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..

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...

Ruglud's Armoured Orcs: Orctober

Another month another challenge. This month being Orctober means I get to revisit my collection of 3rd Edition Citadel Orcs and usually I choose a few nice ones, perhaps from my Goblinoids Combat Card project to ensure that I am get to complete a task I set myself for the month.

This time around I've decided to go big on numbers and actually try and complete a larger task, which in this case is Rugluds Armoured orcs. It may well fall flat when I get mired in painting too many of the same miniature, but I can have a go.

Here they are: 

Pretty much ready to paint. Tonight I will do some basic greenstuff sculpts on their shields and prime them over the weekend so I can start batch painting. I'm probably looking at working in groups of 4 or 5 initially as I have 20 of the bastards to paint.

Wish me luck in keeping my motivation!

They really are a cool unit though, I own the box too and love reading the background information on them:

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.

In it to win it

Every now and then I enter some of the many online competitions, mostly so that I have an extra incentive to get something painted from my to do list. I never buy something specifically for a competition, but if I’ve got a suitable model ready to paint then I’ll have a go.

 It just so happens that here was an Orktober competition on the Facebook group: The Emporium of Rogue Dreams: Old School Gaming (go search it out!) for which I entered an old Bob Olley Madboy that I had picked up in a job lot in a charity shop. Amazingly (against some lovely models) I won! I'm incredibly chuffed that my paint job was chosen even as a contender, although I'm pretty sure that the choice of model and it's great pose helped me through.

A month later and the annual Deadcember competition came along and I pulled out my plague cart that I've wanted to paint for an age for my Lost and Damned army list. I painted that up with a ghostly theme in mind, using some cotton wool as mist. Incredibly it came in second place on Rab’s amazing blog space, as voted by him, so many thanks Rab! The guys at Ral Partha Europe were also generous enough to provide some prizes so I was more than happy to receive the following from them the other day:

Many thanks!

And below are my winning entries, just to refresh your memories:

All of this reinforces my belief that we’re lucky to be part of such a generous and committed group of hobbyists. Thanks to all for organising, voting and providing; much appreciated. Now I just need some incentive to get my Chaos Dwarves painted; anyone know of a competition??!

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: