Waaagh! Orklog!

[salty]

It's all about the scratchbuilding!

Salty

[Vespy]

There's also a quick pic of two of my Snots, and a shot of a few of the WIP Grots riding in the Lugga. I had hoped to have more done by tonight, but I worked this afternoon and was thrashed by my mate's Nids this evening, which put paid to that!

Thrashed by your mates nids again........

[scotticus2]

Liking the "Lugga". Is the rear axil to wide? Perhaps cutting it down an inch would make the rear wheels appear bigger?

Reminds me a little of the old ork battle wagons...this is a good thing!

[salty]

Thrashed by your mates nids again........

Shouldn't have taken the BW... stupid really, a trukk and an extra mob made more sense...

@Scotticus: Yeah, I've been wondering about that myself. It may make the lugga appear slightly smaller as well, which would be a good thing. I'll have to look into it...

Salty

[salty]

Just a small update this evening, as I spent a good portion of the day out of the house and didn't get anything like as much done as I had hoped... With a bit of luck, I'll get plenty done tomorrow as I'm planning a morning of movies and painting, before I have to start getting ready for work.

So, without further ado... Da Grotsnaz! Speshul Dezignashun Grotz - Da Revolushun's finest speshul operatives!

Along with the "sniper grot" I've already linked, these guys will probably be popped in as slightly-better-than-normal Rebel Grots, or as Grots who have advanced to the Rebel Grot or Extremist stage in campaigns. They've got a mixture of milliput berets and Castro-style caps, and two have shields (which cost extra teef from the armour list, but fit with the theme and should give added survivability). I'm not totally happy with the caps - they prove once again that I really, really, really need to work on my sculpting skills... - but hopefully, with a few coats of paint, they'll look pretty good, and will at least make them look a bit different to all the other Grots.

C&C welcome as always!

Salty

[salty]

Hello Warseerers!

I've been away recently, both from the site, and the country, so updates have been thin on the ground. A hefty load of shifts at work coupled with a holiday to Germany have kept me from getting much done. However, here's a small update showing the Grots as they currently stand.

For the most part, they're complete, although most still need teeth, eyes and claws painting/touching up, and I think I'm going to add a final highlight to the caps and hats that's a little more orange than red to make them stand out more. Otherwise, all the important bits are done! I've also been basing a lot of Orks with sand, and have painted a fair few bases Scorched Brown now, in the hopes that doing so will further motivate me to finish them off. Seeing the Grots looking all uniform and nicely based (the first time I've had more than a few models at a time looking that way in several years of gaming!) I'm feeling the urge to finally sort the rest out as well.


Anyway, without further ado, the important bit - pictures! Here they are sneaking through a rocky pass to peer over a makeshift scrap-barricade at their targets!

Salty

[salty]

Good evening (or rather, good morning, as it appears I have lost the last two hours and we're now into the small hours of the morning here in Blighty...) Warseer!

With the Grots for Gorkamorka mostly finished (barring a few details, the Lugga/Cutta crew and an as yet undecided upon motif for the Banna Waver's standard) I decided to crack on with something else I've been meaning to do for ages - converted Ork Wartrukk Mk.II!

There are already pics (and a separate thread) for my earlier attempt at converting the old Gorkamorka trukks into something better resembling the modern incarnation. Most of all, I want to hide the weedy little driver and gunner. Last time around, the main issues when finished were:

- It was a bit too long;
- The cabin for the driver wasn't big enough;
- The wheels were weedy;
- It looked a bit heavy;
- I didn't have any plasticard.

Whew! A lot of food for thought then. This time around, I decided to shorten the base I was using to enlarge the whole model, the track unit of what I believe was once a German Leopard 2 tank. I cut it down by about an inch and a half to begin with. I also opted for a different route with the transport bit on the back. Rather than attaching two transport "trays" top-to-bottom as before, I sawed away one right down the middle, removed the necessary side-bits, and attached them side-to-side. The result was to make the back wider and generally "biggererer" without it becoming cumbersome or overly long.

Once this was glued into place, I began searching around for a suitable way to built up the driver's cab. It didn't take long - I noticed that the bit I had cut away from the front of the Leopard tracks, when flipped upside down, fit the bill quite nicely! I attached the front of one of the old trukks to the rest of the model, glued the new cab in place, and built up the rest of the front with plasticard, adding a viewing port, armour plating and a ram as I went. I also added a large exhaust that I had left over from the toy tractors I scrapped for Big Lugga wheels a while ago.

After last time, I had also invested in two of the battlewagon Big Shoota gunners. They've been sitting around in a small bag in my bitz box ever since, just waiting for me to finish the trukks. I had also acquired, in amongst a whole mess of Orky bitz, some random parts from the current Ork Trukk model (some more of which can be seen on the Big Lugga). I added a few of these to the model too, and retained some others for use on the Wartrukk Mk.III which is yet to come. Finally, this evening (after going to see Dredd, which is amazeballs by the way) I began rivetting it. Rivetting is by far my least favourite bit of Orky modelling, but irritating, tedious and curse-inducing as it is, it's worth the extra bit of effort in the long run. Unfortunately, my leather punch's smallest hole was still a bit on the big side, so I've rolled out a couple of very thin sausages of milliput, which tomorrow I will cut up and glue onto any bits that need smaller rivets.

