Green Pilgrimage - 1000 points of Orcs destined for Nottingham!

[Makaber]

Allright!

Last year, three friends and myself took the trip from Bergen, Norway to Nottingham to participate in the Warhammer Doubles, and we had an absolute blast doing so. We enjoyed it so much, in fact, that we instantly decided to make it an annual thing. Last year, I teamed my Beastmen up with T10's Warriors of Chaos, and we fared pretty well, narrowly missing out on a top 10 placing in the last game (and actually being ranked first after day one!). Not ones to split up a winning team, we've decided to leave the obviously overpowered Beastmen and Khorne Chariots (he had two, the crazy bastard!) at home, and go with the Orcs (and Gobbos, I guess)!

My problem here is that although I can paint to a pretty good table top standard, I have a very hard time actually getting any work done. So this year, I've decided to start early, and also try to keep a plog to keep my motivation up.

It's a bit tricky fitting characters into 1000 points lists, but it's a lot simpler once both of us are playing the same army. With that in mind, we've split responsibilities: I deal with leadership, and T10 deals with magic. I'm looking to bring a rock hard Warboss, a trusty Battle Standard Bearer, a nice block of 28 Bin 'Uns for them to boss around from, 6 Trolls (since I'm already in charge of a nice Ld10 reroll bubble), two Gobbo chariots and a Doom Diver.

I don't want to bore you with endless posts with pictures of unpainted Orcs, so here's the lot:



So far, the Orcs rank up nicely enough, but I know that goes out the window once I attach the shields, so I'm sort of dreading that. Otherwise, the Trolls were a bit of a hassle to puzzle together as well, but at least there's few of them and I know how they arrange up.

My main problem now is characters. I have the two direct order Orc looters (torch and pig), and I'm planning on using the one with the pig for the general. The other one would make a great BSB, but I really don't want to chop off his spear, and although I could go with some half-assed totem-pole explanation, I feel it would be a bit cheeky and I'm not convinced I'd get away with it. I'm not a fan of the plastic character kit, though, so I might just order another spear looter and convert that. It's not like they're unique or anything, after all.

I've also been pondering a lot about colour scheme. Red's been overdone on Orcs, and T10 already has his yellow so I want to stay away from that too. Blue I think is too similar to green and I've already gone down that road on my Beastmen so I want something different. I've landed on black and while for clothing (with lots of checkers and dags), and then try to get a vibrant orange rust colour on the larger metal pieces as a spot colour.

So that's it for an introduction post. Now I'm off to undercoat the Orcs, and hopefully I'll have a couple painted up in a few days from now.

[Cragum]

Perhaps a dead body on top of the spear would make it looks rather like a BSB. Like have it kinda pierced just on the top of the spear with the limbs flailing aboot.

[azhagmorglum]

Good start, and your chosen colour scheme sounds promising. Checkers is something I'd like to add to some of my models.
I can't wait to see you start painting that army. Good luck !

[Moomoo]

Sounds interesting! Consider me subscribed!

[Makaber]

Update! Holy crap!

Well, it's been over a week and not surprisingly I haven't been able to get as much work in as I intended.

Boring stuff first: I did get to try out the list in two small games, and it works fairly well. I think I'll cut one of the Gobbo Chariots in order to get a Crown of Command and some more Orcs in the Big 'Uns regiment: It's a lot of egg in one basket (especially in a Blood & Glory battle, which is one of the five battles in the rulespack), so I want them as durable as possible. Unfortunately, I left the boyz over at T10's place so I can't start mass producing just yet. Which brings us to what I have been doing!

I ended up buying another of the direct order Orc Raiders, so here's he is, sans torch and spear but given a dead fighty axe and an inspiring banner.



I wanted some kind of top for the banner pole but I didn't have any suitable gubbinz, so I made one from sheet styrene. The angle is a bit wonky and the detail is a bit lost because it's all white and stuff ... But it should look ace once painted up like rusty plate metal. Speaking of rusty plate metal:



This is my test Orc Boy (his name is Maurice). Two things are new ground for me: The orangy rusted metal, and Orc skin. I think the metal came out really nice, but it's a bit too brown and not vibrant enough, so I'm going to ramp up the orange next time. It's Scorched Brown, stipled heavily with Vermin Brown, and then stipled again with Macharius Solar Orange, before I selectivly drybrushed it a little with Boltgun Metal.

