Orky rumours!

From Faeit 212;

In this mornings rumors we have Ork Weird Boys with powers that get more dangerous the more Orks that surround them, with powers directly from Mork (offensive), and ones from Gork (strategic). There are large new squigoth type creatures, new rules for Mega Armour units, and Orks with FnP.

It looks like we get to start off a November with a nice little rumor set.

Please remember that these are early rumors.


via Batty (from the Faeit 212 inbox)

First we can start with orks what i have heard is that they stay the same with furious charge and mob rules but all orks ( not grots or squigs) will get FnP 6+ as a race because they are basically tough and it takes a lot to kill and stop an ork. 

Most weapons will stay the same except choppas are ap6 but gain ap5 on charge and big choppers will be +2s and ap4 and ap3 on charge. 

Nobz stay the same but are getting more characterful upgrades available to them, new kinds or grot assistants such as suicide grots(act alot like bomb squigs but prone to blowing up in unit) and ammo runts and attack squigs also more weapon options like Big shootas and such.

New nob mega armour unit with teleporting abilities but its teleporting works differently from conventional deepstrike bit more random. There is a special mek character that can bestow teleportation on D3 units.

Special bloodaxe character with rules that can bring back boyz units once they are destroyed, much like an imperial guard special character.

A large multi wound squigoth type creature, not FW, it is ever hungry and uses a hunger points system. if it doesn't fulfill the hunger points in enemy's it will rampage nearest unit friend or foe in order to eat.

Two new ork psychic lists for weirdboys, Mork more offencive and Gork more strategic. Many powers in the lists get more powerful the more orks are around the weirdboy, although the more powerful they are the more dangerous they are if they are miscast as they will often misdirect or hit the weirdboy and unit.

New ork only fortifications (including an ork rock) and an ork only warlord chart.

This would actually be -awesome- in all ways possible. Especially for me that has a list/army comp based around a horde (well more a gaggle than a horde to be honest) of orks. Tellyportanobz would be awesome as well, and hopefully hilarious.

These rumours ties into the leaked list of future releases that went wild a few months back. But I wont be letting the grots in my saltmine stop piling up the salt until the fat squig sings. Hoping for all of this to be true though...

Finished Dakkajet! In 720° vision!

If Games Workshop can do spinning product images, so can I! It's a bit of a hassle, but the effect is kinda nice. :) Click the image to pop-up a PX40K copyrighted 720° view of the Dakka-Jet!

The inspiration for the colour-scheme came from the venerable Stuka. This particular camo with yellow wingtips was used on the eastern front I believe. But only on the undersides, and that would detract from the effect on the tabletop.

I tried to follow the "official" RLM colour codes with the Vallejo Air Colors I had. The only snag was the yellow which had to be airbrushed light and building up from a darkened Yellow Ochre up to the lemon yellow. It took some time, but in the end it turned out really well. Super vibrant. I like! :)

The "splinter" camouflage was done with some simple masking. I put down some Tamiya masking tape on my cutting mat and then cut some angular shapes that I placed over the grey basecoat and then sprayed it green. :)

Some basic weathering and post-shading with oils, add some pigments to that and voila! A Dakka-Jet!

Check out the work in progress posts via this link.

WIPBOSS #2

Even more paint on the warboss. I'm getting to the frustration-stage now where there is only the undecided parts left to paint.

I was originally trying to go for a NMM on the metal parts. But the more I think of NMM the more I think it's kinda stupid on a figure made for play. Static display models are another thing.

WIP Ork Warboss

After the defeat in Uppsala I've had to re-build my list a little. Which meant that I couldn't afford a mega armoured warboss running around. So I had to get one of the good old AOBR warbosses.

First one I've put under the brush. It's a pretty relaxing figure to paint. The blends look a lot better IRL, camera flash really kills all your careful blending. -.-

*zoooom* Dakkajet Continued

This thing is a blast to paint! It's really striking when you paint some of the newer kits right after painting some early/very early ones. Like now, I just finished off a pretty bad (fine!)cast of Ghazkull. With a ton of details that aren't really clear on how to paint. Is it pants or is it just a smooth part of a bionic leg? Of course it's easier with vehicle kits, but even the rather new Chimera suffers from some of it.

The ever growing WIP-shelf in my cabinet.

Anyhow... lets quickly forget the WIP-stuff (notice some stuff from a year ago?) and move on to the Dakka Jet. Painting is progressing. The first coat of wash is on, just a general one to act as wash/filter, and once that one is dry it's time to add some chipping and concentrating on toning down the chrome of the jet exhausts.

One thing that's really helping is using slower drying enamel colours for the washes. It's pretty common to use an oil colour based wash on vehicles. While that has its purposes (really really really long open time) I kinda prefer enamels due to their rather long open time.

For the Dakka-Jet I used some of the enamel washes from AK Interactive. These enamel based washes remain workable for an hour or two before setting. Oil colour washes, at least when I do them, tend to stay workable for a day or so depending on how thick they are.

Oh, and a Pro-Tip... do NOT lick the brushes you use for non-waterbased-acrylics. It tastes really really bad. I promise you... -.-

Yet another WIP...

Actually the KV-1 is finished and stuff. But I just havent got around to setting up the photo stuff in order to add it to "finished models". In a couple of days perhaps. The desk is occupied by that -awesome- Dakka Jet at the moment, no time to photograph stuff!

I – of course – went with a Luftwaffe camouflage-ish camo. Sure, I waste the rule of red paintjob, but it is so much cooler with a "proper" paintjob. Or at least thats what I think... :)

Much to my surprise all my masking held up this time. Usually I get gaps in the masking and then rip up some paint with the tape. Not this time. I guess it has to do with the enormous amount of glosscoat in between the colours. (Note: Invest in some gloss coat manufacturer stock)

Hopefully I'll be able to get this one done within the week. I have a ton of Ork Nobs to paint as well... -.-

Leader of the Cow-Man-Doz

Waaaa–aaaaa–aaaaaaa–aaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!

Started to paint up the Forgeworld Kommando nob today. Not much to it. He's getting a straight forward, formula A ork, paintjob. I did some freestyling and added facepaint to him though, but I'm sooooo tired of painting orks that I really cannot come up with something that feels "Yeah wow!" anymore.

Luckily I've still got the joy of painting in me. I hope it lasts for the next 20 orks. 'Cause then I get to paint something else! \o/ Haven't really decided on what. It would be cool to speedpaint all the Ultramarines, but that's also pretty monotone work. Meh... let's worry about that when the time comes.

I put on a regular nob head on the figure. He'll be moonlighting as a regular nob in a shoota mob, so the gas-mask really felt out of place. And if I really really want to run a bunch of kommandoz without Snikrot or a nob with powerklaw (would I, ever?) I always have another one.

In the background is a bunch of 'zerks I promised Boomo I'd paint up for him in exchange for him painting up ten boyz for me. Even further back (cropped away) is the land raider featured over here. It's gonna get some airbrush and stenciling-love once I get around to cut out all the stencils I've planned for it.

And once I've cleared the workbench of all the stuff currently crowding it... Hoarding minis for the win! -.-

Forgeworld Kommandos done

Sneaky gitz!

Actually they were done last sunday when I went to play with Boomo. I just hadn't the time to put up pictures of them until now.

Stuff that goes boom!

The cost of these is not that much more than buying the metal ones, even with the added 15% shipping from Forgeworld. Taking into account that you have to buy a box of boyz (but if you play orks, you already have one or three of those "just in case"?). You get one more kommando-boy + that cool axe wielding nob to boot. And of course, really fun stuff to paint for only about a cost of 25% more.