Hopefully, all being well, I'll be able to start painting tomorrow!

EDIT: Bah! The pics jumbled up on attachment!





Salty

[salty]

Continued from above:

Salty

[Vespy]

Looking good. Yoink!

[Mighty Simo]

Nice work as always salty. Think I may make a similar truck for my Digga's

[salty]

Cheers guys! I have some painted pics, just haven't had time to upload them.

I've also been working on test models for a side project (Emperor's Children allies). Turns out, pink armour = much more of a pain to paint than I anticipated...



Salty

[salty]

Guzbag wanted a new trukk.

He wanted a new trukk that was "bigga an' faster!" with "killy bitz on da front" and "a shoota wot goes DAKKADAKKADAKKA! an' makes me teef rattle when I pulls da trigga!", and he wanted it yesterday. No matter that Lugnutz was up to his (bionik) knees in other jobs. When da Boss says he's not being unreasonable (and da Boss is wearing a suit of mega-armour with a dead-rippy looking power klaw on it), you've really only got one option. It wasn't as if Lugnutz could just say, "Look, no. I med yer one last year and yer don't 'ardly use dat one no more as it is." Not unless he wanted a nice new skylight in the top of his bonce at any rate...

Things were busy enough already, what with the spiky boyz turning up and calling themselves da Boyz' 'allies', which as every good Ork knew meant they were bestest mates until one side turned their back long enough for the other to krump 'em good and pinch their stuff. Weird lot they were too. Bright pink armour with weird bits growing off 'em. One of their 'umie slaves had wandered into the Dok's tent and asked for the works. Dok said he'd been enjoying every minute too, laughing all the way until his stupid soft 'umie body gave out halfway through getting himself a speshul new brass liver...

That in mind, Lugnutz himself was working on something big in order to be prepared when the spiky boyz went bad on them. Something that could deal with their 'eavy armour. Something that began with an 'S' and ended in 'TOMPSTOMPSTOMPSTOMPSTOMP!' So, while he was gettin' on with the important stuff, he passed the trukk job onto a couple of the spanner boyz who were always hanging around his workshop, hoping to learn summink. They wheeled out what was left of Skuzzgob's old wagon from the scrapheap behind the shop, and wiped off some of the bits that were left over after old squig-breath and his mob had got themselves smushed by a 'umie Boomgun. Guzbag himself stopped by to oversee things and offer his input, which mainly consisted of hitting the meks as often as he could. The first Mekboy copped for a faceful of fist after suggesting that they just repaint it red and give it some new wheels to make it faster ("Stupid spanner runt, if it's red it's not 'ard and black, and you won't be able to see all the cool blood splatter!"). Between them however, the other two managed to knock up something that had him satisfied, while Lugnutz got to finish his big stampy dread.

"Not a bad day's work..." he grinned.


Of course, what that little bit of exposition means is that I finally finished the trukk, and into the bargain finally got around to re-painting my old Dreadnought and most of the third Killa Kan from ages ago. Pics attached, Comment and criticism welcome as always!

EDIT: Also, as a speshul bonus because it seems I attached it by mistake, my test model Emperor's Children Chaos Space Marine (converted from an Imperial Space Marine and some Chaos bitz because I don't have any CSM...)

Salty

[Vespy]

ink wash leg fail?

[salty]

That's before it was retouched. Doesn't look too bad now. Git. :P
Salty

[Meriwether]

Looking good, Salteh!

[violenceha]

The weathering on the vehicles looks great, though I'm a little disappointed somebody hasn't used a cutting board on that lovely kitchen bench or table

[salty]

Cheers Meri!

@Violenceha: Which lovely kitchen bench or table? Or were you being sarcastic about my horrible kitchen table? (Just ask Vespy - we live in a rented place that came furnished, and the table has been painted in some horrible, weird, translucent white paint that makes absolutely everything stick to it...)

For those interested, the battle damage/weathering was really easy.
- Basecoat black.
- Heavy drybrush Tin Bitz or whatever the current equivalent would be.
- Medium-heavy drybrush Boltgun Metal or current equivalent.
- Stipple on any other colours, starting with darkest (obviously) and working up. For the red, I go Scab Red - Blood Red. I looked at pics of actual weathering to try and get a feel for where it would actually wear away.
- Paint any patches of rust.
- Wash the whole lot with Devlan Mud or equivalent.
- Paint Flesh Wash (or Chestnut Ink or whatever) running down from rivets and such.
- Very, very light drybrush of Boltgun over metal bits, especially along edges and such.

It's quite a lot of steps I know, but it's actually a pretty quick method.

As for the rest of the Orks, I've got most of the Stormboyz built up now (loads of them, actually!) and they just need painting. I've also painted one or two more Boyz, and begun on an AoBR Warboss, but the whole lot has been pushed back a tad by the arrival of the Dark Vengeance Limited Edition set from Missus Salty for my birthday. They've been getting lots of attention lately instead...

Salty