The skin is a different story altogether, first I tried Orchide Shade, which was way too dark and a bit too blueish green for my taste, then I tried to paint some Snot Green on top just to see what that looks like, but it covers absolutely horribly. Next up is maybe Dark Angles Green with a Goblin Green hightlight, washed down with Devlan Mud, or something, but my Dark Angles Green is dried out so it'll have to wait. Anyway, if any of you have a good recipe for Orc skin, I'll be very grateful. I'm looking for something vibrant yet also organic-looking.

[Student]

I like the rust effect particularly on the cleaver. I've been painting up some orcs, my skin recipe goblin green washed with thrakka green then highlighted with goblin green and finally scorpion green. There are some photos in my log for which there is a link in my signature.

[Sicarius the 2nd]

Great idea for a log, setting yourself a task and a limit to work to, really liking the bsb, and the test model is looking good too, how are you gonna paint your trolls?
Andy

[Makaber]

Student, thanks for the link! They're a bit too bright for me, but I have to force myself to use colours more, my models tend to end up really dark and very brown. It's a Beastmen knee-jerk reaction, I think. But I really like the Goblin Green with Thraka Green base, so I'll certainly try that out, only using a different highlight than Scorpion Green.

Sicarius: Thanks, I've played miniature games for what, 15 years now, and despite being decent at painting I've yet to finish a project (not even a Blood Bowl team!), so I think I need a clear cut focus to get my act together. I haven't thought too much about the Trolls yet, but I'm thinking a murky green-gray with lighter bellies. Probably with green weeds to tie them together with the Orcs. They are River Troll models obviously, but I'm using them as normal Trolls (because 6 River Trolls exceed the 250 points Rare limit) and hoping nobody has an issue with it...

Ed.: Oh, and just to make it clear: The test Orc is a test of the metal only. I only put on some green to get a rough image on how it would work as a whole. So it's practically unpainted!

[tdc500]

I'm doing the same over on ulthuan.net ... good luck with it

[Malenky_malchick]

This looks interesting! *Subscribe*

If you haven't decided on how to paint the orcs skin, I would suggest painting them like this, it's fast and it looks good. I highly recommend it.

Here is my example. Hope it helps.

Oh, and best of luck with the army.

[Makaber]

I quite liked Malenky's suggestion, only I felt I had to simplify it a bit to speed up the process. So I tried it out on Maurice, using Tausept Ochre, layered on Iyanden Darksun, and finally Rotting Flesh highlights, plus two coats of Thraka Green. Looks like this:



It came out a bit blotchy so I'll be a bit lighter on the wash next time. But I think it looks allright, and will probably work fine for a table top unit.

[Makaber]

Small bumpage, no pictures this time as it's really just more of the same as the above. I've cracked down the skin painting and done the skin on 10 Boyz, and the metals on five of them. I recon I can do the skin of a batch of five in about one evening, and the metal takes a little less than that again. What remains is cloth (black), wood (gray, probably), leather (brown), and details (teeth, some gold jewelry and such, buckles). I don't think I'll bother with the eyes as I find it's more trouble than it's worth, but we'll see.

Anyway, next stage is going to be the black cloth, which is always a bit of a pain in the ass as I'm not that good at highlighting black. I'll go the 50/50 Rotting Flesh/Black with Rotting Flesh highlights route. Good thing is you don't see much of it because it's hidden underneath all the green Orc flesh and metals, so I don't have to put too much effort into it and as such it should be fairly fast.

I also put some games in. 1000 points games are fun because you get to play a lot in one evening, but on the other hand they are a bit limited due to a list only having 2-3 "real" units. I'm still trying to figure out the Trolls, they seem to either get in over their head, or not do much due to me underestimating them and being nerveous of getting them stuck in. Also, the Doom Diver (now dubbed "Small Wunder" to compliment T10's Rock Lobber "The Great Disappointed") destroyed itself first shot twice in a row, and got killed off by Skinks before it got to shoot the third game.

As for where I'm taking this plog... Right now it's a bit of a transit phase as I do basic Boyz, so don't expect much to happen the next week or so. The plan is to paint up a finished 10 (in two batches of 5, alternating), and then do something else for a change of pace. Feel free to suggest what's next in line! My own preference would be the chariot or the Doom Diver, as they'd be fairly quick and I could get back to cranking out Boyz (trying to find a balance between not losing focus, and rewarding myself with something else here).

Other news, tickes has been brought! We're travelling over on the Thursday to hang out in Nottingham for a day before the tourney. I've been in Nottingham twice before but I've never really taken time to see much of the city, so that ought to be good. When it's tourney time, I'll make sure to take a ton of photos and notes, and finish the plog off with a thorough report of how we did.

So long and 'till next time!

[Ludaman]

Love the skin! Great log so far!

