A Slight Spanner in the Works

Hi!

Well I'm back from my holiday and have been trying to start up my Orky project but have hit a slight snag. I've rummaged out some of the new style GW plastic Orks to try out some painting tests but am not loving the miniatures at all.

Maybe I'm being ridiculous but I just can't warm to the style that GW have developed.

Blood Axe Kommando

A couple of years ago I painted up this Kommando which was great fun but the over muscled and mindlessly angry greenskin apes that are currently available just don't have that slightly comedic whimsy that the first and second edition sculpts had. 

Initially this seemed to be a major problem that would stump my hopes of an Orky force but I went back to the drawing board. Literally.

I decided to throw caution to the wind and sculpt my own gubbins! I've sculpted Orks in 15mm and SD scale before but wanted to go for something in between with a rather cartoony style but a bit chunkier than my previous efforts.

I'm quite pleased with the results and have just about finished my test sculpt which I am going to have a bash at casting in resin so I can actually put a decent sized force together.

 Goff Nobz, Painboy and Mekaniak 

I must admit that it's been really great fun to get back into drawing and sculpting and not to stress about work or indeed disliking someone else's sculpting style when it comes to painting the final figure and it's proving to be a very successful way of dealing with the stresses of the dreaded Real Life too!

 Ork Nobz and Mega Armour 

I'm hoping to have some progress to show on the sculpting front in the coming week but the temptation to start playing around with concepts has been rather strong so I suspect I may get slightly distracted by developing concepts for my own take on some of the other forces...

Marine Captain and Dreadnaught

With a bit of work, the Ork concept piece will be finished by the weekend and I'll try and get some pics taken then but in the meantime, All the best!

WAARGH! The Orks!

Hi!

Well I've settled on the Orks as my target for a bit of classic 2nd edition 40k goodness.

I'm planning on going for the classic 2nd edition Ork look, all bright colours and back banners and will by taking my inspiration from some of the images I've culled from various White Dwarf and Codexes:

 The Mighty Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka and Makari, his faithful grot banner bearer

Sadly getting the bits and bobs for the classic range is getting a bit pricy so I will be using plastic proxies in the form of the newer GW plastic range. Yes it lacks some of the goofy charm of the older stuff but I plan on giving it a bash anyway!

I figure with a suitably bright paint job and little bit of conversion, not to mention the ubiquitous back banners, I should be onto a winner!

Sadly Ebay is proving to be pretty useless for getting hold of bargain basement priced plastic gubbins at the moment so I will be keeping my eye out and building a force a little at a time. The plan is to start with 100-150 points of Orks to form the core of my force and slowly build it up.

I plan on spending as little as possible to collect my force and if I can introduce one or two older sculpts, all the better but it will have to fit in with my meagre funds so we shall see what we can find!

I've settled on the Orks as they are one of the iconic forces from 40k and I have always liked their rather anarchic style and Ghazghkull is one of the most memorable characters from the game so I do want to represent a small warband and slowly build it up to a somewhat mighty WAARGH! 

It's been interesting to peruse some of these old pictures as the Grim Dark future of the 40th millennium looks surprisingly green and rather rich in vegetation so I figure I should probably go the whole hog and see if I can't replicate it somewhat in my own small way.

But where to start? I've already mentioned that I will try and build up the force 100-150 points at a time and I think I'll be starting with one of Ghazghull's underlings so I will be aiming to get a nob and a mob of Goff boyz to pillage, loot and generally shoot stuff up!

I'm actually away on my hols next week but whilst I'm out and about, I'll be heading into any gaming shops I can find to see if I can find some bargains to get my project up and running!

I must admit that I am quite excited to get a start on the project and hope to get some bits and bobs sorted out over the coming week or two and we shall see what I can put together...

In the meantime, All the best!

Oh The Perils of Real Life!

Hi!

Well just when things seemed to be going so well, the intrusion of Real Life has reared its dreaded and most unwelcome head.

I've had some stuff going on over the last month that has really blown my hobby mojo and soured all attempts at doing anything hobby related which has been a real downer, not to mention kick in the teeth.

Instead of wailing, gnashing my teeth and beating my chest in dismay, I have decided to go a bit old school and go back to something that will remind me of everything that I used to love in wargaming in the first place. With that in mind, I've decided to shelf my mythological project and gun for something a bit more fun.

Warhammer 40,000 2nd Edition

Yes! 2nd edition 40k was my first real entry into the wonderful world of wargaming and I want to relive some of that fun.

I could be all traditional and just limit myself to 2nd edition figures but I will be working to a budget for the foreseeable future so am going to set myself the challenge of collecting a 500 point force using whatever figures I can get hold of super cheap. I am yet to decide on what force I want to go for but I find myself rather excited by the prospect of just collecting and painting some miniatures.

With that in mind, I'm off to peruse my old codexes and loose myself in some classic 90s goodies!

Hopefully I'll have some sort of update in the next week or so!