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.

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 Cards - sculpting shields

As I toil away on a few other, quite large projects, I decided this weekend to have a break from painting and break out the greenstuff. I wanted to make the shields on my recreations of the Goblinoid combat cards, in relief, as I've always admired the shields of Kev Adams and Fraser Grey who did this originally. It's a chance to test my sculpting skills and to add my own twist to the iconic Goblinoids rather than a direct copy of the originals, which is what Jeff is doing in his same project (he started way before me though). The skin colour, when I come to paint these, will also be in my own style rather than the lurid greens on display on the cards.

When sculpting, I used very small blobs of greenstuff in the way that I watched Kev Adams work last summer. Building up in small increments from lowest areas to most raised seemed to make sense. Using some small sculpting tools I was able to shape the forms of the face before adding a last layer of detail when all the base work was complete and solid.

So first up, with an actual bead for a beady eye; a jolly shield, winking at us:

Followed by a backhanding, horned skull:

(Halfway through sculpting this, I realised that the horned skeleton was posed giving a backhand slap - needless to say it was way too difficult to sculpt this!)


And then the epitome of angry and evil:

And finally a burning skull:

This was a fun few hours/afternoon's worth of work and working on such a small scale has given me some added confidence going forward with my sculpting. The next shields I'll sculpt will be more in the Fraser Grey style, much more rounded, smooth and exaggerated features...

Orctober 2015. Finished Orc Warband.

The finished Orc Warband of the Orange Sun:

JugNugg Igg - Orc Shaman - Level 10 (Magic Teef)

Harnack - Underling Level 5 Orc (The Beserker)

Durz and his boyz - Orc Champion leading 7 Orcs

This warband was rolled up using Erny's Warband generator.

I've chosen some classic Orcs from my leadpile to create this warband. The only conversion is the banner as the original was tiny and I wanted to have a go at a big freehand design.

The first five I completed (I like Orcs in 5's and the symmetry of the leader in the middle and flanked by musician and standard bearer. I also decided to raise Durz on some rocks to make him look even meaner and bigger..

 I've also repeated the standard's motif on his breastplate with added black and white checks in the style of John Blanche

JuggNugg Igg and his bodyguard. The shaman is one of my favourites (I think because the model was used as the basis for the illustration of the Mercanary Shaman in Warhammer Armies) and I have also raised him up on some rocks. I believe he was originally supposed to be mounted on a boar, but I like his dancing pose here.


The Beserker just looks mental and is such a dynamic pose.


The other two orcs are slightly different looking to the other sculpts, with their elongated faces and narrow eyes. To me they look like distinct siblings so act well as a bodyguard for the slightly mad shaman.

I really wanted to go to town on a freehand banner. With previous Orc armies I eschewed the idea of a design ("how are those orcs ever going to get a beautiful banner design on a piece of cloth?") for more totemic versions. But here I've gone oldschool, being particularly influenced by John Blanche's .......... from p. of the WFB 3rd edition rulebook.

I also enjoyed doing a few freehand shields in the classic GW style with grotesque faces, this one's lifted from an illustration in Warhammer 3rd Edition Armies book:

Many thanks for looking and I hope you enjoy my contribution to Orctober 2015. Right, let's paint some Red Redemption cultists next, actually, no I'd better finish that minotaur and greenstuff my bitzbox warband...

A Plague Marine (on a square base)

I'm slowly being seduced by Rogue Trader and 40k, having been a fantasy lad ever since I first walked into GW York on a school trip in the 80's. But I can't quite go all round based yet, so I kept with the square 25mm base and even added a shield to keep the fantasy vibe on the model. Of course the Lost and the Damned blends Fantasy and 40k somewhat with the options of technological weapons etc, so for now I'm comfortable in this Plague Marine posing as a Chaos Warrior of Nurgle with a bolter and shield:

So this model was also painted for a painting challenge over at The Warhammer Forum entitled "Dirty and Grimy" and I was the joint winner, woop! Very happy.

The difficulty with the painting for me was to choose a good base colour to show up the dirt and grime that I wanted to add on top, hence the off-white armour. To add some contrast I decided to go for bright pink hands to give a focus and likewise with the choice of the strong blue coloured goggles. 

To create the dirt/grime aspect I applied a range of very thin and pale washes over the fully highlighted armour. This also included small splatters of ink in localised areas. I carefully applied dry red oxide pigment to the areas of rust using a very small detail brush - the trick is to make the dirt/grime look real and not make the model too messy.

The image on the shield is a direct copy of an illustration from a Fighting Fantasy book (can't recall now which one) and I deliberately chose some bright colours again to make it stand out.

The only thing I would have changed in hindsight are all the cables exiting from his chest (which I painted to look like intestines) which I think would have looked better with a greater contrast to the model's armour colour.

Overall I'm really happy with how the Plague Marine turned out and it's given me a few ideas for some round based, Rogue Trader fun....

Retinue Table: D6 Orcs (and the end of Orctober for me)

I finally managed to get the final 3 orcs painted, just about in time for the month end of Orctober, and to complete the D6 Orcs entry on the Lost and the Damned retinue table.

For these 3 I wanted to create some old school shields with a bit of greenstuff, some beads and seeds for eyes and warts - and I ended up with these 3 shields (strongly based on Kev Adam's and Fraser Gray's designs from the 80's):

And here are the three of them with a finished paint job:

I've stuck with my usual paint scheme for the skin (graveyard earth, brown wash, graveyard earth plus increasing amounts of rotting flesh to highlight, then a fine glaze with green ink) but tried to use a bright range of colours for their outfits rather than getting bored with different brown and leather tones.

 For the rust I've been experimenting with a boltgun metal basecoat some highlights with chainmail and then a chestnut / brown ink wash. The rust is a dry oxide pigment with a touch of matt medium to keep it together, just dabbed onto the metal.

And here are the final 6, led by Spike the Feared:

What I would like to do next with my Greenskins is to make a Warband, using Erny's excellent Orc Warband generator (http://ernysplace.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/warlor-battle-in-badlands-guidelines.html) and eventually make an Allied Force to accompany my growing Nurgle Army.... One day, one day......