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Coming along nicely, CK - does the front-on shot show that you've started to work on Squishy?

Anung Un Rama: glad you like it . As for the 'teeth' I'm still on the fence on this one: I'll either turn the big ones into horns, or I might make it into a gaping maw and some eyes. Gaping maw and eyes are cooler, but they'll be in the way of the bone krusha graffiti. In short, still hesitating. If you have any suggestions for graffiti, feel free, there's quite some room left on wagon!

Dysartes:
these pics should answer your question:





Please take into account that in the second pic the grot is 5 times bigger then he really is, so the painting isn't that rough.

I'll probably mess about with green wash and devlan mud to add some more depth, and I'm gonna mess around witht he blood effect. For those wondering: being crushed to death means you start bleeding from all orifices first as everything inside you is squished, hence the bleeding eyes, nose and ears.

Squashed Gretchin!

Thats all class.

The orange looks really good.

squashed gretchin looks great

Yup, Squishy looks good, CK

I love it, but i think it need some colour variation; not only orange. Some other colour.

Newt-of-Death, Commissar Agro, Dysartes: thanks, glad you guys like it

Saintspirit: that's why I'm adding graffiti, to break things up a bit. Main colour is still orange though, I kinda like it.


Here's some more WIP pics, with some more graffiti and weathering added. I'll be adding bits here and there, and I'm also painting up two more grots to be added to the wagon.

front view:



side views, one with a guardsman for scale:





and two miniature's eye-views:





I'll be adding more weathering and dirt, maybe paint some of the rivets, and maybe the occasional graffiti here and there, but other then that I'll probably let it rest for a bit. i find that it helps a lot if I don't touch a modle for a bit: then I can always look at it with a fresh eye and some new ideas.


I've also written up some more background, so beware the wall of text:

+++M 39.849 Segmentus Pacificus, Gnosis IV, Adeptus Xenos research facility, greenskin holding area +++

“Oi! Where did that squighound go?” “down that drain pipe!” Chittering voices floated down. “Gitskag, go check it out!”

The grot called Gitskag went forward cautiously. The grots had clambered in to a derelict part of “da hallz”. They didn’t know how they’d gotten here, and it still freaked them out. Sometimes, doors opened or closed. Sometimes, the fog came and they fell asleep for no reason. When they woke up, some of them had disappeared. Even in their huts they weren’t safe.

Sometimes, whoever controlled the hallz sent in the Enemy: the green, lumbering brutes, that thought them lunch and tried to boss’em around. The run-away grots called them “orks”. They told horrible tales of slavery and violence, of how the orks would kick them or eat them, for no reason. Not here!

The drain pipe was dark, and dank. A squig hound could be waiting, right outside of the little bit of light shining in from the mechanical suns. Not a place where any grot wanted to be. “Skrazza, pass me da torch”. The flaming stick was duly passed; Gitskag hated these jobs, his innate cowardice rebelling against the thought of danger. But he had a visible reminder the lads had his back: crude, makeshift spears stuck out beside him. A jumping squig hound would have to aim very carefully to get past those. The torch-fire gave off flickering shadows; any of those could be the hound, waiting for a chance to strike.

The grots were hungry, but this hunger had to contend with a cowardly temperament: there were five in the small hunting party, and all five saw the one hound everywhere. They had good reason to be cautious though: the party had started of with six, but old Kabneg had always thought himself a better hunter then he actually was. The squig had hidden in another conduit, and had taken old Skabneg’s head off in one bite, almost jumping through him instead of over him. This time, the voracious beast had gone further down the pipe though: they couldn’t make out the light of the tunnel entrance behind them.

Suddenly, they heard a surprised yelp in front of them: a noise squig hounds never made, except when they saw something that could eat them. In the tiny mind of the average squig hound, that wasn’t much. The grots froze, wary of anything that could scare –or eat- a squig hound. They heard a thump, then nothing. Hunger and curiosity finally got the better of their fear, and they stumbled forward carefully. Even then, Gitskag almost fell down the hole in the pipe. “Oi, no pushin’ back dere! Dis a big hole!” He stuck his head down, seeing nothing, so he dropped the torch. It fell a good 15 yards, before revealing the squig hound, it’ s back broken from the fall, lying on some kind of old, rusted flooring: a hallway, leading into the darkness. The group couldn’t make out much, but they realised this was big: they’d found an exit! The hallz were all enclosed, large, mechnanical doors opening or closing without the gretchin controlling them, effectively trapping them. They did it: those who sent in the orks. They who controlled the mist. They who made their mates disappear. This was big, and frightening. Skrazza was the first to say it: "We oughtta come back ‘ere, with more folks. And ropes! Dis is an escape!”. Slowly, the grots left their dark pit of hope, excited at the prospect of escaping these halls.

As they neared the exit, they heard weird noises: mechanical whirring and buzzing, voices. The voices weren’ t of their kind, and didn’t belong to an ork either. Their excitement was replaced with fear.

Silently, they approached the exit. This was the first time this had happened, and the grots were wary. Every time they had encountered something new, it had been hostile. First squigs, then squig hounds, then the orks. New things … often wanted to eat them.