[Makaber]

Hello!

Well, I'm sad to say it's been a bit slow going lately. I had a good steam going, but then I had to go on an annual military excersise. I finally figured out close quarters shooting, and we also made the newspapers. The enemy forces in the excersise decided it was a good idea to save all their resources for a full-on assault at 11:30 pm on a sunday evening. In the suburbs. Neighbours were less than impressed! Still, we've improved since three years ago, when we inadvertently started a forest fire. Good times!

Anyway, the distraction cost me my good roll, and I wasted a lot of time watching old Stargate SG-1 instead. Am I the only one being genuinly pleased when Marouf finally died? Also, I'm watching a cat I take care of on occation, and she's really interested in what I'm doing, so she gets in the way a lot.

I've put in a little more work on the Boyz, though. Leather is Khemri Brown, tounges are Mechrite Red, teeth and claws are Skull White. Then I picked out all the metal bits that were too small to do with the rust stipling with Boltgun Metal, before dunking everything with Devlan Mud. I can't remember how I painted stuff before Devlan Mud.

Boyz Boyz Boyz (lookin' fer a good time):


And the mandatory cat picture. Her name is Goa. She's very cute, and a little annoying:


Ideally I ought to highlight the leather a little, but it can wait until the entire regiment is done. What I need to do now is give the black cloth a little highlighting, and paint the wood. Wood is probably going to be grey, to break up all the brown a little. I'm not looking forward to painting either, though, so I guess it's something I have to power through, ideally tomorrow.

Finally, I can't wait until the new Fenrisian Wolves are available! I'm not doing any work on the chariots until I've replaced the old wolves with those puppies.

'Till next time!

[azhagmorglum]

Good to see some progress here. Can't wait to see your warmachines painted. Keep it up!

[Lord Dan]

That's a lovely rust color you've achieved, there. Great work so far.

[Makaber]

Hello friends, it's me, the self styled Orc messiah again.

It's not the most spectacular of updates, but I've been cranking out Orcs at a (for me) decent pace, and I got a batch of 10 almost completely finished.



Compared to the previous update, I've done the jewelry and cloth. I wanted gold jewelry to get some colour in where I could (they're pretty drab, like pretty much everything I paint...), but my gold paints were all dried out, so I went with bronze for now. Black cloth is always a pain in the ass, I tried to highlight it all fancy-like, but it didn't look good and took too long time. A friend of mine (very good painter) suggested just slapping on a mix of black and Rotting Flesh on strategic surfaces, just so it looks painted. So that's what I did and it's not shaming my clan or anything.

All that remains are the shields, and doing the bases, but neither should take long. I'll do them in a single batch once I get 15 Orcs painted up, so I can finalize half the regiment, before doing something else for a change. I'm going with predominately white shields, with simple motifs (skulls, checkers, daggers).

Speaking of checkers, I did some extra detailing on the next batch of five.



I'm very pleased. It took me a little time to figure out the best way to apprach them, to get them as neat as I could. I also gave them a splotchy wash of Gryphonne Sephia, which is a trick I use for almost all my whites to make it look a bit more subdued, and mesh better with the rest of the model. Also, for this lot I tried using another colour for the final flesh highlight (before washing it), so I went with Kommando Khaki instead of Rotting Flesh. I also did one thinned-down wash and one un-thinned, instead of the previous two unthinned but lighter ones. Awkward explanation, sorry. Anyway, the net result was a neater flesh, with less wash pooling and more natural highlights. The Khaki takes the wash a little less than the Rotting Flesh, which turned out a bit too vibrant. Also, the Khaki covers poorly, but I like that when I use it for highlights, because it's easy to layer on smooth highlights. So I'm pretty pleased and it's going to be my standard modus operandi for the rest of the Boyz.

'Till next time!

[Student]

Good work. The check patterned bits look cool.

[Punk_in_Drublic]

they look awesome, mate. I really like the rust, the skin looks money, and the checkers will give the regiment more "life" - do it on 5 of the next batch.

And get crackalacking!

[Makaber]

Finally got the first batch done!



And they almost rank up, too.



Also, got started on the Gobbos. Here's the Doom Diver (dubbed "Small Wunder") so far. I'm very satisfied with the wood on top of the poles, looks great with minimal effort. The white band is going to get checkered up. I was nerveous about the Goblin skin, but it turned out just fine. Finally, I'm a bit stumped on how to paint the rope holding the "rubber bands" together, or rather what shade of brown. Also, I have no idea how to approach the lube on the ramp. Probably white... Maybe try to wash it with grey, see if I can get a transparency effect going.