Even though I got kinda bored of them after the third one they were still really fun to paint. I really like the stitching on the backpacks. And all the grenades! I kinda chickened out on the grenades. After doing some research there were tons of cool grenades I could've painted them up as. But I kinda settled on the regular US M18 smoke grenade style. Even though militaria buffs will know that the grenade with red stripe is actually modeled after the M34 white phosporous grenade.

The rust effects was done with the washes from Mig. A lot of layering had to be done with them on the kommandos, which kinda made it take a lot of time instead of just slapping on some rust pigments. It didn't disappear when varnishing though, which is a plus. They are made for irregular surfaces apparently, and I guess Games Workshop-style weapons aren't compared to the super intricate detail you find on most military scale models. Still, they're really nice where you want transparent rust effects.

Aaanyhow! They will most likely get rebuilt a little once / if they go full kommando and not moonlighting as Flash Gitz as they do now. Adding a silencer or so to the guns making them more sneaky, and perhaps a lazor or two. Depending on if I can get my hands on some styrene tubing that fits.

Oh, any of you that signed up for the Wayland / Warlord thingie earlier gotten your sprue? I know they were kinda slow when they did that with the Mantic sprues earlier. I just want to know if I still have to go check the mailbox thrice every day. :)

On the table: Forgeworld Ork Kommandos

Sneaky gitz…

Some of you remember the Max Mini ork bodies I bought earlier to make flash gitz. Now I don't want to say that they were bad or anything. But for me they just didn't "do it". Then I saw the running legs and ork veteran heads from Kromlech (I still have the cannon that I haven't painted -.-) and I was kinda bummed since they totally were "doing it".

I just couldn't justify buying even more stuff, not with the Warhound looking at me with puppy eyes begging me to paint it. So I kinda decided that the kommandoz I bought way earlier would work as a great stand-in for Flash Gitz. Not completely kosher. But I'll use them as a counter-charge unit. So the choppy bitz fits in with their intended use. And they really have dakka enough in and on their backpacks to pass as having the More Dakka rule.

So… a quick WIP. I got tired when it was time to paint the metal parts. As usual, since they're orks, there is tons of it. Check back for updates later in the week, hopefully I have them done by sunday, hopefully...

Touch my boss pole!

Touch the boss pole to go to Flickr…

I got kinda super-inspired while waiting for my project manager to reply to an e-mail. So I started to build on the base for the grot holding Buzzgobs boss pole.

A couple of hours later I was in the same situation, and since the airbrush still was on the table I decided to at least prime it. After I was done, there was still no reply in my inbox. So I went for the hairspray and salt.

The goal is to make the boss pole to look like it's been toted around from waaagh to waaagh for a while. And the salt technique is kinda fun to work with so I really couldn't resist to use it when I had a chance.

Now… the sad thing is that my project manager replied with an e-mail that basically said "You'll be working all night" (FML) so the boss pole is off to the glass cabinets WIP-shelf. Although I'm itching to continue painting now that I have the inspiration.

Ah well... off to the Powerpoint-madness with a business-tip…

Never EVER tell your client that you're actually an ace at making Office-templates and can do that together with the other design stuff. Even though you might be an ace at it and the money is tempting. Office eats your soul! :)

Buzzgob, finally done!

Buzzgob! Click to go to Flickr.

I finally managed to get myself some time to finish Buzzgob! I wanted to do more with the metals but there's a time when you just have to say "Enough!" and finish it. It's still not meant for Golden Demon or something, it's painted to play with. Overall I'm pretty pleased with it anyhow. The OSL came out pretty darn OK and I really like the skintone I managed to get after a bunch of green washes.

The base was done almost completely with pigments. I'm still not too sure if I like it, but it does contrast well with the detailed figure.

Click the picture to go to Flickr and see more views and higher resolution. Any C&C is more than welcome!

Buzzgob WIP#3 & painting it black...

Painting stuff black is kinda a hassle. Fortunately I stumbled up this little gem over at Giovannis Modeling Corner that gives you (and me) a few handy tips on painting black.



One other thing mentioned in the video is to always unload the brush. Something I sometimes forget to do, ensuring that the rather transparent layering I try to achieve instead turns into a slow drying opaque mess.

This week is deadline week so I wasn't hoping on getting anything done, but I managed to get some time today to paint the skin on Mek Buzzgob.

Buzzgob and Simon(?) from Malifaux primed and ready.

Now, I really like Forgeworld. But the amount of weird stuff on Buzzgob is staggering once you start painting it and asking yourself "Why is this bump / hole / thing here?". There's just way too many things and resin-casting-artefacts that you just can't see or for that matter reach. Which results in it being a pretty frustrating figure to paint.

Apart from that I think it's going pretty good. Still debating in my head on how to make all the metal parts come alive. A ton of weathering and/or rust I guess. And washes galore to make it look like different kinds of metal. Some of it has to be in another color too I think. It's just too much "metal". \m/ >_<

Oi you gitz!

I had to get me some flash gitz – yes I know they kinda suck – in order to fill the last slot in my "swedish comp tourney list". So after looking through a ton of posts on the internetz regarding flash gitz I kinda settled on just making them look different compared to the nobz and boyz.

OI!

At first I wanted to go with the Badrukk/pirate look. But when browsing Micro Art for their new(-ish) hardfoam terrain I decided that I could just as well go for the German WW1 ork bodies and heads. Not as true to the fluff as pirates but I've always wanted to own a bunch of them. :)

The bodies aren't really plug-n-play with regular ork boyz arms. So I had to do a bunch of filing and dry fitting. And unfortunately all that also meant that I have to prime and paint them with arms and guns on.

Git' em!

The hard foam fortification was kinda nice (and not really expensive). Since it's made out of some foam it's really light. But still sturdy. The foam is kinda hard but not brittle like regular styrofoam. I will be putting mine on a thin sheet of MDF though. Just to protect the edges of it. There are some air bubbles and other irregularities from the casting. Although nothing that really should matter unless you're using it for your Golden Demon entry or something. (And then there's a resin one which I suppose is of better quality).

Some bubbles

Aaaand... as you suspect. It's into the cupboard with the gitz and hardfoam until I've gotten round to finish Mek Buzzgob that will act as a stand in Big Mek with powerklaw in my tourney army. Click the "read more" if you want to check the list out. If not I leave you with a very-very WIP-ish Buzzgob!

Big Mek Buzzgob

Arming the Stompa

I crack myself up figuring out the headlines for my stompa-posts... for real. Sometimes I hate my type of humour.

So, I finished the head yesterday night. And today I did the easy arm. It's supposed to be pretty much metal, greasy stuff and rust. The last two parts will be added once I get the last arm on so it doesn't look too different depending on what arm you're looking at.

Arm detail. Lot's of different shades of metal. Washes are lovely!

<witty headline about my stompa>

So, the body is almost finished. I would like to be able to work on it even more. Adding tiny details and whatnot. Probably for the next one. Because there will be at least one more Stompa built and painted. Even though it's a huge project. Much bigger than anticipated, it's one hell of a fun project. There's so many parts that you can try our different techniques on and stuff.

But since this one, together with 3 grot tanks and a couple of boys has to be ready for the 10th of November I will have to try and limit the amount of time I put into the stompa.

Todays tasks will be adding details (I've started doing the headlight thingies as you can see in the top picture) and then give it a couple of coats of varnish.

Parts taken from some Blood Angel thingie. You can see the added drybrushing and line highlightning here as well. I've also added some chips n scratches to the skull.

And something from the Ultramarines scout company. This stompa has really been in some scraps with the beakies!

The transfers have some silvering, but I hope that will be remedied once I start varnishing the body. It'll get at least two coats of gloss before I add matte (for the muddy parts) and satin (for the more metal-ish parts).

Oh, and the snow has finally arrived in the southern-ish parts of Sweden. This is what it looks like from one of my windows! Time to bring out the warm jackets and a gun to fend of the polar bears and flesh eating penguins!

Stompa-update

I finally finished all the parts of it that's going to be pure metal. And a lucky addition as well... I spoke to Lifter about how serious I should make it. He said "Dead Serious!" and then I said "Ok. I was thinking of having the skull on it?" to which he replied "Yeah, an oversized one!".

I was kind of wondering what he was talking about. The skull is as big as it is? And after some confusion he told me to paint a skull. Not use the one that comes in the box. So there it is! A huge frickin' skull! To put fear into the humies an beakies an all the others!

It's kinda random. I wanted it to look like the buildergrots painted it on a couple of years ago when the stompa was finished. And that it's gotten a few repairs after that, but no coats of paint.

And that blue plate on the back... it's getting a huge Ultramarines logo!

Now it's just some drybrushing. Picking out stuff/details in red and then finally I can get around to washes and make it look a little less clean-ish and more ork-ish and dirt-ish-y!

On the bench: Stompa

The headline should perhaps read "In the box". But it's out of the box, but in the box... gaaaah I'z makin' me krazy!

Anyhow. First coats done with the airbrush. Now it's time for all the fiddly detailing. All nuts and bolts have to be picked out. The rockits have to be painted in bold colors etc etc...

One of the major problems I have with the airbrush is knowing when to stop. It's awesome for doing some stuff. Like the shading I did on all the plates and general basecoating. But I always try to force myself doing stuff better done with a brush. Ending in me having to cover up mistakes and overspray later on. Is this common? Do you do the same mistakes I do?

I should replace that filter. Remember me the next time I pull out the spray booth.

On the bench: The slow orks...

Slowly getting done... slowly. Left ork is ”done”. 

Time for another post telling you guys that work is crazy. Really no time to do anything but work and then read some Black Library stuff. Every now and then I have an hour or so to put paint on some orks. And this is how far I've progressed in... three weeks?

”But PX, what are you working with? Why is it taking so much time off your hands?” 
My official title is typographer. It's basically like being a graphic designer but with focus on type / layout.

So right now I'm working with a -huge- bank making sure all their documents and forms (and let me tell you, it's a crazy amount of documents!) can be considered within the boundaries of good typography, while working with their new brand design AND readability. Both for the machines that read and make them, and the people they're actually made for. And on top of that I'm working with a up and coming book publisher based in N.Y. (time difference is a b*tch), a film production agency and a major retailer of outdoors equipment.

So my day is usually Waking up. Checking mail from N.Y. Sending mail. Working my ass off. Dinner. Talk to New York. Do some stuff for the bank that's supposedly due ”yesterday” and then take a couple of sleeping pills and go to sleep.

I love it though. But sometimes I wish I had more time for 40K.

Today I had a ton of time, since I'm having a cold, again. So I painted up some orks (and spent some time playing the World of Tanks beta). I'm trying out a new technique. Instead of just priming them black and then painting like usual I do a quick zenital highlight on top of the black primer. Using my airbrush I add three to four layers of white and then block in the basic colours with really thinned paint. More glaze-like than paint-like. Usually one part paint to two parts of "gunk".

What this does is creating the basic highlights while I apply the basecoats. All that's needed after that is a thin wash and some line highlights and the area is done. Way quicker than first blocking in the basecoat, washing it, and then building up shadows and highlights.

And you also bypass that depressing part when you have painted the basecoats on your squad for three days straight, and they still look completely flat and uninteresting. I really hate that part of painting. It's not until I've added some washes that I feel good about the figures/the painting again.


I also added myself to the list of participants of an aporkalypse game in November. So I just had to buy myself a Stompa and some other stuff. More about that later (when the panic sets in :)). I have absolutely no idea of how long it takes to paint a Stompa to an acceptable level. But hopefully I can get it up to tabletop standard pretty quick and then work on it some more after the game.

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! :)