Da Brain Boys, Stage 4 - Da End!

It was slightly less overcast this weekend, so I was able to snap a couple better pictures of the two Big Meks and their Grot Assistants:

I also pulled out all of the orks I'd finished off for this batch and took a group shot before I packed them up for shipment.

It's always nice to get a project completed - the feeling of accomplishment is fleeting though, as I immediately filled the shelf recently vacated by the Orks with a mess of newly built and primered guardsmen! Painting these was fun nonetheless, and it really got me in the mood to work on the glorious 7th - I've taken a number of pictures of new projects in process, which I'll share over the upcoming week: Forward motion on the mechanized rough riders, proxy special character figs, and more!

Da Brain Boyz, Stage 3 - 'Ere ta fix yer gubbinz!

Victory! The last of the Orks are done! My usual Thursday evening plans were canceled this week so I had a free evening to finish up the two Big Meks - one with a Shokk Attack Gun and one with a Kustom Force Field generator. It's been a bit overcast the last few days so the pictures came out a little darker than usual - It's supposed to be fairly decent today so I hope to get a group shot of all the Orks I've managed to paint over the last few weeks. I'm actually pretty pleased, 37 figs done in a little more than three weeks, quite a bit faster than I'd anticipated.

Now to get them boxed up and shipped out - I'd sold the majority of the army back in December, and had been commissioned to finish off the remaining Orks by a fellow that ended up with most of them. There remains a small unit of scratch-built Freebootaz that I'm keeping for now as I intend to run a one-shot Dark Heresy game for my friends wherein they play Ork Pirates. I'd built the custom Pirate Kaptin using the Warboss model from the AoBR set, and the Freebootaz are built using the Nobs from the same set, plus some suitably modified Snazzguns made from the leftover weapons from the Lootas/Burnas box (as I'd built that set out as Burna Boyz).

Now it's time to get back to my first love - the glorious Mordian 7th! I've built a few models here and there while working on the Orks, and I'm currently trying to decide what I should work on next. I have a nasty habit of building and converting tons of miniatures then getting discouraged at the vast amount of painting to be done. I think I'm going to try and paint up what I've built so far before building anything else, though I'll admit I'm really itching to take a crack at the Valkyrie kits! Perhaps I can use that as a reward to myself for painting up the guardsmen that I have assembled though...

Da Brain Boyz, stage 2 - Still time to operate!

I had a couple hours this morning to paint, so I decided to tackle the smallest of the three remaining characters - the Painboy.

I've always enjoyed the rather haphazard and experimental methods the Orks use in virtually every facet of their everyday lives - medicine and surgery as much as anything, and I think this particular sculpt captures that feel brilliantly. It is by far my favorite painboy sculpt of all the editions.

I had to include the two gretchin assistants in his retinue - in the old books, Painboys would vie with one another for casualties on the battlefield as grist for their experiments as much as they did for more benevolent purposes. They would send gretchin with marker flags out on to the battlefield to assess the wounded - The occasional firefight would break out between rival gretchin assistants over the particularly useful specimens, naturally.

Just the two Big Meks left at this point - One with the ever-popular Shokk Attack Gun, and one with a Kustom Force Field. I'm seriously itching to get back to the Guard, but I really needed to get these Orks finished to free up some shelf space!

Da Brain Boyz, stage 1 - The Herald of Mork (or Gork)

A bit more progress this morning - brought the four character figs up to an equivalent completion level with the yellow/green/metal all more or less finished. At this point I plan to paint them to completion individually, since they're all radically different miniatures. I decided I'd polish off the Weirdboy first:

I went with the old codex idea of the copper staff and chains which the Warboss uses to keep the Weirdboy 'grounded' when he's not in combat. I really like this sculpt, the various grot minders being tossed about while desperately hanging on to the chains are quite amusing. As usual, once I take it out to seal it, I notice one or more details I've missed - in this case I need to go back and put some black flames along the back of his cloak, but other than that he's complete.

One (more or less) down, three to go!

"Celsius 233" just doesn't have the same ring to it...

I had a couple free hours last night (for a change) so I was able to finish up the Burna Boyz mob and the Grot assistants. The Burna Boyz are a terrifying unit, 11 flamer templates and the Kustom Mega Blasta made short work of the Tyranids I've faced, and the power weapon option of "da kuttin' nozzle" proved to be a nasty surprise for the Marines, who thought they'd be simple to destroy in H2H combat.

While I never fielded Grots as a unit of their own, I do love the Grot assistant figs and most of "da bosses" were accompanied by at least two or three ammo runts, oiler grots and so forth. The minis are just too amusing to skip!

So very close to the end - only four more to go, and they're all characters which should be fun to paint...

Fighting fire with fire...

Managed to get a decent amount of work done on the penultimate group of Orks over the memorial day weekend. Whenever possible I try to use the 'assembly line' method when working on horde armies. It's not nearly as satisfying as painting a small group to quick completion, but it gets the job done. It also helps to ensure a uniform look to larger units, or in this case, across multiple units. I do try to mix it up a bit to keep my enthusiasm up, so I've been alternating between Burna Boyz and Grots. I'm down to the final detailing step with this group, which I hope to finish off by next weekend. After that, there's three character figs and I can say that I'm done with the Orks! That will actually be a nice feeling - having an army finished for a change...

No worries, boss - we'll make it Orky.

I've managed to get the Ork flesh done on the burna boyz and the grots, hopefully I can knock them both out this coming weekend. As I haven't anything exciting and new to take pictures of however, I thought I'd post a few more pictures from good ol' Waaagh Nazdakka.

When I'd originally started the army, the first wave of new Orks had just hit the shelves, and I'd been trawling the 'tubes for Orky ideas when I stumbled upon the Ruzzbot conversions others have done. Acting as a proxy looted wagon, the basis for the conversion was a Leman Russ kit plus a few bits from a Defiler I had laying around.

The main body is simply the Russ hull flipped forward 90 degrees. The head is made up from the Leman Russ turret sawn in half (with the two pieces stacked on top of one another) with a searchlight, a vent and some plasticard making the eyes and a strip of spiky bits from the Trukk sprue form the teeth. The right arm is made from one of the Russ side sponsons and a pair of big shootas I had left over from the innumerable Ork sprues. The left arm is made from a Defiler claw; in-game I used it as a proxy wrecking ball/grabbin' claw combo.

This was primarily a 'proof of concept' model - the nice thing about Ork conversions is you can really just jump in and kitbash to your heart's content without too much regard for whether the parts match up exactly. Bung on some armor plates and some rivets to cover any gaps and they generally turn out looking as ramshackle and prone to malfunction as one would expect an Ork vehicle to be. Nevertheless there are a number of things I'd do differently if I was to build another one - double-width tracks for certain, and I'd do more to bulk out the rear of the Ruzzbot and give it a more interesting-looking engine. All in all though, quite a fun conversion project.

Of course, I just couldn't leave well enough alone and had to build a proxy battlewagon version out of a land raider, dubbed the 'Raidabot'. The thing ended up being quite massive, just like Warboss Nazdakka ordered!