GW Bad Moons Ork Nob

 Apparently I've never posted this figure directly on my blog. It's one that I'm actually very proud of, despite the fact that it's not necessarily painted to a display standard and I didn't go all-out with him in terms of difficulty of paint job or anything. This was one of the "free figures" that came with an issue of Games Workshop's White Dwarf magazine way back when as a promotion for an upcoming rulebook/figure combo boxed set - Orks versus Space Marines coupled with an intro to the Warhammer 40K 5th Ed. rules. I traded away all the Space Marines in return for a boatload of Orks - my plan is/was to have an Orky mob that was a throwback to Ork-related books and art that GW put out towards the end of the "Rogue Trader" era - several collections of Ork backstory, with awesome art by, well, just about all of the cool GW artists at the time.

 Anyhow, this Ork Nob figure was painted as a test to see if I could do homage to the "bright 'n' blingy" bright yellow armor and clothing of the Bad Moons Ork clan back in the day while: 1) making it grungy and rough looking, and 2) making it easy to paint and replicable across a whole Ork mob for the purposes of cranking a playable tabletop 40K Ork army out.

 I succeeded with my two aims for this figure... it was painted almost completely with washes of thinned paint over white primer. I started with the lightest color, and painted progressively darker wash layers into the shadows and then towards the deepest shaded crevices. I finished off with a layer of "grime" as a wash over the armor and clothing. The metals were painted with a solid basecoat of mixed metallic paint and dark regular paint, and then just bumped up a bit with a minimum of highlights. I tried some new materials (for me) for basing, essentially some innards from a cheap wind-up alarm clock, and cork - the base was painted with basecoats and washes as well, topped off with a few highlights.

 I think the figure turned out excellently for what it was intended to be - a test piece for an easy color scheme to use on cranking out a tabletop army. Unfortunately, when the time came to paint some more friends, I made decent progress on a batch of 5 with the same scheme... and then got sidetracked by some other "new and shiny" release. Ah well.

 You can vote for him here on CoolMiniOrNot!

Letters From Readers!

  I received emails from two readers recently (I'm pleased people still visit the site, given my lack of time to post anything at all in almost a year - thanks!) - I'm going to address those on the blog as opposed to individual responses back via email, since I think other people might get something out of it, too!

Michel M. writes:

I really like your painting and I was wondering what colours did you use for the night goblin on this page: http://home.wowway.com/~tinweasel/gw_cleaved_gobbo.html
In particular i'm looking for the olive green colour. What brand/colour is it ?

Thanks,
Michel Melis

  Well, as requested, here's a more-or-less accurate summary of the colors and steps I used in painting that Games Workshop Night Goblin's skin tones:

• Basecoat 1:1 GW Catachan Green / GW Camo Green
• Layer on 1:3 Catachan Green / Camo Green with mixture at 1:4 paint/thinner consistency
• Highlight with 1:1 GW Bleached Bone / Camo Green with mixture at 1:4 paint/thinner consistency
• Upper-facing highlights of 3:1 Bleached Bone / Camo Green with mixture at 1:4 paint/thinner consistency
• Add minimal spot highlighting of 1:4 Bleached Bone / thinner 

Michael S. writes:

I just thought you should add a note to your rust tutorial stating that the bleach and vinegar solution from your rust tutorial creates chlorine gas, which is dangerous and possibly even deadly if inhaled. I tried your rust tutorial and I hope it works. I've always wanted real rust.

Sincerely,
Michael Smith

  I'd say that's definitely worth emphasizing - when I made the rust mixture originally, per my posted tutorial, I let the ingredients sit down in the basement by themselves for several days. There was noticeable bubbling, and I left the cap of the dropper bottle in which I mixed the materials open in order to vent. While I don't think it produces a significant amount of gas - only as a by-product in proportion to the amount of ingredients used in the Rust Mixture recipe - combining any chemicals or household materials should always be approached carefully and with every precaution possible!

  As an aside, though, I've still got that bottle of "Rust" in with the rest of my paints and I use it to add color and texture to items I want to look rusty. The original figure in the tutorial, a Privateer Press Cryx Deathripper, is still holding up fine with no degradation of appearance or other ill effects even after several years at this point. In applying the Rust Mixture to a figure, you likely will still want to add a little bit of highlighting and shading to any painted-on rust patches, otherwise it looks a little bit flat, but I essentially use it much like any of my other paints. (Coincidentally enough, I used the rust mixture on the metallic pieces on the base of the Ork Nob above as part of the weathering process - likewise still holding up after several years!)

EDIT: I've updated the original Rust Mixture tutorial page with a warning as well (and cleaned up the web code a bit, too!)

Getting back to business!

Note: this is not an apology, it is a combination public service announcement and self-motivational tool.

 Since our daughter started 1st Grade in the beginning of September, she has been sick several times and has shared that "wealth" with the rest of the family - I've no doubt we've had our own stuff and passed some on to her, but c'est la vie. Her 7-month-old brother has caught more or less everything that she has had. At one point in the past several months, the both of them had dual ear infections at the same time. My wife (in addition to being sick w/ colds and respiratory infections several times) found out that she had an abdominal hernia, likely dating back to when we had our son in February and due to a respiratory infection for several months around the time she delivered him by C-section, had complications due to her racking cough including tearing her incision - is it any wonder her abdominal muscles didn't quite heal properly (hence the hernia)? She had surgery about 2 1/2 weeks back now, is recovering nicely, and has all her innards stuffed back in their appropriate locations - morbid bastard that I am, I was having visions of Father Nurgle's Plaguebearers with intestines dangling out (thankfully didn't come true in her case) when describing her abdominal hernia to people.

 Myself, I've had several colds and respiratory infections along with everyone else - hey, why not - and am in the process of slowly getting over what feels like an ear infection on one side and has had most of the symptoms of an ear infection, but technically "isn't" at least according to two different ENT doctors. On the neat-o side of things, I got to have a CAT scan of my head to see what's going on internally - I've never had anything like that done before, barring an X-ray of a dislocated and broken "pinkie" toe a year or so ago, but that's not quite the same thing (and besides, I kinda figgered my toe was dislocated and broken, having straightened it back in place from being bent sideways). I'm still waiting on the scan results from earlier this week, and aside from a treatable cause of my "unusual ear pain," I'm hoping they also show the hamster inside my skull still hard at work busily spinning his wheel.


 All this is not really why I'm making an entry here - no, the reason I'm making an entry is to publicly advertise my intention (now that things have hopefully started settling down a bit life-wise) to get back on track with more regular updates and such here to make this painting/modeling site worth reading. To that end, here's a few works-in-progress that ideally will be showing here in future updates:

• The Thousand Sons Chaos Lord of Tzeentch I made an entry about several months ago is nearing completion of the conversion work, but the commissioning client seems to have vanished! Not naming names, he was working at the Games Workshop Hobby Center I generally go to, but is no longer there - I never received my usual down-payment of the final fee (never asked, in truth) because I was able to get ahold of him fairly easily to go over ideas and make sure we were on the same page so far as the conversion and painting work to be done. Well, I put work on the figure on hold and sent the client an email to find out his intentions - my only other means of contacting him. At this point there's been no response by the requested "deadline" per my email to the client and I have no other reasonable way of getting ahold of him (I think hiring a private investigator would be a bit much ). All he's out financially is the base figure and a few conversion pieces, whereas I've sunk enough time and effort into this figure at this point that I'm going to finish this Thousand Sons Chaos Lord how I envisioned him - and then ideally he will be going up for sale or possible eBay auction.
• The Forge World Renegade Psyker I have prepped, re-based and primed will finally be getting painted - ideally in a "test" color scheme for a Renegades and Heretics force allied with my Chaos Warband (The Disciples of the Four). I don't believe I've actually mentioned this yet, but the sole reason for my "going over to the side of Chaos" was Dan Abnett's descriptions of The Shriven - an army composed of workers and military support personnel of a Forge World "gone bad" - in his Gaunt's Ghosts series novel, "First and Only."
  
   I picked up the first Gaunt's Ghosts Omnibus in 2007 at the Black Library section at my first-ever Games Workshop Games Day while I stood in line to talk to Mr. Abnett, who was the guest author in Chicago that year. I'll repeat here more or less what I told him when I finally got up to the front of the line where he was chatting and signing: "I'm not going to say I'm your biggest fan, because it would be a bold-faced lie. I grabbed this book more for something to read through while I waited in line to talk to you and I've never read anything else you've written before. l will say this, though: in just going through the first few chapters here, I have to say you've got a hell of a great writing style and I've found myself completely drawn in and wanting to read more. Your descriptions are excellent and I can picture everything in my head, and the characterization and dialogue are very well-written. I'm really looking forwards to reading more by you." Well, ten or so of Dan's books on my bookshelf in and a metric crap-ton of unassembled GW Chaos miniatures in the basement later, and the sentiment still stands. I started working on a force of The Shriven shortly after getting back from Games Day, had a slight change of direction following the release of the Chaos Space Marines Codex and the "fading out" of support for The Lost and the Damned, and then got completely sidetracked with other "new and shiny" stuff since then.
  
