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Despite never having had the urge previously to blog about anything (hey everybody, look at Meeeeeee!), the excellent and inspiring work of others here on Dakka has finally motivated me to do a P&M blog. I'm hoping that by putting my work out there, with some c&c, my painting and modelling might improve. Of course, this will include my current works in progress but I'm hoping to also include pics of older completed works and whole squads together. So far, I only play 40k and only orks (check the signature).

I got hooked on 40k back in the early 90's and painted/played all through high school with a few friends who were also into the hobby. After high school, I took a 20 year hiatus until two years ago when I dusted off my minis to give to my nephew for Christmas. I had a random assortment, and couldn't bring myself to let go of my orks (even though they'd been in a box all that time). I figured I'd give painting another try to see if I still liked it, bought a box of grotz, and now find myself building a new Waaagh! to bring mayhem and ruin to the galaxy. I'm also writing a novel that builds my army's backstory, and after it gets finished and subsequently rejected by the Black Library, perhaps I'll post that on Dakka, too.

So, what can you expect? 1. A fluffy, footsloggin' band of orks (I dunno why, but I'm not into painting big minis or vehicles...yet) led by Gulgog Tuftoof, Defskullz Warlord, Great Ancient God of the Desert, comprised of Skullz and Sunz from the homeplanet and some Freebooterz they met along the way.
2. A slower-than-geological rate of "progress". Disclaimer: regular visitors to this blog (if I get any) may begin to feel as though time is actually moving backwards due to the speed at which I paint/update. RL is hectic, and I don't have much time to devote to the hobby. That being said, the Unofficial Painting Competition here on Dakka has inspired me to finish at least one mini a month, and I've been maintaining that pace pretty consistently for a while now (no way to build a horde army, I know). I'll try to throw in pics of my Oldhammer orks minis periodically to keep it interesting.
3. Obviously, if you've made it this far, you should also be expecting long-winded late night ramblings from yours truly.

After assembling a dozen or so standard boyz in the basic poses, I came across SJM's magnificent P&M blog and vowed that every ork I did from then on would have at least some degree of customization. Kitbashing and converting minis is now more than half the fun for me, and the project that I plan to kick this off with is a squad of custom Tankbustas. Pics to follow...

Enjoy, and c&c are always welcome.

As promised, Tankbustas! Tankbusta #1 was for the April painting challenge, "The Relic". I've always liked the old-style marine rocket launchers, so I looted one. They must really be relics (or marines don't use rocket launchers) because there's very few pictures of minis with this style of launcher floating about the web. This one came w/ a shoulder pad/arm/hand built in, so I carved it out and added a bit of plastic above the handle to make room for the much larger ork arm. Here's the unpainted WIP and the final shots:

The idea for these guys was that they came from some long-forgotten backwater planet and had gotten good at harassing the local AM/PDF tank patrols when the Warlord's Waaagh! landed, leveled the place, and scooped up the squad for his own frontlines. In case you thought a tank hammer wasn't primitive enough, here's Tankbusta #2 (aka Donkey Kong):

When I decided to do tankbustas, I started researching the history of infantry-based anti-tank warfare and came across the Panzerfaust ("Tank Fist"), a recoilless rifle-type device that fired an explosive shell. I'm going to reshape the business end to look more like the real thing, and add a sight and a cap on the bottom, but here's Tankbusta #3, Ork w/ Panzerfaust and "Can Opener":


There are some really cool images on Wikipedia of these things, among them, this one:

@Dysartes: it is the hand that normally cradles a shoota. I was thinking that maybe his target was just out of range, and he was motioning it towards him while taunting it. Mainly, I didn't want the arm to cover the whole body the way the original space marine arm does.

aaaaaand, I have an update! Panzerfaust is modeled, and I'm reasonably happy with the way it turned out. The body of the shell has a slightly conical shape, and given the chance to do it over, I would have chosen to give it an even more exaggerated angle, but for a first try, it works and it's now ready for primer (his head and other arm are on sticks, ready for primer, too):

Tankbusta #3 is finally done! Pretty happy w/ the way the painting and the weapon turned out, but I'm still working on my photography technique. Hope you like 'im!

