert


Wow! That looks really cool, hopefully you manage to pull it off ok. It certainly looks a lot more dynamic than the bought squiggoths


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/05/31 14:11:28


Post by: Killatores


First sketch concept idea of the squiggoths done.

One is going to be charging wildly into the enemy, with a bunch of orks exited for the imapact. Focus on the energy and dynamic pose.
The second one will be walking forward with a more annoyed attitude, with 3 or 4 mini-scenes hapening around the model. More artillery and a more creactive design to the castle on top of the creature.
I will aim to hit a similar size to the GW model. The overall proportions might need to change from the drawing to the actual model, and a lot of the detail will depend on what bits I got and how well I can model it.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Had some free time and expanded a little bit on the squiggoth sketches.
I have a bunch of ideas and my google image search is crazy right now, but my main concern is getting the size right. It does not matter how good the ideas are if they cant fit, are too big or too small, or the proportions are all wrong.
So, I took some measurements and applied them in a scale image referencing some bits, and the drawings I did.
I am happy to see that the drawins could fit quite well inside of the size of the miniature. By eye I got the size of the head in comparison with the body roughly right, only the walking squiggoth having a head a bit too big in the drawing. I will probably add armor pieces, so the character of the proportions will remain the same as in the drawing.

The big issue is the castle and the crew. In my sketches I made them supper tiny, and will need adjustments when I get to make the miniature. I could swap the orks for grots in a lot of places, but what is clear is that castle is much smaller than I though.

This is admitedly some of the boring aspect of a project like this, but as the saying says "if you have an hour to cut down a tree, spend 45 minutes sharpening your axe".
Now that I have a base of the mesurements and a way to reference my ideas and the bits I will be using, I can make separate pieces here and there and try out ideas without completely starting to make the model itself.

If anyone is interested, the base size will be a 170x105mm oval base, and the size of the miniature is around 6' long, 3,5' wide and 4,5' tall, according to reddit. These mesurements seem right, a bit larger than a rhino.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Started shaping some of the pose with Aluminium Foil... until I ran out of it. again. Respecting quarentine is leaving me like angry Pingu's meme XD

I had it in my kitchen unused since the dawn of time, so I put it to use somehow.
I have no idea of what I am doing, basically adding parts to get the shape I want. Now waiting for some paper glue to hardern to keep the thing together a bit more.

My plan is to get to a decent shape, and then add a layer of milliput on top of it, and then sculp on top of that base, basically reducing the amount of milliput and weight of the miniature.
I am also thinking of doing something with Papier-mâché. I remember just mixing paper glue and water, soaking newspaper sheets and letting them rest to get a hardened result by the end, and that worked quite well for the scale I need of the base before sculping any details.

I have not done this before, so anyone that could give me some tips or reference videos would help a lot

Got some pics to show. I am using my drawings as a reference and I got them in real size in my screen, so that should be roughtly correct to the overall size of the miniature.
Charging one got to a decent state.




Walking one run out of foil, so it's much thinner for now, but I will bulk it up once I get more material to work with.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/06/01 20:11:48


Post by: Killatores


Its working!
I've been watching some videos of sculping and I bought some sculping clay that hardens in the oven.
In the mine time, though, I got my superglue back and tried a trick I have used a lot on my modeling: Toilet paper + superglue = awesome
Placing a piece of toilet paper and then soaking it with with drops of superglue, once harden, results on a really thin plastic layer that is both light an really strong. Surprisingly strong.
I have use that in the past to fill gaps, create irregular terrain, make some cloth or banners. I would not recommend leave it raw since the texture of the toilet paper does not look good at all in most cases, and it can be really easy to tell what material you used, breaking the illusion. Careful with doing it close to your nose, since inhaling a lot of superglue vapors can be a problem.
It is a great base to later add texture or mill put on top, which is what I am planning to do.

Thus, I covered the "skin" of the squiggoth with the most aluminum foil with this recipe and worked really well. The foil underneath is barely compressed, so currently I have a super light yet strong base to work with and sculp on top. I got the basic pose of the miniature relatively right, and the head can be separated from the body for adjustments. Without the head it weights as much as a single plastic ork, and can hold around 2 killos of weight without bending. I will add some steel rod reinforcements later on, but so far looks promising.
Proportions and head are really close to my drawings, so I am pretty happy where this is heading.

Next step will be adding the clay and make the most basic anatomy on and skin folds, trying to get the right shapes before adding any details. The castle on top will be build with plasticard, and I will cut a flat secction of the top of the creature to start from a well leveled shape, magnetizing the connection point both for transport and for easy of work.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Since my main plan is to use the sculpting clay that will need to go into the oven to harden, I need to do a miniature test with the materials used so far to see if they will melt, be set on fire or ruined by this process. If it does not work I will need to use milliput or some other modeling material instead


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/06/04 19:21:04


Post by: gobert


Looking good Killatores, you seem to have captured the pose of the sketches really well. I’ve seen good results come from tinfoil frames before, check out theCrowe for how he did it. I think he might’ve used tp papier-mâché to bulk up armatures too. Good luck with the rest of it


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/06/04 21:03:56


Post by: Killatores


 gobert wrote:
Looking good Killatores, you seem to have captured the pose of the sketches really well. I’ve seen good results come from tinfoil frames before, check out [url=https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/user/profile/95087.page] theCrowe[\url] for how he did it. I think he might’ve used tp papier-mâché to bulk up armatures too. Good luck with the rest of it


Queers, I'll check it out. I will take a white lo finish them, but I hope to have a couple of really impressive monsters for my games


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Talking about impressive montser...

I've been looking for inspiration for ork miniatures for a long time. I have been specially looking for warbosses on bike models and conversions, since GW unexplicable does not sell one, and the forge world one is a bit ... meeeh. There this webpage that 3D prints and designs minis that have some really owstanding ork models: WArtel. Do yourself a favor and check them out. The ork warboss on bike is just insane.
https://artelw.com/Iron-Rider-p243003339

After some back and forward I decided to pick some HQs for my ork army, expecting them to arrive in a couple of months (postage from Russia). By then I expected to get most of my current projects close to done, and thus having the time to dive into them. Today though, much earlier than expected, something arrived on the mail today, and couldnt stop myself from building it.
These are the best miniatures I have handled. Some sites show render images of the models since their actual miniatures dont look as good, but these look as good in your hand as they do on the screen. Extremely clean detail, no printing errors, perfect fit and almost no cleaning required (ni mold lines to be seen anywhere). The design and detail is GW-like but a bit less cartoony on proportions, almost like HD version.



I will wait to actually paint them after I have experimented a bit with my ork painting scheme, since I want these to really shine. The biker will be painted in 20 separate parts, since it just has that much detail on it that you cant reach everything comfortably otherwhise.
I need to see if pet stores sell squigs, because seeing this one just makes me want to hug one. Looks so happy!




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Other supplies arrived which allowed me to magnetize all the bases for my marines, and make safe boxes to keep them in.
Stora has become a problem. Until now I was mostly using carboard boxes with bubblewarp, and a Foam case.
Both of those are really safe both for transport and storage, but are really annoying for practical storage. If you want to see one of your minis, either to work on it, reference or just look at it to get some inspiration, you need to spend 10 minutes looking and upacking half of your boxes, to then use the mini for 2 minutes and pack up everything again.

Ihave seen this plastic box + magnets solution recomended a lot online, and I gave it a shot. Results? Quite good.
I needed a significant amount of magnets, but once everything is in place, it holds one really well, the space is used efficiently, and the models are really accesible. Only downsides are that metal and tall miniatures need more magnets, either to keep the miniature on place due to weight, or due to putting in on the side of the trail.
Maybe the A4 magnet sheets I am using are too weak since I ended up needing 2 magnets per miniature. I have ordered more from element games and see if that helps out.
It has been a bit of work to blue magnets to over 100 miniatures, but from now one it should be a "do as you go" thing. Still have a bunch to magnetize, but that mostly my orks and space marine Terminators, since I run out of magnets.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Since I was looking ork models as a reference, I stumbled onto Blood bowl back ork models, and I could not stop myself from picking up some.
I have not seen anyone converting them into 40k nobs, and they just look like a perfect fit. They are not that much bigger, but so much chunkier in every way.
Dont get me wrong: I love the ork nob box, and its one of my favorite units... although they are quite bad on the tabletop (Lets see what the codex does for them), but although they come with really cool bits for the most part, the bodies are just terrible. Really , REALLY static poses, barely bigger than a regular ork. This blood bowl guys come to the rescue.
This is a first exploration, I'll be doing some more on soon.



PD: For the longest time I have only concived of ork nobs to use a claw and a pistol, but after seeing many dawn of war 2 competitive matches, the big choppa feels so much more attractive.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/06/06 18:26:45


Post by: Killatores


More updates... I run out of glue AGAIN.
When I came back I ordered 2 brands of glue. The second one is just terrible. Super thin and runny, got everywhere and it run out at a nerve-wracking phase. I believe I just did a single 3 man unit with the same amout of glue I used for magnetizing all the bases of my marines, + building 3 dreadnoughts and about 10 other minis. And it was more expensive as well.

On a more positive note, I primed some miniatures, today the dreadnoughts and some of the orks.
Since I still have some blue primer, I did a gradient on top of a base layer of black primer, and the blend although subtle o nthe pics is quite nice. I will be getting an airbrush soon and this little exercice really got me exited, since I got some big projects comming up and it would be a great tool to have.

Although these miniatures are quite heavy, I drilled steel reinforcements through the legs and sealed them with green stuff. The arm connections might be a weak point, but they are big enought that the glue should hold them correctly.
I managed to decorate them to a point where they do not look completely vanila, and some of the poses are distinct enough that you should be able to tell them appart on a battle. The pointing one was inspired by the stratagem that gives Captain/luitenant auras to a dreadnought, making him look like giving orders and tips to get sweet headshots to his brothers.







Automatically Appended Next Post:
Got to finish my Vanguard veterans.

These are conversions from inceptors, similar to the ones I already did some months ago. The base poses of the miniatures are quite bad, so making them more dynamic and getting rid of the flying stands can be a bit of a fun challenge. Since I already had 3 with thunder hammers, I made 3 with lighting claws I saved for the ocasion.
The plan is to run them as a 5-man squad, and a captain, probably the one with the 2 handed thunder hammer.



I bought by mistake 6 more easy to build inceptors on eBay, and since I got the bits from the stand-alone box, I made them so 3 of them use the bolters, and 3 of them the plasmas. I run out of glue, so no pics yet since these guys are not connected to their bases yet. If I wanted to more than 2 inceptor squads, I could probably get my vanguard veterans to play as the sargents, probably without anyone complaining about it XD.



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/06/06 21:43:07


Post by: IGtR=


Great job on this latest three: they are so much better without the ridiculous flying stands!

Thanks for sharing


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/06/07 20:22:06


Post by: Killatores


 IGtR= wrote:
Great job on this latest three: they are so much better without the ridiculous flying stands!

Thanks for sharing


Thanks
It is quite fun to build them, although making them sturdy enough is a bit tricky, drilling the right angles and such for pinning.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Since glue is not yet arriving, started some painting experiments.
I had the change to get some new paints back in spain to try with my orks, taking notes from different youtube guides. My method of painting has improved quite a lot since I started, but I always follow the same recipe and method. I wanted to try something a bit different.

Here you can see the same mini in different stages of painting: Metals, baselayer of color, and washes+Stippling. It is still WIP, but I am quite happy with where this is going. This is obviously a painting method that works well for orks but wouldnt for marines, but is a lot of fun to tests stuff.






Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/06/08 11:42:24


Post by: Killatores


Since I really want to crack on with the squiggoth models, I did a quick test.
I have bought a clay that hardens on the oven, but I am worried about the temperature ruining the 3D printed heads.
The test shows that 3D printed resin parts, under high temperatures show cracks all over the model. Those do not necesarely break the model or make it significantly weaker, but they obviously show on the surface. leaving some clearly visible lines all over the place. And with bigger parts, the cracks are so wide that become a serious issue.




I have glued the heads to the body and they are ready for a sculping pass. I could cut them out, do the base anathomy first with clay, then put it in the oven, and glue the heads back again... but to be honest is a bit too much back and foward. thus I might end up using milliput for everything instead. I believe I am alergic to it, that's why I have been looking for alternatives, but wearing protection and being carefull I can get through it wihtout too much issues.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/06/08 13:11:52


Post by: gobert


That is a cool method! Did you wash the metals on the final step as well or just the colours?


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/06/08 13:17:26


Post by: Killatores


 gobert wrote:
That is a cool method! Did you wash the metals on the final step as well or just the colours?


Cheers!
A bit of both. First I applied a lighter tone, then a wash (brown, purple or black, depending of the base color), , then higher tones, particularly on the reds, almost to an orange. I finished with a yellow ink, which color grades certain areas with a smooth blend. I am still working and trying stuff out on this stage, expect some better results as I keep working on it.
After that, edge highlights and other finishing touches will come.

For the base of the miniature I basically followed this guy's method. Glorious ork scratch building.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHwnUn4GvwM&ab_channel=ianwyatt


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/06/12 20:47:26


Post by: Killatores


Quick recap!
I got back to the hobbie thanks to a scalation tournament with my workmates that startet november 2019, got me motivated to sart painting more seriously and more importantly, gave good deadlines to get units done to use them on the tableto. A combination of christmas and Covid disolved that friendly competition, but the seed was planted.
Since then I have been working on an off on my collection, trying to get batches of units done when I had the change to do it, and playing online when I could not.
This is a recap of the progress so far.

ULTRAMARINES

This is how the army looked by the start of last year, when I was on the middle of the tournament.
My troops where scouts, and most of the models came from giveaways from work, as well as my chilhood minis. Some purchases on ebay from the shiny 8th edition.


And this is the state of the army today (sorry for the pic quality, I'll try to get better ones.)
A lot of work done and most of the army is painted to a decent level. I Recently I of almost all mini marines and made conversions for my veteran units.
The next big project here is to finish my vehicles, both on conversions, magnetization and painting, followed by the hellblasters/devastators, and some jumpack/assault units.



After that I would consider the army mostly done, with ocasional adittions for some creative list-building, interesting models or just conversion fun.
List of units:

HQ
- Marcellus calgar (old mini, probably will be getting the new one for a conversion at some point)
- Telion
- 2 Chaplains (terminator and jumpack)
- 1 Librarian (terminator)
- 5 luitenants (2 mini-marines, 2 primaris, 1 phobos)
- 2 Techmarines
- 5 captains (Gravis, Terminator, Primaris, jumpack, Motorbike)

TROOPS
- 20 Intercessors/Tactical marines (5 with magnetized special weapons)
- 10 Incursor/infiltrator

ELITE
- 24 scouts (half snipers, 4 with heavy weapons)
- 1 Apothecary
- 6 Bladeguard veternas
- 10 Sternguard veterans
- 5 Vanguard veterans
- 10 Terminators
- 10 Assault Terminators
- 6 Agressors
- 2 Venerable dreadnoughts
- 3 Redemptor dreadnoughts


FAST ATTACK
- 10 Assault intercessors/marines, with jumpack (being converted at some point.)
- 3 Land Speeders
- 8 Bikes, 2 of them magnetized to attack bikes
- 6 Inceptors
- 3 Supressors

HEAVY
- 10 Hellblasters/devastators
- 4 Rhino/razorback/predator
- 6 Eliminators
- 1 Land Raider


Aaaaand I think that's all I can count there. I feel that I am pretty close to finish this army, and I am looking foward for the final units


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And another quick one for my orks
No finished painted models anywhere, and a lot of building, conversion and scracht models on the works.
Other than the squiggoths, Wartel models and kopptars I will wait for the new ork codex to see what I work on next


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/06/14 20:12:56


Post by: Killatores


Airbrush landed!
There are still a couple things missing, most of it is here.
I spent the evening setting it up, practicing cleaning and doing some exercises to get the hang of it. Is going to take some time, but I feel quite good about it on my first few hours.
I moved into some priming and zenitals to see how it works with miniatures, and after the first 3 I did a complete clean up of the airbrush.


I couldnt let it rest until tomorrow, so I jumped back in doing more zenitals for other models I am planning to paint with the airbrush as much as I can. As far as I understand, zenitals are not too impactul after a coat of base color or two, but is still good practice for the first moments.

I jumped to paint a tiny squig with some colours and it was a fun experience. The blends do not behave as wet blending does, instead it first goes to white-dark and then picks up saturation, which is a bit extrange but I get used to it.
The macro on my phone is horrible XD


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/06/16 18:55:37


Post by: Killatores


Quick modeling updates for orks.

Got the first converted nobs finished, and I am loving them! These come from blood bowl black orks, which have good dinamic, bulky and strong bodies. I ended up cutting and almost reshaping all the arms, using some basic green stuff sculping to get everything looking as it should.
I have not seen this kind of conversions before, and I am exited to paint them.


Talking about never seen before, I did a quick anatomy pass on my squiggoths. Only one side to allow the milliput to cure correctly without deforming it in while doing the other side. I will probably finish the other half before going to bed today.
I barely know what I am doing, mostly following rhino anatomy images to ge the muscle grous roughly in the right places, althouhg I am probably making a mess on several places. If so, please shout!
After finishing the basic anathomy, My idea is to do a skin pass over this, smoothing the shapes and applying the scale texture somehow. I am not aiming to do a really pronounce dinosaur scale type texture, since I think I cant pull that off and I would ruin the model, but something much more suttle and just on certain areas of the miniature, similar to the big squigs in AoS.
The top part of the body will be cut flat to build the castle and scracth build armour on top, so that area does not concern me as much. I want to get the legs right, since it will be the most visible part of the model body once its finished. Having these 3D printed heads really makes the model so much easier to do!
Any feedback, tips or ideas are appreciated.




Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/06/18 23:26:08


Post by: Killatores


Some airbrush blue!
The pics dont capture the color too well (I need to stop taking pictures late at night), but basically I got what would otherwhise be 3 weeks of wet blending in about 30 minutes of airbrush.
It is not perfect, I would probably touch some areas depending on how it all looks with the other base colors applied, but it definitely speeds up the process a lot.



I also did a test on one of my rhinos, and I believe it is a success. There are some improvements to make to the basic bluem but the use of masks and trying to get some panel lighting worked quite well. Any tutorials would be appreciate to take ideas on how to make it look better and practice for my other vehicles that will be coming soon.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/06/20 21:33:27


Post by: Killatores


Did the basecoat for my ork nobs conversions.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/06/22 17:39:30


Post by: gobert


Wow, you’ve been busy killatores! The squigoths are looking pretty cool to me, mimicking rhinos musculature was a good move. The converted Nobs are fantastic, they have a real hulking presence imho and already look great all blocked out


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/06/24 09:49:27


Post by: Killatores


 gobert wrote:
Wow, you’ve been busy killatores! The squigoths are looking pretty cool to me, mimicking rhinos musculature was a good move. The converted Nobs are fantastic, they have a real hulking presence imho and already look great all blocked out


Ey, thanks man. I hope to get them finished soon, I am waiting to get some masking putty to use my airbrush on some sections without worrying about fking up the rest.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/06/24 10:16:26


Post by: Killatores


Squiggoths DONE!.... or at least the squigs themselves, not the whole miniature XD

I must say I was pretty nervous about the skin and scale texture pass of the miniature, since this was going to make or break the look of the whole thing, making the difference between a poor or a great model.
I had a couple of ideas that I wanted to try, hoping one of them to make the trick.

By watching sculping videos I saw that many people just hand-draw the scales on the miniature. This is quite a lot of work and I was not sure that I could pull it off, since the material I am working with and my skill is not there yet. I am not a complete stranger to the process, since I have done some 3D modeling in Zbrush using this same method, so I gave it a try. Cleverly, though, I did it in a non-visible area of the miniature, since this would be a hige pain to remove it if failed.
The results where not absolutely terrible, but that was not good enough. Making the whole miniature like this would not have looked alright, thus, I moved to method 2.


I tried to use aluminum paper to create texture, since that worked relatively well in the previous step. It did not make any scale-looking texture, but was quite good to add roughtness and rinckles, and ended up using this methoudh in severa areas, specially on the bottom of the feet.

Finally I found the perfect solution. Again, comming from my Zbrush experience, we use a lot of textured brushes on the models, and I looked into my bits to find something scale-looking. Luckly for me I had a couple bits from old fantasy dragons, which had a couple small sections of scales, perfect for what I needed.



With my blue stuff I took some small molds and attached them to the end of brushes to create my texture tools.
I also took some molds of my elbow and finger skin and rincles, again, coming from a 3D experience, used to do this to create textures for my models.




This provided me the tools I needed, and I jumped on making the skin of the squiggoths by sections, to not ruin the areas that where not yet hardened.
I am really happy with the results, and although some areas could be improved, the anatomy is not right in some places, and some of it will be covered by armour or the castle of the miniature, I would say this is a success. I am most proud of the charging squiggoth, due to the texture work and musculature showing quite well on one of the sides, and I will try to hide some of my mistakes or less interesting areas with the castle/other details comming up







For the feet I did some claws with clay (I initially wanted to model the whole squiggoth with this, but I did not want to ruin the heads with the heat of the oven to harden it).
First, I dshaped some cylinders into a triangle-looking claw. Then, hardened them in the oven. And last, a quick sanding pass to remove finger prints, and a couple of sanding file lines to give that GW claw look. The process was quite easy, but I had to do like a bunch of them to get enought for all the claws of the minis.


To add them to the miniature, first I scketched out the which claws I was going to use where with blue tack, and once I was happy with the look of it, I draw with a pen where the claws where located, and numbered them.
I used milliput to replace the bluetack, waited until it hardened, and then modeled and textured the foot around it. I had to glue the claws because they keep falling from the feet, but their location was pretty much set on stone by then.
The feet might need some more work on the texturing and shaping side of it, but I will leave that for when I do the base of the miniatures, to get a good contact with the ground.



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/06/28 10:11:12


Post by: Killatores


Quick updates from the nobs

Did the washes on them and they look pretty decent already, almost tempted to leave them as they are, but I wantet to get them to a nice standard since I love the look of them.
Started with the skin, going from a dark green, purple and brown mixture rom the previous step to a much lighter bone-like tone.
The touches on the more flesh and red areas will give the finishing touches to the skin itself, but so far I am pretty happy with the look. It took some time to go over each one of them, but highlighting those muscles really ads to the definition of the mini.
It's hard to see on the pictures, but I added a soft reddish glaze on the shadows that makes it look much more organic and have a 2color variation on the skin that really like. These guys are pretty much a preparation for when I get to my HQ and other big important minis, so this is as much as small project as it is a experiment to get better results on the future.

Right now the skin looks a bit too saturated and bright compared to the rest of the mini, but I'll pump it up as I go over all the colors of the minis


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/06/28 11:59:15


Post by: Pointer5


Thanks for the inspiration on the Ork nob. I've been thinking of picking up a box of the Blood Bowl Orks. I agree I like the poses better than the regular nobz. Your squiggoths look great. I love the texture and scales. Anytime you can base something for fantasy in reality it makes it more grounded. Using a living creature like the rhino is a great help.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/07/01 23:03:14


Post by: Killatores


Pointer5 wrote:
Thanks for the inspiration on the Ork nob. I've been thinking of picking up a box of the Blood Bowl Orks. I agree I like the poses better than the regular nobz. Your squiggoths look great. I love the texture and scales. Anytime you can base something for fantasy in reality it makes it more grounded. Using a living creature like the rhino is a great help.


Glad you got inspired by those nob conversions. I must say they required a lot of modifications on the arms to get them into the right poses, although that is due to me being a bit specific with the exact pose I want, and to make them all look distinct.
Somethig to notice about the back ork blood bowl box is that there are only 3 different torsos, and you need to play a bit with the posing of the arms and head to not make them look like identical statues.
Personally I enjoy that part of the conversion, since it adds a bit of an extra challenge, your might end up a bit disappointed with the results if you end up with 3 pairs or really similar posed minis.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/07/03 20:44:36


Post by: Pointer5


Thanks for the information on the Blood bowl black orks. I will keep that in mind when I plan my conversions.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/07/05 13:09:46


Post by: Killatores


I cant stay focused in 1 thing, being exited all the time by my different projects, so I base coated my WArtel Miniatures, the ork HQs.

I have this things separated in a 1000 pieces and just put them back together with bluetack to see how the colors look on the built model.
Small issue with one of the muzzle flashes of the bike being too big, but other than that looking good.
After the washes these will look a milion times better, and then will be a matter of slowly building up the lighting on each color.

For the wierdboy I will try to get a lot of energy flowing throw the miniature, hopefully learning from the experience from my Object source lighting with the terminators.






Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/07/05 16:34:27


Post by: Mr Nobody


Nice to see some of those Artel Ork miniatures. They're great sculpts and it's nice too see them with some paint on them.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/07/11 20:22:09


Post by: Killatores


Barely any free time, but I managed to get something done at last.
First, the bases for my squiggoths and warboss on bike. I ended up painting them because I had fun with them (probably will touch them after everything is done) and I wanted to nail my base recipe for the orks, but the crucial part of building the bases was to finally get a definitive platform for the squiggoth to build from, since now that was not stablished.
I used milliput, bits and rocks to build them, aiming for a middle of the battlefield with some height variations. All the minis are not yet glued, but fit pretty much perfectly on their footprints.






Automatically Appended Next Post:
On a more exciting note, I got my HQ's skins painted!
After the good results with the nobs I could not stop myself from applying the same method to the WArtel minis, ending with something I am pretty happy with.
I am still painting with most of the bits separated, though, so reaching the details is quite easy. This pic is from before finishing.


I basically used the same strategy, and I am really liking the red glaze at the end to emphasize shadows, the warm skin and a bit more of color interest to the mini. Something I really like is that at this point the minis already look quite good for tabletop, and now is a matter of keep working on them, adding the lighting on the different colors, trying first with the nobs and applying it to the HQs.
Sorry for the quality of the pics, my phone cant do better than this, specially with the smaller minis.

Warboss
Quite happy with the muscles, but sadly most of the back, as good as it looks, will be obscured by the bike itself. I really like the reds on the lower back, but I cant get everything to shine XD



Gretching on the bike



Wierdboy
My plan is to have lighting green energy flowing through the skin, as if the veins of the ork where on fire, culminating on the head and staff of the wierdboy. I hope to get this effect looking decent, otherwhise it will just ruin the mini and I would need to start from 0 again.



Paintboy
One of my favorite ones. A lot of the detail of the carried ork gets obscured, but is such a fun mini to work on.


Mek
Again, some nice reds on the back, but most of that area will be covered with the backpack.





Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/07/12 21:47:38


Post by: Killatores


Not my video, but cant resist sharing it if you have any interest on the squiggoth sculping process I went through:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=325FSVjNDgs&ab_channel=NorthoftheBorder

This illustrates pretty much most of what I went through while sculpting the squiggoth. Shame it came put a couple days when I already did the whole process XD
The guy uses sculpting clay, which is so much easier to work with than milliput for the simple reason that it does not harden until you decide to cook it. I couldnt do that since tests show that high temperatures will destroy the 3D printed faces of the squiggoths, but otherwhise is a really similar process, including the texturing of the skin. I personally preffered to do a anoatomy pass first, and a skin/texture pass second, but as you see you can do them both at the same time and the result is great anyway.



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/07/18 16:07:55


Post by: Killatores


Some painting today!
I'm trying to get all the ork units I started putting color on to follow the same steps, specially to experiment in ones to get a better result in others.
My plan was not to batch paint these units together, but I find myself much more confortably working this way.

Got 7 koptars (I need one more base for these), 6 converted nobs and 4 characters minis.

Thus, I did the skin, leather,cloth and bases for all these units, and planning into moving into the reds and yellows next.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Moar work.
Reds on the koptars done. Basically layering and not too much blending between layers, giving the surface a bit of a textured rought paintjob which might be quite suiting. For more important modesl I would put more time on making smoother transitions, but for these guys I want a quicker result.
I am noticing that I ended up making them quite bright, which is somthing I will turn down a little for other models.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
And reds done for my nobs too!

Here I changed the recipe a bit for the red, since these guys were airbrushed red with a brownish red and saturated red on top, and the color I was using from the koptas was not fitting. The nob red was more brownish, and the koptar red was more purplish. Both look quite good, but I think the brownish version feels more grounded and less cartoony. I also made the edge highlight more pronunced, leaving the brighters colors varely appoaching evil sunz.
Here you can see the colors used. For the brown version I used hull red, then mixes to evil sunz and trollslayer orange for the brightest highlights. For the purplish version just subsitute hull red by khorne red.


The nobs.
I need to STOP making pictures late at night. My phone really struggles to capture color with just my painting lamp.
As a comparison for the reds, you can see on the most right nob, the screen right shoulderpad uses the purple tone. Is subtle, but I believe you can tell the difference with all the other reds.
This is the best red in terms of color I've made so far, and the one I think would look great for the rest of the army. I keep experimenting and trying new things, but this one is quite solid.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/07/20 09:33:18


Post by: Killatores


Started building the castle of the first squiggoth!

I started building one of the side turrets, trying to get the overall correct size for the castle. The very first steps of this process are really slow and shy, but I find myself building momentum as I work, flowing from one idea to another trying to get to the image I have in my head. Luckly for me I got the drawing concepts as a general guide, and some basic ideas on how to do certain areas.

Originally my idea was to cover a lot of the body in armour, hiding any issues with sculpt, since I had much more confidence on my scratch-building than on the sculping/ sking texturing. After finishing the sculping of the creature though, I was really pleased with the result, specially on the charging squiggoth. Thus I will be having less things covering it, and the castle will be a bit higher than originally planned. Looking at the recent ork reveals, lore-whise squiggs seems to be much tougher than I though, so not as much armor might be needed for the creature itself. Still will have bits and pieces here and there, but not anywhere near I had in mind.

I tried to stay away from a boring square shape, and ending up making quite a lot of variation withing the main body of the castle.
The claw at the end of the tail fitted quite nicely, and I will be adding cables and other mechanical things around the tail to sell the idea that this thing can be operated.



Although I will be trying to keep the castle and the beast really well integrated and connected, particularly with chains and armor, I want to be able to separate them for transport and storage purposes. My plan was to just use this to be able to align and keep the castle really consistent on position while building it, but its working much better than expected.
This is currently just a friction system, although I will move to magnets and pins after finishing the build. Atm is surprisingly sturdy even with such a simple attachment method.


Planning ahead I am getting ideas from the bitbox.
A small problem I found when moving from the drawing to the actual miniature is that I thought orks were a bit smaller compared to the squiggoth, thus finding difficult to fit the ones I want around the mini.
I am going to be fixing this by forcing the perspective a little bit, making the orks on top of the squiggoth smaller than actual orks. this is achieved by using the turret gunner of a truck, which is a bit smaller than a normal ork miniature.
The idea of this has 2 purposes: First, to fit as many orks as I initialy planned, and second, to make the squiggoth look bigger than it is, giving a distorted reference.
If you are interested on this, this is something you can see in amusement parks' decoration, were they make small building look much bigger by changing the size of the windows as they go up. From the ground you asume all the windows are the same size, thus giving the ilusion that a 4m wall is a 3 level building.
Translated to the squiggoth, people will assume that the orks on top of the squiggoth are the same size as orks on the ground, but since they are actually smaller they give the illusion that what surrounds them is bigger than it actually is.


To sell the idea that this thing is a transport that can be ussed by the orks on the ground, on this back leg I plan to have some sort of staircase, selling the idea that orks can climb it to get in the squiggoth at any time. I will also have a couple orks jumping out or hanging out the castle to show that they are ready to charge.


I will be working on it a lot on the following weeks, so stay tunned!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/07/20 10:54:59


Post by: Vestibulata


fantastic ork work- I really appreciate the bloodbowl black orc conversions to nobz as I was eyeing them up just last night for such a project and like you said, found little info. For me, I'll wait till new codex- maybe they will be better ( plus I already have a bunch).

The ork skin really pops - especially on the Artel warboss trike (snap by the way, I have him , the three mega armour warboss equivalents and the ginormous boss).

ps the ultramarine army is also great (but orks are da best ).


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/07/20 13:06:30


Post by: Pointer5


Your scratch building work on the Squiggoths are great! Can't wait to see the finished results.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/07/21 09:48:57


Post by: Killatores


Thanks for your comments

Continuing the squiggoth!
Ideas keep coming and I run out of time to get them done. Also, the lamp I use on my workstation broke and I can barely see anything pass a certain time on the day.

The main focus of yesterday's session was the front of the castle. First I made the boyz bodies I needed, which I think make the whole thing look much more energetic and alive, and then scratch built the front structure to add the 2 horns and the metal skull I had in mind. After seeing the results though, I added another 2 horns next to the skull, and used part of that same structure to add the holders for some guns, using the holder as part of the shape of the front too (these are not glued yet). I also added some lenses/lamps on the top, and I made the structure under the skull to look a bit better, making it look like a bit of a neck cover for the creature.

With the 4 horns and the skull the front of this castle looks quite brutal and primal, more suited for charges. This is emphasized by the boyz enthusiasm and the expression and pose of the squiggoth. For the other castle I will look for a more mechanical look to it, with pipes and engines parts everywhere, since that one will have some machined turrets manned from the inside. I am looking foward to make little grots fixing the castle all over it, hiding scenes and details everywhere I can.

There is still a lot of work on that front area, but so far I really like the look of it. I ended up making it look a bit like a truck front as well, which not only looks quite mad max, it also means I could put this same body on wheels and It would pass as a battlewagon, so I might end up having some nice flexibility there!

I also made the castle to have more height by adding some panels under the main body, which are going to also hide the transition between the castle and the squiggoth itself, alowing me to have hanging chains, armor or other bits without messing too much with the connection points. There is a turret added on the left side, which I added to balance the hanging guy on the right side. I find that asymmetretric details but and overall symetric shape help a lot with a good orky look. Also, the castle shape does not need to be that big if you add external details that bulk it up. An issue with this can be overfilling areas or not giving enought space to breath between sections of the model, though. I will keep experimenting with this since I think it really works. Tell me what your thoughts are one this!

Really exited to keep working on it, I will probably move to to work on the side /back area next, so I uniformly add passes of detail to the whole thing.




Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/07/21 13:04:50


Post by: kenderthistle


Сквиггот просто великолепен! у меня такой не вышел. удачи в приручении зверей


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/07/23 09:46:30


Post by: Killatores


Moar updates!
Getting some detail on the sides of the structure, as well as getting some of the guyz on the castle sorted. So far quite happy with the mid-level stage of the parts I am working on, trying to get a good balance of composition and orky energy. I am looking foward to add the hanging pieces, chains and other parts that would sell the movement of the charge so much more.
Big fan of the gretching next to the cannon. The idea behind this scene is that the aiming lenses on the cannon is broken, thus one of the grots loading the gun starts directing the aim and firing to the other grots working on the gun.

I started adding a bit more detail on some areas, but I want to finish up all the ork scenes and main shapes and important bits on the castle before adding more fine stuff.
Some of the details, such as the pipes or panels are though as breathing canals for the guys inside, to allow some air flow for what is probably a really crowded and smelly interior.

The structure has 2 open holes now, on the front and on the side, which I need to block off to avoid having to detail or paint it later. I will steal the idea of adding hanging chains as a separator curtain, which I saw in Mr Nobody's blog "Battlewagons: Exploring Your Inner Ork". If you are interested in great ork scratch building, check his blog too!
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/794424.page



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/07/28 22:41:40


Post by: gobert


Hey Killatorres, great to see the progress on the Orks. They’re looking fantastic, and personally I love the mix of reds you’ve been playing with. I think it adds to the Orkiness.

The squigoths are also looking great. I love the idea of having lots of little scenes. The chap hanging off the side and the grot aiming the huge cannon are both great.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/07/29 14:44:38


Post by: Killatores


 gobert wrote:
Hey Killatorres, great to see the progress on the Orks. They’re looking fantastic, and personally I love the mix of reds you’ve been playing with. I think it adds to the Orkiness.

The squigoths are also looking great. I love the idea of having lots of little scenes. The chap hanging off the side and the grot aiming the huge cannon are both great.


Ey, cheers!
I'm trying to get the painting and building of these units done quickly, but things keep comming up and I do not have a good evening to sit done and finish it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I've been running into some obstacles lately so I barely have free time to get my painting or big building rolling.
I've used an hour here and there to get my ork bikes done, which are a mix of restored old models and half scratch builded ones.

Long story short, I had 6 bikes from when I was younger, which where a mix of space marine and ork bikes ()getitng 6 bikes out of 3 ork and 3 marine bikes). This was actually one of the first kitbashes I did on the hobbie, and still does not look too bad. I did some tweaks and changes to it, re-made most of the drivers to make them look alright.

I also had ordered some bike body bits on ebay. Why? The full box is around 20-25 pounds, and you only get 3. The bits on ebay go for 1,5 pound each body, and if you know how to make drivers and build the rest of the bike yourself you save a ton on money on these. Plus, since there are only 3 models on the box, when you have more than 10 you can see the repeated parts everywhere, and if you want some variation you end up kitbashing and custom building part of them anyway.
Thus, 6 restored bikes, 6 scratchbuilded starting from the main chasis bit, finishing up with 12 ork bikers, 1 of them a slightly bigger nob with a claw.
This is a project I had in mind for some time, and now with the bikers being a bit better on the codex it might be the right time to bring them to completion. I will paint them with the same method I used on the koptars, thus should be a relatively quick process. drivers are not yet glued to have an easier time painting.
I am unsure about the bases. The old bases arereally thin and really do not show the area of the mini, and the new bases are a bit too thick to my taste, although are the correct ones rule-whise.








Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/07/29 15:16:10


Post by: Vejut


A lot of very nice sculpting and kitbashes there!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/07/30 01:00:57


Post by: Arakasi


Very characterful - they should look great painted up.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/08/01 14:50:32


Post by: gobert


Cool bikers! I have a few old skool Ork bikes and a few broken bits of SM bikes, I’ll have to study your pics and see what I can do. Maybe 3D print a couple of bits too


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/08/01 15:52:24


Post by: Mr Nobody


Ingenious idea with the forced perspective. I'd be curious to see if anyone picks up on it. I'm enjoying the orks hanging off the sides of castle. It gives the feeling that the entire thing is violently heaving around and everyone is hanging on for dear life. I don't know how hard it would be to achieve, but I would love to see poorly secured bits of plating or cargo flying around. Really sell that ramshackle look.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/08/03 14:35:16


Post by: Killatores


 Mr Nobody wrote:
Ingenious idea with the forced perspective. I'd be curious to see if anyone picks up on it. I'm enjoying the orks hanging off the sides of castle. It gives the feeling that the entire thing is violently heaving around and everyone is hanging on for dear life. I don't know how hard it would be to achieve, but I would love to see poorly secured bits of plating or cargo flying around. Really sell that ramshackle look.


Cheers!
Yeah, I am currently working on adding chains, armor bits and other hanging things around the structure to sell the movement and chaotic mess of metal that they are riding.
I hope to do an update on it soon, I have not been able to work on it that much lately.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/08/04 16:12:43


Post by: Killatores


Thanks for your comments guys, really appreciate them

Just wanted to do a really quick update on the progress. I am adding some of the elements to the connection between the beast and the castle. Not done with it, but wanted to get it out there before I forget.

I did some work on the crew of the castle, getting the front gust sorted. I added chains and some armor plates around the legs, and aiming to add more metal bits to get everything looking nice.
The castle and the creature are still 2 separate parts, and I aim to keep them as such both for painting, storage and miniature flexibility, so I am trying to hide the connection as best as I can, both making it not obvious and making it detailed and interesting.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/08/05 08:58:53


Post by: Warboss_Waaazag


Nice conversions, kitbashes, and scratchbuilds! You make this old Mek happy.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/08/06 10:43:05


Post by: Killatores


Quick conversion update.
Since I had so much fun with the black ork/nob conversion. I ordered a bought a few more to continue the saga. I'll probably never field 20 nobs, but I really like how the miniatures look..
As a little addition I also got a "Varag ghoul chewer", a special character of blood bowl black ork team, with the intention of making a nob leader/warboss. I do have a warboss without mega-armour, but is a really old conversion, and the pose of Varag is really dynamic.

The conversion itself is not too spectacular, but the miniature already works well from vanilla. I exaggerated the charging pose by changing the angle of the floor, added a huge power klaw that I had from the remaining Artelw miniatures, and added a few bits of armor and accesories.
The most important part of the conversion was to bulk up the miniature and make it look bigger than it is. Compared to the black orks, this mini is pretty much the same size, just having a taller running pose, and it felt small for a warboss. Thus, I made him stand higher on a slightly bigger base, and changed the location of the horns from the jaw to the shoulders, making him more menacing. Also added some ork symbols as a boss pole, and the huge klaw also helps to make the miniature appear bigger than it actually is.






I really want to finish the first squiggoth and move to the second one, but as you see I have a hard time staying only in a single project and I keep doing small things on my free time gaps until I have a good evening to sit down with my bigger projects.
I really hope to finish the building of all these things soon so I can go back to painting.

List of on-going projects right now:
BUILDING
- 2 squiggoths castles(80% done the first one, still need to start the second one)
- 12 nob black ork conversions
- Muzzle flasshes for ork miniatures (a bunch of them, I'll need to keep doing these in small moments)

PAINTING
- 3 redemptor dreadnoughts +35 infantry models + 1 rhino
- Koptars, nobs and HQ artelw miniatures



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/08/06 12:26:31


Post by: Olthannon


Love the conversions mate, looks propa orky! Waaagh!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/08/06 19:19:27


Post by: gobert


That’s a great conversion from the Black Ork. He really has a great dynamic pose, charging down those oomies.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/08/08 09:22:05


Post by: Killatores


Thanks for your comments, really appreciate the feedback and the support from the boyz!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Squiggoth update!

Finished the first one, and started the base structure for the second one!
I must say I am really happy with the building of this first miniature. Managed to get it pretty close to my original idea, with some improvements along the way and nice details here and there. It does feel a bit crowded on the front, but that's part of the fun of it, having a lot of energy and keeping all the sections of the mini relatively readable. I kept some of the crew as separate pieces for painting, and the castle will be always detachable, maybe adding magnets before priming (does not feel completely necesary,it holds up really well, but it will serves as an extra security measure, specially when playing with it).
The connection between the castle and the creature is hidden in a way that does not looks like a hard visible cut, disguising the transition between one piece and the other.
I added a reasonably amount of detail in al the sections, both with bits and scrathbuilding, but I might keep doing tweaks here and there while I make the second squiggoth.

I'm really interested on your feedback, ideas and suggestions, so please comment on these








Automatically Appended Next Post:
Second squiggoth started!

As for the second of these miniatures, I started the base structure. This one will have a more calmed energy behind it, be more mechanical and have a more dakka oriented feel to it. I might add a psychic looking cannon on the top in case I want to use this as the new kill rig, not sure yet. Sure it would give an interesting looking Object source lighting painting look to the top of the miniature!
I would like to have small scenes with grots repairing some structures, and maybe hiding some interesting details here and there.
This castle is also detachable from the creature using the same method as the first squiggoth.

As you see from the original idea, some of the elements are kept, but I have changed some of the main structure at the top and sides to make it a bit more interesting.


I will try to use more bits rather hand hand crafting most of the details, for 2 reasons: 1, I have a ton of good bits that I should be using by now. I always want to save then for future projects (specially for my future ork vehicles), but at this rate I keep stacking bits rather than using them as I should XD. Second and obvious reason is to make the process a bit faster. Making the detail yourself can be fun and really allows you to personalize the look you want, but using bits can also be really creative.



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/08/09 09:22:20


Post by: Killatores


Moar update on the 2nd Squiggoth!

I basically had all weekend to work on this boy, and is getting done fast! Most of the castle overall shape and features are done, lacking some areas such as the front panels, the legs/creature pass and a fine detail pass adding screws and other small components.
My biggest concern with this second model was to create a base shape that was interesting to look at and that resembled some type of craft or looted vehicle.
I had really clear ideas for some of the components of the first squiggoth's castle (such as the killa kan bodies for the side, the skull on the front, overall shape...), but this one just had the idea of having a V shapped body with big turrets in each side.
I did some scketches in paper before starting the base shape to have a decent idea of what to do. I keeped the idea I had of the V boddy with turrets, but I made a big opening on the middle, and a small turret/higher area on the back where the artillery would be located. This gave me the base to work from, and the rest was pretty much just populating it, closing the gaps and finding where to place the small crew scenes I had in mind.


This one has been much faster since I did not had to build by hand most of the elements, and the crews is quite out of the box stuff with some minor modifications, saving a massive amount of time.
The castle size is noticeably bigger to the first squiggoth, but since it does not have any standing out/hanging crew members or extra turrets, the space it occupies is relatively similar. The pose being more calmed also helps with keeping everything under control.
The cannon on top is supposed to represent the psychic cannon from the kill rig, so if I want to use this model to represent it, it would make visual sense and with the painting it should be easy to spot from any point on the table.
The first on is definitely my favorite, but I would say this one has also some nice touches. I will take a look at what nice elements and small details I can add to add more story to it. to make it more interesting.



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/08/10 18:06:01


Post by: gobert


Woah! Great progress killatorres! The squiggoths are coming on great guns, all the details are fantastic. The uparmoured 2nd one is a cool comparison to the first, almost like a deffskull and a snakebite. For me though the rear left of the first one is a bit bare, and could do with a grot there, maybe the one on the right could switch sides?


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/08/10 22:54:14


Post by: Killatores


 gobert wrote:
Woah! Great progress killatorres! The squiggoths are coming on great guns, all the details are fantastic. The uparmoured 2nd one is a cool comparison to the first, almost like a deffskull and a snakebite. For me though the rear left of the first one is a bit bare, and could do with a grot there, maybe the one on the right could switch sides?


Cheers man!
Yeah, thats a fair point, I can try to get some other element on that back left leg area (I got the mines and a couple or armor pieces, which might not be enough to balance it out in terms of composition). I can experiment with moving the shoota boy to the other side and see how that looks, although at first glance I though that open area left some space to breath compared to the rest of the miniature, showing a bit of the pipe work and other minor details.
My original idea was to make some type of stair case from the leg to the castle on that leg, showing that that's where the orks generally climb on the beast, but I abandoned the idea in favor of others. Maybe I come back to that, was pretty promising when I did some tests before glueing stuff.

That grot falling is placed in the only space I found it fitted correctly considering both squiggoths, otherwhise the pose really does not flow well with the body of the creature, direction of the movement and contact points. I do not know where it comes from, but is a quite specific grot pose XD


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/08/11 09:05:21


Post by: gobert


Yeah, the steps or maybe a ladder could work. I hadn’t considered it a spot to see more of the castles workings, so that would work well.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/08/18 22:13:47


Post by: Killatores


Squiggoths builds COMPLETED! (unless I add something later which I probably will xD)

Although I like some aspects of this second squiggoth, I cant say I am completely happy with it. Some of the elements don't looks a great as I wanted, but to be honest I want to move on to the next steps already!. I've been building forever and I want to get some painting on. The first one, the charging one, I would consider an absolute success, while this one is a 90% there. The main shape and overall concept of the mini I think is really strong, but some of the elements such as the side weapons could had had more work or a better execution. I might add some extra details or pannels if when I get some paint there I still think it does not work.

Next post will defenitely have this guys primed, and I am thinking on some color schemes for the creatures.!



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/08/20 08:50:40


Post by: gobert


No 2 looks pretty good to me! Can’t wait to see them with paint on


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/08/20 08:58:11


Post by: Flinty


The squiggoths look really great. Definitely look the part.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/08/23 11:49:05


Post by: Killatores


Primed and some first colors added to the castles!
Since I will do a wash pass I am not concern with getting everything perfect at first, but trying to get the main colors and scheme in. Thus, everything looks really rough for now. So far quite happy with the overall idea, although I want to think about adding some interesting patterns or little motives somewhere. I still need to do a clean up pass and adding a couple more colours (such as brown for ropes and cloth, blue for cables,etc)
Once I finish the basic color pass, I will paint the overall colors of the squiggoths. I wil lbe using the airbrush for the most part, but I still need to decide on the painscheme.
My first idea was to paint them deep red, but since most of the castle is red, I don not want it to look like a gigantic tomato. Thus, I was looking at dinosaur concept art for patterns and interesting combinations of green and brow. I'll try to come up with an idea soon to share it, and I'll give it a go with the airbrush.





Most of the crew is painted separately, as well as a couple bits that will be glued later. The body count adds up to what it would otherwise be a whole squad.


Once you add them to the castle, you can see how crowded it gets!



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/08/26 13:58:50


Post by: Killatores


Let it begin!



So, full on painting now, took my airbrush and did a good first pass on the base colors of my dreadnoughts and squiggoths.

I've already tested the blue for with miniatures before, both infantry and rhinos, and the colors use are the same as I used with just the brush. The result is really smooth although it lacks a bit of control. I used mask and added contrast in different areas to get something I would be happy with. I really dont like just cenital airbrushing, so I try to actually put some though and effort on the aibrush work to make it less airbrushy. Still I could do so much more to make it pop up out, but I'll do that with the brush, specially the edge highlighting.
After the blues, I had to take a hole day just to add the metals and blacks there, interestingly taking more than twice the time it took to do just the blues with airbrush. Using a brush and wet blending the blues would have taken be at least 3 weeks on such big models.
Still need to add some key base colors (such as golds, bone/pergamines, white patterns...), but so far they are looking promising.






The greens for the squiggoths where more of an experiment. I looked at dinosaur pics to take inspiration for color patterns, lines or something, but at the end I think I want to stick with a nice warm green, some war paint and small details. I found that adding lines or other patters made it looked too much like a tiger or fantasy creature, where I want it to look a bit more grounded.
I started with browns on the belly, and built up the greens. I had to stop to think about how to make it more interesting, since saturated green looked really cartoonish, and bronish green made it look a bit boring. Thus I added purple to the mix and it really changed the look of the mini, making it much more interesting to look at.
I expected the airbrush to give me a bit more contrast on the bit muscles, but I guess I need to be better at it to get there. The wash pass is going to be huge to make all the detail pop, and I'll need to add some more highlighting later, maybe manually, to add more contrast.
I'm actually looking forward on painting the details on the scales and edge highlight the hell out of it.






Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/08/27 20:15:37


Post by: gobert


Man! Those squiggoths are looking awesome with a bit of paint on them. The purple seems like an inspired addition too. I love how crowded the castle is looking too!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/08/30 20:33:58


Post by: Killatores


 gobert wrote:
Man! Those squiggoths are looking awesome with a bit of paint on them. The purple seems like an inspired addition too. I love how crowded the castle is looking too!

Thanks!
Yes, the purple definitely makes it look much more interesting, is a color I am using for my orks, giving a much more organic and interesting look to shadows compared to black or dark green.
The crew on the castles goes almost to 15 minis, quite a lot of them to paint one by one XD
I'll see if I can finish the basecoat before moving to washes soon, and maybe adjust some of the color composition to make it work better once everything has the planned color on it.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/09/02 21:49:56


Post by: Killatores


Got some more color into the creatures.
Base coloring everything, getting pretty close to ready for the washes!
Again, sorry for the gakky quality photos done at night with 2 lamps, but I just wanted to do a quick update on this. The crew and additional pieces are not in the photos, I'll do one after the wash step.

Charging Squiggoth



Gun platform Squiggoth






Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/09/04 17:27:20


Post by: gobert


Squiggoths are coming along great guns! Good work


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/09/18 15:05:09


Post by: Killatores


Have not been able to work on my minis lately, but got around doing the base colors and some of the decals for the dreadnoughts!
Getting quite close to starting the finishing steps.
Since I used the airbrush instead of wet blending, the wash step a lot different this time. I wanted to keep the brigthness and clean look of the airbrush ,thus instead of showering the miniature in black wash, I was a lot more precise, and used airbrush cleaner to remove the excess, which reacts a lot with washes, but not with paint, giving myself what is basically an eraser brush.
This workflow is quire comfortable, and when I go over my lastest airbrush infantry I will be using it too. I will give it a go on the squiggoths too, it might save some work as well.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/09/19 09:31:13


Post by: gobert


Looking fancy killatores! I like the splashes of white you’ve added


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/09/22 12:06:14


Post by: Killatores


Litte bit more work on the redemtors: Golds and purity seals.
the golds will look more complete when the edge highlighting is done, but so far good progress.
I'll do the blacks and metals next.



I know that some of you are waiting for more Squiggoth stuff, but I am waiting for a couple supplies to keep working on them.
Minewhile, here is my converted warboss with his basecoat complete, + wash, + bone colors done



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/09/23 19:52:48


Post by: Killatores


Quick side note:
I've played some games throught tabletop simulator, which not only allows for online wargaming, but also creating lists that are more creative and experimental since you dont need to own the miniatures.
On of those creative lists I've liked a lot was a double or triple redemptor list, which the dreadnoughts for power and pushing into the midfield, with techmarines for support and servitors for really cheap meat shields// heavy bolter fire/objetive holders.
Although I am making good progress on the redemptors, and I own both a finished techmarine, and have a custom made one ready for painting, I lack the servitors. Looked online and these minis are quite hard to get, and the most common minis are really old metal ones, which I do not like.

Thus, I looked for conversion material and ended up getting a box of Genestealer Cults Neophyte Hybrids. With simple conversions and an appropriate paintjob these guys are perfect.
I shapped off the most tyranid aspects of the bits (forehads and symbols around the belt), added a good arm and a crappy arm to each one and you got a workable servitor. In the game I use 3 squads of 4 minis, 2 heavy bolters in each squad, but for the conversions I choosed to have different heavy weapons to tell them appart and have soma variety. Even though the old heavy flamers make no sense in this unit, I still will use them as whatever weapon I want them to use on the game.
I had to get the mini count up to 12, so I used 2 guard legs I had on a bit box.

The conversions could have been made way better with some more arm bits, but my plan for these guys Is to give them a basic and simple paintjob at some point, nothing fancy, since these guys are not anywhere near as important as any other unit in my ultramarines army.





Automatically Appended Next Post:
Side note number 2!
I know I am terrible at sticking only to one project, but I swear I am going to be finish the ones I have on going soon.
Since the covid situation is getting better in the UK, the company I work on is going to slowly bring us back to the office.
I always wanted to have a good 40k piece on my desk, but I didnt found anything with the right size and that I liked. Last week I went with a friend to a comic shop, and they had the 40k action figures, and I coudlnt resist to get a couple.
I've already glued them and cleaned up most of the figure, and I bought some bases and colored lights to put on them. Soon I will be basing them, making some more conversion bits, and giving them a good paintjob so they really stick out on a really toy cramped office we got



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/09/29 15:33:12


Post by: Killatores


Small update (very busy these days)

Got to finish the servitors with a quick and simple paintjob. These are defenitely the worst painted models on my ltramarine army, but for the 3 evenings it took me from build to finished painting, I would say they are good enough. At some point I might give them a couple more layers of detail, but for now they are workable for some table action.
Although the short amount of time invested, I would say the conversions are effective and I ended up with a decent group of difficult to reach miniatures for my games




On other more exciting news, I did the wash pass on the Squiggoths!
Yeah, I know, they look pretty ugly and all clossy at the moment, but its a necessary evil for the next steps. I will be adding the colors shading one by one and hopefull soon I will have a decent paintjob on them.
I will be doing those steps together with the other ork miniatures I have already started, although most of those already have most of the basic shading in.
Stayed tunned for (hopefully) some nice orky painting!






Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/09/30 19:02:02


Post by: gobert


Looking cool Killatores! The Servitors came out really well, especially for such quick production. Loving seeing the squiggoths get their paint on, looking good so far. The bases on the figures are cool too, especially if they change colours


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/10/14 08:57:09


Post by: Killatores


Working on some orks!
I have several minis started and I want to at least finish one, hopefully these 2 warbosses. Still WIP, but quite happy with the look so far.
Before-after the red:





One step that has been a bit of an obstacle is the yellows, which but I think I got a look that I am finally happy with. On the heli of the left I did a quick test where most of the yellow color is present halfway the gradient, and on the edge highlight, starting from a saturated orange.
That gives a more fire-like look that I am looking for.



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/10/16 15:52:51


Post by: Killatores


Got the reds and yellows finished on the warbosses. The colors are really saturated and bright, maybe too much, but still like i, at least for these guys that are supposed to stand out.
I hope to finished them soon and apply the same method to the rest of my ork minis that I've started






Automatically Appended Next Post:
Since I cant stop myself from building stuff, I got some WIP dreadnougths!

I got the new ork patrol box, which includes one dread, and I wanted to at least have 3. I made the bodies and legs myself, and here I show some of the basics of the body so you can make your own too.
Once you get this, getting the rest is just building up detail, provided you have some arms and legs.

Step 1:
Following the main front shape, just curve some plasticard and glue it to the right shape. Using some tape to keep the connection while the glue does it job helps a lot.


Step 2:
The main shape of the body is a box aimed diagonal upwards. This makes the body not feel like a box or a tube, and adds some interest to it.


Step 3:
The body has a leg space o nthe botton, which can be added simply with a squared U shape. This adds some deepth to the body and keeps it away from being just a box or a tube.


Step 4:
Then just add some planks to fill the gaps on the body. You can modify this steps to get some variations from one body to the next, but the basics are there. Building the face can be quite creative, but you can stick to something similar to what the kit comes with.



Once you get the body, just get it glued to the base with the legs. Then you can keep adding details and think on how to make them different:


Here are some picks of the current WIP state of the minis. Tried to make each one unique by adding a main element that attracts some attention to it. I find adding details really interesting, specially if you can find a logic behind the crazy ork building. I find this extremely fun and satisfying, a mixture of a plan with a particular idea and the mess of improvising and finding unexpected fits.





Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/10/20 09:09:35


Post by: Killatores


Ork HQ goodness!
Really close to finishing this guys, mostly just the edge highlighting on the metals and final touches left to do.

I had a big mental block with this guys and finally got through it. After the base color and washes, the first big challenge was to get the skin right, which I tackled inmidiatly and I was really happy with the result. I did some easier parts next, such as browns, black and cream colors, but when I had to start the reds and yellows I hit a wall. I felt I needed to nail the colors and that I did not had a method for them yet, so I parked the project.

What I should a have done is use a quick test model to find the method to paint the reds and yellows to keep the momentum going, but instead I left it on the side and started doing other things.
Some days ago I got inspired to paint orks again, and with that good mood I jump straight into reds and yellows, unblocking that roadblock and finally finishing something for once XD
The last 2 days have been a great painting session where I managed to finish 90% of the remaining work, now just metals and details left to finish. Really excited to get them looking great, and glued! XD

Once I 100% finish them I will take some proper pictures









Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/10/20 14:33:25


Post by: edstuff


Wooooow! Your work is inspiring
Squiggoths look great!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/10/21 18:02:49


Post by: gobert


Really high quality work going on here killatores, the HQ are coming together well. You’ve clearly beaten that block!

The homemade dread bodies work really well and it looks like you’ve good use of the optional bits in the kit


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/10/26 00:04:54


Post by: Killatores


Orks HQ 99% done!
Wanted to share some pics before doing a round of fixing mistakes, varnish and adding dead grass on the bases.
All feedback, comments and critics are wellcomed

For anyone wondering, the models are:
-Warboss in mega armour is from the new combat patrol box
-Warboss on foot, conversion from a black ork character from blood bowl.
-Artwel ork HQ models, including a paintboy, a wierdboy, a mechboy and the Iron raider warboss. The models have minor conversions on them.


I hope I can take better pictures when the models are 100% finished, my camera is not particularly good.

Iron Raider, warboss on bike.
This is the miniature that sold me into this. It is truly spectacular and without a doubt the one of the best ork models out there.
Really fun painting project, although I painted most of the parts separately and only at the very end I saw it completely built. Some of the detail on the ork itself got obscured, but overall it shows really well, cant wait to use them in a match.



[url=https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/1121935-.html]
[/url]




Painboy
Big fan on this mini too. GW painboys are okey, but this one has a lot of character and the carrying a wonded boy is such a nice touch.







Wierboy
Pretty much what a wierdboy should be. I wanted to have some Object source lighting on the mini, mixing greens and blues for the waaahg energy, which I ended up quite happy with.
By far the smalles of the group, but still quite iconic.




Mechboy
Big fat mechboy design reminds me of the original dawn of war.This Artwel miniature has options for claws or different guns, but I wen for a simpler design since I generally run them to carry vehicles or those invulnerable saves. Again some object source lighitng to make the backpack stand out a little bit.



Warboss
This warboss is a conversion of a black ork character from bloodbowl, which ended up being quite an energic and suitable base for a klaw world destroying boss.
I am converting nobs from the black ork models from bloodbowl too, so soon this guy will have his bodyguard ready for a fight.




Warboss in mega-armour
And last but not least, the mega armoured boss from the ork combat patrol box.Although I am not a super fan of the two handed axe, I would admit the model is quite well designed and put together.





Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/10/26 13:58:51


Post by: edstuff


You are seriously making me want to buy that Iron Raider. Great job on all of these!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/10/28 20:58:54


Post by: gobert


Great work on the HQ! The OSL is particularly good on the mekboy. Can’t wait to see the bodyguard with the blood bowl boss


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/11/05 12:36:34


Post by: Killatores


Finished all my ork miniatures that had some paint on them! (except the squiggoths)

For the last months I've been going in and out of building, converting and start painting a good group of ork minis, but didnt finish any of them. I had them on an almost done state and I gave it a last push to get them completed.
Really happy with the results, and this is a great start for my ork army. I got a good amout of miniatures, a lot of them from a really long ago, but this is the first time I got some of them painted in a scheme I am happy with.
My initial plan with the orks was to paint them much faster and putting less attention to the paintjob, but I am naturally driven to push myself with every miniature. Painting the HQs obviously push you in that direction, but even with less important units such as the koptars or the noobs I still felt the same drive, and to be honest, was not as hard as painting the marines.
I hope you enjoy seeing the finished pics, and feel free to give me any feedback so I can get better for the next ones!



HQs
Already posted a bunch of images of these guys, here I just fixed some mistakes and added the grass to the bases.
Took some more ics on the warboss on bike, since its my favorite model so far, and for the rest of the HQs you can check on previous posts if you are interested on more details





Nobs
Really happy with these guys. I had a bunch of nob miniatures since the box and bits are pure gold, but I was never happy with the look of the bodies. They all look pretty boring, just walking forward with no dynamism or action on their poses. Also, they are not as bulky as they should, and even new boyz look better, with some extra armor.
Some time ago I was browsing orky miniatures and I found the blood bowl black orks, and felt in love with the idea of converting them into 40k nobs. I have not seen this conversion on the internet, which is extrange since it suits it so well, so I am happy to maybe be the first one XD
As a conversion its an interesting challenge, since there are only 3 unike sculps and they are a bit expensive to get. Making the same bodies look different is great fun, and it forces you to be creative on how to modify the miniature.
I will be making more to have enought to field an unit of 10, + have spares for my ork boyz units.






Koptars

Ork koptars have always been a fun miniature to me, and I've used it on the tabletop a lot. The miniatures look cool (the black reach box ones), but I wanted to make some of my own, since it looked like a nice scratch build project, which ended up looking really nice.
Thus, 3 of these are scratch build and the 4 of them are old kopters. I got 3 of the new ones unpainted as well, so that would bring the number up to a nice 10 once I finish them all. All the heli-blades are scratch built too, since I find the original ones too long to be practical on the table.
Painting-whise these have been a nice way to come up with a method to paint ork behicles, wich I will be applying specially on my future bikers. Koptars also allow for some creativity with the color and patterns, specially on the custom made ones.















Automatically Appended Next Post:
A quick update on future plans.
Since I got the above orks finished, I can think what to do next. I got a bunch of projects started in different stages and I want to do a recap and organize my timeline a bit. Why? Because I am going back to Spain for christmas for a month. I will only be traveling with some brushes, paints and a selected group of miniatures that I would expect to work on. Thus, any minis I want to work on during that time need to be ready by then, if that is building, priming, any airbrushing... Anything but just painting with brushes.
Sadly this means my squiggots will need to wait until I come back from Spain. They are going to be my main focus when I come back, and I hope to be using them on the table by late february!

It looks like a lot, but I wrote them down in decreasing order of when I will be doing them, either finished them before I leave are getting them ready so I can travel with them
Current open projects:
Marines
- 3 redemptor dreadnougths (80% painted)
- 10 Devastators/hellblasters (airbrushed blue, needs base colors and glos varnish)
- 3 Vanguard veterans (airbrushed blue, needs base colors and gloss varnish)
- Attack bikers (magnetized and primed, needs airbrushing)
- 9 inceptors ((airbrushed blue, needs base colors and gloss varnish))
- Rhino/razorback/predator full magnetization (I just have the builds and main body built, not yet started on the magnetization)

Orks
- 20 new ork boyz (primed)
- 12 bikers (primed)
- 20 flashgitzs (primed)
- Kommandos/burnas (mid-building)
- 3 koptars (needs priming)
- 3 Dreadnoughts (mid-building)
- 4 ork squig riders and boss on squigasaur
- 15 meganobs (primed)
- Nobs (mid-building)
- Ork vehicles ((mid-building))

Also a couple of pics of some of the lastests work on this stuff.

Attack bikes
I got a couple of them from ebay job lots on the past, and since they are my main anty-tank unit on most of my lists I got 2 more, magnetized and based everything so I can paint them and field them soon. Hade a couple games recently and I really missed being able to play with them.


Bikes
On the subject of bikers, I based all 12 ork bikers. Most of the bikes are half scratch built, so that keeps them interesting and distinct.


Redemptors
I hope to finish these guys really soon. They mostly need edge highlights and a couple of effects here and there. I would say in 3 or 4 good evenings I could get them finished so they can be the protagonists of my marine lists


More Squigs!
A friend of mine gifted me some squig riders, including a suigasaur boss! I was not planning on having any beast snaggas on my army, but this + the squiggots serving as good kill rig models might open the gates for some beast snaggas lists.
So far I dedicated half an evening to build this model. I must say that it looks really cool with 2 options for the squig, and 2 for the boss, but I wanted to do something a bit more intense and personal with this guy.
I modified and cult the miniature a lot to get a more energetic pose, where they are charging forward with murderous intent. This should serve as a good base to make this model more unique.




Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/11/08 09:26:03


Post by: Killatores


Conversion mostly complete!

The original min ihas a really nice pose to it, but I wanted something with more action. I did a bunch of cuts bends and additions to make it more of my liking.
A big one was making te angle of the head a bit differerent and opening the mouth much more. with some basic greenstuff skills the squigasur look much more agressive.
The legs where a bit complicated. the organic leg was bent with heat, and the mechanical one was cut op on sections and re-built, to a certain extend, including the attachment to the body, with the exaust pipes that I think suit the composition pretty well.
I added some touches, such as both the mount and the rider having a bladed crest on the head, changing the claw to something more impressive and claw-like, how the rider's body is angled to the mount, some trophies on the back...
The base also has a big crack on it, as if the force of the charge crushed the stone underneath the foot of the squigasaur.
If you have and ideas or suggestions, feel free to comment





Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/11/13 15:49:57


Post by: Killatores


Redemtors finisehd!
thse guys started as the protagonists of a themed joke list in tabletop simulator months ago, and ended up liking the list so I built them and have been working on them on and off since.
The photos do not show the colors exactly right, and I could have put a bit more contrast on the blues, but they are my first attempt working with the airbrush but using the airbrush and it really speed up the work on these guys, pretty much doing the longest and more complicated step in just 2h, leaving the rest of the work just for the rest of the colors on the models.

The posing, bases and detailing on the conversions could have been a bit more extreme, but overall I am happy with the results.

Family photo
The redemptors really make the normal ddreadnoughts look small. Happy to get all these guys together on a table, and will be playing some games with them soon.


Pointy guy
This one would generally receive the wisdom of the ancients stratagem for the reroll 1's to hit or wound aura during my matches.




Plasma guy
First time having a plasma effect outside of energy swords, and I quite like the look of it. Soon I will be doing some hellblasters and the effect would look quite nice on those



Wall guy
WAll made out of plasticard and random bits, ended up looking okey







Automatically Appended Next Post:
Some orky infantry incoming

Got some kommandos from the octarius box set and I just love these guys. The detail, options and extra bits just puts to shame the new ork boyz box, which is atrocious by comparison.

I used some of their bits to finally get my burnas and tankbustars built, and although they are not yet finished (needing basing and greenstuff fixing), its great to have these 3 specialists units that I really like on my lists.
I've been getting bits for these guys from job lots on ebay, and there is a decent amount of conversion work in some miniatures to make them look right.
Seeing them all together is a bit scary, since these are a ton of bodies to paint. I do plan to not put as much detail on them as I do with my marines, but still, these are a lot of bodies. 50, to be exact, + around 90 boyz both old and new that I am re-basing, and are in different stages of conversion.
I hope I can paint these guys in groups of 10, similar to how I did with my servitors, with a relatively quick paintjob with some extra time on the most important details. I most likely left them for when I come back from spain, maybe starting the first paint strokes on february.



Kommandos


Burnas


TankBustas


Re-basing


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/11/14 18:11:26


Post by: gobert


Man! The redemptors look fantastic! The plasma glow is fantastic, a look I’ve tried a couple of times but failed on smaller weapons, but you’ve nailed.

You’ll have plenty to do come February on all those Ork specialists, some neat builds you’ve made. Are some of the burnas missing a left arm or is it just an optical illusion?


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/11/15 13:13:18


Post by: Killatores


 gobert wrote:
Man! The redemptors look fantastic! The plasma glow is fantastic, a look I’ve tried a couple of times but failed on smaller weapons, but you’ve nailed.

You’ll have plenty to do come February on all those Ork specialists, some neat builds you’ve made. Are some of the burnas missing a left arm or is it just an optical illusion?


Cheers!
the plasma glow is made with a base of white, then a touch of bright saturated blue, and painting the middle and the glow effect with green fluosforecent paint. It is quite translucent, like a thick glaze, and it gives a really nice effect. Defenitely my go to for plasma and energy things, making object source lighting really easy to do.

Yes, the burnas have their left arm missing for easier painting. There is some green stuff work left to do in a lot of the models, as well as the basing, but the main bulk of the minis is done, just missing some details and fixing mistakes here and there.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/11/20 18:49:53


Post by: Killatores


Quick random update.
Long story short: friend at work bought a miniature that he wanted to gift to his girlfriend, but he has never painted any minis so we ended up spending a few evenings together painting the model, both teaching him a couple tricks, hanging out and overall having a good time.

The result looks pretty cool, specially considering this is his first attempt at miniature painting. Sure he has a great teacher, but its a amazing start to his painting journey







Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/11/21 08:49:11


Post by: gobert


Good teacher indeed! Excellent work for a first mini


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/11/23 21:38:18


Post by: Killatores


We are doing a miniature-painting secret santa at work with the guys that we play games with, and I got to build and paint a miniature for someone else.
The guy I got plays rohan and minas tiright on the lord of the rings game, and I am a big LotR fan myself, so this is a great opportunity to paint something fun and out the usual.
I chosed to paint Gandalf the white and pippin, which come in the same box, making a good value for the budget I had to work with, an important character that would be usable in this guys games and a cool looking mini.

Building
I started by doing a quick repose of the gandalf on foot, since his default pose has both arms raised in a wierd position. I cutted the arm and posed it in a much more natural and powerfull pose, trying some green stuff sculping on the ropes of the arm to hide the huge gap.
Talking about gaps, although this models are pretty well detailed, including the faces that even resemble the actor on gandalf's case (pippin looks pretty chubby on the chicks and the proportions are more child-like), the gaps on the ropes are horrendous. there are 4 or 5 lines running around on the sides and back of both gandalf miniatures that really needs to be filled.
On the other hand, Pippin on horse slides into his spot really well, hiding the connection really smoothly.


Painting
To be completely honest, one of the reasons I picked up this miniature in particular is because I felt painting the whites is always a pain, but I got an airbrush that I planned to make quick work of this gandalfs.
I did a first grey shading on the mini and then painted the different tones of cream, grey and white with a glaze consistency. Another thing layer of white with the airbrush, some washes depending on the tone of the color and 80% of the work was done, just needing some edge highlithing, detailing on non-grey objects and the face. Everything went quite smootly, specially for the time spent. The horse, except the hair, is pretty much just airbrushed with a couple of touches here and there.

Pippin had a more traditional painting by brush, but is a quite simple miniature as long as you do a decent job separating the different elements.
I would say though, the hobbit is a particularly small mini, maybe the smallest humanoid I have painted





Automatically Appended Next Post:
Lord of the rings miniatures finished, will be sending them soon to their new owner!
Really fun painting project, and something I wouldnt have doon if it wasnt for that secret santa thing at work









Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/11/24 08:51:02


Post by: gobert


Excellent job on the LotR minis, your colleague should be very pleased with them! Pippin really does look a tiny mini, must’ve been lots of fiddly bits


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/11/27 10:56:07


Post by: Killatores


And another one finished.
this time is a drop pod I rescued from ebay, hoping to get some devastator right on the face on my enemies.
I varely have any experience painting marine vehicles, and the drop pod has a reputation of being particularly painful to assemble and paint... but to be honest, it was pretty easy going.
Sure having an airbrush helps a lot, but I felt that having the 5 identical sides just streamlines the process a lot, almost feels like batch painting on a single miniature.
The worst part of the process was creating a mask to paint the whites with the airbrush, which ended up taking longer than the airbrushing itself.
Interiors are left basically as they came originally, just a ways and a quick dry brush, but no detailing anywhere since I honestly dont care that much about it XD. Exterior looks decent though.

Original ebay mini


The mask


Finished:







Automatically Appended Next Post:
Had an evening to work on these 2
Didnt manage to finish the base coat, specially on the sister, but I got quite a lot of paint there. The idea is, once finished, to have both of this figures on my work office, with LED lights on the base. Hope to finish them soon to leave them in the office before going back to spain for vacation.
I find the masking for the airbrush to be a bit tedious, but I'm trying to get the hang of it.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/12/04 21:11:19


Post by: Killatores


Quick one, added a new techmarine, painted in a couple evenings





Managed to finish my 40k figures before flying back to spain, will be dropping them on my office desk this week, with some candy for my workmates

Really happy with how they turned out, had to do some tricks to get the bases and Leds to work the way I wanted them.
The plasma rifle can be detached, primary reason of why there is no OSL on the marine. By default I will have the mini with a bolter in the same position (piece I will be adquiring soon), but depending on the season or other events I can add other items, such as a pumpkin, a candy stick, or an animation book. Any ideas, send them my way!

The painting process was quite straight foward. Airbrush took care of most of the armour main color, which in the image is not exactly well represented: In person it does have a lot more tone variation, whereas in the images it looks more flat.
The second key step to make the armour look right was adding a lot of scratching, both big and small.
I generally paint my marine golds with NonMetalicMetal look, both to add detail and as a reference to 2nd edition ultramarines yellow colors, but for this big miniature I felt leaving the metalics was the right call, since I was going for a darker tone anyway.

Had a lot of fun working on these Painting took around 2 week, and the conversion of the figures took a bit longer, specially due to getting the right bases and Leds, which can be detached to change the batteries, have different colors and patterns, and a remote controller. The figures are not perfect and I could have done a lot more both on the conversion, polish and paint, but I really like the look of them for the time invested, and they are going to watch over me at work while I make the emeror's good work!






















Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/12/05 20:01:44


Post by: gobert


Mighty impressive work Killatores! I like how you’ve adapted your style but still kept them looking like miniatures. I’ve seen a few where people have moved away from their usual style completely, and whilst they still look good, they don’t look how a Space Marine should. The LEDs in their bases are a really cool touch too, they should brighten up your desk for sure… and you can turn their lights on when you’re in a bad mood!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/12/14 14:51:26


Post by: Killatores


Back to Spain, ready to paint some orks on my spare time.
I brought with me some unpanted new ork boyz, some partially painted old ork boyz and some bikers. I hope to finish them all before going back to the UK.

Just staring the basecoats, mostly just boring stuff for now. Next steps are going to incorporate some more color and fun to the models.
Bikes are going to be painted with the same method I used for the koptars, which is to first paint everything in rusty metal, and then add the color on top leaving some gaps to show the metal underneath, and painting the gradients mostly with stippling.


Brought some finished models as a reference


As a nice extra, since I had to go to buy some paints, I bought a bloodbowl snotling team that will be great for my ork vehicle scratch building and conversions when I get back. There is a total of 26 models in quite interesting poses here, is going to be really fun to use them to make the builds feel more alive and characterful.
I would love to see games workshop making an ork "upgrade sprue" with grots and gretchings doing their thing. There are a bunch of different models dispersed over a lot of kits that can be use for this (forge world, mek guns, ammo runts...), but is generally expensive and difficult to get a good handfull of them.
If you have any suggestions, please send them


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/12/20 17:03:04


Post by: Killatores


Moar orks!
Almost done with the base coating. More fun adding actual colors to the minis and getting a first look of the designs, trying to make them unique and orky



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/12/21 18:46:19


Post by: gobert


Rapid progress as usual killatores! I love how you’ve individualised all of the bikes. I particularly like the one with two wheels at the front, neat work


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/12/21 21:08:46


Post by: Ezki


Just scrolled through the whole thread.
I really love your work!

Quite a bunch of orks, but you seem to be tackling them well.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/12/21 21:29:40


Post by: Killatores


 gobert wrote:
Rapid progress as usual killatores! I love how you’ve individualised all of the bikes. I particularly like the one with two wheels at the front, neat work

Thanks!
Yeah, most of the bikes are conversions/scratch builds mostly due to ork bikes being quite expensive, and only having 3 models.
6 of them where made years ago, combining old space marine bikes with ork bikes, and some lego pieces (and later retouching them,specially the weapons), and the other 6 where made just with the main ork bike body, making the rest out of scratch buiding.
The one with 2 wheels at the front I did years ago as a warboss on bike. Obviously that tittle now rests on the artelw miniature and instead is going to serve the waaargh as a nob.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Ezki wrote:
Just scrolled through the whole thread.
I really love your work!

Quite a bunch of orks, but you seem to be tackling them well.


Cheers, glad you are enjoying it
Still got some space marine stuff to go through but I'll be doing a lot more orks the following year, trying to get a playable 1500p-2000p army by the end of 2022


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/12/22 19:08:56


Post by: Thumpingbear


Great work here Killatores. Looked back a couple pages - really like your squiggoths and the squighog conversion. Always impressive to see a true Ork horde, looking forward to when you get to the final army shot!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/12/30 14:53:51


Post by: Killatores


Not too much progress due to holidays.
I managed to finished almost all the skin, cream and browns, doing the black next followed by the more interesting reds and yellows.


You might notice that I have almost 20 more boyz here, old minis that I started painting a year ago but left on the shelf for more exciting projects. Since I was going to paint the new ork boyz I brought with me these half-painted guys to finishe them, trying to make old and new minis look well together. The paintjob on them didnt need too much re-painting before moving foward with them, except for the skins. When I started these olds guys I was experimenting with how to paint the greenskin and ended up with a variety of skin colors trying to see what worked best, but now I have a much more defined recipe so I re-painted their skins to match.

When putting a bunch of orks together the new and old minis are not that different, being the poses the big give-away. I preffer the new models, and although a bunch of old models I do not plan to re-place them. Maybe I can use the new models as specialist (truck boyz) or to separate one unit from another, which can be quite difficult when you run 4 or 5 units of 10 orks.


New codex orks seem to be more about toys than boys, so I will be probably painting just 40-50 boyz (around 10 more than what you see here) to be able to play most lists, focusing more painting time on other infantry such as kommandos, burnas or tankbustas.
I dont know If I'll manage to finish all these before I go back to the UK, but before the end of January I would like to have this batch finished


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2021/12/30 18:43:28


Post by: gobert


Wow, that’s quite a stark contrast in poses, the new ones being much less goofy! You’ve made great progress on the boyz, good luck getting more done before flying back to the UK


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/01/05 10:39:55


Post by: Killatores


Red lighting done, moving to yellows.
Happy with the look so far. Im making the yellows on these minis a bit less vibrant than on my previous batch since they look a bit too saturated and bright, almost taking away from the rest of the miniature making it seem darker than it actually is.

Since I'm working on a slightly tight schedule I timed myself doin this yellow step. I repaint most of the area bright orange, and then apply 2 levels of highlights, leaving pure yellow and a white-iss yellow for the edge hihglights later, which would make this color pop more (currently it looks a bit orange).
It took 22 minutes per group of 4, around 5 minutes per mini just for this step. I really need to find places to optimize the painting of orks, since I got a considerable amount of infantry to paint. I keep thinking of the youtube guides that get models painted in 20-30 minutes, and I took almost half that time just to highlight a single color.
On the other hand, its taking me around 2 months to build, paint and finish around 50 miniatures, which is not too slow considering the results.

The current method Im using is really consistent and has a result I like, although I feel I am painting the miniature twice (Basecoat +wash --> Highlighting+edge highlighting). Maybe If I painted the whole miniature lighter first could let the wash do most of the highlighting on the darker tones and just care about the brighter ones, but I feel washes dont really give a result I like.
I've seen people speed painting with oil paints with really good and fast results, I wonder if that could work for me. Let me know if you have any experience with them
RED


YELLOW





Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/01/05 19:09:18


Post by: gobert


5 mins per mini is a pretty good rate for highlighting I think. Certainly averaging 25 minis a month is about 12 times higher than my rate, so I can’t really advise on speeding up!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/01/05 22:09:44


Post by: Killatores


 gobert wrote:
5 mins per mini is a pretty good rate for highlighting I think. Certainly averaging 25 minis a month is about 12 times higher than my rate, so I can’t really advise on speeding up!

5 mins per highlight only of the yellows,, multiply that time per the amount of colors + bigger surface.. takes a while! XD
Sometimes is a bit of a chore but it pays of when an important step is completed.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/01/05 22:56:19


Post by: gobert


Yeah, that’s good going in my book and as you say it’s effective!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/01/08 19:24:23


Post by: Killatores


Orks packed up ready to fly back to the uk.
Finished all yellows, did a bit of work on the bases, quick white dot on the eyes, added some decals... but still some important steps to finish them, particularly metals and edge highlights on yellow and reds.
Summing up the month working on this guys away from my hobby desk I'm happy with how they came up, almost finish them and quite ready to continue orky business when I come back.

Once I finish this batch I will have some decent HQs, troops and fast attack to start playing some quick small games. I got a ton of elites ready to paint (nobs, flashgitzs, burnas, komandos and tankbustas), the squig army looking strong and some future vehicles that I am planning to scratchbuild. This army is going be a lot of fun to work on!






Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/01/08 19:48:29


Post by: DoctorDanny


I love how the primary colour make them look jolly and terrifying at the same time.

I do feel that the shooting effects still need some work though.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/01/08 22:11:07


Post by: Killatores


 DoctorDanny wrote:
I love how the primary colour make them look jolly and terrifying at the same time.

I do feel that the shooting effects still need some work though.


Ow yeah, these minis are not finished yet, I tend to do the special effects right at the end. For an example of the look I'll go for on the muzzle flashes check the warboss on bike.
If you have any feedback on those I'll be interested to hear it



Automatically Appended Next Post:
With my minis boxed I wanted to do some hobby stuff this evening, and I sat down to quickly concept art some vehicles for my orks.
I would generally do that with drawings or mashing my bits together, but since I do not have my wacom or my bits I opened my 3D software and throw some basic shapes together, ended up being a really fast and suitable method to make up some ork vehicles on the fly.
Once I get into making the ork vehicles of my army I will be doing some more concepts to visualize ideas, I am really interested on hearing your feedback on these first ones.



I am interested on 3d printing and in the future I will probably pick up a resin printer (once I have some extra money and a proper hobby space to use it). Making my own bits and vehicles, specially ork ones would be a ton of fun, and since I do know how to 3D model properly (these are just quick concepts), I believe it would not be a difficult task. When I was studying at university I did print a few models that I made and it seemed quite straight forward. I do hear a that people have a ton of issues with 3D printing, but half of it seems to be with the settings and process of working with the resin itself, and the other half seems to be issues from people that have never done any 3D modeling before doing 3D printing.



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/01/12 12:54:37


Post by: Killatores


Back in the Uk, ready to keep making the emperor proud.
If I finish this before the end of March that would be cool. I got a bunch of stuff queued up that I want to finish off before building more ork vehicles, so I better get to work.


I got a few more bikes build to complete my bike squads, and needed another nob for them ,so I built a quick tricycle turret with a grot on it which ended up looking quite charming.



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/01/16 19:20:53


Post by: Killatores


Ork batch Done!
That's 40 boyz and 12 bikes finished and added to the waaargh!
Im happy with the results, both the basic infantry and the bikers came up pretty good even when looked up close. I refined a bit the look of the skin and the yellows, and got a pretty consistent quality though all the 50 mins.

Did a quick reunion with all the previous ork minis I painted. The army just got started! There are a 20 boys and gretching at the back from last year that will need some changes to fit the current quality and recipe of color, re-basing and small tweaks, but they are good to have some matches in case I need more boyz.
I was surprised to see that this is over 1800p already, although a lot of it comes from the multiple characters and the koptars. Really looking foward to expand to be able to play some interesting lists soon.




Infantry
New and old ork minis mix quite well, particularly when you do some conversions on them. Although the new ork boyz are monopose with no options, is quite simple to vary the minis enough both on conversion and painting to get a different look to them.
I need to think on what I will be doing to visually separate boyz from specialists such as tank bustas, burnas and kommandos. Maybe I make a bit more use of accent colors, patterns, add much more conversion or something to not end up with a blob of same-looking orks without any way to tell them apart other than by looking closely at each individual model.

I would say they look better in person, my phone seems to add a wierd filter all around, but I like how they look even up-close.
Generally I see players using the troops as the testing ground to get the painting recipe ready for the rest of the army, doing a quick paintjob and putting more effort on elites and characters. In my view, since troops are going to be probably used every single game and are a core component of the army, they need to look nice and pretty. I find the paintjob on them easier not due to the lack of effort or care, but simply due to the fact that troops tend to be simpler miniatures.








Bikers
The conversions and scratch building ended up working quite well, saving some money on these miniatures as well as giving them a lot of variation. Within these 12 there is no 2 bikes that look the same, but they still ahve some distintic detail that makes them recognizeable. The painting was quite straigh foward since I already painted the koptars which are really similar vehicles. I've had some of these guys for years being quite afraid to even put paint on them ,but as long as you have a plan they ended up being really enjoyable. I do have 6 more of these waiting for paint, including some wheeles, which I do not know why I didnt unclude on the these lot earlier.
One of the best bikes is the nob, which is an model I've had for years. I made it years ago mixing space marine bikers and ork bits, and this was supposed to be my ork warboss on bike. The Artelw model dwarfs it in quite spectacular fation, but is still a cool leader to the other bikers, soon to have a brother.







Squiggoths!
Talking about making other minis look small, the next thing I am working on, starting tomorrow, is the squiggots, hopefully finishing them before the end of February!


Repaint?
The grots where the first guys I painted for the army, almost a year ago, and although they look pretty good, you can tell the skin color is a bit too saturated compared to the other orks, nad the reds and yellos do not look as good. I will retauch them whenever I get time for them, but for now they are perfectly playable.


The first orks I painted also dont look as good as the current ones. They did help a lot to figure out the recipe Im using right now, but I will give them some touches whenever I get the chance. The old boyz I just finished in this batch where mostly repainted too without needing a lot of efford, so I'll be able to bring them up to standard relatively easely.



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/01/16 19:59:09


Post by: Olthannon


Been going through your blog, love the bright colours on your orks.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/01/16 20:23:08


Post by: gobert


Excellent work on the Waagh so far killatores! The latest additions certainly look the business, the yellows and reds are superb. The kitbashing on the bikes is awesome too, helps sell the orky feel by having no luck be the same. Very excited to see the Squiggoths get finished too


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/01/17 18:54:42


Post by: Killatores


 Olthannon wrote:
Been going through your blog, love the bright colours on your orks.

Thanks
I believe I would enjoy painting in a grimdark/heavy weathered style too, but I naturally end up going to this style.
Maybe I will pick up a couple minis of other factions to experiment with other painting styles, but so far I do like the results I get. They are a bit cartoony, but quite fun


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sguiggoths are back on the menu, boyz!

It's been almost a year I started these big boys and its time to get them done.
I can suffer from decision paralisis when painting such a big model, and this is quite evident when it comes to how I want to finish the squigs green skin. But I got the face mostly figured out, and I know how to do all the orky and vehicle parts thanks to my previous experience, so I decided starting with that to see the overall saturation and tone before doing the skin of the squigs.
Thus, in an evening I did all the red highlighting, mostly with stippling and some wet blending, trying to get gradients everywhere where red is seen.
The pics are pretty bad, but I think its visible how much of a difference it makes to do this, seeing the before/after and comparisons.




Next will probably be the yellows, leaving the more detail colors next. Edgehighlights and metals will go previous to last, and once everything has its final look I will paint the skin of the squiggs. Whish me luck!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/01/18 06:44:58


Post by: gobert


Nom, Squiggoths! The gradients really are lovely, almost like a cell shaded cartoon as you say. I’d almost forgotten all of the details you’ve got on them, good luck powering through them


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/01/18 19:33:37


Post by: Ezki


That is a formidable force!
I like the bright colors and the muzzle flash effects are a big plus!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/01/18 20:08:28


Post by: Warboss_Waaazag


I love the bold colors on your orks! And as a fellow ork, I really appreciate all the biker conversions. Bang up job, friend. I'm really impressed.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/01/20 21:21:59


Post by: Killatores


Thanks for your comments, guys

Managed to find some time to work on the squiggoths, finishing the yellows and bone colors, doing browns and exposed flesh next. Is great to see colors popping on the model, it helps to exaggerate the volumes, which would be better defined and shaped when I add the edgehighlights. So far its all known territory, these guys are being treated the same way I painted the bikers, just on a bigger scale.
Somehow I feel I am not too far off from finishing the models, although there still a lot to do, and the squiggoths green skin is still a mistery.






Small side notes:
1- I was looking a bit a white dwarfs magazine I bought a few weeks ago (mostly for nostalgia and for a decal sheet that is perfect for my marines), and I noticed a warboss conversions using the same bloodbowl miniature I used for mine!
If I say so myself, mine looks much better as a conversion, mostly because I used the gut horns on the back and added a few 40k elements, as well as a huge power klaw. where the one on the magazine takes most of the decoration, horns and other elements out and just adds a small choopa. I find a little funny that the one on the magazine suffers from the issue the original mini has, which is looking down a lot, whereas I angled mine upwards both for a better pose and the face not looking at the ground.



2- I got an upgrade to my painting station. For really cheap I got these 2 paint stands and now I can both see all my paints and access them easely, as well as saving a noticeable amount of space on the table, which can get pretty crowded when I am working on batches and or/ making big conversions.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/01/24 12:41:25


Post by: Killatores


Squiggoth Skin!
Had a free day this weekend and after finishing pretty much all the highlighting on the model (except metalics), I started the squiggoth skin. I already did most of the faces, but did not paint any of the body scales yet.

I had to play a little bit with the colors to get them right, but at the end it ended up being just being pacient and painting hundreds of scales, following the model's shape. If I ever do scales again, I would exagerate them even more, since It would have looked even better. Currently it almost looks like a free/hand over a pretty flat skin, although I expect it to look better after a good matt varnish, since most of the body has a shinny finish after the washes I did some time ago.
I took into account the interaction between the castle and the creature, both to save time on the highlighting and to have reasonable shadow areas on the highlighting.

Overall I would say I'm okey with the result, not the best, but it would look fine for now. I really did not feel like spending 4 hours on each leg and loosing my mind painting each individual scale to perfection. This was the step that concerned me the most, both of modeling and painting, and I am already happy with the fact that I did not ruin the look of the model and that it looks decent XD.
Next step will be edge highlighting, moving close to the finishing steps of these models!

Sorry for the picture spam, I will do a spoiler to not overload this post. I'll really appreciate your feedback on this. I might go back to the scales to improve them if I feel I need to or you got any tips.


Before/ After




Spoiler:
















Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/01/24 19:03:43


Post by: gobert


Looking awesome killatores! I can’t blame you for being daunted you all of those scales either. I wonder if the tower/squiggoth interface could do with something, either sores/reddish skin or scuff marks where it rubs on the scales as it moves around?

PS - I’d agree that your conversion looks better than the WD one, maybe you should submit to Warhammer community?


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/01/24 19:33:52


Post by: Killatores


 gobert wrote:
Looking awesome killatores! I can’t blame you for being daunted you all of those scales either. I wonder if the tower/squiggoth interface could do with something, either sores/reddish skin or scuff marks where it rubs on the scales as it moves around?
Interesting idea, I would try it out when doing weathering. My idea of the skin of the squiggoth is that is supper tough and would not get damaged by the orky additions, but it might give it a more organic and belieable look.


 gobert wrote:

PS - I’d agree that your conversion looks better than the WD one, maybe you should submit to Warhammer community?


That could be cool, I had a friend that did some awesome alpha legion conversions shared there. I am really novice on warhammer community, how does it work when it comes to submitting stuff?


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/01/24 19:43:26


Post by: Captain Brown


Great work Killatores.

Cheers,

CB


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/01/24 23:09:34


Post by: gobert


On the interface, Even if the skins tough I’d still expect scratches. Metal on most things would scratch the surface, probably also dull the edges of the metal too.
I’m not sure on the Warhammer community, I think you just tag them on twitter or instagram. I’m not really present on either platform though!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/01/28 11:15:31


Post by: Killatores


Getting Close!
Almost all done, only some special effects and some weathering left to do.
I need to take a day or two to completely fix the squiggs to the base, glue all the models in place and do some finishing touches.
There are a couple fixes I want to make on the model that I just realized when putting everything together again, like the left side gun on the chargins squiggoth, which covers a lot the ork on the left shoulder of the squigg, and I would be shortenning the arm of that gun, changing the angle and giving more space.
I might try something on the eyes of the squiggoths, since although the blank yellow with a slightly whiter area on the center would work, maybe doing a monster pupil could look cool too.







Gunner to repose







Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/01/30 01:03:28


Post by: gobert


they’re looking even more impressive with each post. The vibrancy of the reds and yellows works so well against the squiggoths skin tone. Can’t wait to see the finished article!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/01/30 15:55:23


Post by: Killatores


Squiggoths finished!
Might be doing some tweaks here and there, but I call this project completed at last.
These guys started as a fun list to play on tabletop simulator, and when I looked into getting them physically...the GW models look nicely detailed, the poses are boring as can be, thus I decided to make my own.
Its been quite a learning experience and specially a lot of fun, designing them and making them out of nothing, making them as unique and characterfull as I wanted. Now after a year working on and off on them I managed to finish them.
If you are interested on the process, both building and painting, go back in time in this same blog to see the updates.
I'll be happy to hear any feedback and questions about this, hopefully you'll enjoy it
I will be doing more big strachbuild/custom minis for my orks, so stay tunned for more.

Sorry for the low quality pics, I'll do better ones when I get a good camera.



These squiggoths make redemptors look small by comparison XD


Squiggoth 1:
My favorite. Lots of energy and orks happy to charge head first into combate. The castle has an interesting shape to it, and there are fun details spread all over the miniature.





Details:




Probably the last thing some marines see:



Squiggoth 2:
Although the overall shape I find less interesting, there are a lot of areas on this model that Im quite happy with. The energy cannon at the top will serve as a great proxy for a kill rig, and it contrasts nicely with his more energetic brother.






Details:






Both minis have a magnet system for easier maintenance, tweaking, storage and transport.
I do magnetize some miniature to keep some of the weapon options interchangeable, but this particular magnetization is something I will be implementing on some of my bigger models, since It helps a lot with the process and use of the figure. Plus, Its much easier to get a good contact that I though, and once built the transition between the different components its invisible.





Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/01/30 19:24:26


Post by: gobert


Well, that’s a great Sunday afternoon treat to look through those pics. You can tell they’ve been a labour of love, so many details and an excellent paint job to boot. Definitely worth an Exalt!

Do you plan to build some trucks to allow you to swap between toppers?


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/01/30 21:41:12


Post by: Killatores


 gobert wrote:
Well, that’s a great Sunday afternoon treat to look through those pics. You can tell they’ve been a labour of love, so many details and an excellent paint job to boot. Definitely worth an Exalt!

Do you plan to build some trucks to allow you to swap between toppers?


Cheers man, its been a great project to work on.

I will be building some trucks, battlewagons and other vehicles sometime soon, but I will probably not have swappable components between different figures. Maybe he roof of those could be magnetized for the open-top rule, although visually I prefer closed transports.
I thought about building a set of wheels for these 2 castles, but on a second though It would probably not look exactly right. They are too big for a truck, too small for a wagon, and I rather make complete new models adequate to each role.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/02/01 10:57:52


Post by: Killatores


Since I have not build anything for some time I had an evening of scratch building

I will be making some ork vehicles for my army while I paint the infantry, and a great place to start is to get some trukks.
I'm working on them on a similar way to my scratch-build koptars. The overall basic shape and design of the trukks is the same, but the details and some areas are different, so the models are both identifiable and unique.

I've always felt GW ork trukks are way to open and barely have any armor, often showing the driver in plain sight with little to no protection, so a single bolter shot would take the whole vehicle out. I instead prefer to show a vehicle with more endurance, since on the tabletop ork trukks are not that far off from a space marine rhino. I have seen a bunch of guard taurox transport conversions into ork trukks, and I wanted to emulate the overall design of those.

So far I got the basics shapes done, and next I will be defining all the components before doing a pass of finer detail. I made sure to follow the right size for these models, both from internet measurements and comparisons with a rhino, since I like my custom made models to be tabletop friendly.




On painting I am currently working to finish my Space marine attack bikes to get that anti-tank firepower for my lists. I should be finishing these guys in one or two weeks, depending on how busy I am with other things


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/02/02 18:13:07


Post by: gobert


Cool start on the trukks, I take it they’ll be getting lads and grots hanging off them like the squiggoths?

The bikes look good already too, kept magnets on the gunners, so I guess they’ll be getting all of the weapons!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/02/02 23:25:02


Post by: Killatores


 gobert wrote:
Cool start on the trukks, I take it they’ll be getting lads and grots hanging off them like the squiggoths?

The gunners are going to be visible, and might be able to squeeze some grots too. I would be tempted to have a trukk full of boyz, but to be honest is quite a lot of paint work for a model that shouldnt deserve it, since you still have to paint every single ork. I will keep the big visible crews to bigger models.
 gobert wrote:

The bikes look good already too, kept magnets on the gunners, so I guess they’ll be getting all of the weapons!

yeah, I got all the weapons with the same magnet scheme as my landspeeders, so I can switch between them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Another free evening and continuing the work on the trukks.
This time I focused on covering the wheels, closing the transport area and adding the gunners with the guns. Nothing is final yet: I work making passes from bigger shapes to smaller details. Next I will probably be doing the front and battering rams, as well as some exaust/pipes.
So far this is being a quite relaxed and fun scratch-build. Pretty much all the elements are comming together without trubble, and having 3 models allows for experimentation, variation and fun ideas. Anytime I get stuck with a part of one model, I jump to another one and I end up finding a solution, bit or idea that works for the first one.

Please share any ideas I could use for these guys







As a quick experiment, I placed 10 ork bodies on one of the trukk, and although its quite crowded, they fit! XD


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/02/03 11:12:53


Post by: Guardling


Very cool looking trukks
Good that you can fit the ten models in, although I think I remember that there used to be a rule where ork vehicles could carry as many ork models as you could physically pile on top, and if they fell off...
...well there was rules for that too...


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/02/03 15:16:25


Post by: Stevefamine


Love the killa kans on the backs with the grew. These are immense conversions and wild.

Really high quality

Pressmold wheels are legit. They will be great


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/02/06 18:54:46


Post by: Killatores


Dedicated a couple evenings to finish my attack bikes and got them done and ready for action.

These are the first models I did the blues with an airbrush, and other than slight differences a bit more/less contrast here and there, the results are practically identical to the wet blend approach, but spending much less time on the models. I have not given them by best paintjob effort, but I did not feel they needed them.
They are all magnetized and weapon compatible with my landspeeders. I have not yet painted all the attack bike's weapons, but I will finish them off soon.

Here with my other bikers (including unpainted ones), and I believe is quite clear there is not particularly big differences between the blues.
As a curious couple notes, the scout biker is the first miniature I painted when I came back to the hobbie a couple years ago, and the biker with the risen fist in the middle was my captain during a tournament I played with my co-workers, scoring many kills in 8th edition.
At some point I'm going to do a conversion with the new primaris bikes, but first I want to finish a couple things.












Automatically Appended Next Post:
What's next?
Other than finishing the trukks builds, I'm starting some ork specialist infantry. I got a good bunch of them and I want them painted for incomming games.
That includes burnas, tankbustas, kommandos, flashgitz and meganobs. I;m starting with small squads of them both to get them playable quicker and to experiment to get the look right:I want to make them a bit distinc from normal boyz. Otherwhise It can be a real mess to play a lot of ork infantry, and they dont look as interesting if all orks look the same.

- Kommandos: camouflage patterns.
- Burnas: Much more reds and yellow with flame patterns. Burn skin and cloth, OSL fire effects
- Tankbustas: Maybe some blues? I know yellow is better for explosives according to ork logic, but blue would be really visible distinct and has several logical ork uses (they are luckier to hit vehicles, luckier to survive handling explosives all the time...)




Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'm thinking of making a post on the finished gallery for my finished models, since it can be quite a mess to try to look for the final pics on this WIP blog, even for myself xD


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/02/06 19:17:55


Post by: Olthannon


Really awesome updates, the trukks look brilliant, love seeing some plasticard ork vehicles.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/02/08 08:23:08


Post by: gobert


Sweet bikes! The new ones look great with the older, there’s a slight difference, but it’s only there on close inspection. The Scout biker looks a bit lonely to me though…


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/02/13 14:07:49


Post by: Killatores


Some progress on those ork specialists.
So far got the base colours down, wash and first layer of green hightlights. Still a ton to do on them, but looking alright so far.
I'll do the cammo pattern on the kommandos after applying the highlights on the base color of the cloth.

Currently Im a bit tempted to start painting another batch of 5 each to this same step, and then again so I have all the specialists painted to this level first before doing the true highlighting, edgehighlithing and finishing the miniatures. Why? I might want to play some games with these. With them painted at this currently level they are playable, whereas if I need to wait until I paint everything to my usual standards it might take a couple months more.
I'll see what I do, maybe I sit down and finish them quicker than I imagine, so I can jump into the next group fast.






Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/02/14 17:57:34


Post by: Killatores


Truckks contruction done!

It has been a fun scratchbuild and I'm happy with the result, I would say they do have a distinct and recognizable look, but still unique and playable. I'll probably be building more as my army grows, but for now it should be enought for my first games with orks.

I mostly focused on the front, finishing all the remaining areas and doing a quick screw pass all over the models, which definitely gives a much better look on bigger and flat areas.

















Automatically Appended Next Post:
Talking about building stuff...

These are almost 10 year old scratchbuilds, the first ones I did. They do lack a certain amount of detail, but I think these are quite cool and I would refurnish them and improve them a bit.




This one is a bigger tank, supposed to be a 5th edition looted tank. For all our ork tears this does not exists on the rules anymore , and the mini looks a bit rough in comparison to my current models. I might salvage the turret and some other elements for other builds, but this on is going to go to my bits box in case I find a use for it.



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/02/14 20:34:22


Post by: Zywus


Great scratchbuilds.

Always a good thing when no ork vehicle looks quite the same.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/02/15 20:10:46


Post by: gobert


The specialists and trukks are looking great! The scratch builds have certainly come a long way in the past 10 years. The olds ones are good by some standards, but pale against your recent efforts


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/02/16 09:42:59


Post by: Killatores


Cheers guys

A bit of paint on the vehicles, just my formula to get an overall rusty metal to everything, and a few base colours. Seeing them at this stage I think confirms that the scratch built worked well, since they almost look like oficial models. I would say this look is quite appealing, and Im sometimes tempted at not doing too much and leaving them at that, but we all know red goes fasta and that they these guys will look even better with more work on them.

Although is fun to choose which areas will be red, yellow, black or other, it is a bit nerve racking since I want to hit the right balance and composition.



Despite the gro artillery mini-tanks are not at the same level of scratch build after some of the changes I made, I want to give them a quick paintjob too to be able to play with them before making propper mek gunz.


A quick note on the screws I add to these scratchbuilds:
I use 2 base materials. One is thin plasticard rods, and cut them reaylly thin with a hobby blade. The alternative is to pick up a warhammer sprue, put it over a flame so it melts a little bit, and the scretch it like a gum. This results on a thing plastic rod that works really well for this purpose, specially because plastic glue will slightly disolve these screws, and will give a slightly different look.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/02/16 16:16:48


Post by: Vejut


The newer builds do look better, but the grot tanks are still pretty decent looking. Nice rusty metal, and isn't color picking the hardest bit?


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/02/17 11:08:39


Post by: Killatores


Some reds on the vehicles and a small before and after.

Base colors are in now, and starting to do the highlighting on the reds. The contrast of light and shadow looks way more visible in person, but the edgehighlighting will give it the final punch. Basically I did stippling from red brown to saturated brigh red all around the vehicles. The stippling gives it more texture and sells the idea that this are weathered badly painted vehicles. Plus, it is fun and easy to paint compared to wet blending, and I should be able to get these guys up and running done pretty quickly. Faster than the infantry, for sure!



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/02/17 16:42:24


Post by: Vejut


nice reds, and I'm impressed with your checkering game there!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/02/18 09:08:23


Post by: gobert


Those trukks are gonna be fast! The stippling looks to be giving a nice effect. The rivets look tiresome to do, but very effective


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/02/18 15:12:42


Post by: Killatores


Vejut wrote:
nice reds, and I'm impressed with your checkering game there!

Thanks!
To be honest, I find my geometric patterns need to be much better, although I've improved since I started orks. I generally rely on using decals instead, but free handing them is much more flexible


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 gobert wrote:
Those trukks are gonna be fast! The stippling looks to be giving a nice effect. The rivets look tiresome to do, but very effective

Cheers!
I find the rivet work is quite relaxing and easy actually. It can be a bit repetitive, but it brings ork models together and makes uninteresting areas to have something to look for.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Reds and yellow highlights done!
Nice progress so far, and I know the edge highlighting will make all of this work look even better, making all the shapes pop more defined and sharp.
Yellow is a bit trickier than red, so although there is way less surface, it almost took the same amount of time to paint.
Next I will be doing all the other highlighting before moving into decals, edge highlithing, weathering and final touches (lenses, OSL).

I must say I am quite surprised on how fast these vehicles are going. My space marine army is mostly infantry, which all of them are basically tiny tank men. I had the perspective that if I have difficulties painting a tiny tank, painting a big one would be much more difficult.
After painting the drop pod, the dreadnoughts and these scratch builded vehicles, I realise painting vehicles is so much easier than infantry. It feels like the detail does not need to be as precise, there is less colors and tiny details to pay attention to, and the bigger area does not take as long to paint as it would seem.
It is true that I generally paint infantry in groups of 20-50 and here I'm only dealing with 6 models (and not the most complicated out there), but still.
So far I'm really motivated and looking foward to finish them



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/02/20 23:03:12


Post by: Killatores


Tackled the skins of the current WIP orks.
Nothing special but happy to hit the same look as my previous ork infantry. Looked really up close you can see some issues, but from a medium unit distance view I really like how they look.
Now I will focus on the clothes, tring to finish up the less creative areas to get to the good ones. I will experiment a bit with camoflage patterns both on the clothes and the skin of the kommandos, as well as add some tattoos to the burnas and tankbustas, trying to make them stand out a bit more.



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/02/21 01:22:28


Post by: Vejut


Still really liking the skins on those orks. Vehicles have some really punchy colors on them too!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/02/25 00:45:31


Post by: Killatores


Progress!
Did a couple of experiments here.
First some fire tattoos on the burnas. A couple of them have one on the arm, not particularly visible in these pics but still tryin to find the right method to do them.
The second was the cammo patterns for the kommandos. These look relatively alright from a distance, might give it an extra highlight pass to sell them better, but I would say they work, specially on the clothes. Im not super sure about the cammo on the skin, but it was worth experimenting. I got other 10 kommandos so maybe I change the skin patter on the next ones I paint.
What do you think?

Other than that, got everything highlighted are ready to get some decals, next would be just edgehighlighting, some effects and done. If I get a couple free evenings this following week I will be able to finished them before March.










Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/03/03 12:35:04


Post by: Killatores


The Ork specialists and vehicles I was working on are done!

Really fun batch, both the building and painting. Got the oportunity to experiment a bit with a couple new ideas and despite not having too much time to work on it I managed to finish it quite quickly.



Specialist
Burnas, tank bustas and kommandos. Most of these where built using the new kill team kommando box, which has really nice body sculps for specialist. There are 2 burnas and 2 tankbustas that look really similar and that was on purpose, since where the only from a group of 15 and 20 that had that issue, and wanted to make them different mostly with the paintjob.
I want to make a propper nob for these specialists squads, since the ones I currently got are pretty basic. They do have some conversions, but they could be so much orky and over-the-top. There is a miniature on Etsy that has a ork burna electric guitar that I love, and I hope I can get one to lead my burna squads.

Painting-whise I wanted to make these guys different from my boyz, since otherwhise its just a blob of similar looking minis, which is not great for gameplay, and its kind of boring artisticly.
The cammo clothes and skin on the kommandos worked quite well. Really simple to execute and definitely makes them recogniseable.
Burnas had an easier time with the this since I modeled most of them with flames coming out of the weapon, making minis really stand out from a mass of green.
Tankbustas relied on the rockets to be really visible, and I think I will make them pop even more in the next ones adding flames patterns and other markings to them.

Overall really happy with the results, and will be painting more of these soon. I want to play certain lists that need certain units, with the exception of kommandos, the rest need other support minis that I have not yet started working on (wagons and bunkers). Thus I will probably paint some flashgitz first, then build a couple of wagons, paint meganobs and then come back to these specialists? I'll see what I do.





Vehicles
These trucks and grot artillery where a blast to work on.
The building on the trucks was extremely fun and I love the look I got with them. Trucks are one of the minis I know I need on an ork army but I never really bought the look of the GW trucks. And they are expensive, so I never got any of them. During 8th and 9th I managed to play orks without trucks since 30 boyz where arguably better in most cases, but with the new codex trucks have a better place on the table.
I knew I could build my own and make them look decent, but most of the conversions I see online didnt exactly had the asthetic I wanted, until I saw some conversions with the turox guard model.
Based on that design I made these and even though all 3 models are different, keep some recognizeable design rules that make them easy to recognize and interesting.

When it came to painting them I was surprised at how fast it went. I did had a tested method to paint vehicles both big and small (koptars, bikes and squiggoths), but I always felt medium and large vehicles where much bigger projects. In reality I get them painted much faster than infantry, and its a fun and creative process.










The grot artillery where old scratchbuilds, some of my first ones from over 10 years ago. I added a couple things to make the models a bit better, but overall these came back from the grave. I could have modified them a lot or almost scratch them and use them as a base for better models, but I found them cute and wanted to keep them mostly untouched for nostalgia's sake.
I will probably build more regular grot artillery sometime, but they do not play as big of a roll on the tabletop as they used to.

The painting here followed my vehicle recipe, and I'm pretty happy with the gradient of red peaking at the top front of the tanks. All of them had different little details or shapes but the painting felt quite seamless.










Automatically Appended Next Post:
What's next?

Some ultramarines, of course.
I really would want to keep up working on my orks, but I will have some games coming up and I want to finish up a couple of units that have been on WIP for some time for my marines.
First is my vanguard veterans, which are converted inceptors. I already got 3 with storm shields and thunder hammers, but I need at least 5 for a complete squad. thus, here come 3 more with claws.

The second unit I need is to get my devastators on drop pod ready. I have the drop pod painted, but the devastators have been in WIP for some time now. Since I converted all my marines to use primaris bodies, and the heavy weapons have a magnetized upper body, I will most likely also paint the hellblasters to get all these guys done for good. I barely ever use hellblasters on my games, but they look cool with the heavy option.
At some point I will probably need to make more magnetized legs, but the idea here is that you either pick hellblasters or devastators, rarely both.



Another interesting future paintjob are these 2 ork jets.
These were rescued from 2 different ebay purchases for really cheap, and I got them repaired and ready for my paint. I could have converted them a lot, but honestly I am not that interested on doing that for now, maybe if I leave them on the side I get some idea of what I would like to add to the models.
I I made my scratch built jet that would be a completely different story, but for now the plan is to keep them pretty vanilla, and give them a pass with the airbrush to get most of the reds and yellows in.
If you have any ideas on what could I add to them please comment on this




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Quick fun with the airbrush.
Wanted to get the ork jets paint after looking at some references. I hope to get the basic design base layers done over the weekend, and maybe finishing them faster than expected.
On a test piece tried to use masks to create the flame paterns, but the type of mask I was using it really did not work as cleanly as I wanted, thus I will do it by hand.

For some reason the color does not come up right on the image, it does have a much brighter orange tint towards the highlights in person, and the red is not as pronounced, being a bit less saturated and subtle.



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/03/04 14:44:07


Post by: Killatores


Another try at creating masks with flame decals.

The issue I was having before was that the airbrush shots paint that is too liquid, thus it adds a lot of moist to the masks, and it also slides under it.
Thus, I made masks and use the brush with a stippling motion, and it worked much better. The edges are not clean, but for orks thats actually preferable.

First, I took some mesurements on the model with tape, and drawed over the tape the shape of the patterns. Then I cut the gaps following the drawing.


And then I placed the masks on the model. The wing that is already done is the second test run I did


And the results are relatively nice. The blending and pattern is quite good, and this took barely any time specially compared to doing everything without the masks and only with a brush.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/03/04 15:13:46


Post by: Camkierhi


Amazing and truly beautiful work, brings a tear to the eye......truly inspired by your work sir, INSPIRED!!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/03/05 13:39:48


Post by: Killatores


Looks like orks are going to be playing chess on these jets!

I've done the checker patterns on the jets, and its been quite interesting and fun practice. I've done checkers before but not on a scale like this. As long as you keep good basics is not too hard to do, justs needs a bit of pacience.

First I started drawing the pattern. The thinner you make the line the less clean up you'll need to do later, but its also more difficult to keep it straight and filling will be harder. Hitting a middle ground is probably the best.
Not all the checkers need to be perfect squares, and I think consistency in size and proportion is more important. You can use elements in the model to get the right spacing (bolts on the front of the jet, for example), or just hit the middle between two points, which I did in the wing tips.
On curved surfaces you need to either distort the checkers, or move the pattern with the shape and cut it on the borders.


Once I filled the white parts with 2 or 3 layers, I had to do a clean up to keep the lines straight and make the corners meet. This does not need to be perfect, but I feel it helps a lot. Here you can the the right side cleaned up and the left side not cleaned.


Thus, the result looks pretty appealing. I will be doing some tweaks here and there before applying a wash over it, but I'm happy with the results.





Next I will be doing the yellows, leaving the metals for the end. Since I did most of the highlighting on the model with the airbrush aready, and yellows are going to be much more of an accent color on a few places, most of the highlighting is done. Somehow I feel the model is already really close to be finished although still needs hours of work XD


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/03/07 01:58:08


Post by: Arakasi


Looking good!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/03/07 10:37:37


Post by: Camkierhi


Beautiful model.

I am always completely random with my checkers for orks. I don't really plan out anything. Feels more fitting for random grot doodling.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/03/07 13:53:52


Post by: gobert


Spectacular work killatores! Them trukks came together really well, you’d imagine they were a bought model such is the level of detail. Loving the patterns you’re throwing on the jets, adds loads of character. It’s good to see your approach to the stencilling and chequers


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/03/10 16:34:38


Post by: Killatores


Thanks you for your comments
I've been away for some days but I'm back, finishing the basecoat on the jets. This took a bit longer than expected, getting all the colours down was a bit of a discovery process going back and forward between the different paints until I got everything I wanted.
With all the colours in I realize I could have made the reds even brighter on certain areas. Its extrange how it looks on the pictures, since last update looked way more saturated, and in these pics now it looks a bit dimmer than it actually is in person. With the edge highlighting I'll bring them up a bit if needed.

I added some muzzle flashes and bullets on one of the jets, since I felt the need to make them a bit more different from eachother. You can pose the plane either going up or down, and the second one was calling for some dakka action. The bases are pretty much painted already.





Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/03/19 13:59:19


Post by: Killatores


Ork jets done!

Fun project. Originally I wanted to get one GW jet and use the parts to create 2 scratch built jets, but ended up getting 2 rescued models on ebay instead. Maybe I do a super bommer some day. Pretty much no conversions
but the painting had some room for experimenting and learning, specially the masking and checkers which I'm pretty proud off.
One of the jets was the zappa version but I prefer having a more dakka look to them, although in-game I'll use them as any of the jet variants I want.















Next I will be painting some flashgizts to mount my squiggoths on the tabletop!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/03/19 14:04:35


Post by: Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll


Love the size of the muzzle flash, really makes those guns seem that much more intimidating!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/03/19 23:06:46


Post by: Arakasi


Very vibrant - well done.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/03/20 01:30:52


Post by: Vejut


I agree, some nicely done, really eyecatching colors!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/03/20 18:57:05


Post by: gobert


Awesome airforce killatores, they both look the part. The flames and chequers would make any boss proud!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/03/20 20:04:36


Post by: Camkierhi


Beautiful contrast and vibrant colours. Looks proper orky.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/03/27 09:32:47


Post by: Killatores


Thanks for your comments
Really busy lately so I've barely been able to hobby, but I got a quick update on a couple starting projects.

First, I'm base coating my flashgitzs, 20 of them, whom ride the squiggoths on battle. Its taking a bit of time and the basecoating is a bit tedious, but with a couple more colors in I can throw the washes at them and start the more fun aspect of the painting process.


Since I lacked a bit of motivation to basecoat, I started looking at my lists and what do to next building-wise.
Wagons are a big missing items and a really exiting project to work on, and Although I do have pretty much all the needed components, I feel a bit lazy right now to start designing a look for them.
The other missing item are buggys. Although I do like the concept of them, these guys seem to have way too much attention on the tabletop, with lists running over 9 of them or more sometimes. Plus, the fact that at the start I coulnt distinguish one from the other made them a bit meh for me. Now though, I watched some battle reports and got a bit more familiar with. As far as I understand, there is the squigg one, the jump one, the plane-looking one and the generic one (those are their oficial names in my mind XD).
These guys are pretty much a necessity of you want to run a speed mob, which my bikes and koptars would appreciate.

The one buddy I find more interesting is the megatrakk jet, and since I just finished my ork planes and I have somme remaining plane parts round I though I would be a good fit.
I got inspired toilet paper rolls and got a quick base shape together. Soon I'll do a drawing pass over some photos to nail down some design elements. But basically I want to keep a recognizeable shape with interesting different elements in each one.
Quite existed to see what comes out of these ones.



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/03/27 17:51:27


Post by: gobert


That’s a good bunch of gitz. Basecoating is a slog, but they’re coming together nicely. The scrapjet buggies already look to have vaguely the right shape. I always love to see a good recycling project


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/03/28 20:19:35


Post by: Killatores


Had a bit of time today and did some more work on the megatrakk jets.
I wanted to draw the designs but my drawing software was not set up correctly and I felt like more like experimenting with the bits I got to find ideas.

There are a few design elements I wanted to hit, such as different compositions for the tails and cockpits. I spotted a few bits last time that I knew I wanted to use, so those went in first. I reinforced a bit the structure since the base was too weak (toilet roll), and made both the first pass on the front and back of the fuselage jet area.

Wheels/tracks and wings should come next, followed by weapons and exausts/machine stuff.
I ran out of some materials so I ordered them to continue soon, specially the bases which are really needed to get the wheels/tracks right.
So far the models look really basic they'll get chunkier and more detailed as soon as I get all the core elements there.



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/03/31 22:02:15


Post by: Killatores


Some progress on the scrapjets.
So far having fun with the shapes and getting the main elements in on a basic form, which means wheels/tracks, wings, drivers and some weapon placement (not all of them).
The tracks where a bit difficult to fit and they still need some work, but overall is quite an interesting project so far. I was concerned that they where way bigger than the GW model, but apparently they are pretty close to the real thing.

Next I will need to fill the big gaps on the bodies, which is going to be a pain, but after that is just detail passes untill they look finished!




Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/04/01 09:06:52


Post by: gobert


The non-flying big rolls are really coming on well! My only gripe is the wheel at the back of the last one seems a bit too small. I know it’s Orky engineering but it still seems a bit off to my eye. Just my thoughts though, they’re your big rolls!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/04/01 14:21:54


Post by: Killatores


 gobert wrote:
The non-flying big rolls are really coming on well! My only gripe is the wheel at the back of the last one seems a bit too small. I know it’s Orky engineering but it still seems a bit off to my eye. Just my thoughts though, they’re your big rolls!


Ey man, thanks for your feedback!
I went for the small wheels out of lazyness since I did not want to obstruct the air takes on the back, but after reading you comment, I thouhg "yeah, thats right" XD and I felt motivated to modify that section of the model.

I cut some airtakes and added a wheel guard, which also serves as a tail fin. The shape of it follows the wheel and the front wing in a wave shape that looks quite satisfying.
Then glued the bigger wheel and looks much better now.
Really appreciate your input on this





Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/04/01 15:55:39


Post by: gobert


Sorry for causing rework, but that fits much better! The air intake louvres look really cool obscured by the wing like that.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/04/09 20:27:35


Post by: Killatores


 gobert wrote:
Sorry for causing rework, but that fits much better! The air intake louvres look really cool obscured by the wing like that.

Not at all, I really like getting feedback on my work to get better



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Megatrakk Scrapjets finished!

After requeuing and painting the 2 actual jets, having some jet bits left over and needing some buggies for my speed freak list, this project was a really natural step.
I'll probably make 3 more buggies with a different visual style, and hopefully cover all my buggy needs.

The building has been really fun and creative, I manage to use a lot more GW bits here and each vehicle looks unique, with some design aspects that make them different yet recognizable as the model they represent.
I'll probably wait a bit before painting them since I got some other building WIPS going on that also involve vehicles, so doing all of them at once would be quite much more efficient on the painting. Also it allows for some tweaks after seeing them a bit further down the line.

















Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/04/10 07:24:50


Post by: Arakasi


Definitely some cool ideas in those buggies and they have come together very well.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/04/11 13:40:04


Post by: gobert


Those bog-roll scrapjets are looking fantastic! Were it not for you saying their origins, there’s no way I could tell! So many cool details, but it’s the swoopy wing profiles that are magic


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/04/16 15:03:49


Post by: Killatores


I've been away for some days but I'm back to show some of the progress since last time.

I manage to play a game with my orks minis, and the highlight of the match was an epic combat squiggoth vs drukary warlord.
The elf took down the beast, but the flashgitz inside took revenge.



Talking of flashgitz, I managed to get 10 tabletop ready (not finished) for the game. I would need to find a moment to finish all the 20 I got, but I do not feel too motivated to keep painting infantry now.


How so? Well, I've been in a bit of a scratchbuild rampage, getting some projects built, and I want to instead switch to painting those for a while.
When I came back to to uk on January, I got myself some orky walkers, but at the time I did not finish them since I was waiting for something. That something was 3d printed models from Etsy - fully cycled. They have really cool designs and reasonable prices, but they took 4 months to deliver my order.
That order arrived last week and got me going to finish all my ork walkers. That is 6 kill kans and 6 dreadnoughts, as well as some other early wip bigger projects.



Kill Kans
I got a box from ebay with pretty much all the bits on sprue, but 3 of them didnt match the numbers I wanted, so I did a mix maxing with my bit box, some scratchbuilding and ended up with 6 of them.
For these, rather than trying to re-invent the wheel I just followed the design of the oficial models, which I really like. Its hard to make noticeable design choices with these unless you spend a ton of time on them, or if you lean hard on a particular aspect. Most of the building was focused on making sure that the structures made sense and that there where no flat un-detailed panels.







Dreadnoughts
I know 6 dreadnoughts is a bit too much, at least for the army size I am currently working with. I did build 3, which I though was going to be my maximum, but I a couple of the fullcycled models I bought where a bit smaller than expected. My idea was to use them as mega dreads, but they are just a bit bigger than normal dreads. having 5 of them was not as symmetrical as I wanted it, so I quickly built a 6th one to complete the mob. In this way, I can have 2 groups of 3, with a proper "sergeant" of each unit.
With these models I got a bit more design ideas, althoguh I do regret building the first 3 in a bit of an static pose, specially compared to the running one



The remaining 2 are the 3D printed ones, with minor modifications. These models look really cool, and they are actually cheaper than the GW models, so if you like them, bet them. One comes with the rocket arms, the other with the klaw arms, but you can mix all the pieces.


Finally, with the 3D printed models I got I had a couple of spare big mechanical legs. Maybe I am hinting at a custom made mega dread? I'll build this thing on the future for sure!


As I mentioned, I will start painting all these walkers straight away since I feel the momentum to get them done. I've already primed them so later this weekend I should have another quick update, at least with all the metalics done.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
I also have some other big projects on the background, I am working on some battlewagons and grot mega tank.

Wagons
The wagons are some of my favorite units, both aesthetically and in the tabletop, but I cant use them yet since I do not own any models. I find them critical to be able to use some of my other models, including finished ones such as burnas, tankbustas or mega armoured nobs, so I need them. I do have a consirable amout of bits though, so I threw together some ideas.
First things first, I took some measurements and made the size of the wheels/tracks to be tabletop friendly, taking into account overhanging bits on the designs. This is something I see some people fail hard even when the designs they make look cool, a lot ar just the wrong size for the game, and/or have a lot of bits pokeing everywhere that make gameplay dificult. My idea is to keep the base size correct, and camuflage the "squareness" of it.

For this big boy I know exactly what I am doing, since I am following the design of an already scratch built model that I really love the look of.


Seconds wagon here will be all about that deffroller, trying to have a design that looks like is all about powering the traks to get to max speed.. The track was pretty hard to glue in place since its made of rubber that keeps bouncing back, so I'll probably show a lot more of it than in the other designs.


Next, I got this one, which I am a bit unsure of what to make with it. I am tempted to use the front bit as the bottom jaw of a big ork mouth, have the roof in the shape of a skull with the upper area of the mouth, and a gicantic ork kannon between the theeth, so this model could work bouth as a wagon or a killtanks.
I do have some bits that anoyingly look really nice on this design, making a stair case from the front to the top which could look great for a more standard-looking wagon, but I'll see what I do with it.
The tracks where but and re-glued to get the right vehicle size.



Grot Mega tank
Finally, probably my favorite forge world model, the grot mega tank. The design of it is just genius, having a battleship full of grots on a track. I am tempted to believe that it is actually decent at the tabletop as well, so I'll give it a shot. I got the bridge structure from the 3D printed models, and the rest will be bits and scratchbuild. So far the models is on the right track



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/04/16 17:15:30


Post by: Vejut


Lots of orky fun it looks like, and that mega tank battleship looks like its gonna be a real cool centerpiece when its finished.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/04/17 14:54:19


Post by: Killatores


First paint progress update on my walkerz.
For ork vehicles I like to start with a base of old metals everywhere on the miniature, as it was completely lacking of any paints, and then paint over the colors.
Not only this is pretty much a really orky process, but although it might not be as paint efficient as other methods, it means that I have a rich and detailed base coat eveyrwhere and I can make the color decision on top of it.

For the recipe, I pretty much followed this approach: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHwnUn4GvwM&ab_channel=ianwyatt

I also added a base coat of copper to the parts I wanted.
I believe a lot of ork painters do somehting similar, but something I find works for me is to stablish some "rules" on what pieces go with one metal or another. I paint in coper vents, cooling, exaust, fuel containers and hidraulics, leaving most of the decision making for later and having a visual language for the miniature.
This helps to separate the elements and avoid the "its a mess of rusty metal".

Finally I also had some first passes on the bases.
I prefer to paint 80% of the bases before starting the actual miniature since the base generally uses a few layers of drybrush that might be annoying for the basecoat on the mini. So, I paint them to a point where they just need edge highlights and small details, and once the mini is complete, I do those touches, + any additional effects on both the base and the mini such as dirt, mud, or object source lighting.

I'll be uploading more of the progress when I have some relevant updates. These steps where quite quick, but its over 1000p of orky walkers and each more precise steps will take a bit more time to complete.






Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/04/20 23:21:13


Post by: Killatores


While I find the time to paint the walkers, I did some quick 3D sketches to get the designs of my future builds .
I did have some ideas of what I wanted to do, but I didnt had a good visual or reference to build from. When it comes to scratchbuilding, I find the very first basic shapes to be the harder ones to get right, and I did not feel like improvising.
These 3D models are just the basic shapes and landmarks for the minis, I will as always fill everything with the appropriate amount of care and detail.

The kill tank
The idea of having a kill tank where the hull is a big ork skull with a massive cannon inside the mouth was really cool, but I was unsure of what to do with the rest of the vehicle. I also had other ideas for a more traditional wagon, but since I want to be able to field a kill tank if I want, this design will do the trick.
Getting the shape of the skull will be the most important thing to make this tank look dangerous and not too cartoony.


Da rollar
I knew from the start that I wanted at least 1 wagon dedicated to the deffrollerm and this is the one. I've noticed in other designs that you can get a sense of speed and ramshackle look by giving an angle to the whole chassis, soI angled the hull to give a bigger sense of speed.
I hope to give the back of the vehicle a real sense of having a massive engine inside.





Da dread!
Not the biggest walker I will ever do, but the the leader for now of my currently getting painted walkers.
I will probably change a few areas of the body to have a bit more interest on it, but overall I think it could work well.
Something I really dislike of big walkers is that most people build them in a really static A pose, when I imagine them having much more movement. They need to feel more alive, and having a big centerpiece to look a bit like a statue that looks the same as almost every other big walker is a bit of a shame. For this mega dread I want to have him smacking the enemy in a nice dynamic pose.




I would be interested on hearing your feedback, ideas and references for the designs before I start building them.






Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/04/22 02:27:16


Post by: Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll


Da Rollar looks especially cool in your mockup, that's some great design!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/04/22 20:04:08


Post by: gobert


Boss Bogrollas Crapjets look amazing! There is no way anyone could tell their origins now they have some paint on them. They’re going to be awesome once they have their splashes of colour.

The wagon designs look really cool too, I wonder if the Kill Tank might look less cartoony with an eye of Mork setup on one of the eyes? The racing Rolla does look more dynamic with the wedge shape, much more aero!

The dredd mock up looks cool, it seems a bit too heavy, maybe a bit more bulk on the legs might help? I’m sure the real world version has chunkier legs anyway


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/04/23 09:11:48


Post by: Killatores


 gobert wrote:
Boss Bogrollas Crapjets look amazing! There is no way anyone could tell their origins now they have some paint on them. They’re going to be awesome once they have their splashes of colour.

The wagon designs look really cool too, I wonder if the Kill Tank might look less cartoony with an eye of Mork setup on one of the eyes? The racing Rolla does look more dynamic with the wedge shape, much more aero!

The dredd mock up looks cool, it seems a bit too heavy, maybe a bit more bulk on the legs might help? I’m sure the real world version has chunkier legs anyway



Good ideas! Making the legs appear bigger by adding armour and other scrapt metal elements would be great to balance the proportions, thanks!

I always found the eye of mork thing to be quite cartoony on itself, and I consider it to be a bigger walker trailt, but it would be an interesting experimenting with it for this model. I think getting the shape of the "eyes" will be the most important aspect to get the model to look good in this aspect.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
First non orky update in a while
Its a short one while Im painting the walkers (I barely have time lately, I'll see if this weekend I finish the reds).

I have painted a classic terminator Marneus Calgar model to be the leader for my Ultramarines, and although I really like the mini, the pose, the detail.... is a bit small. Is pretty much no bigger than any other terminator, and despite all the decorations it can get lost when I play with 20 of them.



The new primaris Calgar looks much bigger, but the pose I find to be absolute crap compared to the previous one, so that is why I never got the mini and opted for the older one instead.
I saw a good offer on Ebay, and I gave it a try, cutting and transforming the pose to something I am more pleased with.




Now it properly towers over other marines, including old calgar. Part of it has to do with the base, but I'm okey with that little cheat.




Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/04/24 08:34:32


Post by: gobert


Calgar looks great, but I see what you mean about him blending in with the other terminators. New Calgar should be easier to pick out in the crowd.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/04/24 11:51:33


Post by: Killatores


Red goes fasta!
Finished the red highlighting on my walkers, will go to yellows next.

I used a base of hull red, then blended to pure evil sunz scarlet, and finally a black glaze on the shadows, so the reds are vibrant and add a lot of contrast to the minis.
With the edgehighlighitng later the volume will be defined even more with a bright orange.














Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/04/25 13:01:20


Post by: IGtR=


Red is looking lovely, and can't wait to see them develop further!

Thanks for sharing


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/04/27 23:40:06


Post by: Killatores


Mostly finished buidling my grot mega-tank!
Fun project, most of the build was worked out from the hull 3d printed parts and the boat-shape I made for it inspired by the forge world model.
From the start I knew I wanted to have a bunch of grots around the deck of the vehicle, and despite being a bit smaller than a wagon, the ilusion of scale is concerved thanks to using snotlings from blodbowl rather than actual 40k gretching models, which are significantly bigger.
Most of the weapons and crew are still not glued for easy of paint. When I finish the walkers, I will finish up my wagons and I'll paint these big vehicles together.









Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/04/28 00:54:10


Post by: Vejut


Very cool looking, love the naval feel!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/05/01 10:03:38


Post by: gobert


The MegaTank is pimpin! I love it and as usual you’ve thrown tons of detail at it. The snotlings work really well too, plus it makes sense that they’re the riggers on a grot tank too


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/05/01 10:35:16


Post by: krijthebold


Pirate hat grot, he's perfect.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/05/02 20:33:41


Post by: Killatores


Finally I managed to sit down for a day and get some painting done.
Most of the base colors are down, and the highlighting of the Reds and yellows is finished.
Will be moving into some localized washes and blacklining before finishing the rest of the colors before doing edge highlights.







Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/05/08 19:01:34


Post by: gobert


Nice Vibrant yellows again killatores, the kanz and bog rolls are coming together now


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/05/17 09:40:59


Post by: Killatores


Finished walkers and Scrapjets! 1000p of orks ready for da fight.

I started painting them exactly a month ago, and I managed to finished them despite the limited time I have lately for the hobby.




Mega ScrapJets

These where a blast to build and I am super happy with the end result. You really cant tell these are hand made, they are unique, recognizeable as what they represent, tabletop friendly, and the paintjob ended up looking really nice, specially with the high contrasted reds.
I've done other hand made models in groups of 3 with the same philosophy and always there is one model of the 3 that is either my favorite or my least liked one, but in this case I cant choose between them, all 3 have elements that I really like. Which one you like the best?
I might do 3 more generic looking buggies to have 6 to play with, but for now I'll be using these models to represent any of the available buggy options, although scrapjets are generally fairly good on the tabletop.












Killa Kans

I bought some kans a while ago and I didnt got to build them since I had other projects going on. I got inspired and ended up making 6 of them, as you might recognize, some of them have scratch-build elements to fill the bits I was missing.
I might do more in a far future, and those will make way crazier poses and design ideas, since these where quite standard. Even the open cockpit grot one is a fairly common conversion.
Nevertheless I quite like the look of them and I hope to be able to play with them soon, they look quite fun.









Dreads

I started my dreads building 3, one mainly with GW bits and the other 2 scratchbuilt. Then I bought 2 resin ones that ended up being smaller than I though (wanted to use those resin ones as mega-dreads), so with that I had 5 dreads. Thus, I built a last one to go up to 6, since I liked the symetrical composition and to be able to field 2 full squads of dreads, using the resin ones as "squad leaders". Admittedly is going to be quite hard to field 6 dreads in a single game, but if I ever do its going to be quite a stompy match!

The dreads might be the ones I am less happy about, for 1 small reason: I did not pose them a bit more creatively. 3 of them are quite static, which is great for stability of the figure, but sadly make them a bit too similar to eathother. Hopefully I manage to get some interesting desings on the top of the minis to make them disticng, and the 2 I scratchbuild look quite well compared to the other 2.
Overall I think they look fine, and with the addition of the 2 resin dreads this posing issue is not too much of a problem, but is something I'll keep in mind for future projects.















Resin Dreads

I cant recomend these models enought. Got them from Etsy- Fully cycled. They are cheaper, they have a great design and the parts are exangeable. I though they where going to be a bit bigger, but other than that I am really happy with them.













Automatically Appended Next Post:
Army update!
Its been some time since I put all my ork minis together., and after the the last painting batch I wanted to get an ork army recap.


You know you might start to have a bit on a thing when your minis dont fit on the space you got to field them XD


This is my 100% completed mini count, going up to 3500 points of orks. I started this army to be a more fun and layed back and relaxed project, but ended up investing quite a lot of time both on conversion and painting.
Really prod of it and I'm having a ton of fun working on it, specially with the scratchbuild and unique conversions.
Although there is clearly enough to play a ton of games, there are still some key units missing, such as wagons, meganobs and a few more boyz both regular and with special weapons
.









That was just the completely painted portion, since I got around 4500p that still need painting and some buidling. There are a few minis missing from this image which I forgot, including stormboyz, lootas, the mega-dread and what in a far future will be a gorkanaut.

Here you can see some of the missing units that I'll like to have on my army, I just need to schedule a space to get down and painting them.







This is how much space the whole collection takes, painted on the left, unpainted on the right.
Once I finish the minis here I'll be proud to call my ork collection completed, maybe adding the ocasional unit here and there, either by inspiration or by new releases that pick my attention.


Compared to my space marines, the primary vs secondary army spot is getting contested. I got more ultramarine points painted, but more ork points in minis. The body count and work is considerably different, and with airbrushing I expect my marines to be done much faster than before.
My marines do not have too much left to paint, and when I get motivated I'll be great to finish them off.




Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/05/17 20:25:54


Post by: Olthannon


Wow, I love army shots so it's great to see your collection. Really shows off how striking your colour scheme.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/05/20 13:58:41


Post by: Killatores


Quick update.
After finishing the walkers I gifted myself some stormboyz.
Although its a unit I find fun and userfull on the tabletop, I never got them since the GW models seems a bit too... similar. They lack a bit of character and dynamic poses for what it is pretty much an ork on a rocket, and the price is quite high for such a unit.

Some days ago I found something on ebay that really cough my eye. These are Maxmini mele orks, half the price of stormboyz, and poses that I saw matching exactly what I was after.
Once I got them and after some clean up, I was really pleased with the level of detail of the models, in my experience rivaling Artelw.
I made some bases to emphasize the poses and give an illusion of close to the ground flying run, did some small changes and added rocket packs to everyone.
Really happy with the results and I'll be looking foward to paint these.
The pictures are a bit blown out so you cant see well all the detail, but I assure you these minis are really impressive. I'll probably buy a few more, since the price and the quality of the models is almost unrivaled.





This guy is probably my favorite. I did a classic smoke trail and got the guy that originally had a kneeling pose to a crazy take-off pose, full orky. I did not want to make this kind of base for each one of minis since I think the effect would have got old quite quickly, but in this guy it looks perfect.





And some normal GW stormboyz, where I got a bunch of bits to make the rocket packs for the maxmini guys, as well as a reference for size and height.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/05/23 12:48:41


Post by: gobert


Cracking work on the big ladz! A really fun looking bunch with loads of character. The whole army shot is stunning, the quantity of kitbashes, scratch builds and conversions is insane, as is the quality! I’m pleased to see there’s plenty more to come and the Stormboyz will be a cool addition. The non-GW stuff works really well for the Orks


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/06/02 21:00:14


Post by: Killatores


First wagon completed!
Mostly scratchbuilt, but my first big orky vehicle (there will be more coming too) but a needed one for my army).
Took heavy inspiration from this video, sicne I saw it I felt in love with the design of the mini.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OKntZVc82s&t=211s...
Tough-looking and unique although still recognizeable as a wagon, I just wanted to do one for myself.
After getting distracted with a few other projects and spending over 5 hours adding rivets to finish it of, here it is! I'll try to start painting it soon.






Some closeup detail areas.



Compared to the mega grot tank I built recently.


Something I would say is encourage all ork players to give scratch building a go. Finished bigger projects like this might be intimidating to look at if you are a beginner, but look at the progress of the mini everything is much simpler. I only use a few tips and tricks, and work adding layers of detail starting from the overall shape to the smaller rivets.



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/06/03 19:39:32


Post by: gobert


You’re getting some great mileage out of the toilet rolls! another really fun scratch build and closely matches the aesthetic of your inspiration too. Only yours has much more detail… 5 hours of riveting is pretty hardcore!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/06/07 04:31:22


Post by: Camkierhi


Every time I come here I want to pull out my orks and get some work done. So inspiring!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/06/10 09:27:37


Post by: Killatores


 gobert wrote:
You’re getting some great mileage out of the toilet rolls! another really fun scratch build and closely matches the aesthetic of your inspiration too. Only yours has much more detail… 5 hours of riveting is pretty hardcore!

You clearly seem like my 1no fan XD
Thanks for your support


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Finished half of my flashgitz, I see when I get around to finish the other half.
Is one of my favorite units, but when it comes to painting they are a bit of a juggle. I do paint the guns separately, so it feels like painting 2 miniatures rather than just 1.






Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/06/14 06:09:24


Post by: gobert


Ha! Yeah, I take the approach to comment frequently, interacting both ways keeps the ploggers coming back for more! . Very flashy gitz too


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/06/14 16:47:20


Post by: Olthannon


5 hours of riveting is brutal but awesome end result. Looking forward to seeing that all painted.


Nice work on those Flash Gitz, dey lookin' mighty flashy! Plenty of dakka!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/06/15 22:06:29


Post by: Killatores


Excited to share my latest creation: A mega dread!

My last batch of orks had pretty much all the walkers I wanted on my army... except for one.
The mega dread its one of my favorite ork concepts, and rule-wise unique in the sense that can get teleported into enemy lines and charge with pretty much 100% success. Im looking foward to try the tactic sometime soon and make all my orks wach the spectacle.

Its been a really fun project to work on. I had a clear idea of what I wanted from the start, although I encountered a couple roadblocks that I managed to get through
First one was the melee weapon. I made one from kill-kan weapons but ended up beeing a bit too small, thus I had to boost it up a bit.
The second was committing tothe pose. I had a clear direction at the start but I double-guessed myself halfway though, but managed to get over it.
Filling the details was not super tedious but I had some moments of just looking at the model and thinking where to do what to not overload the model, but still make it look orky and detailed.

But enough of that, lets get to the juicy part.
First of all: The SIZE.
I dont know exactly how big the forge world mega dread is, but this thing is massive. It barely looks like a miniature.
It makes space marines look like midgets, dreadnoughts look tiny and primaris redemptors small. Believe or not it rivals the size of my squiggoths!
I believe I have the right base size though, so this "mini" should be tabletop friendly. I even purposly made the front of the model a bit empty to allow base-to-base contact with other big models.




Im really happy with the end result of the model. There is detail and personality in all the important areas, and it looks like it could actually function. Big engine pipes on the back hinting where the power of the machine comes from, and the arms and legs look agile yet powerfull enough to move its weight around.











Tiny grot on the shoulder, helping the war effort by repairing the machine, manning the shoulder turret and occasionally throwing rocks and other dangerous objects to the enemy!


The primed look of the mini. I'ver heard from some people that they prefer seing the model primed since this makes all the elements go together. Personally I prefer the pictures without it, since it showcases more of the art behind the contruction of the model.



As a little hidden detail, the model is separated on the middle and hold by powerful magnets. This was one of the most difficult parts of the build, since I needed a completely sturdy contact point, that both had the pose I wanted and did not slide or moved around at all. I ended up almost making a 2 part mold with the model itself and now this connection is just rock solid and invisible.
This was arguably completely unnecessary, but will make painting, storage and transport much easier.
I've become used to do this on my bigger models just in case I need to keep the parts separated in the future. It would be a complete shame if I had to cut a model in half or not being able to transport it due to its size.


As a quick reminder, this was my original 3D sketch of the mega-dread. Swapped the arms, but overall is pretty much spot on!


I will start painting sometime soon, so wish me luck!
I hope you enjoy the update, I'll be interested on read your feedback on this beast.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/06/17 13:35:08


Post by: Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll


The swapped arms was a good idea, it looks much more natural with the claw raised like that!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/06/20 09:52:35


Post by: Killatores


This weekend I started my next batch, another 1000 points group.

The unis chosen are my recently finished scratch build vehicles, which I really want to field on some matches soon, and some squigg units. These sguig riders and boss where a gift by a friend and I just wanted to get them finished since it makes me feel guilty to have them in a box unpainted for months while I get so many other projects done. Also 3 meks to complete my walkers, since I only have 1 mek on my army and having a few more cant hurt.
Currently I've got so many ork minis that I really want painted for the tabletop that I'm struggling to get a schedule going. Komandos, burnas and tankbustas are all units I want to field and already got a few of them painted. Stomrboyz and meganobs too are units I really want to try out too.
I also have 10 more flashgitz that have their base layer, but need to be finished.

About the progres on the batch, I did not get to finish all the base colors, but got pretty close.
What is taking the longest time is to paint all the little grots. I will get them into some stands or somehting since holding them with my fingers is quite annoying XD. With the amount of minis I have painted already this should be standard practice already, but I sometimes get lazy with the simplest stuff.



I find the "all rusty metal" stage on the vehicles to look quite appealing, almost tempted to leave more metal exposed. Once they get the color and proper highlights though, it looks much better





Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/07/10 10:05:44


Post by: Camkierhi


Nice work. Love the iron works look you have going on here. Totally orky.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/07/25 15:05:13


Post by: Killatores


I'be busy lately not able to pain, but this weekend I managed to get some more steps on my lastests ork batch.
Basecoat and shades in, finished the skin and bones. Next will be doing leather, ropes and other non-riggid elements before doing the mains reds, yellows and metals.

Since I have so many gretching on the vehicles, painting so many additional minis slows down the process and Im probably putting way to much time on these little guys when they are not going to be visible from many sides, but Im sure once finished is going to look awesome all together.













Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/07/25 19:35:10


Post by: Captain Brown


Glad to see you found some painting time Killatores.

Cheers,

CB


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/07/25 20:56:50


Post by: Mr Nobody


Nice ork mech. Did you order it preprinted or print it yourself? I'm curious how easy it was to put together.

I really need to get something from gearguts one of these days...


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/07/25 23:17:21


Post by: Killatores


 Mr Nobody wrote:
Nice ork mech. Did you order it preprinted or print it yourself? I'm curious how easy it was to put together.

I really need to get something from gearguts one of these days...


If you are talking about the mega dread in the last picture that is a scratch build made mostly with plasticard and some bits. You can scroll up to see it without any paint, and some preliminary stages of the building and planning process.

Gearguts have a bunch of great models, I particularly like their dreads and big meks, although I find the big ones to be a bit expensive.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/07/27 03:17:46


Post by: Camkierhi


Stunning work. Beautiful, brings a tear to the eye!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/07/27 03:21:28


Post by: Mr Nobody


 Killatores wrote:
 Mr Nobody wrote:
Nice ork mech. Did you order it preprinted or print it yourself? I'm curious how easy it was to put together.

I really need to get something from gearguts one of these days...


If you are talking about the mega dread in the last picture that is a scratch build made mostly with plasticard and some bits. You can scroll up to see it without any paint, and some preliminary stages of the building and planning process.

Gearguts have a bunch of great models, I particularly like their dreads and big meks, although I find the big ones to be a bit expensive.


My apologies! With a closer look, I can see that now. The various pieces of plasticard and other bits are well put together.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/08/03 09:10:01


Post by: Killatores


Quick update!
I'll be away for a couple weeks, but before that I managed to finish the reds and yellows, getting most of the work done to complete this minis on my return. The edge highlighting will make everything pop even more, but so far quite happy with the results.













Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/08/06 11:20:44


Post by: gobert


You’ve been busy as usual killatores! The grot tank is looking spot on. I personally think it’s the attention to detail that sets your conversions and scratch builds apart, the well painted grots being a highlight. Enjoy your break, and we look forward to seeing more on the otherside!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/08/08 12:45:58


Post by: Killatores


 gobert wrote:
You’ve been busy as usual killatores! The grot tank is looking spot on. I personally think it’s the attention to detail that sets your conversions and scratch builds apart, the well painted grots being a highlight. Enjoy your break, and we look forward to seeing more on the otherside!

thanks man, I hope to see them finished soon after I go back to the uk


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Quick update:
On my holodays outside the UK I managed to paint a bit on a couple dead moments between activities. Just started the basecoating, no intention to actually get too much done but at least the basics shouldn't take too long.
Still early days but just wanted to get the progress up on the blog.
The minis I brought are some units I want to be playing soon. 5 burnas, 5 tankbustas and 5 kommandos to have at least 10 of each by the end of this batch (with the ones I already painted months ago), 12 stormboyz and 8 meganobs.






Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/08/22 09:44:39


Post by: Killatores


Back in the UK!
A ton of hobbing to do so I better get going with the update.


First of all... GHAZ is here!





My painted army is in a point where it deserves a worth general, and although I do have my warbosses, conversions and big guyz, I did not yet own the Greenest ork of all.
I do love the model and is really well made, but I wanted to make him a bit more my own by changing the pose.
I really liked the default non-shooting pose, but that's too vanilla for me. I put togetter the model in a couple other poses, one charing and another claw up, and considered which one to go with.



Claw up was the one that got the most response and I find it to be the more imposing and "waaaargh!" inducing, so I went for it.

- First step was to modify the body slightly. It is build with 2 halfs that go together, and I started by leaving a hap that filled with greenstuff later. so make the body just a bit bigger towards the bottom, and having the legs a bit more separated. The default body felt a bit too small, so this hap helped making it bigger.

- Second, I placed the arm and did some quick greenstuff sculping for the empty gap. This was done in a few passes, since I needed for the greenstuff to harden first to lock the arm into place.



- Third step was to trim down the shoulder pad... a lot. It really suttle, but when I positioned the arm, I did it without the shoulderpad. The gap between the claw thumb and the shoulder was big enough and gave the model a great silhouette, but when I added the shoulder armour it would barely fit there, clogging the area and making it way to bussy. Also there where some gaps on the upper area of the armour.
Thus, I spent almost an hour slowly trimming the shoulder armour to make it fit perfectly, both removing the gaps and leaving some space between the claw and the shoulder to have a better final pose. This took a while and the before and after would be hard to notice, but it makes a big difference on the model.



- Next was to modify the backpack to giv ethe arm space. The pipes out of the engine and the animal skull where in the way, so I repositioned them upward. This gives the model even more height and gives some space for the claw silouette. Earlier versions of the pose had the backpack angled backward to allow for the space, but it didnt work as well and made the cable work for later much harder.
On that backpack I will also add Makari's banner. I never liked how the gretchin is holding a banner yet has does not, so I'll give him the banner instead.



- Added some longer barrels to the gun.

- The base was angled for the pose and the gaps filled. The base adds some hight to the model making him tower even more over any other model, quite fitting for his commanding presence.
Keeping the parts separated for easier painting. There are still a few modifications I might do to him, but overall the model is failrty completed.




Its not a perfect conversion, but to be fair the vanilla model is already so good its really hard to improve it substantially. This modifications might not make the model better, but at least make him slightly different and more mine.
Once I finish some of my current painting projects I'll have a focused painting time for this guy only, trying to get him to the higher quality I can. I considered painting him black to show he is a propper goff, but what type of general for my army he would be if he is not painted on my armie's colors, right?



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Quick squig update.

I 'm currently painting some squig minis, one squad of squighog, a nob and a warboss. These where a gift from a friend that really likes squig models (He has mechanicus in 40k but the goblin squig guyz on Age of Sigmar).

I never planned to have squig models on my army (I didnt liked the different asthetic to the mad-max orks), but with this gift and my squiggoth/kill rigs... I actually have a small force of squig minis. I though that to be able to field them on a match I needed at least another squad of squighogs, so I bought one and did some minor conversions to avoid having the same monopose figures that everyone has. They are not completely finished but you can see what's going on.




As a curiosity, to convert the nob I cut the face of squig in half, and turned the upper section upside down, gluing it to the neck and filling the gaps with greenstuff. It looks surprisingly good as long as you spend some time green stuffing the gaps. I also modified the tail and the leg to be in a slightly different position.
The normal guys have a mix and mach of bits on them, changing the heads, arms, heads and some accesories to make them a bit different too.




Now, going back to my friend, he will be around to the UK in a few weeks (he lives in Spain), and I want to gift him somethingas well: Custom sculpted gigant squig!
This is not the very first time I sculpt some squig stuff, but my sculpting skills still need a lot of work.
I made the main body with sculpting claw and now I am working with greensutff on the details, adding the teeth and claws, skin and other areas of interest. Should be finishing it soon
I managed to get a decent pose, although it doest not have a good angle to take a photo of the mini, is one of those that looks better on your hand than on a 2D picture.





Automatically Appended Next Post:
And as a very last thing, the basecoating batch I was working back in Spain is almost done (basecoating).
Only needs the metals and small blue details before a wash, and they'll be on their way to be completed some day.
I didnt expected to finish them at all, but at least I got a considerable amount of progress on minis I would like to field on games soon. After the wash the models look decent enough to play in smaller games.




I do have many projects opened and still waiting to be finished but I do feel I am making decent progress. My problem is that I keep adding more exciting stuff

Building-whise I believe I only have 2 Wagons on hold that will take a while to finish once I start with them, but my painting queue with started models is getting a bit annoying. Other than this batch, the other batch I was working while before going to Spain, and 10 flashgitz, I also have 10 hellblasters/devastators, Calgar and 5 space marine vehicles.
Exciting stuff to work on!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/08/28 15:24:06


Post by: gobert


You’ve been a busy Ork! The Ghaz tweaks are really cool, making him even more imposing than the stock mini (though he’s not that miniature now!). The squig work is really strong too. The blades on the faceplate are proper cool and the sculpted squig is sweet


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/08/28 15:32:52


Post by: Killatores


Finished the squig mini for my friend
Fairly happy with the result, although my modeling skills need to get much better. I can do touch ups and gap filling, but making full minis is a bit more complicated. Is pretty easy to spot sights of greenstuff work all over the model, but hopefully can be explained as "organic looking skin".
I know I would have done a much better job using milliput instead of greenstuff, but since I became alergic to it I have avoided having any contact with it. Sure I would ended up with a smoother and better finish for my friend, but that would mean 3 weeks of health issues for me XD

As a personal touch, I added a symbol on the base which my friend has tattooed on his arm. We are both 3D artists, and he is a rigger (makes puppets for character models), and bones in 3D rigging are represented with that shape.














Automatically Appended Next Post:
Quick update on Ghaz

I finished the conversion work on the model and already airbrushed a the main reds. I will not keep painting him until I finish the batch I am almost done with, but expect some update on him soon.
As a couple of last touches, I recieved some nob heads, and these ended up being much bigger than expected. One of them really called me since it has a lot of energy and cyborg elements on it. I did a few tests and ended up deciding to use it as my ghaz head, adding a lot of Waaaaargh scream energy to the mini. Some people might prefer the original head, and I was not sure about which one to use.
Although the original head makes the heroic scale work better, the custom head looks so much more agressive on its screaming, making the original look like an evil laugh instead of a waaargh scream.
What ended up making me choose the custom head is that its different. This ghaz will pick up the attention of anyone looking due to the pose and bigger high on the base and banner, and the head complementing the conversion when you take a closer look at the model should look great.



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/08/28 20:16:04


Post by: gobert


Yeah, that is a big head! Cool work on the squig, I’m sure your mate will approve!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/08/29 01:11:24


Post by: Camkierhi


Absolutely brilliant on the resculpts.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/08/29 07:36:10


Post by: theCrowe


I heard someone singing my song and suspected there may be something awesome and green around. I WAS NOT disappointed!

Your Ghazzkull is mighty! What a triumph he is going to be when completed.

And I love the sculpted Squig. I’m sure your friend will love it too.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/09/05 11:16:47


Post by: Killatores


Batch DONE!
This might be one of my best batches so far, adding some really needed vehicles, finishing a few supa fun projects and finally paying my debt to a friend.
This batch of almost 1000[ of orky goodness had a few challenges painting wise, particularly the squig and grots took some mind and pacience. The last 2 days or edge-highlighting the metals and picking up every single rivet was a bit of a chore, but managed to get trough it with some music.

I'll upload the images in multiple posts since there are a lot of them, and have spoiler sections for the more filler pics since I dont want to spam over 100 pics in a row in this blog.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
DA SQUIGS!

This group of mounted orks was a gift from a friend (the same one that will be receiving the sculpted squig from above), and despite I've had them for some time, I did not got around to paint them. Felt a bit guilty for not finish them but I had other projects going on, and now the debt is finally closed.

Beastboss on squiggasaur
This guy rocks! Used him in a couple games already and did fantastically, killing Yarrick 3 times in a single charge, quickly becoming a favorite on the tabletop.
The miniature is heavily converted, specially on the dynamism of the pose and some elements on both the rider and the squig that make them stand out from other similar models. You should be able to find more details about the building aspect earlier on this blog.

Painting-wise I was afraid about this model when I started painting it, since I have not painted big organic smooth models before. I experimented a bit with the airbursh and ended up liking the look a lot, particularly the purple from below make it look more organic and interesting. I subtly edge-highlighted the organic areas with suitable colors, and washed some of the shadow areas as well, but left most of the airbrush work on most of the large surfaces.
The rest was pretty much standard painting for me. Some of the bone and white areas look a bit too bright on the pics, but that's my camera not being able to capture the values correctly. For example, the eyes have a much more yellow tone to them, with just the center being a bit brighter.






Squighogs
Little brothers from the boss above, these where quite fun to work with. As I said before, from the announcement I never was too much of a fan of these guys, and I am still not completely on-board with them, but I have to say they are quite charming.
Barely any modifications on the mdoes, and the painting followed a similar process from the squigasaur. I do like how well the colors work on these, separating the model on green, red and yellow in a way I find quite appealing.
I have another box of them ready to be painted so I can field them more effectively in a match, only with 3 if feels they would be a bit lonely.




More pics:
Spoiler:







Automatically Appended Next Post:
MEKS!

Big Meks

Although I have a ArtelW mek with force field, I do need a few more for vehicle-heavy lists, to keep my walkers, wagons, kannons and buggies nicely maintained.
These are simple easy conversions from the necromunda ambot kit, which I am sure everyone and their model has converted an ork from. They are not super original, but they do the job.
Plus, it was a good opportunity to paint some more energy effects, which are really satisfying to do.

After this the only mek I am missing is the one with the Shokk Attack gun. I will convert one at some point when I find the proper inspiration for it.








Automatically Appended Next Post:
WAGON

Big guys territory now. I was screaming to finish this guy since I need him for many ork lists, and finally having a wagon will open up a bunch of ideas and units that currently I am barely using on the field.
I really like the results here. Although I admittedly stole the overall design from a youtube video, the execution here has worked really well. The models is both instantly recognizable as a wagon, unique, tabletop super friendly and the design of it makes sense. Big fan of the plenty and huge wheels and some of the mechanical details.

Painting-wise was really straight forward. There are not that many hard to reach areas that are visible. The turret can be removed for transport or just to show this is not a big-shooting unit on the field.






Without the turret


Detail pics




Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/09/05 12:25:52


Post by: Killatores


GROT MEGA TANK

Super fun experience with this model. I might end up using it as a wagon sometimes until I get more transports, but still excited to bring to a game.
From the start I knew exactly what I wanted with this model: battleship with tank tracks and ramming front, Ton of firepower both on the front and the sides, and a bunch of grots all around the vehicle. I did not realize such a concept existed in forge world, and although those look great, I wanted to make my own.After some scouting I got a 3D printed bridge, which had the aesthetic I was looking for and plenty space for guns, got myself plenty of blood bowl snotlings and built this.

The painting process was really cool, the paint scheme works really well and keeps the mini quite readable despite the absurdity. I kept almost all the elements in this mini separated for painting, and it was a bit of a moment to glue everything together finally. There are just a couple of magnetized elements for transport, but otherwhise its quite a solid build.

I am proud of the grots, despite the fact I put so much time into them although you cant see some of them from all angles. They took a considerable amount of time (its almost a full squad of normal grots).
I do think they are really easy to see and most of my work on them ended up being worth it, only with the squig-bomb on the hand of one of them being completely blocked by the side missiles. That squig-bomb face looked really cool, but well, I do have another model of these which I'll be using on some squig-buggies at some point.
With the look on these grots, I know I will be re-painting my current normal grots to this skin tone. It just like it a lot.






The grots






Glueing the guys in position



Random Details
Spoiler:











Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/09/05 12:48:03


Post by: Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll


Fantastic work! That Grot Megatank is especially great with all the details!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/09/05 13:10:03


Post by: Killatores


MEGA DREAD

And the final big boy of the batch, my scratch-build mega dread. Cant wait to field it in a game, probably teleporting and charning the biggest model on my opponent's backlines.
Super happy with the miniature. I love how chunky and powerful it looks, pose is quite dynamic, and as far as I can tell it makes mechanical sense. Other than the legs and parts of the arms, the rest is all my design, with some standouts such as the back big vents, doors, rockets and lenses on top, gun and claw designs.
The inside is supposed to be a cockpit for the crew, probably with 2 orks, one at each side, and a couple grots. The grot on thee shoulder should be manning the gun on the other shoulder, but instead of firing the gun at a further target, preferred to attack the closest enemy with a mighty rock.

The model has the hips magnetized for transport, and locks into position quite strongly

Painting was quite straight forward, not too many unknowns since I've been painting big ork vehicles for some time now. Again, not that many hard to reach areas, specially due to the magnetized hip. The model is also really big, so even the details between the legs where fairly easy to paint.
Doing that many lenses was pretty fun, since by now I got fairly good at them and I can get them really consistently.








Moar details:

Spoiler:














Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/09/05 13:37:09


Post by: muette


Mindblowing paintjobs, loving the attention to detail and the whole orkiness achieved. Great job scattering grots all over the place


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/09/20 22:33:46


Post by: Killatores


Next project started !


This time I'll be working on my leaders for my 2 armies,Calgar and Ghaz. I had a great time converting these models to make them my own, and hopefully I'll make justice to their status with an appropriate paintjob.

Both had a pass with the airbrush for the main color, and now already went throw the basecoating and washes. Today I painted the faces and bone colors, and once I complete some minor details I'll do a pass on the main colors blue and red to enhance the airbrush look, specially on Ghaz where it ended up a bit too bright everywhere. The shadows on both models have a purple tone which adds a lot, so hopefully Ill be able to keep that while darkening some areas.

Hopefully more coming soon despite how short on free time I am lately.
PD: I know the Guilliman is a bigger boss than Calgar, but Calgar is the one that inspired my ultramarines on the first place and in my eyes the real leader of my blue guys. Eventually I'll find a way to make a proper guilliman for myself, different from the GW one either by converting it or by using 3rd party prints.

















Automatically Appended Next Post:
In the modeling department... TANKS!

My ultramarines are mostly infantry and I've never used tanks on games. Over a few years now, and through Ebay bargains, I ended up with 4 rhino chasis and a landraider, as well as some accessories and weapons for them. This might be the moment to get them built.

My idea was to have 3 rhino chassis completely magnetized for both rhino, razorback, whirlwind and predator uses. All of them would be personalized and decorated, specially the landraider.
Once I get some turrets I order for a 3D printer I'll have all the bits I need for completing this section of my army. This will probably happen after I finish my faction leaders, but for now I can show you some of the progress on these. Most of the work has been restoring, magnetizing and making the needed bits I want for the decorations, but although is a lot of work it feels quite rewarding.

I am exited to finish the builds and start airbrushing the blues. I had a great experience with the droppod and these might be quite fun to do too.



Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/09/22 20:45:32


Post by: Camkierhi


Amazing. Just bloody amazing bud. Really great.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/09/24 13:38:41


Post by: muette


The detailing work on those vehicles looks brilliant, looking forward to see paint on it!


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/09/28 18:17:06


Post by: gobert


The finished big batch looks great. The vibrancy on reds and yellows is really cool.

I always love a rescue of pre-loved minis. The rhinos look like they needed a good bit of work. Looks like you went to town in the land raider too, are the GS extras on the side taken from some terrain?


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/10/01 10:05:50


Post by: Killatores


 gobert wrote:
The finished big batch looks great. The vibrancy on reds and yellows is really cool.

I always love a rescue of pre-loved minis. The rhinos look like they needed a good bit of work. Looks like you went to town in the land raider too, are the GS extras on the side taken from some terrain?


Cheers
Yes, those green stuff casts are made using blue stuff and terrain pieces with imperial iconography


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/10/04 10:43:57


Post by: Killatores


Bosses finished!
Calgar and Ghaz are completed and ready to get on the tabletop. Very happy with the results and proud to have them lead my 2 armies.
These are the first minis in a while that I paint more "individually" rather than in a batch, and did not took that much time despite my busy timetable.
The conversion work and paint job really make these minis mine despite of how common and mono-pose they are.

Great 2 minis finished, now I'll move on to less important minis, probably some ork or ultramarine infantry. Once some bits arrive in the mail I'll be finishing those ultramarine tanks and paint them right away though!

Little lesson learned here:
I think I would need to push myself more on future important characters, since although I feel happy with the results, the methods I use seem to have a ceiling that I am already reaching. More time or focus really dont make a noticeable difference, thus I feel I need to learn or approach what I do in a slightly different method. Sure, I could spend a few more hours getting certain details just right, but overall I feel my recipe for my ultramarines and evilsunz is quite solid and I can get consistent and good quality results with any mini.

Trying to use more color theory or artistic choices would probably give me more of a challenge and expand what I can do with my paintjobs.

Here are some pics of the results. The photos are a bit over exposed, might take some better ones once I get a better camera.



GHAZ

Super fun to convert, great to paint. This guy is BIG, almost the size of a redemptor.
For the painting I used an airbursh to speed through the reds, but I had to spend a couple evenings doing glazes on the shadows to bring the needed contrast. I used purples on the shadows since it makes the model so much interesting, and the difference before and after this contrast pass is night and day. I feel like I need to practice my airbrush a lot more to squeeze more out of it, since at the moment I barely use it since I dont have yet enough fine control with it.
If you paint this model in different pieces is quite easy as long as you paint from the most hidden parts outwards, and overall It was an enjoyable time.













All my warbosses so far:
Ghaz is my biggest boss yet, but I love all the my ones too. With this I get my set up to 5, I'll be interested on knowing how you'll rate them in a top 5 XD



Makari:
Honestly, although it can be userfull on the tabletop to a degree, I dont care about this guy. I painted it just to complete the ghaz set. The conversion is a bit lazy just because I wanted the banner on Ghaz instead.
The eyes are painted but the lihgting does not show them here XD



CALGAR

Once I saw the new plastic primaris calgar... I really hated it. The pose was just not for me. I understand is a call back to his classic pose, but the Calgar mini I really loved was the previous one, the terminator metal one that I own. Although I put effort at the time, I think I did not manage to make that miniature justice with my paint job. To be fair, is quite coated in small details, and is quite hard to separate all the elements properly and keep the model readable. After that, I started looking at that "bad" calgar plastic mini, since although the pose is mhe, it did had some convention potential.
Once I bough it I manage to change to pose to emulate the terminator one, and with that I was set.
The model now did not only had a much better pose, which was also more dynamic and a call back to the classic one, but also had some more size to stand out over other models in my ultramarine heavy-infantry army.

The paint job was fairly straight forward. I did do some more airbrush work on this guy to get the main blues, and used purple on the shadows too to bring up the color interest of the mini.
The face and non metallic metals where the most difficult parts to do but ended up working really well, but I'll say in person they look much better than in the photos.











Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/10/04 17:37:57


Post by: IGtR=


Love the reposing of Ghaz and Calgar - really nice takes on some modern classics

Thanks for sharing


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/10/08 16:22:33


Post by: Killatores


More projects!
After finishing my 2 leaders, I have a bunch of options for things to do next.
I could do some ultramarines for a change, but since its orktober and recently got my battlewagon ready for waaargh, I'll do some meganobs.
I already started painting them some months ago, but got distracted with other stuff. They are fairly close to finish the base coat, but I have a bit of an issue.

Through conversions and scratchbuilding I got 13 of them, + a warboss. I was pretty happy with most of them, but a few where not in-line with my standards, and 13 + 1 is a bit of an estrange number.
I manage to get 4 chaos obliteraros for practically nothing, and I wanted to convert them into proper meganobs. Whit this numbers I find myself more on 3 squads of 5 proper models. These squads have some asthetic differences between them, and although I am not completely sold on not looking homogeneous, I think they work well regarthless.

Classic
These are mostly normal meganobs. 2 of them are my oldest scratchbuilds, which I'll say still hold up today. I might do some minor touches to them, but should be fairly straight foward.



ObliteraOrks
Bigger than the normal meganob, but also potentially cooler. I started by removing as much as the chaos marks from the models as I needed and reposed the models a little bit so they dont look the same.
I just started adding the most basic elements, such as the heads and some melee weapons, but they'll need some work before they look completed. Fun scratchbuilding though!
The warboss on mega armour will serve as a leader for this squad, and I swaped his old head for one that has a lot more character and size.


Mega Urruk
These where some really fun conversions from some time ago. Sigmar Urruks work quite well to meganobs, although the asthetic is a bit different. I'll use them as "beastnagga" meganobs, which in other words means "they'll be easier to tell apart on a melee if they are next to other units of meganobs".


mmeh?
Not sure about these. I might scrapt them and use their bits on the conversions I'm doing, or add some more work to make them look better. On a sea of meganobs they look alright, but looked at individually they lack a bit


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/10/09 17:18:04


Post by: Mr Nobody


You have done a good job of giving the meganobs a bit more dynamism. They're not the nimblest orks, but it's still nice seeing them rushing towards the enemy with everyone else.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/10/09 19:41:59


Post by: mcmattila


Superb work on both Ghaz and Calgar. Excellent conversions and sweet paintjobs.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/10/12 10:01:34


Post by: gobert


Phwoar! Ghaz and Calgar painted up great, the reposes both work well. I can’t get over the size of Ghaz, for that reason he’s number 1 in my top 5, which would run in size order (Ghaz, bike, snagga, buzzsaw axe, blood bowl(?)).

The ObliterOrks match the Ork aesthetic surprisingly well. Will they have some remnants of their origin, like armour panel colours to show they’ve been looted, or have everything complete hidden?


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/10/12 13:43:50


Post by: Killatores


 gobert wrote:
Phwoar! Ghaz and Calgar painted up great, the reposes both work well. I can’t get over the size of Ghaz, for that reason he’s number 1 in my top 5, which would run in size order (Ghaz, bike, snagga, buzzsaw axe, blood bowl(?)).

The ObliterOrks match the Ork aesthetic surprisingly well. Will they have some remnants of their origin, like armour panel colours to show they’ve been looted, or have everything complete hidden?


Thanks! Glad you like them
For the obliterOrks the idea was to use the minis as a base to build up the meganob on top. They are going to be 100% ork-looking, and any chaos aspect will be hidden or transformed as best as I can. I get the appeal of orks looting the chaos enemies thus having a similar asthetic or aspects of the the chaos look showing through , but these guys build their stuff properly XD


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/10/15 09:36:46


Post by: Boringstuff


Just scrolled through the entire thread - awesome conversions! Also, normally I hate the Ultramarines scheme, but you make it look great.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/10/17 09:32:49


Post by: Killatores


Vehicles updates!
Although I am still waiting for a few magnets to arrive, pretty much all the components are ready.
I started doing the blues on the vehicles, which at this stage is fairly simple cenital airbrushing. I'll be doing masks for the whites and trying to keep them clean later. The edge highlighting will make all the difference here.



For the landraider I wanted to do something a bit more special, and found this youtube inspiration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnXZdvEDwOU&t=74s&ab_channel=DDBuilds
I did a quick tests and I liked the result, making the pattern less obvious, and exagerating the shadow gradient more. I also spent an hour practicing the pattern, and once the varnish dries on the model I'll give it a go on the actual model.





Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/10/17 22:43:52


Post by: Killatores


Pattern update.

With many of my projects I try to do something different to keep exploring and learning on the hobby, and in this case one of the big ones is making a free-hand all over a landraider.
These are the 2 main steps on the freehand I did today, where first I layed out the main lines and then added the leaves on the gaps. There is room for improvement but overall I am happy with the brush controll and patterns.
Currently the model is drying a protecting layer of varnish before I apply the last step, a gradient on the shadows by airbrush to get the final effect.
The areas that do not have the patter and going to be painted with another color later, specially whites, gold and metals.





Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/10/18 11:56:41


Post by: Killatores


Another quick update.

got the airbrush out and finished that blue on the shadows. This has mutted the freehand in some areas but improved the contrast on the model so far. There will be another pass with blacklining and maybe some glazed with black on the shadows later. Might do another pass freehand to reinforce some areas, particularly the corners and top if I feel it needs it.





Once all the varnish dries I get the masks on to do the whites. I already tested this method before and it worked fine, so shoudnt be too much of an issue. After that, a few base colors more and I'll get most of the model done before edgehighlights.


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/10/21 11:57:05


Post by: gobert


Seriously bling raider! I’ve seen a few people do similar and it’s super effective, great job


Custom Gorkanout! @ 2022/10/23 11:42:40


Post by: Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll


That's impressive patterning! I love what you did with the airbrush after it, it actually ties the pattern together really well.