Orctober 2020

 This month I've been busy painting a selection of Greenskins from my collection of Orcs and Goblins. I've chosen to work on the models that relate to the Citadel Combat Card system to try and work towards completing one of my many ongoing projects! So here they are together as a group, my Orctober offering:

I've stuck with my normal greenskin recipe, a brown wash over white primer and then a build up of layers from baneblade brown highlighted up with increasing amounts of pallid Wych flesh to the brown. A final glaze of dilute waywatcher green and then the facial extremities and knuckles have a glaze of Kislev flesh to add some warmth.

This one had a few arrows added, simply paperclips through a hole in the shield and then some plastic arrow feathers on the back end. 

You can see here that my versions are just a pastiche of the originals. I wanted to add some checkers to his hood, but not the entire hood! Also I've generally gone for more drab colours than the quite gaudy originals.  

Here you can see that I've made my own shields, sculpted with greenstuff and again loosely based on the original designs.

Never quite work out why they flipped this image! 

This one was a conversion, I didn't have the right head but found a close approximation. I don't quite have the right body or sword either!

And the boss of the warband to finish with. Hopefully next year's Orctober will see me complete the set..

Goblinoid Citadel Combat Cards

On the back of completing my unit of Ruglud's Orcs, I realised that I have painted two more greenskins in my attempt to recreate the cards from the Citadel Goblinoid Combat Card collection.

I'm making them by hand, which means they are far from perfect, but they use photos of my own miniatures and when the deck is complete I plan to play with them with my kids. Hopefully they will still be kids by that time.

Ruglud's Armoured Orcs

Just in time for the end of Orctober, here is my regiment of 21 Ruglud's Armoured Orcs:

Here's the command group, the banner is taken from a Fighting Fantasy illustration in the Masks of Mayhem:

And the two main characters, both of whom appear in the Gonlinoid Combat Card deck, of which I'm working my way through slowly..:

Phew, that was a bit of a struggle, painting an entire unit in a month. Thankfully my colour choices and painting processes kept it quite quick and simple, it was the basing that was a pain in the arse. Now onto something different...

Goblinoid Combat Cards: Ulg Bonechewer

Ulg Bonechewer; not quite an Orc for the end of Orctober, but a Goblinoid none-the-less. 

He really will need all that WS 9 to be able to wield that massive flail

As I work my way through recreating the Goblinoid Combat Cards, I decided it was time to do a little converting (it's been a while) and so I hunted down a Grom's Bodyguard Goblin (which seems to have been the base model for the original conversion) and with the addition of a few plastic bits and some greenstuff I put together this fella.

He seems suitably armoured for a Goblin Chieftan and more importantly has that wicked, sneering grin that I associate with the early Goblin sculpts. I used my normal Goblinoid skin recipe, even though I was very tempted to go Goblin Green for the shield head as a throwback to the original model and rushed through a pretty swift paint job. Done! Enjoy!

Orctober - Giant Orc Chief and Bodyguard

A 1986 Citadel Flyer introduces a Giant Orc Chief and his Bodyguard (LE11) to the public and some 32 years later I’ve got to put some paint on them. I never owned this pair back in the 80’s and only purchased these in my attempt to collect all the miniatures from the Citadel Goblinoid Combat Card range. I didn’t love them before I painted them, but you kinda get intimate with the lead when handling it delicately for a few hours as you turn the plain metal cast into a character. And I’ve now fallen for the couple.

I often think about the sculptors intentions when they made these models, as I paint. Was he given a brief to make these two characters, was there a bigger picture (perhaps some scenario to play them with) or were they purely two orcs sculpted and subsequently put together and the theme added later? I always assumed that the horned character is the Orc chief, but he’s hardly giant or imposing enough to be a chief. The supposed bodyguard is just the same size and has a much sterner facial appearance, perhaps there’s been a switch of role here; the chief in disguise? In fact why would such a renowned giant Orc chief even need a bodyguard? Is he worried about an attempt on his life? Does he have lots of enemies within his war host? I can imagine this being the case, just think of all those dastardly orcs (and goblins) sneakily plotting to remove him from the head of the horde. All of this conjecture of course adds to his character and has me yearning to invent some narrative game where the Chief and his bodyguard have to survive the assassination attempts of a variety of foes. Could be an idea for a future BOYL game...

Anyway; to add to the character of these orcs,  I decided to use the influence of Fraser Grey’s style on my shield designs; those puffy, rounded and sleepy faces protruding from the shields have always seemed  apt for these orcs and Grey’s style left a lasting impression on me from seeing his work in early White Dwarfs.

Goblinoid Combat Card: Rungit Spleenchewer

Following on from my 40k Ork, here's my last involvement for this year's Orctober, another fantasy orc Combat Card for my collection:

Paint the model in my own scheme (based loosely on the original). 

Take a photo of it.

Resize the photo, cut it out to fit the shape (using scissors)

Glue it onto the colour photocopied template.

Fill in the name and stats with felt-tip / paint.

Here’s a few more shots of Rungit himself, with his lovely old-school shield that came with the model.:

And the original card next to my hand crafted version: