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.

Quick Orcy Shields

As I continue the grind of painting 21 Rugluds Armoured Orcs, I'll introduce a few of the processes of me getting through the task where I have tried to combine speed with some quality. Always the toughest of compromises. This first tutorial here involves me creating new shield designs for the boyz, using old Citadel shield shapes, some greenstuff, modelling tools, beads, small silicon balls and some bits box bits.

Here's some examples of the finished sculpting and below there's a step by step which hopefully conveys the speed and ease of making these (two minutes!). I also have my first foray into videoing myself at work (actually filmed by my seven year old son) but I cannot work out how to shrink the file and upload it on Blogger.

Here are the tools needed, a collection of beads and small balls are pretty useful:

A blob of greenstuff to get us going:

Start spreading it around to the extremes of the shield shape. You may even start seeing a face at this stage (Pareidolia)

I always start creating a crater for the eyes (or eye):

Which is then quickly filled with small beads (different sized beads work quite well for added Orciness)

Gently push some greenstuff down over the top of the bead to create an eyelid. This also helps form the expression, a more diagonal line can create angry, raised = surprised, lowered = sad etc:

A few wrinkles on the forehead to exaggerate the expression:

And some wrinkles below and to the side of the eye:

It follows to add the nose beneath the eyes. Quite simply push your sculpting tool up into the greenstuff twice to create nostrils and the thickness of the greenstuff will make a more pronounced nose shape too:

Carve open a mouth and wiggle your tool up and down a bit to make lips. Sometimes I drag a small bit of greenstuff vertically to make teeth. Create a slight indent for the snot channel between nose and mouth:

And finish by re-forming the cheeks (plumping them up slightly):

If the video was here you would see that that took exactly 2.01minutes to make. Unfortunately a bit longer to paint though... The next post will show that painting in progress.

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.