Gitskag, was the first to creep to the exit, finding a suitable vantage point behind some rubble. He peered out carefully. What he saw, was horribly unreal: clean, white things, with weird stuff on their back, unceremoniously loading some of his tribe in tracked vehicles. They were even grabbing some of the tamed squig hounds! There was one red creature there, standing tall over the servant-creatures, directing them; it looked like a mechanical squigspider. They all wheezed, unhealthy-looking puffs of smoke emerging from their backs. There were bigger creatures, too: larger, on 4 iron legs, with mechanical arms. These arms triggered a memory: no grot had ever seen a gun, but the shape screamed ‘weapon!’ to them. The greenskins innate memories started to activate; neurons they didn’t know existed, popping into life. They stayed low, instinctively trying to avoid detection. “How many subjects?” The voice came from the leader-beast, addressing the others, clearly directing the action. “65, sir”. “These will do for now, let’s move out before they wake up.” A heavy, coarse mechanical voice responed: “Hrmph. Let them wake up, Magos. We shall cleanse this area of these wretched greenkins!” The monster that had spoken activated it’s gun arm for emphasis, enery cells activating with a high-pitched, threatening buzz. “Not yet, Rogan. Your skittarri are here in case of emergency, not to destroy an interesting test setting. Besides, we need these for later vivisections. No killing, and no disturbing the test setting!” Magos Xornos kept an eye on the skittarii; he was more worried about them messing up his experiment, then that he was afraid of any gretchin awakening. The chemical compound they used was highly effective. Besides, the little runts weren’t in any stage of development that could be threatening for the facility; maybe in a few years, if he gradually introduced technology... What a weapon would they make! Still, first things First: he would have to check for any morphological changes in their brains. “Move out! We have work to do”

It took the little grot party quite a while before they mustered up enough courage to crawl out of the old pipe. As they wandered around the camp, it became obvious that the intruders had taken a lot of their friends. “Them’s worse then orks” muttered Scrazza. "We don’t even know when they’s coming! And they control the fog!” As some grots started to move again, it dawned on all the grots: this was the real Enemy. The one behind the others. The one responsible for all the lost grots. “What do we do now, Gitskag? It was Squealer who looked to the old grot. “We use da hole. We move down dere. We keep it a secret, or they’ll blow fog in dere as well. The gits can stay up ‘dere, have them be taken away. We take da good crewz down!"

It had been almost a month since they’d discovered the hole. The hole led to an old network of passageways, which was infested with squigs and spiders. But the grots pressed on, more afraid of the Enemy then they were of creatures that were, in essence, prey. In the end, the main passageway led to a huge cavern. Scrazza had taken the lead in the exploring, and he was the first to see it: a golden gleam at an end of the tunnel. There was a strange scent in the air as well, and heat. Cautiously, the grot approached. What could be there? Suddenly, a thundering noise made the explorers startle. What had they awakened? The grots scattered, their innate reflex to scarper off taking over. But they didn’t run as far as they should have. When the crashing noise stopped, the grots carefully crept forward again, sticking to walls, rocks, any bit of cover that could obscure them from whatever had made the noise. Silently, Scrazza peered into the room.

He couldn’t quite work out what he saw. A huge… cave, for lack of a better word, with all kinds of tubes in the ceiling. Junk regularly fell down from them, causing the crashing, thundering noise they had heard. The tubes were huge, a grot village across, and the cave was enormous. It was also a junkyard: everything the reserach facility disposed of, ended up down here: discarded servitors, old machinery, refuse,… Still the huge piles of junk only filled half the cavern. The other half was unused, separated from the junkyard by a stream of lava. At times, a mound would shift, and bits would fall into the lava. The cavern would never get too full that way: a highly effective manner of waste disposal when it came to irrepairable machinery or materials that couldn’t be re-used. A causeway also led to the other side of the lavaflow. “Dis is IT” “What, Scrazza?” “Freedom!” Exhilarated, the grot crept forward, looking out over the cave. “Dere’s room for all of us an’ a lot more! We can keep the fog outta here!

Ha! Love your fluff here.

Excellent! Like it!

Awesome fluff! What a great set-up.

gooking lood

Ouch. Nice use of the WFB Giant's crushed knoblar.

WOW, nice fluff.
I like the eyes next to the engine, adds to the animal affect.

Awesome paint job any greenskin would be proud of it. Black Library better watch out this grot revolution may just take off.

BTW should be ordering bitz soon for my megagrotz.

alexwars1, Boss 'eadbreaka, The Good green, orkyboss3000, Tim the Biovore:Thanks a lot guys! I'm happy that you're enjoying the fluff and/or the model. I've got a few more installments planned out, but these might take a while .

Commissar Agro: I wanted to reinforce the animal effect, and those two plates to the sides were screaming for some graffiti. So, putting one and one together... It did more or less force me to paint the top like horns, but it doesn't really bother me. A gaping maw up there would've interfered with the "Bone krusha" graffiti, so I'll save that idea for another one.

ChaoticMind: Thanks. Hey, if they publish Henry Zhou,... Who knows I'm looking forward to your take on the megagrotz!

