Thursday 26 February 2015

Tank's for the orks..... what a terrible pun!

More progress on the Hovertank & orks.

Look at these pictures, please, I beg you!

This is one side.

This is the other.

Not sure which angle this is?

Oooh! Let's boogy!

All I've done to the Hovertank so far is applied the base coat, copious amounts of an ink wash & drybrushed it. I'm pretty happy with how it's coming along.



Next up is the ork horde, please look at them!

The Dave Andrews/Asslessman combo :)

Red era improvement.

The thieving bastard who stole a power fist.

Hat man, what a guy!

Cheesy grin while he shoots you in the face.

The rest of their brother's, eagerly awaiting my attention


So there you have it folks, more mini mayhem. I'm getting pretty bored with the tank to tell you the truth, but I'll battle on & finish it, coz I know/think it'll look great in the end.....it bloody well better!!!

I'm a little annoyed about the skin tone on the orks, I didn't stop to consider how I painted the last batch. I undecorated them white, whereas I undercoated these guys dark grey & drybrushed them white. They've turned out a little too green, a tad too glowing for my tastes. It might be ok once I've got all the other colours on? I want them to fit in with the original group I did a few months back that's all.


Ok, back to work.


Streeb Greebling chums.

Friday 20 February 2015

Ork conversion bonanza!

Here it is, what you've all been waiting for.....sort of, not really. But it's worth it yeah? You can let me know if it was in the comments section :)

Now, on with the show;

I've got about 40 odd orks to paint up within 4 months time, and a Hovertank too....and another project that I'll reveal when it's done. Regardless, I have a fair bit of work ahead of me, but there's nothing quite like a dead line to motivate you is there? :)

Now, even though I like the old RT sculpts, I can get a little bored of some lines.....specifically the orks. There were far too many mono pose, recycled minis in that range. So, when I was gathering all my greenskin's together -for basing & painting- I became a little disheartened at the prospect of applying brush to so many similar minis. Here's where conversion stepped in to saved the day!



The first in the batch to get the amputation treatment was a red era ork. He was already missing a weapon, but I didn't want to replace it with another, so I cut his whole arm off. I cut his silly little spike off his helmet too.

Red era, boo, hiss! "Get back ye devil!"

Ahh, that makes me feel a little better.

Ran some cables along his arm to bulk out his shoulder joint.



The next one was an old RT standard bearer, but the collection of space marine helmets had already been removed. Good riddance I say! I don't like what GW tried to do with 40k in this respect i.e. transferring command sections from WFB into a futuristic setting. Makes no militaristic sense at all.

So, I cut his arm off! Beginning to see a tend here, when in doubt, just cut the damn thing off! I replaced it with a space marine power first, sort of like he removed it from a dead marine & liked the fit.

Who needs a standard bearer when we've got walkie talkies?

Makes me look tough yeah?

Don't worry about the damage, probably doesn't work, but hey, who cares!



This last conversion was something that only occurred to me a couple of months ago yet it's been starring me in the face for over 25 years. You may be wondering why there is a"run of the mill" space ork raider pictured below. Let me explain;

There's about a gazillion of these type of orks contained within the RBT02 Space Ork Raider's box set. Four Variations on the same mini, yawn!


Cool mini, but overproduced IMO.


So, I was looking at these guys pondering how I could go about sexing them up. Making them interesting enough so that I wouldn't fall asleep at my painting desk. I started to flick through my old trusty tome for inspiration. And then it hit me, looking closely at one part of Dave Andrews groovy diorama.


It doesn't get any better than this, period.


The ork in the bottom left -the one lighting up the trooper & the dreadnought- is using a flamer. But these sculpts never came out with them. So, Dave Andrews (being a clever chap) grabbed a barrel & canister off of an RBT01 marine and bunged them on. The barrel conversion is easy, but the canister/magazine swap is not. The magazine is part of the hand, leg & arm. Removing it to for the canister would have been a pain. So how did he overcame the problem? He  stuck it on the side, behind the original magazine (highlighted it to make it more prominent) & left it there to act as a handle, painting it matt black to hide it. You may be thinking "Is this guy for real? How could you not notice that?", but it honestly didn't register.


See how he hid the mag?

Now, when I originally noticed this conversion I didn't look too closely at the details. I just thought to myself "yeah, that looks great, I can do that!". It wasn't until I cut the magazine off that I realised how he did it. But I'm a stubborn person sometimes, so I didn't give up. I resolved to triumph where Dave Andrews acquiesced :)

My first hamfisted attempt.
Look's great huh? :p



So, after stuffing it up with my "remarkable" GS skills I decided to ask for some help sourcing a suitable hand. Asslessman on the Oldhammer forum came to my rescue, kindly sending me one of his hands...for free!!! Muchos Gracias JB :)

Here's the result,

Vast improvement!

Look's a whole lot better!



So (after that lengthy explanation) here's the three of them, painted in monochrome, ready for some B&W wars, only kidding :)

Smash the empire!!!

Now I just have to paint up this horde & they'll be ready to kick in marine heads all day long.

Good bye to you all :)

Monday 9 February 2015

Nearing completion.

I've finished off the construction part of the build, no more bits to add, no more pimping.....I'm done.

Here! Look at this!!!!


A few more details added i.e. front cannon, twin linked bolter mounted behind the conning tower, side cannons & hydraulic ram's.

I removed the front cannon after this picture so that I could get better access to paint the interior.

 I glued the gun on the mounting rail -even though it could swivel around 360°- as it would end up rubbing the paint work off eventually.

Hydraulic ram dummy fit. These will be fitted after the whole lots painted.

It opens too! The drivers control panel will be fitted after paint as well.

Ramp down, ready for troops to embark......

For the RT disco baby!!!!



The next phase of the build was completed this afternoon i.e. base coat. Initially I was going to paint it "bad arse black", but after thinking on it for a bit I decided to go with a desert colour. Seems more believable, considering that's where it ply's it's trade.

Here's more stuff to gork at!

The subsections displayed in all their glory, on my painting desk, for you to enjoy.

Engines......their there somewhere in the photo, just have to look hard to find'em.

And a back door too!!! What'll they think of next?

Should have masked up those side cannons too, but I forgot :(

The shutter door...big black thing in the middle.



As always, painting it ties the whole lot together. After months of stuffing about at my painting desk it's starting to look like a complete vehicle. 

The LED colour turned out a bit funky, but I like it! I had a choice of white, blue & red LED.....I chose blue, the one they use to discourage drug users on buses from shooting up with.

I've got to fix up the over spray in a few areas, paint up the details (like the piping, engines etc) & then I'll hit it clear coat. I do this to seal all the paint up before I begin the weathering process. If I don't, then I risk ruining the basic job & having to do it all over again. You see, for me, the weathering part of the job is a bit of a "suck it & see" kinda process....apply a bit here, rub off a bit there, add some metallics, take some of the shine off the top of this etc etc.

I fear that this last phase of the job is going to take a looooong time. There's so much surface area to apply paint to, I could be here until Christmas!!! Hopefully not. I'll get stuck into it over the coming days & weeks.

Hope your enjoying the journey so far, now why don't you give it a go too?

Cheers everybody.....all 39 of you :)