Happy Birthday Richard!

As the title says, it's Richards birthday today, and in this blog post I'll be showing off his present that I prepared for him. Its a squad of Salamander Aggressors with flamers!

I started this project back in mid October, when a new, more flexible resin arrived for me to try. This resin was a bit more expensive and might have been too flexible for miniatures, so a recommendation was to mix it 1 part to 3 parts with regular resin. The result was excellent, they feel more durable and the print came out without fail.

Gluing the models together was a breeze and after a white undercoat, I tried using contrast paint to block in the armour. It unfortunately didn't come out like I wanted, and as such I started experimenting with some Vallejo greens that I have. I settled on Park Green Flat with a tint of Transparent Green. The result looked more realistic of green power armour, while brightening the green up without going to far into yellow territory.

Next was going to be the blacks, which I was going to use contrast black for it initially, but decided to block in the black sections with German Grey. Anything metallic was painted this colour too before silver goes on, I find silver looks better with a black colour underneath in general.

Before I go to the black and silver though, I decided to save myself some trouble with mistaken brush strokes. I blocked in any of the gold sections of the armour and the rope hanging from his waist. Like with silver, gold also benefits hugely from a brown underneath it, making it easier to apply and look great. After that, I applied the black contrast onto the shoulder pads, backpack and in between the joints.

Once all the silver and gold was applied, I simply washed them Nuln Oil and Agarax Earthshade respectively. The rope was highlighted Ochre Yellow and the fire in the brazier was blocked in the same colour. The gold trimming had a light silver highlight to accentuate the shine on it, and the flamer weapons had a mix of blue and purple contrast applied to show heat discolouration on them.

The fire itself is a mix of yellow, orange and red contrast paint, painted from the bottom up and blending them as well as I could. I find the contrast paint dries quite quickly and doesn't lend itself too well to blending, but I read afterwards that the painting medium that you can buy allows it to last longer before it dries. Will be looking into that next time I try the same technique. The cables themselves are also yellow ochre, with agarax earthshade over the top of it.

The models themselves look quite good and you wouldn't guess that they are 3d prints of freely available files too. They built quite easily, with the backpack, brazier, cabling and head being the only separate parts to put together. I figured the cables would be quite fiddly, but they went on very easily. However, the head doesn't quite fit into that monocoque and if I didn't have this more flexible resin, I fear I might have had a break on it if it was the more fragile resin.

Overall I am quite happy with how they came out, and the paint scheme is quite pleasing to work on. I left the bases untouched so Richard can base them to match his own guys, and the shoulder pads and knees are also bare, so he can apply his decals to them and mark them however he wants them.

That's it today. Happy birthday Richard!

A Hulking Brute

 

Warlord and his mob.

An Update! Today I finished off three Ork models, a large Ork Warlord with twin power klaws that I 3D printed with a large batch of prints I did a while ago. The other two models I finished painting is an Ork with a rokkit launcha and one with a blunderbuss.

Big Git and his Smaller Gits.

All these models were painted with Contrast paints, with minor details using standard acrylic paints and washes. These are going to look quite differently to my regular 40k Orks not only because they are 3D prints and look different, but the colour scheme will be looking different, such as the skin itself.

Blunderbuss Git.

Mega Git.

Rokkit Git.

The prints themselves look pretty good, with print scan lines visible upon closer inspection, and with the painting process being quick and nasty, the scanlines are much more visible than they normally would be.

"We'z gon' be ignorin youz."

I've printed a total of forty-five Ork models, and they will be making up a force of entirely 3d printed models for 40k. The aim of this is simply to paint miniatures with the "slap-chop" method. Simple and effective method that goes well with these ork models.

Big Shoota.

There have been some misprints, with some being so bad that they are unusable, but as they are orks, some kit bashing and model making was called for, and they look suitably janky for orks. I'll slowly over time use these models to take a break from painting my other miniature projects, and in time will have two ork units of twenty, a warboss and a mega warboss.

My painting setup.

Update Part Deux! Some Failed Prints.

Six New Orks.

 So today I decided to print another batch of orks, and to my shock, four of the seven I had put on the build failed in one way or another, with one completely failing and printing a puddle of nothing. As I was cleaning the plate and about to throw out the three other failures, I decided not to toss them away as failures, but instead attempt to save them by sending them to the Doc!

