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wow, this is a great blog! I love the stompa conversion and your flash gits look ace! I'll definetly be following this one!

I'll see what I can do about the pictures, modeling and painting I know, photography is not something I have much skill at. I am trying to follow some tips i found on here but think i need to find better light sources more then anything.

Nice story!
Like the mob and waiting for better pics as well, It looks like they deserve It.

Actually, since it is something that is bugging me, and now I have 2 requests for better pictures, what advice can you give on pictures? Also what do you guys feel I should do to improve them? As I stated before photography is not something i am particularly skilled at, I can use all the advice/suggestions I can get.

Your earlier pictures have been fine (for me) - I think the most recent ones have just been not lighted as well.

There is apparently an article on photography around here somewhere as well... (I really need to start upping my game too...)

Another couple of late days, going to see if I can get some time after work while the hardware store is still open and get another light or 2, most of the way done with the battle wagon, since I started painting it noticed a couple of spots where things hat had broken off where glued or where there are lumps of glue I can't break off, going to see what I can do to mask, meld those into the finished model. Hell just be nice to get home before 8PM a day this week.

Okay so been sick but finally finished up the Battle Wagon. Pics of it coming soon but first wanted to post out a new trial run on pics taken of the Nobz mob. Let me know what y'all think of the new pics. Also my list is going to receive a bit of updating. I have found a couple of models that that were assembled but not painted and with GW suddenly changing its paint line I may be bumping up what I do with my Orks. So here was my over all plan for my Waagh!

Blood Axe Clan

Warboss (Grimskragga over all boss of Waagh!) - DONE
10 Nobz w/ Painboy and Waagh Banner (Grim's Kommand Boyz) - DONE
15 Tank Hunters w Nob w/PK - Most bitz gathered for these
15 Kommandos w/Snikrot and 2 Burnas - Snik is done and have bitz for rest)
15 Kommandos w/ Nob w/ PK and 2 Burnas - DONE
20 Slugga Choppa Boyz with Nob and 2 Big Shootas - DONE
20 Shoota Boyz w/ Nob w/ PK and 2 Big Shootas - DONE
20 Storm Boyz w/ Nob w/ PK - 15 w/ Nob done 5 more stripped and waiting reassembly and painting
1 Stompa - DONE

Goff Clan

Warboss (not yet named) - Painted awaiting Bitz for base and basing
1 Big Mek w/ Kustom Force Feild - DONE
15 Burna Boyz w/ Mek w/ Blasta - Done
5 Meganobz - the base models stripped and clipped of unnecessary pieces wating on local shops to restock the plastic card I need
30 Slugga Choppa Boyz with Nob and 3 Big Shootas - DONE
20 Shoota Boyz w/ Nob w/ PK and 2 Big Shootas - DONE
3 Killa Kans w/ Rokits - DONE
3 Killa Kans w/ Rokits - DONE
Deff Dread w/ 2 Dread CCW - DONE
Deff Dread w/ swappable weapons - DONE
3 Zap Gunz w/ 4 extra crew and Slaver - DONE
1 Klaw Stompa - DONE

Evil Sunz Clan

Warboss on Bike - Concept stage still gathering bitz
6 Nobz on bikes w/ Painboy - Waiting to purchase the kits
12 Choppa boyz w/ Nob w/ PK 1 Big Shoota and mounted in Trukk - DONE
12 Choppa boyz w/ Nob w/ PK 1 Big Shoota and mounted in Trukk - Have bitz waiting to assemble
12 Choppa boyz w/ Nob w/ PK 1 Big Shoota and mounted in Trukk - Waiting to purchase kits thinking of building these ones using leftover biker bits form Biker Nobz
5 Bikers w/ Nob w/PK - Done
3 Deffkoptas w/ big shootas and Buzz saws -Koptas done buzz saws almost done
Battle Wagon w/ Deffrolla and Kill Kannon - DONE
Battle Wagon w/ Deffrolla and Kill Kannon - DONE
Fighta Bomba - DONE

Misc Clans
10 Flashgitz w/ Pain Boy Badmoons - Done
15 Lootas w/ Mek w/ Blasta Deathskulls - Assembled and primed
Weird Boy Snakebite - DONE
10 Choppa Boyz w/ Nob w/ PK mounted in Large Squigoth - I think I have the bitz left over form fantasy stuff and have a toy elephant to start the Squigoth.