Today, I pretty much finished the battlewagon. It's looking nice, I like the general look, and it's one of those models where I feel I have to move on. Otherwise, I'll keep adding stuff till I ruin the effect. Here's a bunch of pics of the finished thing. More weathering added, some oil effects, and a few grots. The tomato-throwing one is a great model, if somewhat dated. Note that all pics were taken with flash, whick kindof washes out the graffiti. It pops a lot more irl.

Front view:


Sides, with close-ups of the grots:












A scale shot with the same unfortunate guardsman:


Top view:



Well, that's it for now, hope you guys like him!

Real cool.

Pity to the guardsmen.

You know, somehow, that thing reminds me of an AT-AT.

That's one guardsman wishing he was the meltagunner of his squad . I've heard the comment about the AT-AT feel before, and I think it's a very logical link: there aren't that many four legged battle vehicles around, and the front legs do have a certain AT-AT quality. The only difference is that mine are crewed by an Ewok-equivalent

A small update today: I've finished one of my grot kommissars, and I'm actually pretty proud of the model. I couldn't get the camera to focus on both the squig and the kommissar though, so I ust went for the spray and pray in order to get a few decent ones

The kommissar:




The only one where they're both in focus:


Squig-pics:







So, what do you guys think? I'll be painting all the kommissars in this scheme, since I figure the black will make them stand out nicely. The squig hounds will get different colours depending on the unit, an element which I'll try and put into all the bases as well eventually - you need some way to quickly tell 100+ grots apart...

Looks good. Though the Kommisar could use a few orange details to tie him more into your army.

I always think of commissars as being kinda flashy... not as bad as Flash Gits, but still very noticeable. Maybe some orange trim around the collar and cuffs of his coat. Everything else looks good... I'd like eto see the squigs hair a different color than it's skin, slight though the difference may be.

Viva La Kommissar!

He looks like he is in for a mischief. I love his hat - though is needs a spot of colour, perhaps an orange or other strong warm colour to adds some punch to his prescence.

Additionally, don't the majority of Kommisars have those little chain things that run from shoulder to lapelle? I saw a tut' on here that stepped you through how to roll it out and weave it to create such an effect.

But, all that aside I love this army, so little with so much balls.

Yeah the kommissar looks great, but i must agree with the others, the kommissar needs some orange to tie him into the army.

I'm extremely impressed. This is amazing work, and if I ever got to play against this army, or even just see it in person, I'd be thrilled.

The Kommissar is a great concept! Heck, the whole army is. I can't wait to see what you do next.

Anung Un Rama: Thanks, I agree that he needs a few more orange details, I just didn't really know where to place them. Things I tried: edge of the coats/cuffs, a band on the kommissar's cap, some writing on the coat... None came out OK.

The Good Green: to me, the kommissars have a blood-axe feel, so no flash gitz . Orange around the collar and cuffs didn't look right, I tried it. I probably will try and highlight the squigs hair a bit more up to white though, creating a subtle colour shift. Thanks for the idea!

Archibald Jack: Thanks, glad you like him - and the rest of the army! The hat makes him a kommissar, and I agree about the orange. Actually, adding braiding to the shoulders might do the trick; it would be small enough not to overdo it and draw attention to the face of the model. Now to get the courage up to gs a finished model...I'll check out the tutorial section for some inspiration.

Commissar Agro: Thanks, see the comment above for the orange

DaveL: Thank you! If you ever drop by in Belgium, we'll meet up - or maybe if we manage to go to a dakka meet... Till then, you'll have to do with my meagre photography skills...

Owain: Thanks, I'm glad you like the army.

just a thought, you could do the kommissar's pants orange instead of blue.
just a thought if you dont what to GS it. or maybe not.
im just rambling

If the gs doesn't work out, I might try that. Maybe make it black-and-orange striped

I like him as is (but then I'm not a fan of the orange - personal preference, not a nitpick). I can see what others have said about a bit of orange tying him in to the rest of the force though. My first thought was a couple of orange bands around the cuffs or perhaps some orange insignia on the shoulders. Maybe your upside down graffiti anarchy symbol in orange on his back? Orange braiding sounds like a great idea and might also do the trick. While I'm being creative - how about orange patches to the cloak? (using thin plasticard and/or greenstuff to raise them above it) In fact, the more I think about it, that may have been the issue - perhaps you need something raised to paint orange to make it look right... Enough from me - just happy to be enjoying your awesome thread (orange and all!)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Commissar Agro wrote:just a thought, you could do the kommissar's pants orange instead of blue.
just a thought if you dont what to GS it. or maybe not.
im just rambling

CommissarKhaine wrote:If the gs doesn't work out, I might try that. Maybe make it black-and-orange striped

The only concern I see with this is that the orange is going to draw the eye... to his pants... of course, if that's the effect you are after...

Arakasi wrote:
The only concern I see with this is that the orange is going to draw the eye... to his pants... of course, if that's the effect you are after...

yeah, i see your point.

i think your onto something with the patches, Arakasi.

This army is win.

Warboss Gutrip wrote:This army is win.

such a win that its a fail