Fit and healthy boys.

"Fit" and "Healthy" boys.

While one of the four was completely borked, the other three were either missing limbs or their guns completely failed. The first one I worked on was the Big Shoota Ork, who has failed in the past with missing bottom and the gun failing completely too. This time round he was missing half of his left leg. No worries, the Doc will just give him a new leg, a better leg! A bit of sprue and a Space Marine Proximity mine will do the job.

Mine new leg!

The second ork had his hand and gun barrel turn into a blob, so I carefully broke off the offending piece and glued on a gun from the GW ork boyz sprue, cutting it in two and attaching it so as to look like his bionic arm connects to the side of the gun. with a shoulder plate to cover up the gap, and filled in with blue tack mixed with superglue. Looks weird, but that's perfectly orky in nature, a Doc's gotta do what a Doc's gotta do!

Shoota Arm FTW!

The last ork had his gun melt off his hand, and his hand wasn't much better either. A quick snip and he had a bare arm with a stump. I was in two mind about him, should I give him a shoota arm or give him a powerclaw and cut his choppa off and replace it with a slugga? Rummaging around the bits box I found this cabling connected to a scorcher bit, and decided that a shoota arm with this cabling coming off it and connecting to his waist would look better. Again, blue tack mixed with superglue helped fill in the gaps and another shoulder pad to make it look like the patch job that it is.

The boys are ready for a priming.

With that, I'm preparing to re-print them again, to see if it fails in the same way. If they do, then I might have another opportunity to send some more boys to the Doc!

Da Boss and his Rocka!

 

Traditional Warboss, and Goff Rocker.

Todays update is a Warhammer 40k Orks update, more specifically an Ork Warboss and the promotional Christmas miniature of 2022, the Goff Rocker. These two miniatures were a great joy to paint, and I am looking forward to fielding them in the near future, especially in the new edition of Warhammer 40k.

Warboss and his pet attack Squig.

The warboss is equipped with a combi-weapon, powerklaw and has an attack squig. On his back he has two sluggas in case he needs even more dakka. I painted him in the traditional Goff colours, but with some red in it. Black, silvers and reds go really well with each other, and match the green of the ork skin.

Mad Squig.

The squig itself is painted in the usual squig colours, and is simply washed and light dry brushed for great effect.

Mean looking powerklaw.

A few cables and straps were painted brighter colours, just to liven up the model, and it really stands out. The backpack was painted brown, and his stick bombs were capped red to stand out.

Combi-Weapon, bullets and rockets.

A fearsome sight.

The Goff Rocker is an obvious orky inspiration of Slash from Guns N' Roses, with his top hat and the fact he's a guitarist. I decided to paint the hat purple, thinking it matched Slash's hat, but afterwards I googled some photos of him and noticed his top hat is actually black. Oh well purple still works great, and this way he stands out more.

Slash.

He's using his guitar as not only a musical instrument, but also as a 'Uge Choppa. His microphone is actually a stick bomb if you look closely, so he can belt out some tunes and literally have an explosive mic drop.

Poor little bugger.

He's got his foot on his trusty squig amp, so he can carry a tune even into battle, with all the noise going on. He's truly an inspiration to all his ork boys, sending them into a headbanging fervour to greater heights.

His Stratocaster.

Remote Control Stickbombs?

I'll be using his either as a standard warboss, with a 'uge choppa and attack squig, or as a weirdboy, since he is not far off from a shaman, singing and dancing around the battlefield.

Who would win?

Da Warboss and his Nobs.

Da Goff Rocker and his Boys.

Some 3D Prints

The Four Brothers.

In todays update I have four Orks painted up slap-chop style, all done in one day. These orks are 3D prints I've had for a while, and decided to get them printed out, and managed to finish them in one day. I printed these four, along with a larger Warboss model, which I don't have a big enough base to put him on, and a sixth ork model, but that one failed to print correctly and as such a tossed it away.

Big Bro Buzzog!

The first ork of the bunch is a Nob sized ork with one shoulder pad and a big rocket powered hammer. He seems to have his legs being powered by cybernetics, and the hammer has some jets on the back of it's head to propel it into somethings head even faster than he can swing it.

Smart Bro Kurgor!