   Things have come full circle - the three Siege of Vraks books from Forge World have re-ignited my motivation to have a combined Renegade and Chaos Marine force, and all the ideas kicking around since July of '07 are gnawing their way out of my head in new and more simplified ways. Oh, and if anyone happens to talk to Mr. Abnett - myself and a few unwholesome-looking individuals in body armor with green rubberized industrial protective equipment sewn into their flesh would like to have a word with him and bandy some ideas about.
• Progress on a 500+ point force of Bad Moons Orks in a "speed painted" scheme, ideally with a step-by-step painting piece or two. I blame the Assault on Black Reach set and some generous bitz-donating souls for these guys.
• Progress on a 500+ point force of converted Necrons tainted by millenia of slumber on a Tomb World in the general vicinity near where the Eye of Terror eventually opened up. They've spent their thousands upon thousands of years of dormancy basking in ambient output from one of the largest breaches by The Warp into real space. As a result, while they aren't servants of Chaos since they essentially have no mortal souls to be corrupted, their physical forms for the most part just "aren't quite right" due to the transmuting effects of Warp energy on material objects.
  
   After a "failed first attempt" at painting a Tau army to tabletop standards (I only ever finished a squad's worth - but they did get published on the Games Workshop US website as Honorable Mentions from the 2007 Chicago Golden Demons, so that's consolation) and abandonment of a plain ol' Ultramarines starter force from the Battle for Macragge set (blame Dan Abnett, as mentioned above), I set my sights on painting up some Necrons just for the sake of playing the game (hey, Necrons are easy to paint, right?) I even took shortcuts to speed things along (using spray paint as a base coat color, washes for shading, and simple edge highlights), but then my imagination kicked in after the first 3-4 Warriors and they started not to look so... regimented any more.
• A number of single-figure display-quality figures that right now are sitting lonely in boxes and blister packs near my painting desk in our basement.
• Heck, maybe even some of the several hundred old school Grenadier and Ral Partha figures that have been stowed away in drawers and boxes since I took a break from (or got sidetracked from) miniature painting when I first went away to college almost 17 years ago now.

So far as tentative planning goes, I'd say that's a fairly healthy list thus far. What do you guys think?

Hobby Tip - Basing

I like 'em cheap and easy! ... Figure bases, that is.

 Today's Hobby Tip focuses on basing. Whether it be for rank and file army models or for competition entries, such as Games Workshop's Golden Demons, the base is an integral part of the overall "atmosphere" of the figure; that said, despite being fairly important compositionally, that does not mean you need to spend large amounts of money to get reasonable-looking basing. Since getting into miniature painting again several years back, I suppose I've generally been of the opinion that unless I necessarily need to go out of my way for some fancy name-brand product or expensive, spectacular method that I absolutely have to use in order to get a certain appearance or end result, by and large I prefer to do it with cheap and readily-accessible "substitutes." Tools are one thing I don't skimp on: Kolinsky Red Sable paintbrushes, assorted stainless steel needle files in a number of shapes, assorted angles of side- and end-cutters (with some specifically set aside for rough work like sprue- and wire-clipping, and some for fine conversion), a variable-speed Dremel with a ton of attachments and bits, general workshop tools (band saw, router, jigsaw, scroll saw, pyrogravure, etc.), an overhead adjustable daylight painting lamp - I'm sure you get the picture.


 I've pretty much used the same materials for basing since starting back in the hobby, and you can see them laid out in the background of the picture above: (from left to right) "ant dirt" and small rocks taken from outdoors, clean non-clumping clay kitty litter, wood glue (aka PVA glue), cornmeal, and bits of extruded polystyrene insulation foam left over from other projects. In the foreground, you can see an assortment of bases themselves - they all use the same materials, with the addition of a few "found objects" in the case of the Ork Nob's base, some shaped lengths of sprue and clipped paperclip segments on the Genestealer Patriarch base, tinted Future Floor Finish and clippings from a $0.99 wall edging brush on the base of the Privateer Press Deathripper, and on the bases of the Necron constructs, um... I guess the only inexpensive oddity there would be the 0.3mm music wire holding up the Scarabs (I've never liked clear plastic flying bases or the built-in risers for Scarabs, so I made my own variable-height ones).