(front)

(Panzerfaust detail)

(left)

(tank backplate detail)

("da Can Opena!")


I've got another standard boy wiv a rokkit launcha in Skullz colors, so I just need one more to make a squad, and I'm thinking of making a boss nob for the June comp, "Mighty Heros".

Tankbusta #4, Da Boss Nob! So June's competition theme is Mighty Heros and Nefarious Villains, and appropriately, I need a boss nob for my tankbustas squad. Hero to the orks, nefarious villain to anyone on the wrong end of the rokkit launcha! I was playing around w/ various bitz, and came up with this:



I really like the pose, and the klaw makes him more dynamic, but it sounds like there's no reason in-game to give the boss nob of a tankbustas squad a power klaw, so I think I'll probably end up going w/ this instead:



Obviously, either way I'll have to modify the kombi-launcha to remove the extra hand.

I was beginning to feel like the combi-launcha was a cop-out for my Tankbusta Boss Nob. Sure it has rokkits on it and all, but this is the boss nob of my Tankbustas unit aaaand he's being entered in a competition called "Mighty Heroes and Nefarious Villains", so I felt he needed to be more mighty, and... Nefarious! He is smoking a cigar, after all.
I had originally conceived of shoulder mounting a launcha looted from a tank that he had previously destroyed, but the engineer in me wasn't okay with it unless it was attached to some kind of power source. So I got to work on a "plasticard" battery pack. I saw some bread bag tabs lying around and figured they might work as plasticard. It does score nicely, and glues up just fine, the last test is whether or not paint and primer will stick to it.
I still have to attach some wires from the launch lever in his right hand to the pack, and then more wires from the pack to the rokkit launcha itself, but I like the way it's shaping up, so this will be the final direction I take with this mini. If anyone has advice on making/attaching wires, I'm all ears.

Wired (16 ga brass), and finally ready to start painting! I'm going to try something a little different; usually, I use white paint-on primer (b.c. I just always have), but I've got some green paint-on primer, so I'm going to start there this time instead. I'm hoping it speeds things up a little, since there is rarely any white on my minis, but there is always a whole lot of green!

'Ere We Go! The Nefariously Villainous, Ceegar-Smokin' Tankbusta Boss Nob is finished, and I'm pretty happy with the result, considering this was my first real attempt at scratchbuilding anything. As mentioned previously, the backpack was glued together mostly from bread tabs (they take primer/paint pretty well) and the lightning bolt was a thin piece of plastic glued on which may be my new method to make glyphs. Anyway, I hope you like him, and if so, a vote in the gallery would be greatly appreciated! I've also got a Skullz rokkit boy from a while back which makes 5, so I have an official tankbustas squad. I'll try to post pics of the squad all together soon.

July's painting comp theme is "Unleash the Beast", and I need to unleash my painting beast in a major way. I'm not going to customize this one much/any despite my earlier vow, because I have modeled an ork big shoota in the past, and all these fiddly little bits take forever to paint as it is. If I started trying to do any major modeling work, the month would be over before I ever got this lad primed. Starting to wonder what I've gotten myself into:



However, I do need another shoota for my boyz squads, since the rokkit launcha boy got promoted to the tankbustas.

p.s., sorry for the blurry phone photo; you get the idea...

I've probably got 60-some orks painted by now, and this is my first Goff ever. Once I picked out the stormboy head, I couldn't see anything else but the black and grey color scheme. The only thing I have left to figure out is the monocle, because I'd like to do it well, but I don't have any clearcoat-type paints.
He is bringin' plenty uv dakka, but I'm stickin' 'im wiv da Freebooterz, 'cause der ain't no place for any of dem prissy Goff boyz in a proppa Skullz mob.
This is basecoated, metallics, and black wash. Ready for assembly + highlights, then done!

I can't believe I actually finished July's competition entry w/ a week to spare! Here's my first-ever Goff ork, as usual, c&c welcome.