The second ork of the bunch is a regular sized ork boy, but he seems to have had some doc work on his brain, and it seems to have done him a world of good, because he's actually aiming with his weapon, sighting down it's length instead of just aiming in a general direction like most other orks do.

Dakka Boy Snazgob!

The third ork of the bunch is slightly misprinted, his mouth section jutting out weirdly. I decided not to scrap him, thinking that he could simply be gobsmacked, literally having his jaw smashed and healing incorrectly. This guy is obviously learnt his lesson and now keeps his distance and shoots his weapon, making sure he never runs our of ammo with his large capacity magazine.

Mean Boy Gurrok!

 The last ork of the bunch is sporting a choppa and slugga, intending to shoot his enemies point blank and bashing their heads in. This one has a tyre protecting one of his shoulders, since he's going to have to make his way to his prey on foot.

The brothers having a meeting.

The ork flesh was painted with Contrast Ork Flesh, so its a more cool green than Snikrots skin, works quite well for space orks, and doesn't need an additional brown wash over it to look good. The pants I decided to use Contrast Terradon Turquoise, for that jeans look, which came out perfectly. I painted all the metal bits Contrast Black Templar and then sparingly picked out details with a silver. The straps, belts were done with Contrast Gore-Grunta Fur, and the boots was Contrast Snakebite Leather.

Get Em Boyz!

The bases are the usual Vallejo Desert basing with Agarax Earthshade. The metal bits were washed Nuln Oil, and teeth and nails were painted Cold White and washed with Agarax Earthsahde. Any red is Flat Red washed with Nuln Oil.

All Dat Booty!

Excellent results and fast too. Quite happy with how they came out, and am looking forward to painting more.

The Sneakiest Ork Of Them All

Today's update is going to be on my attempt at the Slap-chop method, which I've been interested in trying out. To do this, I decided to paint up Snikrot the Stalker, a unique Ork Boss who loves taking out his enemies in the most un-orky way possible.

Boss Snikrot.

I started out by undercoating the model Chaos Black and dry brushing Vallejo Cold White. I made sure to dry brush it thoroughly so as to have a more even colour application when the contrast paints go on.

Primed and Dry Brushed.

Bright green flesh.

I started with the first colour, Gutrippa Flesh. Its a nice green, reminding me of Goblin Green of old Citadel palette, and looks good for a orky flesh tone. Its a much brighter colour than how I normally paint ork flesh, but for this model I liked it. But seeing how flat the flesh looked, I decided to throw a brown wash over it, and used a 50/50 Reikland Flesh Shade and Contrast Medium mixture to give the flesh some definition.

The flesh after the brown wash.

The backpack painted dark brown.

After this, I decided to apply the browns, and settled on Gore-Grunta Fur, and got a nice dark brown leather colour, applying it to the bag, his belts and straps, and some string holding his pants together. Before I complete all the belts though, I decided to do his pants Asurmen Blue, so it is easier to fix any mistakes I make with the blue.

He's a jean kinda ork.

Skeleton heads and teef and nails.

The skulls hanging off his belt and his teeth and nails were painted Skeleton Horde, and I applied this before completing the brown on the straps and strings to again, make it easier to paint. Sometimes I had to come back with the cold white to repaint the mistakes I was making, often touching up the skin multiple times. Not difficult overall, but I can't see myself painting an army, or even a regiment or squad this way.

Black boots are walkin'.

He's coming together.

His boots were covered in plates of steel, and his two giant knives are all steel too, so I decided paint them with the Game Air Silver, and I was pleasantly surprised at how well it covers, possibly the best silver I've ever used. Its quite smooth and applies evenly, but I can see it being an issue for dry brushing simply because how runny it can be. I decided his boots were going to be black with the silver steel, and so I used Black Templar for them, and applied it to the heads of the stick bombs.

Cleaned up backpack.

The silver was all washed with Nuln Oil, and then painting the stick parts of the stick bombs Vallejo Brass, I finished the model off by applying the Vallejo Desert Scenic basing paint. A quick Agarax wash and a tuft finishes off the model.

Skittles on his facemask.

He's quite sneaky.

One days work.

So this took me a day, along with painting more Brettonian knights, and even applying more colours to some other ork characters that I'm painting the traditional way. But this was quite enjoyable to paint up, and might continue painting a model here and there like this, since it is quite satisfying to finish a model with such great results.

Until next time.