 For clarification's sake, what I call "ant dirt" is the ultra-fine to small-grade grit that the ants living between the blocks of my driveway were nice enough to gather, process, sort, and collect for me every summer. Aside from picking out the occasional tiny piece of grass or plant material as I use it (personal preference there, I suppose), it goes straight from a backyard ant mound to the container, and then right to figure bases with a bit of glue. I find it's excellent for anything where I need extra-fine grit or minor texturing (and have gone so far as to "paint it" using thinned wood glue straight onto basing or even models, especially if I want a rusty or muddy texture). The overall mixture from the tub is great for mixing amongst larger pieces rubble or scree in order to fill in gaps, or even just applied to a base as-is to simulate uneven rocky/sandy ground cover.

 The cornmeal is pretty straightforwards: it comes in a large can from the grocery store, is pretty much a uniform grain size (slightly larger than the finer ant dirt), is already dried out so I needn't worry about mold growth, and is somewhat moisture absorbent so it dries nice and compactly on a base when spread over already-applied thinned wood glue. It also clumps naturally when wet, and so is good for effects like "built up" texture for footprints or wind-blown debris (basically, when mixed with a little thinned wood glue to thicken it up, I can apply it like a "paste" and push it around with an old brush. I use corn meal on the majority of my basing, by and large, just because it's so versatile; generally I apply it straight on with thinned wood glue.

 The clay kitty litter is good because it comes in a variety of "natural" fine-scale rock shapes, can easily be broken into smaller particles or filed down to weird angles for effect, and is probably the cheapest material in bulk out of the lot. Even a small bag of cat litter should last ages and ages. It makes for great fine-scale rubble, miscellaneous debris, rock piles, and even broken concrete depending on the shape and size of the pieces used.

 The wood glue in the picture has lasted me quite a while (yeah, it's Elmer's) and is slightly more durable, in my opinion, than regular household white PVA craft glue (probably Elmer's also) and a helluva lot cheaper than the repackaged stuff some companies sell at a profit for modeling (again, probably Elmer's as well). It comes in much larger containers than white PVA glue and (don't quote me) is cheaper because it isn't bleached/doesn't have the whitening agents added to household glue in order to make it "pretty." It dries clear and rock hard, and doesn't leave any more of a "footprint" than CA glue, even.

 Extruded polystyrene insulation foam (pink foam, blue foam, EPS foam) is fairly easy to come by in most areas that have warmer temperatures. You can buy it in bulk in large sheets from home improvement/DIY stores (mine was originally 4' by 8' but got broke in half over my knee when it became belligerent about fitting into the hatchback) and is more or less equal in hardness and consistency, regardless of color. (Pink = Home Depot, Blue = Lowe's Home Improvement, and a large 1" thick sheet that's cheap per square foot and can be squirreled away in the garage rafters until needing to get a chunk cut off for a project = pure win!) Yeah, you could go even cheaper and use the white polystyrene that comes boxed with new "toys" as a "shock absorber," but that stuff is a rougher texture, has a larger "grain," and just isn't as convenient to store as a large flat sheet. (Remember I said I generally go cheaper when possible but buy "quality" when I need to - this is one of those instances.) So far as uses: the small off cut chunks like what you see here make great rocky debris, especially with a little texture added. They're also good for use underneath other basing material, such as the "mound" on the base of the Genestealer Patriarch from my picture.

A few asides:
 I've personally never used static grass on any of my based miniatures (although I bought a small tub of it some months back when I finally found a brand and shade that didn't have any extra odd colors mixed throughout), but I think I still manage to get a reasonable variety of base appearances - that's why it's not on my short list here.

 So far as display/competition pieces go, I've generally used the same style and materials in basing those as I do for "less fancy" figures. I still like to make a good presentation and get across a certain "atmosphere," though, so by and large I've made small-scale "dioramas" with insets to match the basing of most of the models I've entered in painting competitions. My Golden Demon entry at the Games Workshop 2007 Chicago Games Day for example, Gandalf at the Bridge of Khazad-Dûm, was converted and reposed in attempted replica of the "challenging the Balrog" scene from "The Fellowship of the Ring" movie, with the figure atop a 15" long span made from pink insulation foam, Spackle, fine grit, and a reinforcing wood dowel.

 I'm sure I'll probably make a fancy multilevel display base at some point - I just haven't yet. The "fanciest" I've gotten so far has been a round 1 1/2" tall resin display plinth with a piece of trimmed-to-shape metal air duct sheeting flush with the top. It had the edges deburred and rounded down with a bastard file (I love that name!) so it can be used - even held upside down - with any of my figures where I've epoxy glued rare earth magnets underneath (so far pretty much all of them).


 Hopefully I've gotten across the idea that if you are so inclined you can have basing for your figures that looks good with a little creative use of inexpensive and readily-available materials. I'd appreciate any feedback or other comments on figure basing that people care to throw my way - what do the rest of you use?