I missed the August competition, because I'm just not that into flyers, and never really have been (particularly ork flyers... just doesn't seem right somehow). In the meantime, I'm trying to bring my freebooterz squad to a full 10-man team, and needed 2 more. Here's the first lad:



...and a proof of the second whom I'm calling "the Outlaw" (inspired by one of the themes which didn't get a vote, "the wanderer").



He's painted, and I'll put the complete pics in my next post. He's kind of a weird sculpt (doesn't having nipples make him a mammal ?) and since he's originally a biker boy, and hunched so far over in typical GW ork style, I had to green stuff on the last two abs in his six pack (he only had 4 to begin with).


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Honestly, I'm just way too pleased with the way this guy turned out, and I can't whittle down the photo selection any, so (since it's my blog and all), I'm just gonna plaster this page with 'em:

Just so I can claim that this blog is updated at least once a month, here's what I have(n't) been up to hobbywise:
Wanted to join the "Some Kind of Magic" comp, but don't have a proper mini for it. I'm also not a fan of Queen, so every time I see the title, I think of Muse's "Madness" w/ the word madness replaced by magic so that I can get that song stuck in my head instead of the Queen one. I may post the fluff on the Weirdboy in Waaagh Gulgog just to have something to contribute, since it is a cool theme. Also, if I find an Orruk Great Shaman in time, I'd like to paint one of those up 'cause they're my favorite Weirdboy model out right now.

I have been gearing up for an Armies on Parade event at the local G-Dub for next month. I didn't start basing models until about a year or so ago, so everything before that time that I want to enter is getting based. It's a heck of a process un-gluing ork feet from their bases, pinning them properly, basing them, and then re-gluing, but I've done two sets of 5 minis, and so it's on to the next part of the process which is building the board on which to present my army. I won't bore you w/ pics of old minis just because they've been freshly based, but when I get serious about the display board, I'll start posting WIP's and process-related stuff. Ultimately, I'll be posting pics of the bulk of my army on this blog and the Dakka Armies on Parade thread next month before the deadline. Stay tuned!

September was pretty ridiculously busy for me, so I missed out on entering the monthly challenge (It's a Kind of Magic!). I did however, want to contribute something, so in the absence of a model, here's a bit of fluff - the backstory on the weirdboy in my orks mob:

It was in the Great War on Gork’un where UzWurr earned his current name, UzWurr NaaRun, because he had saved Gulgog’s life. Gulgog was leading a squad of orks that were getting decimated by Blood Axe emplacements, but he was so enthralled by the dakka-dakka-dakka of his big shoota that he stood in an open clearing in the jungle, firing like mad while a Gretchin assistant fed crates worth of ammo through his weapon.

He was so oblivious in fact, that he didn’t notice his entire remaining squad (save UzWurr and the Gretchin) had up and split, while a giant Blood Axe Nob flanked him and raised a cleaver to take off Gulgog’s head. UzWurr let out a furious “Waaaagh!” and threw himself at the Nob, taking the blow from the choppa straight to his own head. The blade lodged into his skull, stopping just below his left eye. Gulgog turned on the Nob and unloaded the last of his ammo at point blank range into the offending ork. This rallied his squad (who had the nerve to seek cover while he was still shootin’), and they began laying down a barrage of covering fire. Realizing he was out of rounds and his friend was wounded, Gulgog shouldered the rifle and dragged UzWurr back to the Skullz encampment.

So many Skullz was getting’ krumped that day that the docs were overwhelmed. The orkish blade was wedged so thoroughly into Uzwurr’s skull that the doc attending to him didn’t dare remove it. However, he was miraculously still alive, and he was obviously favored by the Warlord, so the doc had to do something. The doc bandaged poor UzWurr’s wound as best he could, working around the embedded blade, then surgically removed his one remaining good eye, replacing it with a bionic targeter to compensate for the loss of the other one, just for good measure.

