Progress on the space orc

The conversion work is all done on this guy now. I had to change a few things along the way, but that's all part of the fun :)

I changed the bracket's on his forearm -after almost completing his mods- as I want happy with how bulky it looked. So I ripped it all back off & started again, with a more detailed bracket.

It was a real pain in the butt putting rivets that small on him, their the smallest I've ever tried. And I've yet to find a tried & true way of placing them on objects, without half of them glueing themselves to other things.....including me. But if you want things to look agricultural they are a must to finish off with.



Here's the first incarnation of the conversion;

I used a cable clip as an arm brace, but it ended up obscuring
his forearm to the point that I may as well have just cut it off!

So, here's what I ended up doing;

I think it looks much better this way.

You can see some of the bits & bobs I've used.

Once it's undercoated it should hopefully look like a coherent miniature, instead of a collection of "things", as it does now.

I'm still undecided on what colour to paint his armour in. I'm toying with the idea of using an old space marine chapter paint scheme, like he stole it from a dead marine or something. We will see.

Until next time,

Cheers.

LE1 Space Orc

The first Space Ork miniature to be produced (in mid 1986) by Citadel wasn't even called an "Ork". They had not decided if they should differentiate the Greenskins monikers by their respective settings. So this first release was called LE1 Space Orc. After him, and from them on in, Orcs in 40k were to be referred to as Orks.

Here he is, incorrectly listed (someone at Citadel must have mashed the wrong key while typing up the catalogue);

Image courtesy of solegends

This catalogue listing was not how I first came across this miniature. My initial spying of him was in Dave Andrews iconic diorama, printed in Rogue Trader.....must have seen it around 1988.

Here he be;

Can you spot him? His the one raining hot lead onto the
unsuspecting Ultramarine's from above.

Top left of the image is where his at.

Here's a close up of him;

When I first noticed this guy I had no idea who or what he was. All I knew was that I thought he looked cool! His skin tone made me think he was some sort of ogre? But I never came across him in any of the White Dwarfs or any other publication from that time. I gave up after a short while of ever finding this mini. 

It was only years later -I'd say about fifteen years later- that I stumbled upon him while trawling Ebay. I put in a bid and won him at a pretty good price, but once I had him in my hot little hands I was somewhat disappointed. In my eyes, his weapon looked awful, like something that was hurriedly added on due to a casting deadline that had to be met. Even though the rest of the sculpt looked great (the detailed backpack especially) he was relegated to the "something to tinker with later pile", as my conversion skills back then were dismal.

Now, fast forward a few years. The other day I spotted Ernys' Orctober post and thought, what the hey, I'll dig up this little sucker & see if I can improve his mediocre death spitter.

So, after that rambling introduction, here's the meat of the post.....the conversion work on LE1 Space Orc;

Offensive weapon removed & the forearm cleaned up.

Test fit his new & improved weapon.

Bent his arm into a more upright position & then fixed the
weapon permanently.

Looks a damn sight more intimidation than the original IMO.

I decided on using this big arse flamer (I know what the donor miniature looks like, but for the life of me I just can't remember his bloody name!) after seeing his gas bottles on his backpack. I figured that if an Orc could breathe it, then it should be lethal enough to ignite.

I've still got a bit of work -conversion wise- to do on him before he'll be ready to paint. Like a propellant line to the flamer, bracketry to join his weapon to his forearm and other bits & pieces to "pimp" him up a bit.

Hopefully I'll be able to have it finished by the end of Orctober :)

Wave's goodbye with a stupid grin his face :p

Oldschool Rogue Trader Siege Dreadnought......attempt #2

Hello all,

Some of you may remember my attempt at building a Siege Dreadnought a few months back. The final creation was, to put it mildly, disappointing. It just ended up looking awkward, the body was too small, the arms made it look like a Gorilla aping across the ground (fine if that's your intended purpose, but a pain if it's not) & the siege ladder that I later removed just compounded the bodys' inadequate size issue. All in all, it was a bit of a failure.

In "Warhammer Siege" there's an illustration of a couple of Siege Dreads assaulting an imposing fortress. They look to be normally proportioned Dreadnoughts, but upon closer examination of the illo & further reading of the text, it's clear that these things were supposed to be huge, cumbersome wrecking machines, much larger than their skull smashing brethren. Here's the description;

Basically, Big Arse Robots do the siege work.

After my failed construction I was a little stuck as to how I could build a "proper" Siege Dreadnought. I still wanted to build one, but was unsure what I could use for a base model. While I was on holiday a few months back I visited a model shop & came across this Japanese robot kit. Straight away I could see the potential this puppy had to offer. It's long arms ending in over sized metal claws looked menacing. I could picture it trying to tear down a fortress gate with them or ripping a watch tower up from it's foundations while the soldier's were still trapped inside.

Tasty!

Also on display was the Japanese inclination to sexualising robots (any Astroboy fans out there will no doubt recall his arse guns of doom!). This guy was no exception....twin linked cock cannons & "high beams" for nipples! Classy stuff guys, very classy :p

Meeting your demise from it's devastating "tackle" could be quite humiliating, don't you think?

Once I got this guy home I began trying to figure out the remodelling I'd have to carry out to "siege him up". First up was removal of his head/drivers seat, to be replaced with a cockpit for a miniature to fit in. Also, remove that radiator thingy above his groin & the silly looking collar he had behind his neck.



So, on with the show!

Here's the initial work I've carried out so far;

Enlarged the cavity in the neck space to allow a suitably sized cockpit to fit.

Old Umbrella support from a picnic table used for a cockpit....the wife will never know.

Added some plastic mesh flooring & cut out a relief to uncover the hatch.

Test fit....it's a good'n.

I thought about removing his "offending members", but the comedic potential of getting
 gunned to death by them made keeping them a must :)

An almighty spiked ball & chain will go in his right arm, so one claw was removed 

The other one can be used to crush it's victims.

And here is the semi-completed beast, obligatory RBT01 for scale.

Here he is, perched atop the giant wrecking machine.

As you can see there's still a long way to go, but I'm pretty pleased with how it's coming along.

Until next time, cheers :)

Oldschool Dreadnoughts

Howdy folks,

When I was a young teenager growing up in Australia I used to read a British publication called "GM magazine" (and just in case you didn't know, the GM doesn't stand for General Motors, it stood for Games Master). They reviewed all things fantasy, be it LARP, tabletop wargaming, books, PC & Amiga games etc, but, they also used to show some of the "runners-up" of the Golden Daemon painting competition.

Well, amongst all of those lovely 2nd & 3rd place entrant's were quite a few of Paul Bensons' entries. His stuff was usually more than just a cool paint job. He was one of the pioneers of creating detailed custom bases..... I reckon he had shares with Milliput :). And just about every mini I saw of his also had some part of it either tweaked, swapped or modified in some way.

Why am I telling you this?

Well, I'm a bit of a tinkerer as well when it comes to miniatures, It's what keeps me interested in the hobby. Being able to create something different is a major reason why I still enjoy it so much.

There was one dreadnought that Paul Benson did that really caught my imagination. It was a pretty simple conversion, but it looked great to me. I don't have the original photo from the GM magazine, as I foolishly cut out all of the cool pictures as a teen..... their long gone now, sigh :(

But, luckily it was photographed and published in "Fantasy Miniatures 1988" (a publication put out by GW, showcasing some of the stand-out entrants to the Golden Demon competition).

Here tis, the one on the right. Face plate & custom flamer was all it took to make this a favourite conversion to me. The one along side had a subtler modification - rocket backpack - but it's a good illustration of how Paul Benson found it difficult to leave standard miniatures alone.

So, after that long winded intro, here's my "tinkering" output,



Here he be! I think he looks a lot more threatening in this pose compared to the original.

Here you can see his right arm has been straightened, as well as his legs.

I had a go at hand painting an Ultramarines insignia, as well as "targeting eyeballs"

I think for this guy all I did was straighten his legs.

And added the ubiquitous corny slogan to his body.

I'm quite happy with how this desert colour scheme worked out on this guy.



Apart from the obvious, I modified his legs to make it look like he's walking forward.

A scratch built Las-cannon on the right.

 And a MechWarrior rocket arm.....sorry, a "rokit" arm on his left!

For the 1st & last one, I tried to emulate the colour scheme of the Dreadnought's pictured in Dave Andrews awesome diorama:

If you look close enough you can see the "targeting eyeballs"

I painted these the Oldschool way......dry brushing several times, in between a couple of ink washes. For these minis I think it suits them.

So until next time,

toodle pip!

My rusting & weathering tutorial

Hello fellow lead fiends,

This is a tutorial written especially for Axiom & Just John (and anyone else who's interested too for that matter), as they were too impatient to wait until I returned home from my holiday :P

There won't be any pics with this one guys, sorry, but I'll try my best to describe the process.

STUFF NEEDED:

1. Pigment - Rust & Dark brown
2. Acrylic paint - I used Vallejo Rust & GW Scorched brown
3. Benzene
4. Oil paint - Black & Dark brown
5. Two old brushes, size 1, or there abouts.
6. Two small cups - to mix paint in.
7. One largish soft bristle brush.
8. A small dish that won't get eaten up by benzene i.e. glass, ceramic or metal.
9. Liquitex Matte Varnish.

RUST RECIPE:

Step 1. Prepare the surface as per usual for metal (prime black, drybrush boltgun metal).
Step 2. Clear coat it with gloss varnish. Let it dry completely before continuing with the next step.
Step 3. Into one of the small cups mix equal volumes of rust paint, rust pigment & water together.
Step 4. Repeat step 3 for the other colour.
Step 5. Using an old paint brush for each of the paint/pigment mix, apply the paint in a random fashion, using a stippling action. Make sure to wipe most of the paint off "drybrush style" before you apply it though. Make sure to use only one colour with each pass.
Step 6. Repeat with the other colour after the first coat has dried a little.
Step 7. Keep going back over it, alternating between the colours, until your satisfied with the effect.


Now, a few clarifications about this technique;

About the pigment/paint concoction, I do this for a couple of reasons, the first is that I find that when I use pigments on their own I end up with more on my painting desk than on the mini. The other reason is that I can control (with the brush) how thick/thin I want to apply it. Rust is an organic process -it should look irregular. I find that it looks a hell of a lot more convincing to me when I use this technique.

Once its all dried then I rub the rust back in places that wouldn't get a chance to rust up (such as rungs of ladders, handles, areas of foot traffic etc) with my finger, to expose the metal underneath. If I can't get into these areas then I drybrush them with boltgun metal to achieve the effect.

Job Done.

OIL STAIN RECIPE:

For this part I followed a tutorial over on Buypainted. The only thing I did differently was to go nuts with the oil paint, whereas he was only after small oil stains, I was wanting a more "oil leak" & worn out effect.

If you've never used oils before I'd strongly suggest that you give them a go. They weren't that difficult to use and they took a while to dry out so I had ages to work with them.

After I allowed this sucker to dry overnight I hit it with matte varnish. I didn't use Testors Dullcote because it's just too damn matte! Oh, and I sprayed it on too, as brushing it on would only encourage the paint & oils to smear.

And that's it really. If you've got any queries or questions about the process I used then ask away and I'll do my best to answer you.


Bye for now.

Tada!!!!!

Good morning/afternoon/evening, take your pick.

I put the finishing touches on the walker last night. It was quite a lot harder to know when I should call this build "done". But I'm mostly happy with the outcome.

Here be pic's;

Proudly standing beside his captured walker.

I think I painted that sign about five different colours before I finally settled on black.

I did the rust & oil stains with pigments, oil paint & acrylics.

The dreaded headlights, I think they turned out ok.

Good old Mutie, plying his honest trade on the outskirts of Helsreach.

I made the gun detachable, as I knew it would be the first
 thing to get broken off otherwise.

This was the first time I tried using oil paints, I'm now a convert, they were
relatively easy to use and I think the effect looks pretty convincing.

Must be quite terrifying for the slaves looking up at that from ground level.

The slave that tried to get away.

The ladder was originally going to be hydraulically operated, but I thought that
was a little too "high tech", so I made up a simple chain operated thingy instead.

It was a little difficult to know where the rust & oil stains should meet, but I
thought that there should be some rust running off of the platform
onto its legs.

The chipped paint ended up looking quite alright after some extensive
weathering was applied to it.

I made the ladder from bits of sprue, plastic spoons, necklace & a model kit.

Seats five to six scum bags (28mm minis) in relative comfort.

Rust prevention system (oil leaks), desert style.

Coolant leaks & a space marine head on a spike.

A few things worth mentioning about the build;

The headlights? 

This was a pure fluke, the day before I finished it I was at the supermarket and came across these "feet stickers"....the kind you stick on the feet of chairs & speaker's to stop them scratching the floor. They were clear and the right size, but when I stuck them on they looked a little strange. I painted a couple of thin stripes on the front of them to replicate a headlight. I think they look ok.

The sign?

I wanted to write the same wording that was in the illustration, but no matter how hard I looked, I couldn't make out the middle word. I thought it must be "the", but it didn't look like it!  

I decided I'd try the direct approach. I had a look on the net and found that Carl Critchlow (the illustrator of Helsreach in Rogue Trader) had his own website. I emailed him my strange question & he was kind enough to tell me what the word was..... thanks a bunch Carl :)

The chipped/flaking paint?

This was another first fit me. I'd never tried painting this much worn out paint before, but I did have a couple of saved images of other people's work that looked the goods. My first attempt turned out looking like fluffy green clouds. After getting some constructive criticism from my pal, I went back to the drawing board. After I had gone back over the entire howdah and sharpened up all the edges it looked a whole lot better.

So, all in all it's been quite a cool little project. It's the biggest & most complex build I've ever attempted so far. It required a lot more planning than painting a single mini that's for sure!

I learnt a fair bit and I'm pretty happy with the final result. 

Cheers.