Orc Warlord #1 – Sketching

It has been a long time! But despite everything, I manage to keep painting, and I keep coming back.

I should have a little more time now and in the next months I’m going to focus on Orc & Goblin characters, and a few Rackham Wolfen.

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I’ve begun working on this orc warlord on foot – the old Grimgor, with a simple headswap from, if I’m not mistaken, the old orc warlord on boar.

Everything needs more work, but so far I’ve sketched in more or less all the colours and started on the skin and the armour.

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As you can see I’m trying a black – petrol blue – turquoise and light grey NMM. Still a lot of contrast to push, but I’m happy so far.

The axe will be a bit of a headache, I’m afraid, as I don’t have a clear idea of where to put NMM highlights on an axe, especially when held more or less parallel to the ground… Also, I can’t really make it the same as the armour, but I still have to find a matching colour scheme for it.

Anyway, I’m happy about the project and I hope I’ll be sharing more greenskins soon enough.

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Nomads #6 – Mobile brigada and complete Nomads starter set

Not the easiest model to paint in the set, also because I was feeling a little burned out, but here is the Mobile brigada in all its microscopic redness.

The multi-rifle with flamethrower has been especially tricky: for some reason I couldn’t get it to look like metal, and even now it’s not completely there.

Unlike for the Zero, I kept the effects somewhat understated. But the figure is done to an acceptable standard, and the sculpt is awesome enough, I hope, to qualify for Azazel’s Awesome August community painting challenge.

Here’s a picture of the complete starter box. After a few more tyranids, I’ll be taking a break from sci-fi for a while and go back to orcs and wolves.

The Hive #3 – Termagant Brood

I have been touching up some of the termagants I had painted years ago and I was trying to figure out how to do the bases when I stumbled upon the concept of 40k unit fillers.

The jungle plants are mounted on bases and they could be used as fillers and removed as casualties, but could also be used simply as scatter terrain outside of units.

Who could say there’s not a termie hiding behind those ferns, anyway, and who would want to check? But I did put a couple of critters dashing out from one of the bushes just to make the point.

In any case, I think they help blend the smaller broods together with the bigger tyranids and the large plants. I like the idea and I think I’ll be thinking about 40k unit fillers for other armies as well.

Towards Awesome August

A couple of works in progress I am preparing for Azazel’s August challenge.

One is the final model in the Nomads starter set, a Mobile Brigada medium armoured infantry – one of the best models in the entire range, I think.

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And the other is a cross-range kitbash I am planning to use as a general or standard bearer for my 9th Age O&G army: an orc warlord on warpig.

Both still need a lot of work, but I’m confident that I’ll be able to complete at least one by the end of the month. Both can compete in the awesome category, I think, but who’s the most awesome?

The Hive #2 – Old One Eye

For the next tyranid model I wanted to have a go at some of the big creatures, but I did not want to get into a major figure like a tyrant. So, here comes the old Old One Eye.

I had made a minor conversion using two devourers from the metal raptors and I was using it as a regular Carnifex when I still used to play. I like the clunkyness of the figure and the fact that they sculpted some battle damage. The pose is a homage to the ancient Screamer-killer.

This is the kind of model you could paint for ages. I put in a fair amount of time and at the moment I am satisfied to leave it like this: yes, I could push the contrast on the flesh, freehand some patterns on the carapace and blend the claws until my eyes bleed… but right now I’d rather paint more models and work toward a mass effect. I can always come back for more detail later.

I reinterpreted the barnacles (has this guy spent some time on the bottom of the sea?) as “space limpets” which, apart from spit-shining the carapace, provide some contrast colour to the mini.

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For the base I used the same combination of very fine natural sand and aquarium plants, this time including some smaller ferns, and a couple of flowers, one made from a dried clove.

And here’s a group picture with the tyranids painted so far and a sneak peak of the next stage of the project.

Nomads #6 – Zero

Here is the Zero from the Nomads starter set.

It was my favourite Nomad miniature to paint and possibly my best paint job so far.

It’s also my submission for Azazel’s Jewel of July 2019 challenge: thank you for all your efforts to bring the community together!

Ouch, the paint has chipped off!

And here is a group shot of the Nomads so far, one more to go…

The Hive #1 – Old Zoanthropes

I have based and pushed the contrast a little on these two old metal Zoanthropes as a way to start the project.

Nothing too complicated, but I think the aquarium plants work nicely.