UzWurr ultimately recovered; luckily there wasn’t anything too important in that half of his brain, but the cleaver was now fused to his skull. Gulgog always knew there was something odd about ol’ UzWurr, and the permanent fixture of a cleaver protruding from his head certainly didn’t allay his suspicions any, but his unswerving loyalty clearly saved the Warlord’s life that day.

Finally, some actual hobby progress (woohoo!). Here's my board (literally) for Armies on Parade. It's 12" x 24", and I've cut the hills out of 3/4" pine with a jigsaw. I'm sure foam would have been much easier to work with, but for some reason if there's a hard way to do something, that is what I will gravitate to.

The plan is to flock the horizontal surfaces and paint the angled surfaces on the hills to look like sandstone (or something). Any kind of wood with a halfway decent sanding job looks so nice as it is that now my goal is just to not screw it up. On display will be the warboss, two kannons w/ krew, my Tankbustas, a squad of freeboota shootas w/ kaptin and a squad of Deathskulls shootas w/ boss nob. Wish me luck!

...and painted:



I'll update when I get it flocked, hopefully this weekend sometime, since time is running out!

Here's the final work! The board on it's own didn't turn out quite as I had hoped, but it's not terrible. I didn't have much time to finish it, and this is my first attempt at making terrain; prior to this project, the most of the flocking I've ever used at one time was to base a single mini, and this thing took half a ziplock so there was a bit of a learning curve.
I did make it to my local GW for Armies on Parade. The event was lots of fun, and there were some pretty stellar works on display; I didn't win anything, but those who did definitely deserved it.
The first image is resized to be viewer friendly. Warning: the spoilered images are pretty huge, but I wanted people to be able to zoom in on particular minis for a closer look. If there's one anybody wants a detail of, let me know and I'll post an individual pic.



Whole Army (full size image):

Deffskullz Detail (full size image):

Freebooterz Detail (full size image):

Tankbustaz Detail (full size image):

Grot Artillery Detail (full size image):

OhBoyOhBoyOhBoyOhBoy! I just bought my first miniature in a blister pack in 20 years and I can't wait to crack it open. The last one probably looked something like this:

But I got me a Big Mek w/ a Kustom Force Field, and my suggestion (armor) for the monthly unofficial painting challenge got chosen! The title got changed to 'Eavy Metal, which is even more fitting, since this fella is heavy, and made of metal. After a couple month hiatus from the comp (I've been putting in long days and even some weekends at work), I'm super excited to reenter w/ this guy:

The Mek got painted, but not based. Then he fell of a shelf and broke and had to be repaired. Then I got distracted with the idea of sculpting something from scratch, so when he gets based, I'll post better finished-product pics here. There are some pics (taken w/ my phone) of the progress so far in my gallery.

As for this month's challenge (December), it's an open category, so I'm making a bomb squig! I've never sculpted anything from scratch before, but my tankbusta squad does need a mascot, and I've seen enough really impressive sculpts here on Dakka to give it a try. I'd ultimately like to make two, and here's where I'm at so far:
Progress pic # 1

and Progress pic # 2


As always, C&C welcome.

I probably will fatten him up a bit. I can't tell you how delighted I am to have inspired a discussion of squigs on my painting blog.

The little guy is finally ready for paint! 'Cept he's not really so little... that's a 40mm base he's taking up. I'm finding that the single biggest challenge I have with making anything out of greenstuff is keeping it to proper scale. Still, this has been a really fun project, and I'm looking forward to making one more, maybe next month.

Finished painting my bomb squig! It is tremendously rewarding to paint a miniature that you created yourself. That being said, there are some lessons learned, and I'm looking forward to making the next squiggy sculpt even better.
As for the modeling aspect: teeth could have come out better, and you can see some finger-prints that need to be smoothed out. It's also incredibly hard to keep these things to scale (he's huge for a squig; that's a 40mm base he's taking up).
As for the painting aspect: I should have used a little more white instead of orange to lighten him up. I wanted him to look a little more fleshy and bone-y, but instead I got firey and Khorne-y. I think I'm afraid to use pink on my models, and shouldn't be in this case.
Without further ado...
Top

Front

Right

Back

Left

Thanks for the feedback Camkierhi, I'm a huge fan of your work. Purple eh? Another color that I almost never use; it sounds like it's time to expand my pallette.

