Necromunda - House Orlock Gang, Slate Merdena and Macula painted!

The Necromunda train rumbles on, with a foray into House Orlock territory! As part of the pile of hired guns was the Orlock-specific character Slate Merdena and his cyber-mastiff Macula, and I figured I may as well do up the nucleus of the associated Orlock gang that has been lurking on the shelf for several months.

Tried to do a Rottweiler scheme on Macula with a lighter brown underbelly and muzzle, but it's all washed out in the photos. Probably ought to go one tone lighter and re-shoot 'em... Slate is a beast as well with a plasma pistol and a thunder hammer, ready to squish the enemies of the House!

Went with a dirty, greasy biker look with the gangers, with blue jeans, grubby white t-shirts and oily metal armor. The loin cloths got a hit of yellow to give 'em a little pop. I've been picking up two boxes of gangs for each house, but have held off on building the second ten until I can get my hands on some of the FW weapon upgrade kits.

Speaking of Forge World, I'd pulled the trigger on some bits and kits for the next Heresy project this past weekend which proved to be rather timely following the news about the 20+% price hike across the board as they moved to local currency stateside. Glad I did as the order would have cost me and additional $120 for no good reason. I can understand their desire to not be tied to the occasionally volatile exchange rate, but a 20% rise seems egregious. Definitely going to be far more circumspect about what I order from FW going forward, and start relying more on third-party bits providers like Shapeways, Anvil Industries, Victoria Lamb, etc...

Necromunda - Mad Donna Ulanti painted!

Another quick hit today - As a significant change of pace for me, I've just been working on one model at a time, and it's been pretty fun! Definitely requires a little adjustment, I'm so used to doing 15-20 at a time that having to wait for paint and washes to dry on a miniature between passes is something I rarely have to do!

In any case, next up on the painting desk was another blast from the past - D'onne Astride Ge'Sylvanus of the House of Ulanti, often shortened to D'onne Ulanti and better known as "Mad" Donna! Having just re-read "Survival Instinct" recently I rather enjoyed painting up the miniature, though it's definitely a product of its time and the sculpt hasn't aged well comparatively speaking.

I had given some thought to replacing the chainsword and plasma pistol with a modern equivalent, but in the end felt the charm of the old school model would be compromised by doing so. Once again I stuck close to the 'official' paint scheme, with plenty of leopard print, black and white leggings and bright pink hair!

All in all a very fun model to paint again after nearly twenty years, and I'm somewhat glad that my ham-fisted initial attempt to paint the model from way back when has been lost to mists of time. It was a travesty! :D

Next up I'm diving in to the new Forge World hired guns, really looking forward to it!

Necromunda - Scabs painted!

Can't have Kal Jerico without his trusty (and slightly smelly) sidekick Scabs, now can you?

Went a little brighter with his color scheme, and went with a variant of the official art that seemed to contrast well with the colors on Kal. Blue and yellow are always great colors to put together!

The dynamic duo ready to make a fortune in the underhive with their derring-do! I'm really hoping that we'll see GW come out with updated official rules for them at some point!

Next up is another blast from the past, Mad Donna Ulanti, which is a model that hasn't aged nearly as gracefully as these two...

Necromunda - Kal Jerico painted!

Just a quick hit this evening - With basically all of my big projects either complete or in varying states of sale (link to auctions), I decided to take a little time and start working through my backlog of Necromunda miniatures, including all the various Forge World hired guns that have been released so far, and a few throwback models from the mists of time!

I went ahead and got the skin tones down on all ten models but then realized they weren't suitable for batch painting as they're all individuals with varying paint schemes, and to be honest they deserve a little more TLC than my usual "just crank 'em out" methods. So I figured I'd lead off with quite possibly my favorite GW model of all time, Kal Jerico! Stuck closely to the 'official' paint scheme, and pretty jazzed with how he turned out. Next up, his poxy partner Scabbs!

Necromunda - Bull Gorg modernized!

One of my favorite Necromunda special characters from back in the day was Bull Gorg, pit fighter hero extraordinaire - We ran many a fun scenario with him either staging a revolt, or doing king of the hill style pit fights. Figured I ought to get him cleaned up and modernized for the new version!

I will cop to some youthful exuberance in this build (to be fair, it was nearly 20 years ago), as technically Bull Gorg is just a big human, and not a full-blown Ogryn (he's standing on a 60mm base). Still, can't deny he's an imposing model on the table!

The model is based on an old metal fantasy Ogre, an old rhino hatch in place of the usual belly plate and some techno-gubbins bodged on in the rear. With the addition of a pair of big-ass metal chainswords from the 54mm Inquisitor range it's got some serious heft to it - Let's just say the model can double as a paperweight! Touched up the paint scheme a bit here and there, mostly getting some more highlights in and updating the base color scheme. He's ready for his next fight!

Necromunda - Klovis the Redeemer, Deacon Malakev, and Spyre Hunters complete!

I've been in 'small project' mode and have been going through the un-/partially-painted shelves looking for fun stuff to knock out, and today it's a couple blasts from the past - Leading off with Klovis the Redeemer and Deacon Malakev!

These two have been sitting on the shelf for nearly twenty years and with the release of the new Necromunda it's high time they got their time in the sun. Tried to stick with the classic paint scheme for him, and I'm really looking forward to seeing when/whether they get to the Redemptionists!

In a similar vein, the Spyre Hunter Matriarch was a model I picked up waaaaay back in the day but never got around to painting. It's about time! I've unfortunately never owned the associated Patriarch model. I really ought to track one down...

Last but not least I thought I'd try and modernize some of my old models - Led off with my old Spyre Hunter team. I didn't want to give them a full "dip and strip" as I sort of like having the history. I did clean them up a little though, some washes and touch-ups for the most part. Again, hoping that we'll see GW doing the equivalent of the Outlanders supplement in the future!

Necromunda - Gor Halfhorn complete!

Figured it was time to dive back in to painting some actual miniatures after my digression into terrain, but wasn't feeling quite up to jumping right back into a full batch-painting project. So, a little speed painting session was the plan for the evening!

Pulled out the model for bounty hunter Gor Halfhorn and got cracking! I knew that I wanted to do a somewhat militaristic scheme on him as a callback to the model on which it was based so settled on some camo/olive drab armour, and fairly subdued leather and metal to contrast with the more flamboyant ganger models.

Of course it ain't Necromunda without hazard stripes and the model did need some spot color, so the housing of the chainsword and the various lenses got the yellow treatment, as did the front 90 of the base (as facing is important in the new edition).

Lots of different brown tones on the model - the skin, the fur and the leather all needed to be distinct from one another or it'd just end up being one big smear of brown. More or less worked out! All in all I'm quite happy with him and I'm looking forward to getting my mitts on the other hired guns Forge World has previewed, as well as the new Orlocks. Really happy to have Necromunda back!