Kommandos Komplete!

So, a bit picture heavy, but I wanted to give the kommandos a bit of an extra photoshoot because I really like how they came together as a unit.

Have some close ups of the boyz. You'll see all of them have a little bit of extra character.

 I really didn't much care for the price label on the proper kommando miniatures, and as I like to keep my regular boys pretty clean of extra gubbins, I had a lot of bits to play with for these lads. They have all sorts of things I scrounged up out of my bits box. Including some very old stuff from 1st edition.

You'll see on the special weapons boyz an axe and a kettle from the 1st edition battlewagon. Everyone needs a brew up after a hard day of infiltration!

The boys have been a bit magpie-like in their collecting of trophies and shiney kit. I'm quite inspired in their loadouts from something I see in my other hobby airsoft: folks just want to take everything with them "just in case". So these lads as a bit like that too. 

A touch I particularly like is how many of them are clearly jumping out and shouting at a surprized enemy, even while Boss Snikrot has his finger to his lips shh-ing them.

Now in the pipeline is a unit of lootas. These lads have been waiting a while, again because I've been a bit nervous about them. Those big deffguns are quite off putting. I have spent a few months looking at them trying to get my head straight about how I'm going to pull them off.

 Something that has already vexed me is the state of the undercoating. As ever, I've been cheap and got them off ebay, from several different sources. I've been finding that fairy powerspray is good for taking off the actual paints, but the spray primers seem to just stick in there no matter how much I scrub. and some of them have been sprayed black, others yellow of all colours. With these first three I thought I'd just crack on, but there is a noticeable difference in the way the colours tuned out.

 My plan for the other 12 lootas is first to try out a different stripper, maybe dettol, and iff not go over them with an airbrush primer I have, just so they are all the same, even though this will loose a little detail.

While I'm doing these boys, I have a unit of burna boys waiting in the wings, but I'm actually planning to do another build with some bits to do some armour plated 'ard boyz. I've looked at the things I have left over and I've had a rather fun idea, so watch this space.

5 Months without posts! Argh!

Oh my, So long without updating, a fine blogger I am!

Summer is gone and evenings are now far more conducive for painting, so I've been stuck right in the last couple of weeks. Been working on Boss Snikrot and some Kommandos. (Warning, Huge Pictures!)

Have been learning a lot about painting just lately, particularly from threads on /tg/, much though that realm lies within the internet wild-west. One of the biggest influences was some comments on just how far one really needs to thin paint: "so you could drink a quart without getting ill" was one. Particularly on the base colour, this advice has been golden. It does such a better coat and preserves a lot more of the miniature's detail.

For the highlights I find I need a slightly thicker consistency, just thick enough to stay where its put. Also for speed I tend to go a bit thicker on troops, but not too much.

I've also taken on board some criticism of my basing. So I've been trying to add a few more features. I'm still fond of the flowersoft, and I want to stay consistent to the whole army, but I've been adding some rocks. I don't want them to distract from the miniature, so I've been keeping them simple.

Bad Dice

Again, not about painting or sculpting, (will have the dakkajet finished in a few more days,but it's dragging on), but had my second games night of 6th edition.Was great, but I realised why I'm so glad I don't play marines: Bad dice.

After my first games night I got home and was straight on ebay to buy myself a bucket full of distinctively coloured dice. Orks tend to roll a lot of dice, I think 60 should have me covered for almost any eventuality. But there's a facet of ork play I hadn't really pondered, and that how you tend not to worry about bad dice like you do with any other army: there is hardly any critical if-I-don't-get-a-good-roll-now-I-lose-the-game moments.

I was playing against the Space Puppies, and it seems that for them, every dice matters: all those Hunter Killer missiles, plasma guns getting hot, etc... A space Marine player gets so used to expecting good results that every bad one is a disaster, while as an ork player I just assume terrible rolls when I make my plan, and overcome them by chucking a bucket of dice onto the table, so what happens is most of the time my dice rolling exceeds my expectations.

Perhaps the only "bad dice" for me was my D3 for how many shots my lootas got. Every turn they fired I got a 1, so each of the 15 boyz only got one shot. Even with that they dispatched a Razorback and a Devastator Squad before the battle moved off to the other side of the table and out of their range.

For my opponent for the night, the dice were very much against him. Too many times he was rolling the ones. To the extent that in a 1,500 pt game by the time I waaaagh'd into melee on turn 3 he had only thinned my boyz down by 6 casualties. He conceded the match before we resolved the combat. I felt at the time a little bit robbed that we didn't get to do the stomping, but on reflection it was a mercy to him to end the pain sooner. Long before the end of the match I was groaning with him every time the dice went wrong for him.

Developing Airbrushing Skill

So I've been learning a lot more about the airbrush. I'm getting pretty excited about it if I'm honest, as it is turning into a really promising area to massively expand my skill set and also is speeding up bulk painting immensely.

The latest batch of Nobz (see previous post for finished results) were part of a larger number of unpainted nobz I had, 35 in total. Many of them the Black Reach 3 part models - head, one arm, everything else - and this configuration does not lend itself to the separate parts method I detailed previously. So I tried something different: trying to airbrush different areas of the same piece. And with a little trial and error, I found a method that definitely worked, and has me really excited for future projects.

Basically the challenge in blocking in separate areas of base colour on a single piece is getting a crisp edge. My paint scheme helped me here in that a lot of areas are divided by a black border, so I went in using that as my margin of error and if I went over the lined I'd brush in the black later. The obvious example of this is the black belt between the brown of the trousers and the cream of the vest.

But with a little more adventure I found I could do more. With the airbrush hardly pressed I could get a really crisp edge, so I had a go and the green of the arms and the black of the boots. Angling the model away helps, and always keeping in mind what is behind what you are spraying. For the first time on my blog, I'll add a video of this for the boots.

Blocking in colour before inking, highlighting and detailing is the most tedious part of painting in my opinion, so cutting down the timeit takes is very helpful psychologically. But the finish that airbrushing gives is also really nice, its flat and thin, so it leaves even more detail of the miniature and also takes further paint really well.

 In the above photo, all the paint you can see has been airbrushed. The metallic needed another coat as you can see at this stage the green still showed through.

In this photo, I have brushed in the black belt and braces, and the yellow details on the arm, and then airbrushed the whole miniature with a brown ink, even over the green.

As I've said, its not just about the speed now, its about how nicely everything else goes on after, so in the future I think I'll use the airbrush even for small runs and single miniatures.

This week: Nobz! (One even has a Big Choppa!*)

Just a little show of my latest work.

Photoshoot and clever editing by my lady.

*Fnar!

Game Night

A nice little photo of my boyz waiting to be deployed for their first game night

Was a good night. As it was my first go at 6th edition, we did an allied game of 2vs2. With each pair having a player who was very familiar. We won by one VP! :)

Compromise

Resistance has collapsed. I was invited to a games night, and will have to field some incomplete miniatures. The rest of the week will be about airbrushing and inking... No naked resin though, I still have some standard... I keep telling myself.

Nemesis

How close behind us does Nemesis dog our footsteps?

Doesn't everyone have a cat-destroys-lovingly-painted-and-constructed-miniatures story? This was fortunately only a close call, but I shall be securing my display area more carefully from now on.

Mass painting

I know "green horde" tactics can be unpopular: both with ork players- because of the painting time, and with those you play against - because it can slow a game down moving so many miniatures. But really horde-ing is what the orks are all about. If not for tournament play, then in the fluff and for theme games. And I am overwhelmingly a fluffy player, loving campaigns and narratives.(TL;DR? Scroll down for photos)

So, my plan is to have access to a horde, if not play it every time. And as I am poor, I have to look down some cost saving routes. Perhaps the best is route is always ebay, but what that means is you will usually have someone else's painting to deal with. Sometimes it will be very nice, but perhaps a wrong fit. Some of my pieces have come from a bad moon player, and I can't be mixing and matching that bright yellow with my white and brown boyz. Other times they will be unfinished, or just base coated, which is lovely. Worst of all are those moments you unpack the parcel and cannot help but utter the immortal line "dude, do you even thin?"

In all instances, the more paint you can get off, the better. Fairy power spray is my weapon of choice as it is cheap if used sensibly and doesn't damage the plastic. With metal miniatures it is even better as I can rock out a brush attachment on the Dremel and the layers of paint are often whipped off in the manner of a conjurer pulling a table clothe out from under your dinner. But the Dremel is not your friend with plastic, so you have to go back to the trusty toothbrush.

My batch of over 100 ork boys were all sorts, from some I'd used to test out themes before settling on what I'd use for my army, to some in just virgin plastic, to a nice batch I recently got which were mostly just undercoated or very thinly painted. All needed cleaning - even the virgin plastic as these days they come with mold grease still on them that rejects paint like a baby who does not want to say ahh for the aeroplane. This was a very tedious afternoon's work.

Next, was base colouring with the air brush. Now I hatched a plan, as the general areas of colour fall roughly in line with the seperate parts of the ork boy kits. So heads and arms could be based in green, torsos in cream, and legs in brown, all the other colours are darker so would go over these base colours pretty well.

Here is my torsos laid out ready to spray. Also some boys that are from the kit where the legs are not separate.

Looking oddly like the photo is in negative, but that is an unaltered photo.

Airbrushing, I ran the risk of clogging to simply water down my regular paints by about 4-1 water to paint. Really thin, but 4 coats, rotating by 90 degrees per coat seemed to be pretty good coverage to me. Alas clogging was a big factor. I have since been told that there are some nice acrylic mediums for airbrushing that can solve this. When I've looked into it I'll no doubt blog about them.

In all,  the airbrushing took the best part of a day for just 3 colours. The worst was the arms, which I had to do in batches as there were so many,the green was the most truculent colour to get a good finish with. I had to QC all the parts after each batch and feed back the sub par ones into the next batch.

Once everything was sprayed, it was then blocking in the other colours on each part. Here are the legs in progress.

The miniatures could be glued at various stages, once everything that might be obscured by a part was done. Here are bodies on the legs.

And then heads once the necks had been blocked in in green.

After this, they are ready to be inked, highlighted and detailed. I have chosen to do these stages in batched of 10.
Inked and completed

And finally detailed and then based

Will post up a full collection post when I've got a few more batches done.

In terms of time taken. I Started cleaning 12 days ago. My normal rate is about 3 minis a day, So actually I could have got 36 done by now. But doing a batch of 10 a day from now on, I should be finished in 11 days from now, when it would have taken me maybe 40 days, so definitely worth doing this way.

Procrastination

Its not exactly unconstructive as they all need painting. But sometimes one's planned painting schedule goes up in smoke because another miniature is watching you with pleading in its beady little eyes.

The ork boys are in there seperate parts.Arms and heads to be airbrushed green, bodies bleached bone, and trousers snakebite leather (yes, my paint set it that old!).All stripped and washed and ready for their basecoat, and suddenly I'm painting these two special weapon boyz! Its a good thing I love them!

Just a note on my photography: This one is sub par as I did it with my phone. Usually My lovely lady gives my minis the full photoshoot experience with her excellent camera.

Deff Dread Done!

Almost exactly a week's work.

First BIG miniature of my project. I got him on a trip up to Nottingham and GW's headquarters and Warhammer World - well worth the trip I might add.

Working on a model this size has its own complications. Such large amounts of paint need a slightly different approach. I've not had much experience with the airbrush, but got my first go for this model. Basically undercoated with Blood Angel Red - lots of thin coats to get a smooth finish, and the all the metal areas got a thin base of chaos black.

 After that, I had to break the miniature down into areas. Trying to do all of the red in one go, for example, would have been a near Sisyphean task. Demoralizing, but also tricky to mix the shades in the right volumes and keep them wet while I worked,so instead I just did a limb at a time,completing all the defining and detail before moving on to the next.

Nice as it gives some immediate gratification. I was pleased with the first arm, and was able to look at it for reference and a boost to the morale as I progressed through the miniature.

I'm told my basing is quite archaic, but I like old school. With my dear lady's connection to her family's craft shop, I was able to source some very posh "Flowersoft". I hope soon to start constructing a gaming table for the home in a similar vein. Something jungly and orky that matches the bases.

Next Project: I accidentally bought nearly 100 ork boys in a job lot on ebay. Was a bargain so couldn't say no. Have just been breaking them into their parts so I can see about using the airbrush much more. Details to follow.

Resurrecting brushes

Once upon a time I got through so many brushes! I'd be buying about 3 a week in peak painting times. Acrylic is just a killer of brushes: it works up the bristles and dries in there forcing them apart. Metalics are even worse.
Bearing in mind you need all your disposable income to spend on your plastic crack, this was a serious drag.

In steps my lady. Hero of the scrapbook. Scion of the craft shop owner. Brainbox of ink and paper.

Her technique for resurrecting brushes is the business.

Obviously the best thing is to clean them regularly, but if you are on a big project, the paint is drying in there as you paint. I'm on a Deff Dread right now and I might be using one colour for 30 minutes.

Washing up liquid at the end of every session of painting is also good. Even if the paint is dry, its not totally dry,and the washing up liquid breaks up nearly all of it. But eventually your brush will succumb to that "bad hair day" look, at which point I used to bin them. But my Kate showed me the true path: boiling water.

It sounds brutal but it works. When the brush will no longer hold a point, clean it first as best you can with the washing up liquid, but then boil the kettle and rinse the brush out with freshly boiling water. Then shape it back to a point and let it dry and it is very nearly good as new.

Style

My friend Henry got chatting to me today. He's nearly exactly 10 years younger than me, and is very much a different generation of Warhammerer. He's got a lovely painting style, nice tone, and a really delicate technique. Its all about the airbrush and the top notch inks. His comments about my technique often revolve around "you have a lot of patience". But truth be told, I'm a bit of a dinosaur.
It seems a lot has happened in my 15 years away from the hobby. The new miniatures are so good, perhaps almost good enough to justify the price! And a lot of ideas have clearly bounced around the internet, something we didn't have back in the day. Back when I last played, my painting tips were gleaned from the pages of White Dwarf and my local hobby store - the sadly now defunct Fun Fact and Fantasy. I'd never heard of airbrushing being used on miniatures, and heat guns to dry the paint? Where have you been all my life?
It seems my style of painting is very much upside down to the current vogue. I do my nice clean base coat of colour - several very thin coats to get a really smooth finish - and then get nice and dark with an appropriate ink. From there its about bringing the tone up to a high contrast, I lazily call it highlighting, but its more accurate to call it Defining. I don't really think about a light source, I'm trying to define the shapes with a view to making an illusion with the scale - trying to make a small miniature look big. The result is quite cartoonish I think.

My love for Grotz

I'm all about the grots. I will have to get cracking with more. Ammo Runtz, Painboy Orderlies. Some Big Gunz will have to happen soon. I really like sculpting them as they are pretty quick and easy. For me orks without Grotz are just lame, and Ork world should be swarming with them.

For £10, a pack of Grotz is a nice little pick me up. I live 30 seconds walk from my nearest stockist, and I just love painting them. In game terms, they may have their limitations, but you just have to have them really.

A special "Kustom" piece

This was an interesting piece I completed recently. I accidentally bought this off ebay.
The plan was to get a KFF Mek, and I think I must have skimmed the description and perhaps the photo. Careless really, but when I opened the package I had a small moment of raeg, feeling that I'd been gipped. What I had was a Lead warboss miniature with a scratch build collection of gubbinz on the back: something someone had cobbled together from their bitz box.
I went back to the listing, and realised my mistake. The photo was similar in general impression to the proper KFF mek, and the description had the word Kustom in it. I'd looked at the cheap price and hit bid without much more thought. But everything was in the description plain as day,so it was my fault.
... cup of tea... bit of a think...
Had another look at the miniature and realised it was a pretty nice job actually. Had a look at the listing, and you could see there were some personal details that were quite cute. The seller had even named the attack squig "Billy". Looked at that, looked back at the miniature, you could see some love had gone into it.
...hmm...
He sat on my painting desk for about a month looking at me. I did quite a few other projects, and had a nasty bout of flu which had my hands shaking so much I had to give painting a rest for about 3 weeks. But when I was finally ready, I realised that our mek's time had come.
There were some classic ebay miniature features: not for the first time, his equipment configuration was not in line with the Codex. He had both the KFF and the Kustom Mega Blaster, naughty naughty. The Blaster had to be chopped and replaced with something game legal. I'd had some metal Killa Kans, and one was equipped with a skorcha - again a senseless configuration: one of the only BS3 miniatures available to the orks with a short range template weapon? - so the swap was made. I nearly had my eye out when the dremel blade came off while trying to chop the metal, but it ended up as a nice job, and the miniature was one of those "it painted itself" moments, I had him done in two evenings.

A couple of burna boys with him too. At some point I'll get the rest of their mob completed.