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!

"Push! Push! I can see the head!"

Finally got around to add the head. And it sure makes it a whole new stompa. As usual with minis (or huge-is as this is) the head is really the focal point. Without it. Or with a bland face. Things just look dull.

Instead of the mek-ish ork commander that was supplied with the stompa I decided to add one of the grots from Forgeworlds Grot Tank-set. It just felt much more appropriate to have a ton of grots running the machine. Even though the fluff says otherwise. I guess this grot, Kommanda Ruhmul, has proven himself in battle so many times that he got transplanted from the kan into the head of the stompa instead. Or something like that... only the God Emperor knows how the ork mind works. If anyone does.

And as usual, it's a ton of work left to do. Highlighting all the panels, drybrushing metal bitz and whatnot. But I got so happy when the head was on I had to put it up here.

<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!

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! :)

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.)

Weekend Challenge: 30 orks... pt II

It's already a fail, sort of. I realized pretty quickly that painting 30 orks would make them look way below the standard of my other orks (see the previous photo). So I cut it down to twenty, and decided to use a zenital/glazing technique on the ten shootas. Kinda like how I did the runtherder for my grots (tutorial coming on that one). And it also means that I can concentrate on painting the nob properly.

So far I've blocked in all the colors on the sluggas. What's left is painting the straps – which they have a ton of – and then washing & highlights.

There will be no Malifaux-opening stuff before the 30 ones are done though. Hopefully the Malifaux stuff will be delayed a little.

The Waaagh: Troops

Here's the current troops I run with. (That' I'm currently expanding). I love theses guys, or rather I love the looks on my opponents faces when I cover 3/4 of the board with orks. I hate moving them all though. The current standard joke when it's my moving phase is "You might wanna read the Twilight series while I move."

The sluggas & choppas. The first orks I painted. The nob got converted with the powerklaw from the AOBR warboss. To the left of him is the first ork ever... :)

Shoota Skwad One! They die like flies, but I love 'em. :)

Shoota Skwad Too! Nothing special here. :)

The little big waagh! Special Grot Skwadron Alpha! Experts at holding objectives far back, going to ground in 2 seconds sharp and decorated for running away when Space Marines look at them angrily.

Next up is the heavy support.

Weekend Challenge: 30 orks...

30 black orks...

Yeah, sort of. I kinda felt bad for buying all that Malifaux stuff. Especially when I already have a metric ton of models to paint (fortunately no commission stuff). So I set up this challenge to myself.

Before I break the seal on any of the Malifaux stuff, rulebook included. I have to have all these orks painted up. And I really need them as well. I've usually been running mobs of 19 boyz + a PK/BP nob, which hasn't stood up too well against MEQ. Especially not against space wolves. So I'll try running mobs of 29 boyz instead. That'll make them fearless for a while longer, and they'll dish out more pain as well.

Of course, the sluggas will still be in a mob of 20 in order to fit in a battlewagon. But with these painted up I'll be able to run two wagons, or slog 30 of them across the field depending on what I feel like.

Hopefully I'll be done by sunday. They wont be especially complicated. Grey pants, red shirts, brown straps and stuff. So I think I'll be able to do it. Famous last words? :)

The waaagh: HQ & Objectives

I thought I should add the ever expanding horde of orks that I've painted. So far it's about 1300-ish points. And that's about half of it -.-

First up is the HQ and objectives.

Big Mek with Kustom Force Field.

Nothing fancy here. It's the bog standard Big Mek. I used some of the GW 40K basing stuff for the nice eldar helmet. All in all I'm kinda pleased with how it looks. Easy & quick.

Da Golden Klaw & Da Ammo

I should make a third objective but I haven't really figured out what to do. The power klaw is from the nobz pack, mounted on some Gale Force 9 slate. The grot is from the nob-pack too I think.

Finished Deff Dread

I guess it's finished. Or at least I'm so bored with it I consider it done and ready for the tabletop.

I've added some weathering since the last WIP photos. A ton of rust and mud (MIG & Forge World) and Vallejo's Smoke. All the panels got some sort of filter / wash to make them stand out from each other and give the dread some sort of randomly built look.

I dabbled with some OSL (Object Source Lightning) on the visor thingie as well. It's much much harder than it looks. So very easy to have it look like you slipped with the brush instead of lightning.

I might go back to it later on and add some scratches to the armor. But for now it's done...

The Bench: Deff dread 10hrs later.

Ultramarines scrap used for shoulderpad thingie.

Washing and highlighting done. Some minor detailing and weathering and it's tabletop time!

Killakan #2

Second kan. The red makes him walk a little faster.

I'm kinda in love with the grass from Woodland Scenics. Makes it look a little more real. Tufts from Silflor. And then some GF9 static grass (straw).

Tabletop quality+

I like the nobz, they're not cartoony in the same sense as the regular orks. It's all about killin' stuff. And maybe stompin'. But mostly killin'!

And that completes the slugga boyz. Now they're in full numbers and have a leader. Feels nice.

*vroom vroom*

Rollin' rollin' rollin'

Fun project. Went a little overboard with the MIG pigments though, but hey... the orks probably don't have a drive-through wash. Or at least that isn't on the top priority for a mek when he can build stompin' things!