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Hi all I decided to do my very first 40k army. I will use this blog to document my build and hopefully improve my abilities as I go. I decided to go with an Orks army. I am waiting on 9th ed codex before i buy my majority of troops but I had won a few good deals on ebay and the first one arrived today. So this will be my very first miniature build.



Yup I went with gretchins lol. Holy Waaagh these things looked bigger in the pictures. Hopefully i can do them justice.



Ive decided to do these out in the designs of the box. I got 2 more boxes on the way and those i will experiment with the extra parts to do a little different look.

Today my goal was to get the items built so i can primer them tomorrow.


Its starting to get dark and I want to prime outside so I will stop here tonight.

Good morning.

Priming done and drying.

Well, i find the first steps always intersting. Nice adorable bunch o grots, never wrong to have a few of em arround.

Gretchin are a ton of fun! I hope you have a good time painting them up

I saw some older grots getting the guns drilled out on youtube but these things are so small that i dont see how I could do it without breaking the guns out so im gonna pass on that with these. I dont trust my skills yet. Ill practice more on shootaz first to get drilling down. I should be getting some in by next weekend.

On a side note, apparently Amazon dont like me. They delayed my green paints for delivery till monday night. and my medium for the bases until wednesday so this is on a bit of a delay. Only green i have right now is army painters d&d green which I dont feel will work even adding yellow and brown in it.


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Black and red tones started. I know its sloppy but it will be more detailed when the other colors overlap.

My painting for the night. still got some work to do to clean it up and give some highlights as well as the base. praise, critique, its all good. my first ever miniature painting so its a learning curve. I sure can tell my eyes arent what they use to be trying to focus on the details of this thing lol.

okay 2 things ive learned from this first one.

1) light colors first because the paint looks like crap caked on.

2) paint before gluing together works out better for getting detail.

I tried to apply light colors this morning and it looks horrible. looks like caked on paint. So I got to try and fix it. not sure how yet.





yeah luckily im getting 2 more to perfect on.

For lighter colours, you want to thin them with water, and really take your time. Put on a layer, and it'll kinda disappear. That's ok. Put on another layer. Slowly build it up. If you put on each layer a little bit smaller than the one before, it'll also "fade" into the darker colour underneath it!

 Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll wrote:
For lighter colours, you want to thin them with water, and really take your time. Put on a layer, and it'll kinda disappear. That's ok. Put on another layer. Slowly build it up. If you put on each layer a little bit smaller than the one before, it'll also "fade" into the darker colour underneath it!

Ill be honest i thought i was but I think i just started too dark between the dark green and the washes so it took so much paint to cover it. it started getting chalky as it dried which is think is just because of how much i ended up having to use. next one i think im not going to use the darkest green and see how it comes out. Its a learning curve and at the end of the day I wont let it stress me out lol.

It pleases me greatly that your first ever army is Orks.

Im big on orcs, Even in WoW my char is an ORC ive always loved orcs.


2 more sets of Gretchin and my daughter wanted to help with painting so I will have some grots up tonight.



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through i will admit for my first a smart move prolly would of been space marines since its so many big spaces lol.



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Got the top layer of paint removed from the herder and finished off a couple grots









we also got the first coat down on the rest of pack 1

Welcome to the hobby and dakka! Orks are a fun bunch to paint and hobby with, though frogs can be quite tricky. When I got back in to the hobby I found the wealth of YouTube channels a great help. For painting horde armies and getting good results I can recommend Midwinter Minis Speed Painting Ork Boyz. Don’t worry about the colours, but the techniques Guy uses are great for getting good results quickly.

 gobert wrote:
Welcome to the hobby and dakka! Orks are a fun bunch to paint and hobby with, though frogs can be quite tricky. When I got back in to the hobby I found the wealth of YouTube channels a great help. For painting horde armies and getting good results I can recommend Midwinter Minis Speed Painting Ork Boyz. Don’t worry about the colours, but the techniques Guy uses are great for getting good results quickly.

Ill check it out. I been watching squidmar lately.

I just ordered some new brushes my kid told me the brushes i got suck so thats why its so hard to stay in the lines the points break. I ordered some kolinsky sables i should have by the weekend. hopefully that 5/0 will help with eyes.

Yeah, squidmar is great too, though he’s not as beginner or horde army friendly as Midwinter. As for neatness I think there’s a time and a place for it. For your early main colours it’s best to get it on quickly but as smoothly as you can. The then the next colours you only need to worry about where they adjoin the first. Frankly though, nothing beats practice and I think variety too. Good luck with the new brushes!

Welcome to the hobby! Great to see new faces. For your first paints, you're doing well! You're learning a lot of lessons quickly, which is great.

I loved your sentiment of "they looked far bigger in the photos". This will stay with you! If you ever buy things like Killa Kans or Gargants, you will still have the same feeling :-D

thanks for the welcomes. I was able to finish the first set of gretchins today. pics up soon. and I got set 2 cut out and sanded down. tomorrow i will get my new brushes and start priming and base coating them. hopefully with the mistakes learned the 2nd set will surpass the first.


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tomorrow ill like the individual pics for a better look.

Hugo


Gummy Bear


Sid


Juan


Freddy


Hanzel


Jack


Mongo


Julian


Maurice


Alice





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Shootaz anyone?

So I figured I'm most likely not using these hands since i want shootaz in one hand and axes in the other. So I decided to test my painting on them. Going to start primed and base coated with different colors to see how they finish off to determine how i want to work my boyz.

Donors are in.


Removed the pistols to make room for the shootaz. guy used a ton of superglue on these things scrapped all morning to get it off the bodies.



Can see some of the glue burn on the arms here.


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I got a couple questions on this guy maybe you guys can answer.



1) Can he run a shoota with the powerclaw or is this gun better for him?

2) This is how is arrived. what is this broken piece called? I need to try and find a bit for replacement.

Drilling guns takes practice. These days I also paint my models in multi parts, cause well, reaching areas of the mini. Of course, my method is not fast


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Drilling guns takes practice. These days I also paint my models in multi parts, cause well, reaching areas of the mini. Of course, my method is not fast


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Drilling guns takes practice. These days I also paint my models in multi parts, cause well, reaching areas of the mini. Of course, my method is not fast

Infidel305 wrote:

2) This is how is arrived. what is this broken piece called? I need to try and find a bit for replacement.

You mean the part on his back? This should be a banner pole, or 'boss pole'! Couple of those on this sprue:

Yeah i bought this used on ebay so i dont have it and of course he didnt mention it was broke.


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Actually now that i think about it im getting a new pack of nobs do they come with extras?


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nadin wrote:
Drilling guns takes practice. These days I also paint my models in multi parts, cause well, reaching areas of the mini. Of course, my method is not fast

yeah any bnib units i get will be painted in sections before putting them together. I got a ghaz coming that one will be in pieces so will my box of nobs. I plan on trying to drill out the shootaz before painting them. I think i found a color im liking on my test arms so these might be ready to start.

I’d say dont worry about a replacement part for the boss pole. Just drill the top of what’s left and insert a cocktail stick, the get either some card to make a symbol or enemy helmets/skulls to stick on the top to show his prowess in battle!!

Ill figure it out. I got so many troops coming in now that ill be painting for months. I tested out a boy last night painting him without primer to see what happened. it actually isnt looking bad even though i messed up the face last minute. I was trying to get white in the eyes and got white in the skin. everything else i was loving until that point. Ill try and fix it today. but next one i will go back to priming. I want to test the difference between no prime grey prime and black prime. also a black prime with grey from the top. See if any of that actually makes a difference with army painters paint.

Hi man, big welcome to the hobbie and to the ork WHAAAAG!
I also collect orks and I might be able to help you out a bit. Your first steps look nice, have fun with it and if keep putting time on it and you'll see massive improvements soon.

On your painting

I would recommend to look up how to make a wet palette and just basics of how to paint with it. This allows you to control how much water your paint has, and keeps it ready to use for hours, allowing for easy mixing of paints and a much better flow from the brush to the miniature. It might sound like a step to far and complicated a beginner, but trust everyone on this: You'll cant live without it once you try it for a couple sessions.

I would also suggest to look up some art work that you like and have it in front of you when you paint. Follow some color scheme you like as well, specially for your first miniatures.
As a novice painter you might not understand color and composition well, and sometimes, no matter how well you paint, if your scheme is off, the miniature will not look right. With orks this can be difficult, since it feels like you can snap any color you want anywhere, or you stick to the green-black-metal look. In contrast, space marines are much easier since they have really easy color schemes to follow.
For your miniatures s far, I think a saturated red here and there in some small details will add some punch to an otherwhise black and green shape.

I would say painting before building is not the best way to go about it as a beginner, since it might take a lot longer, or be a bit confusing to hold the smaller bits. If you cant reach an area with a brush, you probably cant see it well anyway.There are some skills that will come with time, such as brush control (although your checker patterns look quite nice for a begginer), and there are technics and strategies that you would need to learn and try out.

There are several ways to go about it, but I can tell you want works for me. There are hundreds of youtube tutorials nowadays, so keep experimenting!



You seem to trouble a little bit with getting solid colors, both on the greens and bases. Add another layer of paint once the first one is dried, it will get the color right.

On your building:

If you have issues with drilling the holes of the guns, try to first make a small hole with a needle in the middle of the barrel. That way the drill will stay in place. Use a manual hobbie drill for this, not an electric industrial one XD.
If you still cant get the drilling right, maybe the head of your drill is too big for the barrel you want to make the hole in. Gretching are small guys with small guns. You can always just pick up your hobby knife, make a small hole with it and call it a day.

I would recommend you to look for better grass. The on you are using really does not look well. Try to loook for electrostatic 2mm, or grass tuffs. Adding some minor details on the base and painting it correctly can give a really good finishing touch to a miniature.

Any long thing pieces on the miniatures will break really easy unless you take care of them. Ork leaders generally have ork poles (a backpack with a stick and a symbol on them, like a small banner). These are generally really weak and I dont use the ones on the box. I take a steal clip, snap a section and use that instead, gluing the symbol and other parts of the backpack to it. You can also not glue the boss pole to the body, so you can de-attach it when putting the mini back into a box, so it does not break.


With 30 gretching you got a lot of room to experiment and try new things. Orks have a ton of miniatures that will look similar, so making them different both on painting and building adds a lot to keep it fun and interesting.
Since you got another 2 boxes of gretching, Leave the first wave untouched. Try to learn and experiment with the second box, and try to do a Personal Best with the last one. By the end you'll see how much you've learn!

I almost finished some grething lately too, hope this inspires you!

I do use a wet pallet you can see it in like the 5th pic. I took pictures on top of it. I ended up returning my paint today. I am not happy with how it is mixing up. it seems the paint might be too old. I got 2 of the lighter greens i cannot get them to mix up. No matter how much i shake em it still spills water then a tiny bit of color out of the bottle. and when you mix em up its pretty much a light wash instead of a base.


Anyways the not primed orc i painted is done. Im not happy with the face but I like the rest of it. I need to work on faces more.










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really like those gretchins btw.

Thats a quite good ork!
Can you upload a photo of your paint pots/bottles? Some brands have different characterstics than others (sometimes colors vary the consistency too). I generally use citadel (new paints) and model color. If you are using old paints, or paints that are way too watery, oyu might need to get new-different ones. The wet palette needs to be set up with the right amout of water, otherwhise will dilute the paint too much.

 Killatores wrote:
Thats a quite good ork!
Can you upload a photo of your paint pots/bottles? Some brands have different characterstics than others (sometimes colors vary the consistency too). I generally use citadel (new paints) and model color. If you are using old paints, or paints that are way too watery, oyu might need to get new-different ones. The wet palette needs to be set up with the right amout of water, otherwhise will dilute the paint too much.

its the army painter's ork paints set. the 2 lightest greens are so watery and dont mix. I boxed em up to return em. I think they might be old paint. Im thinking of ordering some valejo or citidel since i got about 100 more orks to paint. but I am making sue with some other army painters greens I got.


I green based another set of gretchins. Killatores has me wanting to try and improve gretchins.

Runt Herder 2.0

Got some more done, A little better than previously. Hopefully Ill keep improving.