Blood Axe Kaptin (Part 4)

 At the end of Part 3 I had stated that I felt that this guy was mostly done, but that it needed something else...

"Sumfink! Go git 'em!"

That's right, an attack squig. Which definitely meets the criteria of "some thing".  And the one I chose was this classic Rogue Trader era ork squig. Well, technically a tyranid squig. It's a bit of a complicated piece of lore that was only ever published once (White Dwarf #145 specifically). But nevertheless this classic freaky squig fit perfectly on my Blood Axe Warboss' base and gives a sense of menace. Mirthful menace mind you, but menace. 

Bare metal.

Unfortunately the tab had to go!

Primed.  

For such an old squig, it's still fairly large. Here he is on equal footing being compared to a Dark Eldar warrior. 

It kind of looks like a fleshy battle-bot in a way...

I based-coated this thing using Contrast Paints. Skeleton Horde for the claws, teeth and spikes, and Blood Angels Red for the skin. 

Contrast Paints basedcoat. 

Next I washed the model in Agrax Earthshade then gave it a layer of Khorne Red. The boney bits were given a layer of Screaming Skull with Wraithbone highlights. 

Mostly done.

Once he was done it was just a matter of affixing the squig, now names Sumfink, to the base of this Warboss, which a bit of superglue took care of in no time. 

Left side details

I'll work out a name for this big git eventually. But like many of my characters, sometimes they earn their names during a game.  With all I got going on, that may be a while. 

Rear details.

To end this project I added a few grass tufts to the base.  The final thing left to do is to add a clear coat to help reduce the chance of chipping the paint.

The job's done!

And now my Blood Axes have a dedicated leader. WAAAAGH!

Blood Axe Kaptin (Part 3)

I was distracted a bit here and there, and real-life keeps complicating things, but finally I managed to finish this guy.  Mostly. 

Of course I had to make this Blood Axe Kaptin carry an actual  blood red axe. Well the head of it anyway.. But what really helped me get this guy done was Cryptek Armourshade Gloss. I used it on the mechanical parts of the axe, the big shoota and the two holstered guns on his back, as well as the metal plates on his boss pole and his body armor. I love that stuff and it has become a crucial ingredient for metallic rust effects. 

The leather straps were done using Khorne Red, Nuln oil and Pink Horror. This is the first time I have used this scheme of an ork model. Usually I use it on Imperial models such as Assassins and Space Marines. But I've found that I like to use this scheme to contrast against other colors, like in this case where is contrasts nicely against the green colors of this model.

The only things left to do is to flock the base and seal the model with a protective coat (part of the joy of metal models is trying to avoid chipping). But I can't help the feeling that he still feels incomplete...

I hope you agree, but I think it's looking good for a miniature that was released way back in 1999. Come back whenever part 4 is posted where I'll reveal this model in his truly finished state! 

Blood Axe Kaptin (Part 2)

Continuing now from Part 1, I applied a wash of Tesseract Glow all over his flesh. And wow did I love the result of this! Remember, the formula for his flesh up to this point was an Olive Drab Prime, Caliban Green basecoat, and Gretchin Green Foundation Paint. The next pic shows only his right arm with the Tesseract Glow so you can see the difference. 

Tesseract Glow on one arm.

And here is the front of model with Tesseract Glow all over the flesh. 

Tesseract Glow layer.

And here is the back side. Back in the '90s I probably would've called this done, as it looks very close to the scheme I was using back then. 

View of left arm. 

But I can't leave well enough alone.  So added Apple Barrel Kiwi as a next level coat, first level thinned down the next solid, before finishing it off with a highlight of Sunburst Yellow. 
 

"Me flesh is done!"

Next came some more details, In this case, his mouth. The tongue and gums were based with Khorne Red, then Screamer Pink before next a final coat of Pink Horror. Two layers of Screaming Skull were applied to the teeth and bone areas. 

Teeth cleaned by dental squig. 

And this looks like a good place to stop. Look out for part 3 sooner than later (hopefully). 

Blood Axe Kaptin (Part 1)

Here's a miniature I have been procrastinating on for.... gosh, make that two decades now! This is the first of the big Warhammer 40,000 3rd edition era Ork Warbosses which came out in the summer of 1999.  I liked him, but he didn't quite suit the Goffs whom I was running at the time. In fact when the 2nd version (the one with the attack squig arm) came out, that was the model I decided I wanted to build first. And this poor guy just sat in his opened blister pack bidding his time. 

Waaagh?

At some point I decided to make him a Blood Axe Warboss. This was mostly on account of that big axe of his. Seemed obvious to me that a Blood Axe guy would be obsessed with big axes, right?  But he needed something but I didn't know what...

Oy, me 'ead's cold!

And one day,, like a bolt out of the blue,  Warhammer Community came to the rescue with an article about Bad Krumpany. I was totally inspired by the Ork Warboss Wade Price made for his Blood Axe Army, and I had to seek out that hat for my guy.  He had the perfect head for it too. After some scouring of bits sites online I managed to locate it. It's part of the Nork Deddog options from the Ogryn plastic kit, a Vox caster with a skull wearing a Commissar hat. 

Da Boss hat.

Having acquired this bit, I set about carving off the skull and speaker stuff to leave just the cap. Then I worked on hollowing out the hat enough for it to fit on the Warboss' domed head. 

Assembled! 

Next I primed him using an Olive Drab spray paint. It's not the best coverage job I've ever done,  but I got the areas I needed to. 

Primed!

Onto the basecoats. I used Caliban Green for the flesh base, and picked out the metal areas and boots using Abaddon Black. The interior mouth area and the wrap on the axe handle was based with Khorne Red. There are more details to pick out but I will deal with those as I proceed with the paint job

Basecoats! 

Onto the mid-coats! Yeah I was going to save this for Part 2, but I'm eager to share the progress. So I touched up all the areas. Then I washed all the recess areas if the olive drab with Agrax Earthshade. Then I used Gretchin Green Foundation Paint on the skin. Ontop of the Caliban Green, it gives the Warboss a weird pale look. It's almost freaky, especially with the  brown teeth. 

Gretchin Green flesh layer. 

I was really tempted to leave the axe Olive Drab colored but I decided that a Blood Axe Boss should be carrying a blood red axe. Also, It contrasts well with all the shades of green that the rest of this model is mostly going to be. I might put some Olive Drab back on the gun, but I'm not there yet.. 

Ok, let's stop here. I am excited to be  painting this guy, and I hope to get him done soon. We'll see in Part 2. 

Blood Axe Boyz ( Part 5)

Alright, here are eight more Boyz completed for Drab Squad. (I'm saving the Nob for last). It's been a long road for these guys (even longer when one factors in their age!) but we have arrived to their completion. 

At the time of this writing we are still in the first year of Warhammer 40,000 10th edition and it looks like my battalion plan for my Orks is pretty much still functional. So I will continue to develop my Bad Moons, Goff and Blood Axes. The Blood Axes are still going to mostly, and almost exclusively, use older miniatures. In fact I think they'll be all metal by the time they're finally done. 

But let's talk about these guys. This first one is a plasma gunner. Not sure what he'll count as in game since the Orks lost their plasma weapons way back in 3rd edition. 

This guy's has the least amount of olive drab on him as he has the most metal of leather jackets. He is also the only one I could squeeze a Blood Axe icon onto. In this case I imagined it as a back patch. I did this by hand; not sure if I like the results but I think it'll do. 

This guy has a visor in his helm. Definitely a look that never made it out of the early days of Rogue Trader. I like to think it's part of welding mask incorporated into his armor. 

I put a beaky helmet on the base of this guy. Of course I had to paint it in Ultramarines colors as the only beakies that my old Orks consistently fought against were my brother's old Ultramarines. 

This guy with the foreign legion hat has a Dark Eldar helm on his base. Painted in my favorite kabal colors of course, that of the Obsidian Rose. 

It was also kind of cool to see belts of bullets all over this guy that were actually scaled to look like normal bullets. 

Here's the second of the visor guys. He is distinguished by the rocks on his base. His foot was bent in an odd way so instead of trying to bend it back I just stuck a rock under it to give the impression that he might be walking over it. 

The next two Boyz are extremely basic. I painted their boots in different colors to make it easier to tell them apart. 

And the brown shoes guy has a skull on his base for a bit more distinction. 

Here is a heavy plasma gunner ork. I love how crude and cobbled together this thing appears. I still think orks should've kept their access to plasma weapons in the game but with the provision that they could only shoot on the maximal setting with the required 'gets hot' test.

How is that not orky?!

Either way,  I like the idea that the Blood Axes have tankers full of olive drab paint that they spray all over everything (kind of like what the U.S. military used to do back in 1970s. Everything on the bases I spent my youth on was olive drab. Well until they fell in love with cammo in the mid-80s. But I digress). Thus even pieces of equipment such as this heavy plasma gun just has to be olive drab. 

This grinning guy is the last of the lot. Again, more of his gear is olive drab than not. -As it should be! 

Ok, as I stated at the start,  only the nob is left for this unit. Look for him in a future post. 

Blood Axe Kommandos (Art Monday)

 Hello, and welcome back to Art Mondays where I show off some of the 40k fan art I produced over 20 years ago.  Today's a special one, as it is still one of my personal favorites from that time.  This is my illustration of a Blood Axe Kommando team setting up to ambush a Leman Russ tank squadron as it emerges from a temperate forest. In the foreground the Kommando Kaptin is calling in a support strike. I still get a kick out of the grot cranking the radio. Heck, I get a kick out of the idea of a crank powered transmitter like that! These are the original Warhammer 40,000 second edition era Blood Axe Kommandos, complete with power axes and Swiss Army knives is! 

Tbis is one of the few larger illustrations I did back then, it's done at a full 10"x15". When it was published by Inquisitor Magazine (#14) it was reduced all the down to the size of a playing card. It came out great  thankfully, but I was still bummed it wasn't printed at a bigger size. A large part of this is due to how much work I put into this one.

The finished piece.

You see, I had a heck of a time figuring out how I wanted to put down the blacks (i.e. the large areas of black). The foreground was hardly the problem, but rather the mid and backgrounds. I needed to get the balance right so that the mood would be how I wanted it and so that the images and characters would 'pop' out at the viewer and not get lost. I reached a point while inking this that I just had to stop and really explore this. Oddly, this left the original line drawing looking Iike a coloring book page!*

The original line art.

So off to my local library**  I went to make some copies. These are just done on standard 8.5"x11" copy paper, reduced to fit of course. I then took my time to 'spot the blacks' on each one trying out a different area each time. 

Black balance tests.

Some things I had just had to try to see it. Upon seeing it, I either hated it or loved it it, and I just kept going until I reached a decision. The finished piece is an amalgamation of a ideas pulled from each of these experiments.  I still do test pieces like this, especially when it comes to coloring a piece, to help me see my way to the finish line.

More balance tests.

I was still a bit apprehensive however, so I took the line drawing into Kinkos and had them copy it onto a card stock (90lb ledger). I simply finished the piece on the cardstock. The sky on the finished piece was done using zipatone, a product I dearly miss***, and that resulting gray tone helped set the balance between black and white areas that I was looking for all along. And there you have it, a bit of 'behind the curtain' peak into my art process. I hope you enjoyed this one.

*Seriously, who wouldn't buy an Ork coloring book? GW, here's a niche market you guys could easily tap into! 

**Back in the '90s the Jonesborough TN Public Library had one of the best photocopiers around, and it was also the closest one to home!.

*** Yes, it's still made overseas at a smaller size, but I am referring to the original Letraset products.

Blood Axe Boys (Part 4)

 It's been too long since I last paid attention to these guys, and even longer since I started them! With the release of the 2021 Ork Codex I have been itching to get back to my Orks, and these guys in particular.  I absolutely love the original Orks. Yeah, they are smaller and more crude, but the character and detail have yet to be matched. Being how immersed I've been with the other projects I have going on, I decided to paint these guys just a few at a time. To kick it off I decided to focus on just the one miniature we call Da Mad Thunka (or Bolta 5, #07051039 according to the 1991 Citadel Catalog).

I followed the exact steps that I used on the Blood Axe Mekaniak I painted back in March 2021. The weird grot face belt buckle thing...I was stumped with that. So I just painted using Gretchin Green Foundation Paint with Death Guard highlight.

...weird grot face belt buckle thing.

I love the details on these old Ork miniatures, they look like scavenging militants, with each model appearing unique. Check out the kit on this chap:

Rear view.

These guys are primarily wearing olive drab and I think it works great.

Front view.

 That's one done, nine to go with this squad. I will keep poking at these guys sporadically as I feel each one deserves a good amount of attention to pull off properly. 

Da whole mob.

I have decided to call these guys Squad Drab due to their overbearing preference for Olive Drab uniforms and equipment. Other units might be dubbed Squad Khaki, Squad Camo, etc. 

Blood Axe Boys (Part 3)

Think'n 'bout it.

As any ork player knows, five models does not a Boyz squad make. So before I got too much further on these guys I wanted to double-up on the model count. Thankfully I have A LOT of first edition miniatures ready for the role. 

Da new recruits. Or old recruits. Whatever. 

We used to call this boy Da Mad Thunker back in the day. I think you may be able to determine why that is. I found this resin piece from an old basing kit that I thought might justify this model's determined level of thunk'n. It's an unexploded anti-personel missile next to a rock designed for throwing at a riot police line. I think this is quite characterful and is so not typical of the current Orks line of miniatures. As I stated, more like gushed, in Part 1, I just adore the detail on these old ork miniatures. They are so full of character and each one has unique details. They're loaded down with dystopian relics and each one looks like they should be heading to Barter Town to trade in some scraps. 

Da Mad Thunker and the contemplation of unexploded ordinance.

I have to point out the beakie (Mk VI) Space Marine helmet which also came from the old basing kit. I have a particular fondness for the beakie helmets as they were the Space Marine design when I started playing and when this model was sculpted and released. I just couldn't resist the throwback.

Beakies were 'ere.

Tamiya Color Olive Drab was sprayed on these guys and after a few days of curing it was time to do a bit more.

Primed in Olive Drab.

I painted the base using watered downed Folkart Asphaltum. And I used Caliban Green for the skin basecoat. The flesh steps are pretty much going to follow the steps shown in Blood Axe Boyz Part-2. 

Basecoats in the early stages.

And here they after they had the Goblin Green layer and Tesseract Glow wash. As you can see they are matched fairly close to the first five boys. This is great considering the wash used over the Goblin Green on those first five models was done using a mixture of yellow and green ink while these five were washed with Tesseract Glow. Both of them look like Anti-freeze before application and gave me the same, or very similar, results in the end.

Reunited (sung in the key of waaagh!)

Ok, that's it for now. I am trying to decide if I shall dabble more on these guys or those Imperial Guardsmen and/or Ratlings? My choices sometimes overwhelm me... sigh.