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Hello all,

long time reader but first post on Dakka... I am looking for feedback and honest opinions to improve my painting style.

This is my Snakebite "clan of the ice snake", a bunch of successful raiders orks who have accumulated quite a lot of loot over years of raiding the icy moon they live on. These Snakebites live in a Tundra-like environment and all the bases are meant to represent the "summer" where some bits of snow have melted and the black rock underneath is visible.
The clan has enough teeth and loot to have top of the range equipment, and the meks have been building a real army of light vehicles to enable the warboss to roam the vast plains of his world. Think Mad Max - on snow - with 4-legged vehicles and no wheel... confused? think harder.

The army is mostly made of warbikes and footsloggers and I will create thread to show most of the WIP, but here are some pics of the rare finished minis.

From left to right:
From left to right:
Mad Uruk Urtysnik, deranged painboy HQ
Tufzog BashGubbin, eccentric snakeboy big mek
Gordar, cunning slugga boy
Morkul, brutal slugga boy
snot, grot sniper
scratch, lost grot


and some WIP closer shots of the big mek:




and the deranged painboy + a boy

Wow dude awesome work!!!! I really like the field generator. Keep posting stuff.

Very nice job, I really like the force field lightning and glow.

Great, love to see a whole army in this paint job.

Coming from an obsessive ork player myself, I absolutely love the paint scheme. It's unique and different and will stand out on the table. I need to see more of this! Please keep posting.

Thanks

here's the latest Grot, just missing snow on the base.

Solid paintjob and great conversion! I really like the white warpaint on their faces.

That grot is really cool. Great stuff!

Thanks for the kind words, it is huge motivation...

I have an ongoing challenge to paint 100 points of army every month with a mate (the loser has to buy terrain) so I have to start accelerating. Grots aren't worth the time, that little guys took me hours and he's only 3 points.
You should be able to see the full unit of grots (10 only I'm sorry) and the the runtherd ready by this Sunday. So that will be a third of my challenge out of the way. Unless work cools down somehow I will have to shift my painting to (yet again) heavily costed models.

So expect a few nobs and rokkit launcha by the end of the month.

Do you guys think the squig is grinning because he's delighted to have his "master"'s attention... or is he grinning because his lunch is not running. I can't make my mind, one thing is sure, that grot has balls, he's shouting at a beast with teeth longer than his hand.
Look at your own hand, picture a dog with a jaw extending to the size of your shoulders width and with teeth the size of your hand... I wouldn't be playing "tough".

Very cool models and paint jobs, though could we see more "straight on" pictures?

As in leveled at the tabletop?
I tend to shoot from above as it is the most viewed angle.
That is also why I try to find excuses to have my models looking up. Most of the time I find that the details on the face are lost as the models expose their foreheads/hair more than their nose/lips.

If that's what you want, this was my first ever boy (and 40k mini as a matter of fact) I ever did so I took a few pics... let me know if that's what you're after:

I really like the white face tattoos.

I also like the 'ink' on the arms as it is not something I have usually seen. Usually ork Tattoos seem like warpaint, but I have to say the 'ink' with detailed glyphs really does work.

Where is that tiny squig from? That is a cute use of the pointy grot.

If these are your first models, then your next 80 will just keep getting better and better!

thanks

the little squig is from Pendraken, a UK company which does "warmaster" like minis (15mm)
click on the picture for the link:


You get 2 "Squoggler" for a GB Pound and some change so I thought it would be an acceptable risk to order. They worked out perfectly for my army.

The pointing grot is a goblar from WHFB and a Snotling head from the Ork nob box (the head fit on the backpack snot).

As you noticed, the clan is heavily tattooed, usually snakes symbols. I found that the black ink is not too obvious from a distance, and does not distract from the green skin, it is really meant to be for up-close looks, and designed to bring a little extra to each mini. It is mostly Ork Glyph and Snake symbols, with every now and again some basic "tribal" symbols. This is how I always portrayed the snakebites, but others might have prefered the american-indian red and white tatoos.

The clan also love painting their face white (with the exception of Mad Dok, who keeps eating the paint brush as soon as anyone try to paint him), an idea they stole from the beakie apothecary skull helmet. The white face helps 2 aspects of the orks:
1) to be scary and dead 'ard when charging (brutal)
2) being sneaky and hide in the snow, but you have to cover your body with icy cold snow! (cunning)
it is also meant to help
3) my painting: by attracting attention to the large scary face of the orks (which is the most iconic part of the minis IMHO) and bringing the model to life.

as requested I used last night's sunset to take a few pics. Let me know if that's what you were after

First the HQs:


Then 2 boys


And the Grots


Finally some group shots.

not much painting "showcase" these days but I have some modeling bits to show:

Tufzog Bashgubbin is a very busy mek, having seen his great work with the cyboars Gutnail Squigduff, the warboss, commissioned a mount to ride in battle.

For 1400 teeth (a fortune!) he specifically requested:
- a large squig, no wheels, cause that's not proppa.
There are many types of squigs, and orks tend to call all beasts: squigs, Orkoid or not. So Tufzog captured a large mournfang, and changed pretty much everything on (and in) the poor beast.
Parts: Bloodcrusher body and back legs, Mournfang head.
Rule: Warbike
- When I charge I want that squig to do some hurting
So Tufzog fitted powa claws at the front of the beast. This helped tremendously on the snow as well as the previous legs of the mournfang could not support the 3 tons of metal and tended to bury themselves in the fresh snow. The large legs are now capable of offering some stability when running. They also provide a powerful attack on the charge
Parts: Killa Kan legs for the forward legs.
Rule: Hammer of Wrath for the warbike, and powa klaw for the boss
- Must put some dakkas on that beast just to shoot as I charge
Bashgubbin fitted two twin-linked dakkas at the front after the boss complained that the initial dakka did not shoot straight an missed too many times. The two guns were encased in heavy front plating to make sure that the boss gets some extra protection as he charges.
Parts: Warbike dakkaguns and extra plating, bits and bobs from bitbox
Rule: Twin linked dakkaguns, Extra Toughness (+1)
- Must go fasta!!!
That was a real problem for the Big Mek, who ended up gutting the beast and putting a large engine in the ribcage. This created a massive output of smoke and a loader roar, unfortunately, no net speed gain. However the warboss grined and took the mount for a spin before calling it 'propa', so everyone was happy.
Parts: Killa Kan exhaust pipe, Maxmini Biohazard Backpack, greenstuff
Rule: Cloud of Smoke

Tufzog at this time was getting into a lot of troubles from the (now missing in action) warphead of the tribe who accused the mek to do things not proppa!.. Fights kept erupting and the big mek lost a few teeth.
To make sure the warboss would not end up with a broken skull, or with a bullet (or 10) in the brain
Tufzog built a really "kool" helmet for him... as long as the very large warboss was alive Tufzog could continue to tinker with his creations.
Parts: Ogre helmet, shaved on the side, with an ork jaw forced under.
Rule: rule of kool?






and here are the outriders who ride with him:



and some individual pics:

This is my warphead, finally breaking free from his chains.
I still have some work to do on the staff with some lightning symbol to add (plasticard) and mold lines to remove but I think you'll get the idea.

What will hopefully look a bit scary is that my whole army is on snow base so you will have him half naked running on snow, with his chains rattling behind him and bells ringing.

He's obviously an old warphead (due to size) and I would love to get my hands on some of these Lizardmen bastiladon snakes just to make him my old Zogwort... we shall see.

in the meantime, here's the mad lunatic unnamed warphead:

Only thing I'd suggest is doing the rims of the base in a light grey so it looks better with the snow; the brown contrasts too much

I will try that, thanks for the tip.

Ah excellent, another ork painter I can crib ideas from. Will be keeping an eye on this thread.

Good stuff, keep it up!

All of the finished models/figures look great, I can't wait to see the rest of them finished up.

Thanks.

I am still doing 30 minutes here and there, between work and family duties. No painting though, so it's mostly cleaning up models, and glueing at this stage. I will be back.

Nice stuff man. Mad jealous of that Weirdboy, I think mine is the 'new' weirdboy or old zogwart or something and it looks so much worse

Completely love these guys, they look so 'alive' and full of character. Something about the painting style is also strikingly attractive. 10.0 all round

I KNOW THOSE BITS!!!!!! My order from maximini just came awesome backpacks used as jet engines, I shall steal that idea tonight!

Arg... not progressing at the expected speed. But the warmer weather coming back (southern hemisphere you see) meant that when looking after my little girls outside I've managed to squeeze some terrain work (much easier to do than sitting down at a table and painting details when you have kids under 5yo running around).

anyway long story short, this is my WIP table, and where I'm at:

This is my first attempt at making terrain. I bought these 2' by 4' (60cm by 120cm) strong wooden boards. Covered then in plaster (to roughen up the surface) then spray painted and added snow, rocks and grass.

The only trouble at the moment are the edges of the table which tend to chip easily. I have sprayed the board 2 full bombs of varnish but I would still like to seal it even more, ideally with something stronger. Any clue how to ?
In a ideal world there would be some liquid glass coat I could pour over the board to seal all the details in a glass see-through tomb.

pics:
First of all the full board:

then details:





and an action shot, with a lone boy racing ahead in front of my Aegis Line.

I hope you don't mind the photo spam.
I have now finished the glasscoat.

details:







Full board before and after.



Lesson learnt:
1. I need to wear latex gloves next time, I still have silicon on my hands that won't go away.
2. Need a cheaper material: this board cost me $40 of glass coat
3. the glossy look and feel is easily cancelled with a non-gloss varnish at the end.

very nice!

It honestly looks awesome but. The final product just looks amazing mate

That big mek is simply amazing! Great work!