Big Black Orc Warboss

 

Oh yeah, "ezah big 'un!" I wanted a Warboss on foot to join my Black Orcs. To lead Black Orcs you gotta be da biggest and badest. Enter  Bazdogg Nekk-Choppa*, the commemorative release Orruk miniature released for AOS.  He is perfectly suited for this role, and, just barely, fits on a 30mm base. 

Primed +.

Once primed I set about painting him using Contrast Paints. It's important to note that I haven't glued on his head so that I could paint his tongue and mouth more easily. 

The first few Contrast Paints applied.

Black Templar Contrast Paint was washed all over the metals and flesh. 

Battle-Ready!

Caliban Green was painted on the flesh. Leadbelcher was carefully painted on the giant axe  then it was given a careful wash of Cryptek Armourshade. Back to the flesh, this was painted next with Snot Green then washed with Nuln Oil.

More layers.

Next my attention returned to the suit of armor. A layer of Evil Sun Scarlet was followed by an edge highlight of Wild Rider Red. 

Wild Rider Red.

After this Stormhost Silver was used to apply chips and scrapes randomly to the up raised parts of the armor.  

Done!

After that all the boney areas were painted using Ushanti Bone, Screaming Skull, Wraithbone and a final, minimal, highlight of White Scar.

Done! (From another angle).

And that is essentially it.  There is a random grass tuft stuck on the rear part of the base, but no further vegetation was necessary due to all of the rocky debris already on it. 

That axe looks like it was torn from something much bigger.

I didn't take many pics of the those final stages but here are all of the glamor shots taken from all the different angles. 

Backside.

I can't wait to get this guy onto a gaming table and see what sort of mayhem he can cause. (If you ever read my battle reports one can assume that the odds are high that he'll be snuffed out in an anti-climatic fashion after doing one cool thing).

I can't explain the Sigmarine mask, so I won't.

But just for kicks let's see how he sizes up next to the Black Orcs I painted back in October. 

"C'mon boyz!"

And here is the full mob.  It just occurred to me that I probably need another Black Orc or two (or maybe five or six) in order to get a Rank Bonus. But for now, I am satisfied with these guys as they are. 

"Waaagh!!!"

*My model is not keeping that name. I'll come up with a name soon though. 

Hobgoblin Khan (Part 3)

 Howdy my fellow hobgoblins! As you can see from this first image, the Hobgoblin Khan is now finished.  

Rampaging right out of the Darklands. 

But before I show off more glamor shots, I;m going to go over the final steps I took to finish this model. Lets start with his wolf, Flea-Nest the Scratcher. Painting him was simple, I just used three different colors of gray, with a wash of Nuln Oil applied before the final highlight. But I thought it needed something else, so having seen a few images online someone's paint job on a Fenrisian Wolves, I decided to apply some brown on the back and head of this wolf. I used Gore Grunter Fur Contrast Paint for this. I followed that with a light dry brushing of a light gray (I think it was Dawnstone? I can't recall). I painted White Scar on the belly and the whole underside of the wolf really. However the natural shadows in this pic sort of obscure that. Anyway, I'm pleased with the results overall. I guess the model itself is sort of goofy and doesn't stand up to the more recent models GW has produced, Still, I suppose it works well enough as a playing piece. 

Just imagine it's smell.

Onto the big guy himself (I'll come up with a name for him soon enough). The most important things to discuss are his red armor and flesh. HIs armor was finished by using Evil Suns Scarlet and a highlight of Wild Rider Red. I then picked out a few spots to add Stormhost Silver to represent chips and scraps on the armor. This really seemed to pop to me, and made the coat he's wearing truly look like metal armor. 

His flesh was highlighted up using Ushanti Bone and Wraithbone. I uses a spot of thinned Bloodletter Ink on his nose to give off that ruddy look that is typical of Warhammer Gobos. I think it looks good on this guy. 

Mostly done

It was time to glue the cloak onto the him, and, wow, check out that gap! 

Behold the gap.

Well, there was no way that was going to fly. During my earlier test fits, this gap didn't seem so bad, but now that I pinned and glued it on, well, I can't stand it. It was time to break out the green stuff!!!

Greenstuff sculpted.

I filled in the gap and sculpted in a furry texture. 

Greenstuff painted.

Then I painted it. And I got to say,  the results impressed me more than I thought they would. 

Anyway, with all that covered, this guy is now done. On to the glamor shots: 

I couldn't a decal that I liked to put on his shield. So I just left it red, but I did add a few battle scars on it to make him appear a bit more battle worn. I did this by applying a few random slashes of Stormhost Silver, but to give those scratches a bit more depth, I underlined them using a black micron. 

More pics of the rear view, and I gotta say I think my greenstuff work on his cloak has definitely been a success! 

My biggest regret regarding this model isn't the model itself. No, it's the fact that I don't have any more hobgoblin wolfriders for him to run around with. If you can find them on the secondary market, or any of Oglah Khan's Wolfboyz, they are very cost prohibited! 

Ok that's a wrap! 

Hobgoblin Khan (Part 2)

 Since last time I have made a bit of progress on this chap. I left that last post contemplating how to color this guy. 

Black, the most basic of basecoats

Inspired by the technique I have been using on the armor of my High Elves I had hoped to have that lightening strike twice by repeating that technique here but using Baal Red instead. So I painted the armor using Stormhost Silver then washed it with the Baal Red Contrast Paint. 

Baal Red Contrast over Leadbelcher test..

Although this created an interesting result it didn't quite turn out as I had hoped. However the armor and color scheme of my recent Black Orc project did work out as I had hoped so I am definitely sticking to the red color scheme.  Besides, no matter how hard GW tries to introduce new color schemes for the Chaos Dwarfs, and their Hobgoblin goons, after living through the '90s, there is just no way I can ever shake the red out the color scheme for these guys. I guess it's forever ingrained to my head-canon  now. 

 

Baal Red over all the armor.

Interestingly, while looking at older images of this model I realized I was missing the bow and quiver he is supposed to have.  But I can work around that problem. No, what I noticed is that his head, the hat in particular, is bigger than the one on the miniature I have. I can't tell if mine was modified somehow or if I have a variant. 

Catalog entry.

After looking at some 30+ year old pics of painted Chaos Dwarfs and Hobgoblins from White Dwarf, I decided to paint his hood-thing (I can't recall the proper name for it) a blue color. Which stands out nicely from all the red. I think whenever I get back to work on the Hobgoblin Archers I will paint the ones they have blue also.  

Base coats finished and progressing onward.

A lot of progress so far, now to carry it through to the end.

Blackorctober (Part 4)

 Trick or treat? Definitely a treat as I got this unit finished on the last day of the month. I will briefly go over some of the final steps. 

All finished and just in time.

Alright, so last week I got the unit champion finished, and now to get the rest of these brutes to that point.  Most of the steps I used on that champion are the steps I used here but with a few exceptions. 

Cleaned up base coats with Agrax Earthshade added to armor recesses.

I imagined that the Champion would have gear that was in better shape than his crew, so their stuff is bit more gnarly and oxidized. 

Mid-coats

This was mostly done using Cryptek Armourshade Gloss on most the exposed metals and on the weapons. Their stuff isn't as rusty as the gear that my regular orcs utilize, but it's not exactly "off the shelf" either. 

Highlights. 

I swear I spent more time touching up and seeking out missed details on these guys that I did the main paint job (admittedly, I could've been a bit less sloppy, but, hey, they're orcs!). These old metal miniatures are surprisingly detailed. But, I appreciate them even more now because of it. 

After the tufts were stuck onto their bases, I pretty much decided that they were done. The last thing that needs to happen is that I need to seal them with a varnish. These guys are metal and a bit heavy and I suspected they'll chip easily if I don't take that precaution. It's not lost on me that I painted on so many chips to their armor that real chips and dings might not be so obvious at first. 

But that's a wrap, and another Orctober is about to be behind us. But these guys are hopefully just getting started as I am eager to get them onto a table and into a battle as soon as possible. 

Blackorctober (Part 3)

 Moving on from where I left things in Part 2, you can see that I have finally achieved total surface coverage with my painting on these guys. All the armor, weapons and flesh was covered, tether liberally, with Black Templar Contrast paint. 

Red ones go faster yes?

I had to go back and paint Corax White on the red areas that accidentally got black paint on them   before repainting Baal Red back onto the armor. I was really sloppy with the Black Templar paint so this was a bit of a process, but the models already look better for it.  A few of these models have skulls, and Skeleton Horde was painted on them. The model with the most skulls is the standard bearer who has a whole collection of them dangling from his banner. Speaking of which, the banner has a classic evil sun totem which I used Blood Angel Red Contrast Paint on. 

Banner guy.

From here on out, I decided to focus on the leader of the pack, who is an older miniature from the '90s and was sculpted by a different sculpter than the other guys. I think these differences help him stand out from the others and I think I like that a lot. If you got this model when it first came all, he was leading a rabble of black orcs who were all in the same pose, making it a little more challenging to pick him out of the mob. 

Black Templar coat.

On top of the Black Templar Contrast Paint I added a layer of Caliban Green. 

Caliban Green layer.

Next I added Snot Green. The last time I painted a black orc I used Bilious Green at this step but I found it to be too intense, and I really had to work at bringing it back down to a darker tone. Snot Green, although intense, is a darker color so I hope this will be easier to work with. 

Snot Green.

You got to admit, he just screams "90s red era at this point doesn't he? I really like the way the red just pops visually, so I reinforced that with an edge highlight of Evil Suns Scarlet. 

Nuln oil wash.

A wash of Nuln Oil took the edge off of the flesh, and I think I am good with this at this point. I was impressed with the way the Black Templar low/highlighted the axes, so in an effort to preserve that effect I used my trusty old Aleenes Gleams Pewter to basically trace over the natural highlights caused by the Black Templar paint. I think this met my expectation rather nicely. The metal of the chain mail was painted also using Pewter but with a coat of Nuln Oil Gloss applied over that. 

And we are at the finale now:  the most important part here, subtle though it is, was adding Agrax Earthshade to the recesses of the red armor. This gave it a bit of depth and grit that the armor seems to be lacking otherwise. 

Finished.

I used some thinned Hobgrot Flesh on his knuckles and prominent facial features  for a final highlight of the flesh. I think I like how that turned out. Next I added a few vertical lines of Hobgrot Flesh to his big bottom lip. Then I applied two coats of Carroburg Crimson on that lip. And I think that's turned out alright. 

3/4 shot.

I edge highlighted the two axes with Stormhost Silver. This really gave these weapons a gleaming vibe I like. Normally I try to make my orc (and ork) weapons a bit more browned, rusty and used looking, but these guys are coming straight oughta Zufbar and I imagine that their diminutive hosts hook them with some finer kit than their Badlands brethren. Never-the-less I wanted to rough up their armor a bit, so Stormhost Silver was used (randomly) on the armor edges 

Backside details.

And that's prety much it really. Next week I  will be applying these same techniques to the remaining Black Orc mob. 

Blackorctober (Part 2)

 Continuing on from Part One, I was finally able to get some paint onto these guys. 

By "some" I mean just Baal Red Contrast Paint all over their armor. And brown paint and washes on the base. I really stlopped on that red and I have spent a good bit of time just touching up some of the areas where I was a bit too sloppy. 

The Baal Red is a very intense color. To the point that these guys remind me of a Blood Bowl team. It doesn't hurt that the Black Orc  Blockers from the 3rd edition of Blood Bowl were clearly patterned off of the Black Orcs from that time, right down to the pose!

My favorite miniature of this unit is easily the standard bearer. It's such an imposing banner and so well sculpted. It's got a good weight to it also, which is something you rarely get in a modern miniature. I am looking forward to making more progress on this guy and the rest of his red armored companions. 

Black Orctober (Part 1)

 Orctober* is here! 

Metal Black Orcs.

I don't usually get a chance to do both Orctober and Dreadtober (although I have combined them in the past), but this year I am going to go for it. I recently found some classic metal Black Orcks from the turn of this century, plus one guy, the leader, who is from the mid '90s. 

Mid-'90s Big Boss.

The set I had included a single plastic guy converted to be a rear rank stand-in.  That model just wasn't going to work for me however, so I tracked down this muscian guy to add to the unit, since this collection was lacking one. He currently stands out due to the shiney and clean appearance versus the guys who have been stripped of their previous paint coatings. 

The command group.

Here are some of the rank and file guys. They're oddly posed but that's more of a production choice I think than anything else. Regardless, I really like these models and have always wanted them, so I am glad to have finally achieved that goal. 

They rank up so much better on 30mm bases. 

Ok, so yes, these are rescues. They spent about a month soaking in diluted Superclean to get their previous painting efforts removed. Speaking of which here are some examples of what they looked like prior to being stripped. 

At least he had a great dental plan.

Metallic Green skin. 

Yell loudly and beat 'em with a big stick. 

Ok, so that's my stated goal for my fantasy regiment in Orctober. 

'ere, we, go!!!

* or Orktober,  as those who are  going to set a 40k hobby goal this month.