So looks like I got a lot more to work on then I had planned before starting on what ever is next. Now on to the pictures....

Cool paintjobs! I really like the camo! Only one minor issue: your paint looks a little thick in places.... have you tried thinning it?

Keep up the good work, dude!

That's a lot of "Done" - good work!

Like the camo as well, they're coming out "Taff and Killi enuff"

So ended up pulling some duty today and didn't get any painting done. But as I said yesterday I did finish the recovered battle wagon. As I mentioned earlier in the blog I bought some Ork stuff of Craigslist, the seller was a 14 year old kid that was sick of losing to his friends and just wanted out of it. What I got was 4 Burna Boyz and Mek, 5 Stormboyz, a partial AoBR set that was missing 1 Big Shoota 4 more Boyz and 1 Deffcopta, 2 Killa Kans, and a Battle Wagon. The lot was $40 dollars and I figured it was worth it just for the battle wagon. Unfortunately the pieces were a mess, they were globed with so much paint details were lost most of the vehicles were missing parts and I set it aside for a bit to work on other projects.

When the Apoc. game came around I dumped some of the stuff in simple green to strip the paint, I dumped the Deff Koptas the Battle wagon the AoBR Nobz the 2 Killa Kans and the 5 Stormboyz. Most of this stuff made up my previous "to be completed list" before it got revised. The 2 Killa Kans are unfortunately a complete bust they are just to badly damaged between excessive plastic glue use and missing pieces they may become components to other projects later. The Battle Wagon moved to the top of he list. So I split it apart after I stripped the whopping 3 different paint jobs off of it and broke it apart as best I could and reassembled it. I then replaced he missing tail pipe which isn't entirely finished as I haven't decided between a jagged end and a flip top similar to the Trukk, I an always add it later. After that was done I added a GW Deffrolla and Kill Kannon, I enjoy converting but this was a case of picking up what was done adding some more bitz to my box so I could spend efforts elsewhere.

So the first pics while in progress pic which you may recognize the background from when I was working on the Flashgitz and then the completed. Also included are the pics of my first Battle Wagon designed to be modularish by merit of simply not being glued.

Like the wagonz.
Are You going to dirty them up a bit and add some battle damage on those?

Not sure Battle Damage is almost always seen on Ork vehicles but I still remember the mentions of drills and weapons maintenance and what not in the old Blood Axe descriptions in the 2nd Ed. Codex. I can very much see a Blood Axe Warboss requiring regular maintenance of the vehicles and equipment in his Waagh!. I have been going back and forth over it for awhile now and think I might finally make a decision when all of it is painted.

looks good man I like it a lot.

Sooo... its been a looong time since I last posted. So here's whats been happening since then. I have done a Permanent Change of Station (PCS) move from Alaska to Washington. The wife stayed behind for a bit to Get the house ready for sale. So it took a long time to get our stuff back and so I could get back hobbying. We got our stuff the 1st week of August. Unfortunately we have a 3 bedroom house plus 3 car garage's worth of stuff in a 2 bedroom house with a one car garage. Needless t say not much room for breaking out stuff for big projects (though I have started some smaller ones that I will post pictures of later as I pick them up again.) Also about 1 week after I left my wife told me she was pregnant (funny we went home for 3 years to try just that and it happens once we leave). We are expecting a baby girl in March so expect updates to be sporadic around that time. The beginning of September I headed to Death Valley for the joys of a National Training Center Rotation that kept me form the hobby for a good 37 days but gave me lots of time to plan stuff. Now I am back with some breathing room and have started to get back into things.
The Lootas I started painting after i finished the Flashgitz. (almost 6 months for 15 models... not my best time) and I am done with Orks for a bit. I will be going back ot them but after the intricacies of those models I am at the point if I do much more I will burn out and maybe not pick them up again for another 8 years. So time for another history lesson to lead in to my next project(s).
When I was in the service my room was where everyone in our group got together to get their paint/converting on. When I was getting ready to get out and move my stuff I told everyone that had something in my closet to make sure they got it out before the movers came. I went home to Alaska and my stuff stayed in boxes except the stuff I was working on at the time, my Space Marines. About a year later i had finished painting them and was ready for another project. I was thinking my Eldar which, needed some major TLC and to finally assemble a couple of the kits I had on hold after setting them aside awhile back. I open the still packed box of stuff and lo and behold sitting on top is a CSM Battle Force and CSM mega Force that had belonged to a buddy from the Army. I set them aside nd then dug out the Eldar and started working away at them, while I tired to get ahold of the guy whose stuff had ended up in my box, all the while remembering the awesome conversions me and him had done for his World Eaters force and what stuff he had planned. After 2 months it had seemed my buddy had dropped off the face of the earth, even his grandmother hadn't heard form him in 6 months after he broke off an engagement and ran off with another girl. After much thought I figured 1.) I had warned him and he hadnt grabbed the stuff even though he had taken the other 3 boxes of his stuff out of the closet and 2.) I had made an effort to get them back to him.
I picked up a codex and started putting together a World Eaters Army, building it as an off shoot of my buddies force. The first model I picked up to go with the force was a daemon prince to lead the Warband. As I was stripping the mold leftovers I was looking at the defiler sprues I was struck by inspiration, What if I took one of the masks form the defilers and made him a giant Khorne Berserker. At this time I had done a very little bit of green stuff work and most of my conversions were kit bashes and filing off other chapters Icons for my space marines. My most ambitious work thus far had been cutting a metal chain fist off a space marine terminator and adding it to an Ork Warboss back in 2nd edition. Well I had a blast tweaking and working with converting the newly dubbed Voranicus. This model is really what started the converting bug in me and over the next 6 years (mainly due to the release of a new codex) I poured a lot of time and effort learning new tricks to make my army unique. While I had learned a lot about converting painting was still an area I was weak in. It wasn't until after i finished painting the last model of my now 7000pts worth of Chaos that I picked my orks back up.
So where does this all lead? Well when they released the new Codex in the middle of my army I decided to take the army in a different direction. Voranicus was pushed to the side and most of the Army transitioned over to a mix of all kinds of units with a mostly undivided leadership. I was kinda sad to do that to what had been a force that had built a fine history during 5 different campaigns but the rules of the new codex didn't led itself well to that kind of force. In October the newest edition of the CSM codex was released, looking through its pages and reading the fluff inspired me to revive Voranicus' Warband. The models have been in storage and have only come out to be lent out for others to use during Apoc and each time I was more and more dissappointed with the paint jobs as compared with my Orks. So Voranicus and his loyal followers are about to be submerged in Totally Awesome (thanks go out to the banner that caught my eye and turned me on this.) Once stripped hes going ot be touched up and repainted. The plastic card work on his helmet is a little rough as well as some of the other work that was done on him, before I dipped him I took some pictures to post here to start off the progress of him and give all of you here in Dakka land a look at my early works, sorry for the poor quality on the pictures the light box did not make the move and I do not have the space to build/store one here, hopefully in another month we will close on a house here and I can spread out again.

While I waited for the paint to slough off Voranicus I put together a World Eater Champion to test out the new paint scheme. I thought this might be prudent since it would be a centerpiece model and not really a good place to test an untried paint scheme. So here a a side be side with one of the old ones. It is very inspiring to see the difference between one of your really old models and a new one. Also of note it took me about the same amount of time as an Ork boy. So not sure if this army is going to go as fast as I planned. Also this model was a test to see if I could change out the hands on these guys to match mroe of the current chaos line up which I think was a success. Now that I am getting ready to put together the rest I will take some pictures of the rest in progress.

Hmm... i miss the orks, but the zerkers look good, still like the orks more

Welcome back! You have come a long way - your new Chaos will look great! (But don't forget the Orks )

So I had a long weekend and got to work on a couple of projects that I am going to break down in posts since wife hogged our now one computer (screen fried on hers.) I didn't get a chance to post.

The first project was to recreate a photo box, I made the first one out of some spare melamine we had lying around after refurbishing the old house. The only issue was that the outside of it was stained pretty bad and had some mildew that even bleach would not kill on it. What that meant was the movers wouldn't pack it as is and honestly I wasn't too keen on the wood anyways it was just scrap I had to work with at the time. I want to eventually build a better one out of wood, but as of right now I have no where to pull out power tools and get cracking on one. So while digging though the garage looking for my box of white dwarfs I stumbled upon a temporary fix. I saw some of the terrain I had built while stationed down in Guam out of foam core. So after some searching since it had been election week here in the US I found some and sat down to build a cheap light box. Not counting the lights which I already had this whole box cost me under 5 bucks.

The materials were
1 sheet of flat scrap booking paper square.
2 sheets Foamcore
Tacky Glue

Step one was to glue the paper down to the foamcore. This provides the base for the box.

After it has dried cut his out, this is your base.

Next cut 2 sides to the height you desire, I just made it as tall as the foam core was wide.

I used the piece left over from cutting out the square, which was already the same width as the base as the top. I then drew some lines to help me center it and figured out how big I would need to make a hole in the top so that light would get through but the light would not fall in.

After cutting it out I started assembly.

Using boxes I made sure the sides attached to the base at a 90 degree angle. I then glued the other side down and added some weight to make sure it would dry mostly flush and let it dry.

After the sides had dried I placed it on the the the remaining foamcore. I cut this piece out flush with the back. Glued it down and added some weight and let it dry.

Once dry viola you now have a light box. Here are the pictures of the process as well as some pics of Voranicus broken apart and reassembled.

So Voranicus is done. I must say I am amazingly impressed with the final result of the painting. He still needs a basing scheme. Previously the Berserkers had the same basing that the Orks do now. I think I may try out some of the new paints. Specifically the basing ones that they just came out with. I am still a little miffed that they discontinued 2 of the colors for my Ork skin (they have a close but not quite exact version of the 2 I may try later,) but the new metallics I used on the Beserkers sold me on the line over all. I have completed 5 more Beserkers and am waiting on parts for the other 2. Once they are done I will post some pics of the first squad. I also tossed another 20 of them in Totally Awesome to start stripping them for conversion/repainting. Since I am at an impasse with the Khornate stuff I also finished up 4 of my next truck mob. The rest will probably follow after i get back form Thanksgiving at home. So with out further Ado the pictures...

I love your use of plasti-card.
What size plasti-card do you use and what tools do you use to chop and cut it?
Peace Spud 11th Legion

080 - 010 depending on the project. I use mainly a hobby saw and standard exacto style knife. The knife handle is currently a cheap harbor freight handle that i find quite comfortable since it has a rubber grip. My best advice on it is to make sure you keep your knife sharp and replace the blade often as the tip breaks.

You've definitely improved from your older works. Can't wait to see what you do with the rest of the Orks.

Keep up the good work.

So Finally got an opportunity to post again. I finally got the bitz in to finish the last 2 Beserkers right before I went home over Thanksgiving. As soon as I got back things went as the usually do a bit hectic, so as of now i am not going to bother saying when I am going to try to update next. Seems every time I do something comes up and I miss the post. So after I finished the last 2 I decided that I was going to add a standard so he pictures today are the last 3 Beserkers are part of my first unit and then the next picture is the 2nd unit. As far as Chaos goes I think the Chaos Lord is next up for dipping/remodeling. Also I got an Airbrush for Christmas. This is something I tried very early in painting (like when I was in High School about oh 15 or so years ago.) At the time I couldn't get it to do what i wanted and i gave up. When I started working on my first Stompa I needed something to do a more even cammo pattern and borrowed a buddies. It worked amazing and since then i have wanted one to speed things like models that are mostly one color and vehicles. So first up for the air brush is going to be the Truk to go with the boys I am now most of the way done with. So expect them soon or maybe in another month or so depending on the that thing we call life.

So got the airbrush out and used it on the trukk along with a couple of other models that will be showing up later. Pictures are included. This trukk came form the same guy that I got the Stompa from, painted with a single coat paint scheme with no high lighting but some VERY heavy use of brown paint as mud. I dipped it in Totally Awesome and then switched out the gunner for one of the ones off the Battle Wagon I recovered earlier. Very little conversion work went into this though I have one that will mare than make up for it that I will probably start working on more after I finish the first 1750 of the Khornate stuff.

Now I have seen some complaints about me moving on form Ork stuff for a bit. So I wanted to show why. The pictures at the bottom of this post are my entire Ork collection to date. Now keep in mind I started rebuilding my Ork stuff in Jan 2010 so this is only 3 years worth of effort. It totals out to about 5700 points of Orks. Yes the 2 stompas make up about 1/5th of that but even still. I need a break form green for a bit and the new Chaos Space Marine Codex gave me an excuse to take a much needed break. The last time I reached burn out point with the Orks it took me 7 years to pick them back up and I really don't want to do that again. All that said if there is something you would like to see closer up I will happily make a post of it. And once again don't fear after I take a break there will be more Ork stuff So here are all my Orks in their glory

So trying to get back into keeping a record here in the blog. Between being a father of a now 2 year old (funny how that's almost how long I have been away form this blog almost like a coincidence or something) and the fact that we are down to one computer which is mostly the wife's purview (even though she's the one that killed the 2 laptops) it's been something I have always tried but failed to get into. So I have a little bit of Ork stuff (sorry the codex and losing all but one of the the last 35 games with Orks so not high on list) and a lot of Chaos stuff done and maybe will get around to posting pics of some if I can keep this going. So why am I bring this blog back form the dead well... a guy at the FLGS I play at has seen me doing some work painting the owners Necrons and seen some of my models and commissioned me to do some work mainly magnetizing a Baneblade kit to allow for all 6 variants. I took it on and he would like regular progress reports so going to post them here and maybe kill to birds with one stone and get back to the blog thing. I will try to detail what I do so others can recreate this project if they want.

So these are the pictures of stage 1. Not much just the main chassis that will remain the same for all variants. I ma on hold for too much more due to lack of styrene cement. I used more then I though building my Orkgis Defense Line a few months back but should have some tomorrow and will get started on it again after 24 hr duty so expect another update say Thursday Night. I ma hoping to have the sponsons, armor plates and the Baneblade/Hellhammer Variants assembled magnetized by then. Then starts the fun of the other 4. So with out further adieu the pictures.

Day 2 of work.

I got about as far as I expected if not quite as far as I hoped on Day 2. My plan for the Baneblade/Hellhammer upper hull worked out. I you notice the 1st two pictures I shaved off the side locking tabs to that plate. I will be doing the same for the front portion for the other variants. The piece now slips and fits nicely. I may add some magnets to it after working on the other variants depending on needs. The other thing I worked on was the side plates/sponsons. while i am fairly certain the sponsons will sit nicely with out magnets the armor plates are as is don't work as well. So tonight I will work on adding magnets to the plates/sponsons and some wire to the chassis to add a decorative latch for the magnets.

Here are the pictures for Day 2

So Tonight's progress was the most complicated part and I think I got it off with only one minor hitch. So in the plan I have set I had to break the upper hull into 4 parts, the nose with the TL Heavy Bolters, the floating piece, the turret, and the rear enginish piece. these are joined mainly via magnets. the nose piece has magnets on the back edge and in the front looking it in to the lower hull. The floating piece has magnets on both ends locking it to the turret and either the nose or the the enginsh piece. I had one minor error in doing the magnets and one of my magnets switched on me on the floating piece. This necessitated what I feel ended up being a good idea over all and i added in two strips of sprue on the inside of the hull. I didn't glue or magnetize the enginish piece to the lower hull nor the piece that rests in this when making all but the Stormlord Variation. The gravity fit on these works fine and the layout of the pieces makes magnetizing overly difficult for not much gain. Oh I almost forgot I shaved off the same tabs on the nose piece that I did on the piece yesterday.

Lining the magnets up proved a bit problematic and if I had to do it over again I would drill through the nose into two Posts inside the turret first after that use the nose piece as a Guide to line up the others. The way it is now works well but I had to add in another magnet to manage to get every thing to sync and that is were i had a polarity issue when the 2nd magnet added near the first flipped on me as I was setting it with insta-cure.

Tomorrow if I have time I will finish the turrets and main guns if not then will have it knocked out Sunday.

Here are the pictures so far.

Assembly finished... mostly. So all variants but one are possible with the work done the last one unfortunately requires a dowel in a diameter that i do not have and won't be able to get till the weekend, so am going to carry on (weather permitting) with painting since adding the dowel into the last barrel piece will not require any repainting. So I ended up adding the wire to the sides to attach the plates/sponsons all that said while the customer wanted it if this were my own I wouldn't have worried about it and probably glued all the plates and sponsons down, the bond isn't as strong as I would like and I think the only other option would be to drill the plates and add magnets inside the plates minus the guides and then green stuff over the divots on the hull. the only other 2 areas to give me fits were the aerials and the plate on top of the fixed turret. It needs to be removable to swap the barrels but is not positioned well for magnets of the size I had available. instead i just added pegs with wire to lock it in. The aerial was a similar problem and in reality only one needs to be swap-able since the fixed turret only has one point so the 2nd aerial was glued to the side of the Baneblade ammo boxes. I tried to get as much of the magnet placement in the pictures below but if anyone has any questions feel free to ask. So pictures of the modelling side finished.

I bow to the magnet master