Chainsaw Goblin

 

Just for fun, a good old Blood Bowl chainsaw goblin. I much prefer the smiling variant to the non. He's so excited to be cutting people apart. I probably could've done the blood better but it gets the point across.

I've also managed to finally finish painting Thrugg Bullneck. I just need to get him based properly and finish the heavy weapons guy and I'll have FINALLY finished the squad I started two years ago. (Man time goes by fast!) I have quite a few more space orcs that need painted too. I seem to be well motivated lately so I'll get them done soon!

The Protonid and Zoats eat Oats (Or Zoatibix)

 It's been a while since I've posted on here. I feel a bit bad about that but things have been very busy what with the end times coming and all that. But I'm back! And I have some cool stuff to show.

Late last year I finally managed to acquire one of my most long sought-after models. It took ten years to find one. Here it is; The Protonid.

Word around the internet is that there are only 17 of these guys in existence but I feel like I've seen a number of them around in online collections and photos so I'm not quite sure how much I trust that number. If anyone can verify for certain, I'd love to hear. I know there really aren't many though and I feel very lucky to have found this one when I did. 

I feel it's a bit of a shame the model was never a full production one as early on in Rogue Trader there weren't any really good models for tyranids as they were described in the book. Later on you could use termagant models in its place, which are smaller but seem to be based on this design. I always found it a bit odd that the "Tyranid" as described in Rogue Trader, only existed here. I think it's a really cool design and an awesomely detailed model. I did not paint this one, this paint job is how I purchased it.

For a long time I've wanted to build an authentic RT Tyranid Space Zoat Squad (TSZS?) so now that I have the tyranid overlord, I felt inspired to paint some zoats.

I thought purple would be a good colour to contrast with the green skin of the zoats and it feels pretty alien and organic to me, which is what Tyranid technology is. I also just really like the purple/green colour combination.

I'm pretty happy with how they turned out and I think they look good with the protonid. I need to paint two more for a full squad, which I already have primed. I rolled up a squad just for fun already too. I would LOVE to play a small skirmish game of Rogue Trader with these guys. Hopefully I can someday if things calm down with the whole virus mess. 

For now, I shall continue painting.

Rogue Trader RTB02 Space Ork Raiders - RT Ork Squad Painted

RTB02 Space Ork Raiders

I purchased this box set from 1987 on ebay a number of years ago when I was first getting interested in Rogue Trader era Warhammer. At the time I was super into modern Orks but I thought it would be cool to have some RT era orks and I was able to get this box surprisingly cheap. It came with 16 unpainted fresh metal ork miniatures however my box had Thrugg replaced by another ork model. (I recently purchased a Thrugg model by himself.). I kept the box on display in my room, however I never actually began the process of painting them until now.

I spent a long time looking at the models on the back of the box while painting these. I'm still not sure how they got such brightly colored skin for their orks. I may have to experiment.

After painting up my LE1 Space Orc it got me really excited to work on making an entire squad so I opened up my RT book, rolled up a 10 man Ork squad, opened the boxed set, chose the 8 models I liked the best who along with my LE1 and the Thrugg model I had ordered would make up a full squad. It was really interesting going through the box's models with the intention of deciding what to paint as I really began to notice all the minor differences between models. Figures that I thought were duplicates were actually very similar but with different faces, shoulder pads, equipment, whatever. There's actually quite an impressive amount of variation amongst the models in the box.

The robot and Red Gobbo wait to be painted soon.

I finally decided on the 7 shown above plus a very badly painted heavy weapons trooper I had lying around. I had never actually painted in groups before aside from some modern space marines which basically just required spray painting and minor detailing and my original tau force with was basically the same thing. I barely even painted those things, it was pretty much white primer and a copic marker. These orcs, however, are much much more individualistic than a bunch of modern space marines and so require individual detail and attention. I feel like doing 7 at once was a bit too big of a bite for me, but in the end I managed to finish them. Only took about 3 weeks.

A savage band of raiders!

A big part of my goal I have with painting my old vintage miniatures is to give them a paint job that they might've been given when they were new. For many years with painting I struggled to do my absolute best job, watching tutorials, obsessively going over minute details. I even spent 4 hours once just painting the dorsal fins on a couple of skinks. But honestly, no matter how hard I push myself, I feel like it only burns myself out and I'm really not willing to put in the consistent and constant hours of practice it takes to reach the level of Crystal Brush and Golden Demon winners. Instead, I find it's actually easier, more fun and overall more rewarding to aim for an oldschool look. I really love how the models are painted in the White Dwarfs of the 80s and in the old rulebooks. The paint jobs for the most part really aren't that complicated or difficult but I think they look great.

A view from behind.

So my goal is to take more a purist approach. The past few years whenever I find lots of 80s citadel paints come up available on ebay, I try to purchase them. By now I've amassed far more vintage paints than modern paints. In order to make sure these models have the look and feel of the 80s I've painted them entirely (with the exception of black and white) with original 80s citadel paints.

Hhruk, the Ork Leftenant.

You may also notice the very simple bases. A couple rocks, goblin green with black rim, grass and sand. All very intentional. I'm really happy with how these guys came out. I may add little details here and there eventually, such as tattoos, symbols or whatnot, and I'm definitely going to name each member of the squad, but for now I'm really happy with them and ready to move on to the next models. I'm not sure if I want to try to do so many individualized models all at once in the future, I may try to do them 1-3 at a time as it was a little stressful trying to get so many done at the same time. I also nearly passed out while blowing all the loose grass off the figures in the bathroom sink. 7 figures, lots of grass. Oof. I should've taken a break. I was spinning by the end.

Next step is to paint up the heavy weapons trooper (who has been stripped and primed) and Thrugg Bullneck (also primed). I also just managed to acquire 8 of my favorite space orc models from this era who will form up another squad, but they will have to wait until next time.

Thanks for reading! Waaargh!

I love how the hex bases fit together so snuggly.

LE1 Space Orc painted - a new project begins

I had been painting a few of the Pantheon of Chaos models by Knightmare Miniatures (Fantastic old school styled models. Many of which are recreations of artwork from the old books) lately and while they are certainly extremely fun to paint, I was itching to do something Rogue Trader. Something with shooty bits I could put on a hex base and after thinking it over and perusing the lead pile I decided to paint up my LE1 Space Orc. He looked so sad and lonely sitting in a box of Rogue Trader era orks, the only one of the bunch unpainted, so I primered him up and got my brushes ready.

Primed and ready

His space suit was a little.. confusing to me. I wasn't sure what color to paint it. At first glance I thought he was wearing power armor but after looking at him more closely it seemed like perhaps it was instead something more like that of an astronaut suit. I decided to try a basecoat of ghoul grey which looked a little.. meh in my opinion. His shoulder pads, however, distinctly reminded me of Spinys from Super Mario Bros and I had to paint them as such.

Ghoul Grey basecoat

I fussed around with the space suit, adding washes of red ink, blue ink, some other ink I think until it ended up looking like a bit of a hodgepodge of colors. However, I think the rather dirtied look fits the ork just fine and serves as a fine contrast to his unusually clean shoulder pads and boots. I definitely wanted him to look fun and old school, not taking it too seriously as I feel orks should be made fun and with plenty of character and individuality. In the end, he's perhaps not perfectly how I imagined him looking, but he is definitely a model that I can be happy with.

Based and finished

I'm not sure what that tank is for but it looks dangerous

After I finished this model I remembered that I had a complete unassembled RTB02 Space Ork Raiders Boxed Set. 16 shiny new unpainted, untouched Rogue Trader era orks that were begging to be given colour. With a little encouragement from one of my friends, The Rebel Grot, I thought "Why not start painting some RT orks and build a squad?" So that is going to be my next project. 9 happy friends and a transport for this fellow to lead. Very exciting!