Scenic Routes

As a side project, (one of many) I've recently been revisiting my scenery collection and sprucing it up a little as over the past few years it's begun to look a little tired. I've always had a soft spot for creating scenery and over the past decade Games Workshop have put out some great pieces of pre-made buildings that really invoke the ridiculously grim-dark architecture of the 41st millennium. Before the advent of Necromunda bulkheads, the only terrain that was available to buy was purely card based and the majority of the scenery used was either found objects such as lumps of cork or crudely made buildings. Last year, I posted a few photos of some Ork buildings I made with my Grandad over 20 years ago last year (christ where has that time gone?) and having some time off work, finally based them up and finished them off this week.

Definately not Ork church.

25 SQUIGS IN THE ROOM NEXT DOOR.

Was tempted to make this into an Ork toilet because I'm 12.

Reasonably happy with the way they've turned out! I tried to reflect as much detail as possible from the old paint job whilst making them look a little more like the amazing 90's Ork terrain the GW studio put out. 

The Squigster's of Mercy gig was good, but the crowd agreed that their earlier material was stronger.

However, I've fallen out of love with the majority of the kit terrain out there because it is all so similar. Even the new Necromunda-esque scenery that came with the new Armageddon Shadow Wars set is a bit suspect. Whilst it is festooned with detail, it leaves little to the imagination like the scratch built model buildings that graced White Dwarf in the 80s and 90s. However, the new shipping containers are incredible! Proper amazing kits to put together and paint. I don't mind each of these looking exactly the same because they're supposed to have that imperialist uniformity. I just can't get on board with the idea that every hive city looks the same. I'm not sure I'll be making much more scenery in the future as I simply don't have much space left to store new pieces. However, I hope to keep going back and adding more detail to the stuff I already have.

Amazon deliveries in the future are even less dependable.

In other hobby news, I'm almost done with my Dark Eldar Armageddon kill team (photos soon) so I'm hoping to get a couple of games in with them. I've also finished off the High Elf Repeater Bolt Thrower, which was fun to do, although the rest of that project will be taking a backseat for a little while so I can concentrate on finishing a few other things off. I'm also glad to say that the very last element of the Emperor's Children has been finished; another Contemptor joins the ranks of the loyalist few of Istvaan III. I've also recently picked up a Fulgrim model too and plan to do a little conversion work to create a pre-fallen version of the Primarch. 

Love these kits so much. That claw is proper threatening

I found it so hard not to festoon this guy in etched brass. However, I couldn't have him out-blunging Rylanor!

All them primary colours.

Lastly, I recently fancied painting a dragon and came across this awesome old Nick Bibby sculpt on eBay for less than £4.00. Couldn't resist the thing and had a blast painting him up. I also got to try using some of the new edge paints on him which are fantastic. Really impressed on how they make features pop. Plus, if the effect is too sharp, you can tone them down really easily with a wash or two. This fella will be joining the High Elves for all those games of Warhammer Fantasy 4th Edition I'll never be playing.

Look at his majesty. 

Love the expression on this guy! Well snaggletooth.

Hopefully going to get back into a fairly regularly pattern of painting now that we've finished some work on the house.  Really looking forward to getting some things ticked off the list! I'm not sure I'll be doing Armies on Parade in October this year as I don't have the space to store a new tile, but may try and doing something for fun for it with stuff I already have because I'm lazy and rubbish.

Orks! Tens of em'

It's been a really productive past few weeks for me, with a whole squad of Orks getting done along with a small Dreadnought and some Gretchin too! I've also made good progress on prepping and basing some new additions to the force and have almost finished tidying up the Battlewagon. It's been a refreshing change to have maintained full enthusiasm with this project and so far I've not had any problems other than running out of plastic left arms! Things will probably slow down a little in the next week or so because of Yuletimes, but I'm sure I'll have the majority of this mini-army done for the end of January. I've decided against amassing 20 Gretchin in the immediate future as the ones I'm after are too expensive to really justify buying right now, so I'll probably aim to pick a few up here and there throughout the next few months - plus I'm really fed up with the smell of dettol in the kitchen! Anyway, here's some models,...

We'll maybe hit some things,..

The Boyz! Some great Kev Adams sculpts in here! Particularly like the classic Bad Moon guys with their rad pointed caps. Really stoked on the Boy I chose to be the Nob too, he's a fantastic figure and is covered in great little details - glad to have finally found a home for the old Yarrick power claw that has been idle in the bits-box for nearly 20 years too!

Ugulhard, is a bit like Wattie from the Exploited, but less of a prick.

The only issue I had with these figures was that the plastic arms (particularly the left open-palmed type) don't accommodate weapons very well without green-stuffing. I imagine this is because they were primarily designed for the plastic Boyz that came out around the same time. I also must admit I'm not overly fond of the heavy multi-melta as it sits too high on the shoulder. However, there's little I could really do to lower it save severely hacking into it, which would have probably ended up being a real mess knowing my modelling skills. The Lascannon fella looks rad though!

Imagine painting 40 of those fuckers? No thanks!

The start of a Gretchin Mob. Not really into the Perry sculpts at all, but this guy with the stick-bombs is pretty awesome! Massive soft-spot for the old plastic mono-pose guys too, but not that massive that I'd want to paint more than a few of them! When finished, this Mob will not be uniformly equipped, but will probably be played as such.

Yellow peril.

Really hyped on getting to paint this Dreadnought. I had the option of making the classic version with two ranged weapons, but wasn't feeling the sculpts for either of them. I think he looks far better with just two claws anyway. Sadly this set was missing the hatch and banner pole, but luckily I had one of the old Battlewagon exhausts in the bits box to tidy things up at the back. Bonus Snotling lurking on the base because they're awesome!

Left arm coming soon!

Just this evening finished off (well mostly) the Shokk Attack Mek! Always had a fascination for this model and it was a joy to paint. The detail on the gun is wonderful and it oozes a sense of ramshackle menace. Sadly, this figure was in a real state when I received it and as much as I tried I couldn't quite remove all the paint, so some minor spots aren't as smooth as I'd like them to be. However, it's more than worth the smell of dettol when you get to finally get the excuse to paint loads of Snotlings!

He's having fun, honest.

Currently in the work pile I've this excellent group sculpt which should be finished up next week, loads of Snotlings for the Shokk Attack Gun and a whole Battlewagon! Got a bit too excited about the latter and gave in to painting up the engine block - can't wait to get into the rest of it! I've also got a little scenery project on the go for this army which is slowly taking shape - very much looking forward to having a little Ork Village for these guys to hang out in!

Bodywork optional!

There's a few plans floating in the pipes for next year too. I'm hoping to use Frostgrave as an excuse to paint up some rad old Fantasy figures and I'm really keen on painting a load of old Terminators to use in Space Hulk - really fancy getting enough figures together to roughly play through all the scenarios in Deathwing and Genestealer with the recent edition floor-tiles. Then there's the second edition Tyranids to finish, The Ravenwing, the old Chaos war band for Warhammer, the Wild in the Streets Goth Gang,....

Realistically it's never going to end is it?

Grooving in Green

A few weeks back I was lucky enough to be sent parcels from friends for my birthday. I'm really stoked to have so many friends who skate and either used to, or have an active interest in little men. By some strange quirk of fate, two of these packages included classic Ork kits and models; more specifically 90's Kev Adams Bad Moon sculpts. I've always had a soft spot for the early aesthetic of Games Workshop Orks, particularly through the medium of Paul Bonner's wonderful artwork and Kev Adam's characterful modelling. Although GW fluff makes it clear from the start that Orks are brutal killers, there is something childishly naive and charming about the Ork background during this period.

All getting along together then

Paul Bonner's artwork was everywhere at one point and he had an excellent style that could portray any of the Warhammer 40000 races with accuracy and personality. His work on the Deathwing expansion in particular is excellent. However, it is his Orks that his work really shines through. It would be hard to reconcile the rather 2D characterisation of the present Orks with these creatively comical fellas. Bonner captures the naturalism of Orkish nature as a tumbling, bumbling dangerously out-of-control boulder of a force that crashes from one planet to another in a never-ending pursuit of war - because that's what they do. There is no over-arching, galactic political motive, no honourable quest, just Orks fucking things up. And that's beautiful in it's simplicity.

Awesome.

Anyway. Back to the miniatures. Having no (urgent) projects on the go, I've decided to put together a little Ork army to try and capture the spirit of Bonner's illustrations. Using only Kev Adam's sculpts (which should be easy as he sculpted nearly 99% of all the Orks until 1994) I'm hoping to get the majority of the force done before Christmas. This may seem a little optimistic at first glance, but I've just discovered that painting green is actually really, really good fun.

I'm serious, it's such a good colour.

Since I can't seem to get away from painting yellow and that I've ended up with several specifically Bad Moon figures, it's going to be a pure fluff Bad Moon gathering. Thankfully I don't need to be as nearly as precise or as clean with the colour as I was with the Alaitoc Eldar, so that should save on many agonising hours of holding my breath attempting not to ruin or smudge yellow areas!

The boyz.

So far I'm planning to keep the war band really small and simple. Thankfully I've not needed to spend much on additional bits as I've had a few models kicking around for awhile now. The only additional purchases have been some vanilla boyz and a Shokk Attack Gun with Snotlings. I'll probably add a few character figures in due course, but here is what the first phase looks like,..

Warboss Azzbutt

10 x Ork boyz

1 x Battlewagon

1 x Dreadnought

1 x Shokk Attack Gun

4 x Snotling bases

20 x Gretchin

The Gretchin are going to be mostly made up of the smaller proto-Gretchin 'Runt' figures as they have so much more character than the later models. Plus, it makes more sense in my head to have a rabble of badly armed little guys running around trying to impress the Orks. Obviously this list is not meant for play, but I imagine if I did play them, it would be a hell for leather 'ere we go, all guns blazing not hitting anything tactic - because that's well Orky. So far I've the Warlord painted along with a few Gretchin and some boyz - shall do a proper photo-drop when there's more to show!

Azzbutt.

The painting style is going to be as close as I can to the RT greens, but pretty rough and ready for everything else. I'm really looking forward to modelling and weathering the original Battlewagon, which in itself is an amazing kit for the time - thanks to Pob and The Melon for being so rad and sending me more rad old stuff to paint, you guys are the bestest.