Also, thanks to Dakka for the bump, I saw my little blog featured on the home page this morning. Movin' on up!

This month I'm looking forward to converting up some Freebooterz for the Rogues and Scoundrels competition, so stay tuned...

So this month's unofficial challenge theme is rogues and scoundrels. I need more shootas, and so I figured a new addition to the freebooter mob would fit the rogue part of the theme. He's also a scoundrel... more on that in a future post. So now it's time for a WIP photo montage (Mon-tage!)
What I started with:

Assembled (sort of) front:

He's a shoota boy, see? Back:

Da blade, da grimace, and da fightin' stance:

and finally, Proppa Green (primed):


More scratchbuilt stuff using bread tabs as plasticard (check the blade) detailed w/ a bit o' green stuff... I think I'm on to something here.

My painting table has experienced a complete takeover by Legos, and since I'm bored and can't paint, I decided to snap a quick photo. In the original post, I promised to regale you w/ pics of my Oldehammer minis, so here are some ork nobz in power armor circa '90-'95. The funny thing about these is that they were sold as ork nobz in 'eavy and in one or two cases even mega armor, but they're smaller in stature than the standard boys are these days. Certainly a big difference from the MANZ of today. Enjoy!

I already posted some pics of this fella in the Unofficial Challenge thread, but here's a couple more just to keep the blog alive. Also, when I made my KFF big mek, I was really proud of the paint job I did on his back, and then covered it up w/ that giant backpack, and since this is kind of the same issue, here's a pic w/o the shoota on his back so you can see the detail there.
I do miss having him on a cork; it was a lot of fun to spin him around and make swishing noises for that giant blade.

Before I launch into the "We Have the Technology" challenge for February (which I already have an idea for that I'm super excited about), I had a bit of unfinished business from November's challenge. I didn't have time then to base my big mek w/ kff, and subsequently, his base was stolen for my squig sculpt. Well, I finally ordered some big bases, and since I wanted something more than just the usual dead grass that I put on every other model's base, I hit up the hardware store. I ended up using the spring and the bolt (which I sawed in half w/ a jeweler's saw) and wanted to incorporate the star washers to look like a gearbox had exploded (I think I'm stealing that particular idea from something I saw here on Dakka, so if it was originally your idea, thanks!) but I ran out of room. I do have some more mek stuff coming up, so maybe the gears will make it onto another mini. It does feel a little strange painting real metal bits to look more like real metal bits.
As for the ork himself, the idea was to make it look like he had just flipped the switch, and the KFF was opening little portals to the warp to create the force field. I think this is one of my best paintjobs to date, so here are some proper pics:





Front


Left


Back


Right

Thanks for the tips Cam, it's nice to get real advice.

On to February's Challenge, "We Have the Technology"! I wanted to do an ork bussin' two gats sideways for last months challenge, so I combed the internet for the right weapons and found some Sic(k)arian weapons w/ scrollwork and curved clips coming out the handles which I thought would be perfect for an ork Freebooter. Unfortunately, they arrived and I realized that they're nothing but a bunch of grot blasters (stupid weedy 'oomies and yer tiny little gunz). So this month, I'll be making a grot w/ one mechanical arm and two flechette blasters. Since they're both left-hand weapons, it took quite a bit of X-acto work to remove all traces of the 'oomie hand so that the grot's original hand would look like he was holding the handle and pulling the trigger.

The idea behind this little guy is that he was assigned by the warlord to guard a particularly talented but absent-minded mek. Since the mek was extrememely useful, but prone to removing promising bits of enemy tanks whilst they were still in active duty, the grot was given the best weapons his little arms could carry to help keep the mek alive. If I have time this month (it's a pretty big if), I may try to paint up the mek, too.

Proof: