Aha-aha. Ultra-Sonic!

I get all these 80's theme songs in my head whenever there's something that's Laser, Amazing or Ultra. Like today when I bought this ultra sonic cleaner thingie. They were on sale at my local hardware store and I couldn't really pass that one up. Especially since I've been having troubles getting into all the small areas on my neglected airbrush.

It's actually so dirty and neglected it makes me look like Mother Theresa. So if this ultrasonic cleaning thing doesn't work I'll have to get myself a new one. (Oh noes! ;))

Right now I'm trying out a cleaning solution of 20% "Windex" and 80% water. Stuff is coming off in heaps from places I earlier thought was clean-ish. I'll be back with more reporting once it's run for a couple of runs.

I also have to apologize for not posting much lately. Work is prio #1 at the moment. The good thing is that I finally managed to score some bigger projects, which in turn lets me have some spare time during weekends and such. Actually so much that I this weekend were able to sleep and watch the F1 race. (Now wasn't that simply nervebiting?! Forza Ferarri!!!)

So if this keeps up I'll probably have the time to play some 40K next weekend. Or at least paint some more orks... -.-

The Weekend failure orks, done!

20 green failures! :)

Once upon a time I got a severe case of hubris and decided to paint 30 orks in one weekend. That didn't end well, and suddenly I had 30 plastic reminders of my bad conscience. Every time I picked up a new figure, painted something else or just didn't give them attention, I felt bad.

Painting should be fun. Once it doesn't, stop painting and do something else. Set realistic goals. As in my case, perhaps 10 of them. It sucks really bad having something nagging on you when you're in the mood for painting something else.

Of course, if you really have to get stuff painted. Like if you're attending that tourney in 2 weeks and everything still is grey plastic. Paint. Paint like a madman and embrace the suck. If not, make sure it's fun to paint so you don't end up with too many "I really need to paint these but I don't want to". Hobby should be relaxing and not work.

Fire up some podcasts, make a cup of tea, relax, paint & smile. :)

Step by Step: Ork Trukk

Usually when I paint new models I try to document it as much as I can for reference. So when three trukks arrived from eBay I thought I could paint one up, and make it a step by step for the blog.

I tried to explain as much as possible in the short text under the pictures. Any questions just ask.

The goal was to make a really gritty trukk. Made up from scrap metal and with a hasty and old go fasta paintjob. A lot like those in the texts in the latest IA-book, Raid on Castorel Novem. (They look a bit too clean in the book though).

This isn't a end-all be-all guide to painting trukks. It's my way of doing a fast trukk-paintjob. All in all I guess it's around 8 hours of work, not counting the time to wait for washes to dry. A hair dryer speeds that up though. :)


STEP 1 : PREP / BASECOATS

Primed black, with a heavy drybrush of Tin Bitz

Lighter drybrush of Boltgun Metal

Details in Dwarven Bronze

Other details painted. Like the leather on roll bars.

Stuff thats going to get a red paintjob marked out so I don't have to spray hairspray all over the model.

Tires painted German Grey.

STEP 2 : DETAILS AND FIRST WASH

Everything gets an acrylic wash to make it pop. This will be augmented with oil based washes & weathering later on. The tires get a plain black wash.

Some of the metal plates on the trukk get's different kind of washes to make them stand out from the rest. This gives it a feeling of being made up of different kind of parts found on the battlefield.

Red details are first airbrushed with hairspray and then VMA Turn Signal Red.

After that's dry I carefully paint water onto the red and use a toothpick and a stiff bristle brush to remove the red paint, showing the metal underneath. It's easier and funnier than to paint on flakes.

STEP 3 : OIL & PIGMENT WEATHERING

Oil based washes and weathering. A lot of rust and darker washes to make it look... rusty and oily! Here I concentrated the washes to the seams between different metal plates to make them stand out even more.

Small details like the symbols are painted. I choose a lighter color to make them stand out from the rather dark trukk.

Pigments! I love this stuff.

Everything got a light wash of dust and dry mud. Then more layers were built up doing a paste of turpentine and pigments. 

STEP 4 : CREW

Crew is painted, I do my orks pretty light (contrary to the fluff). So they stand out pretty well against the dark trukk. If I were to do them in the proper colours I'd probably work more on making the trukk lighter.

And there it is! Now it just needs some varnish and it's ready to roam the battlefield! :)

In the mailbox: Kromlech Feldkanone 48

The Feldkanone I wrote about a week ago arrived today! First impressions of it is great, but I do wonder why we pay Forge World as much as we do. As you can see from the pictures below, there's almost no clean-up needed compared to Forge World resin.

Sure, it's probably not as detailed as Forge World stuff. I bet they have their reasons to sell at the price point they do. But when I receive stuff like this (and the Alien Brain) which has barely no flash or seams visible it sure feels like Forge World is charging a bit too much.

Aaaaanyhow... The Feldkanone came with no assembly instructions, but there really wasnt any instructions needed. You just place the cannon on the carriage, slide the shield over and attach it on the carriage with two pegs on the backside of the shield.

Topside

I bought this to see if I could use it as a grot kannon instead of buying the metal GW-kits. And as you can see from the pictures it's a tad too big (IMO). Something that can be remedied by having a bunch of grots with it. The grot with baseball cap could easily be modified to be able to sit on the barrel. With an extra two (or three if you add an ammo runt) grots I can imagine that it would create the illusion of them being able to handle the kannon. Now I really don't know why I'm aiming for realism in a game with space marines and giant world-eating bugs. Still, it's nice if it looks at least remotely credible. :)

Worky bits.

On the bench: Kommandos!

*sssssch* "We sneaky!!!"
10 kommandos, nob, 2 burnas and Snikrot. Ready to be primed.

Having the cold of the century. Which actually is nice since I've had what I thought was some weird allergic reaction for two weeks. Turns out that the runny nose wasn't the cats, pewter or anything else that's nice. Just a plain old cold.

So inbetween the "lie down in bed feeling sorry for yourself"-sessions I've actually managed to do some hobby related stuff. Like the kommandos!

I love these. Forge World really did an amazing job on the sculpts. The only real snag I encounterd was the nob. He's got a lower right arm that needs to be carefully placed and filed. And even after that you'll need to green stuff the joint. But it's all worth it since it's such an amazing sculpt. It's actually so cool that I hope the people I play against let me use him as Sneekrot, Snikrot's not so evil twin. I got myself Snikrot just in case. But ooooh maaaaan, the nob is so awesome!

The regular kommando heads and backpacks went on the plastic ork boyz without a hitch. Some minor filing and fitting was necessary, but since it's resin you'd be filing away anyways.

Oh, and I was just going to buy the pigment sets from Forge World yesterday. Somehow a bunch of grot tanks found their way into the order. Weird!

(With a little luck I'll have a step-by-step done later next week. A sneak peek of it to the left in the picture.)