Tag Archives: Conversion

Salute 2019, paint brushes & Doc ‘Bits’ Spleenripper!

08 Monday Apr 2019

Posted by in Mag Bellum, OldHammer, Scuplting, Wolf Time

≈ 19 Comments

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Greetings Terrans, how goes it? It has been a bonkers weekend for me, and this is a pretty eclectic post as a result. First up, I had the privilege of attending Salute this weekend – as a trader! I was helping out my pal Mark (Heresyofus) on his Mag Bellum stand, along with Ed (aka E.J. Henries of Malific Design). It was a real eye-opener being on the other side of the table, and was brutal on the voice, (I completely lost mine), but wow, what an experience! We didn’t sell much, but we got a whole lot of positive feedback on the Mag Bellum system, and on the prototypes for the next phase of the product. We also learned a hell of a lot about running a stand in the process, and we will certainly be better prepared next time! It was also great to spend some time with Mark and Ed – great company & we had a proper good laugh, (Ed faking an orgasm was a thing of absolute beauty). Here they are, looking tense (Ed?) prior to the punters coming in:

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The rest of the show mostly passed me by to be honest, but I did get to say hi to a few pals from the OldHammer scene, (Geoff, Paul, James, the Wargames Foundry team), and I got to say a quick hello to Annie from Bad Squiddo too. Dave ‘The Imperfect Modeller’ kindly stopped by to say hi – lovely bloke, great to meet him & put a face to a name! He had some of his minis with him too, so I had the bonus pleasure of seeing some of his work in RL – (the photos on his blog really don’t do him or his minis justice at all!)

I also had the chance to have a brief natter with John Blanche, (gasp!). I’ve met John before, but only very briefly, and I was a bit too star-struck to say much on that occasion! It was great to have more interaction with him this time, and I’m looking forward to hopefully seeing him at BOYL later this year. I also met & had a really good chat with GW designer Maxime Corbeil – wow, what a lovely guy! His enthusiasm for his work is just brilliant to see, and he’s such a cool dude to chat with.

On a personal level, the highlight was probably bumping in to Kev Adams. We had a good talk about sculpting, and I got to show him some pics of my attempts at Ork power armour –  I was quite nervous, but he was so kind and positive! He gave me loads of encouragement & some top tips on how to do a better job of edging and detail, so it was brilliant to meet him again & so decent of him to take the time to give feedback and advice. He really is a top bloke.

It was also my Birthday over the weekend, so my only purchase at Salute was a slightly indulgent paint brush set from Artis Opus – I used some B’day money I received from my folks, so thanks M&D!!:

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I had a quick spin with them last night, and they are bloody lovely to use… Not revolutionary, but they are certainly nicer in the hand & more accurate than the brushes I am used to. I also saw a demo of their new KickStarter Drybrush set, and I had to completely revise my view on what you can do with a drybrush… I saw a piece in hand that was so subtle that it almost looked like airbrushing. Seriously guys, go check Artis Opus ‘D’ series on KS – it’ll blow your socks off! Needless to say, I’ve now backed that project for an early Christmas pressie to myself ;-)

Speaking of painting, I did manage to finish one of the characters for the final scenario of Wolf Time in amongst all the chaos! Doc ‘Bits’ Spleenripper is the first out of the blocks – he’s basically a proto-painboy. From the Book of the Astronomican:

“Doc is fond of ‘experimental surgery’, as many of his patients have discovered. It was whilst cleaning his chainsword that he lost his right arm, and whilst many surgeons would have taken this badly, ‘Bits’ merely saw it as an opportunity for further experimentation. His arm is a marvel of Ork bio-engineering ‘know what’. It doesn’t work all that well but… by grumblat! …it’s impressive.

Doc’s arm is bionic and includes all the gadgets listed below. To represent the fact that this piece of technology is rather haphazard, roll 1D6 immediately before any phase of hand-to-hand combat:

1 – the arm goes wild, attacking any randomly selected model within 1” (including Doc Spleenripper himself)

2 – the arm simply fails to work for that combat phase

3-6 – the arm works normally

Doc Spleenripper is armed and equipped as follows:

Flak armour, Mesh armour, Bolt pistol

Plus

Bionic arm: Chainsword; Power-glove; 4 Jokaero digital lasers.”

So quite a specific and tricky modelling challenge! I started with an ‘Ere we Go era Painboy, (the one with the surgeons mirror to match the artwork from the book), and I looked around for a suitable bionic arm to graft on, but I really couldn’t find one that worked for me so I ended up having a go at sculpting one over a wire frame. I wanted it to look like it would work as a hand/power-glove, yet have a chainsword that could be extended out as required. I also tried to suggest some digi-lasers on the knuckles as well – not the easiest of things to represent! While I had the putty out, I just did the left arm as best I could, and sculpted on one of my ‘standard’ bolt pistols:

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Paint-wise, I kept to a blue theme for his scrubs – for reasons that will become apparent in the near-future. I also deliberately added less rust & gunk compared to the Ork Guards, but I did slap some ‘Blood for the Blood God’ around to really push the crazy surgeon vibe. Finally, I added a suitably ‘Painboy-esque’ glyph to the back plate – back plates & glyphs aren’t strictly a Rogue Trader thing & came a bit later, but I thought it a nice nod to the Doc being the first example of what has since become a standard part of Orky law.

I’m really happy with how the Doc came out – there are probably a few things I’d do differently if I were to do him again, but he certainly fits the brief admirably I think. I’ll be continuing to finish the remaining characters this week – they are all basecoated & shaded, so it’s a quick evening on each to highlight, add detail etc. You can expect a series of smaller posts as the week progresses, and hopefully the Orks will be finished by the weekend!

Onwards and upwards :-)

Armoured Orks pt.2 and the Field Commanders

01 Monday Apr 2019

Posted by in OldHammer, Wolf Time

≈ 28 Comments

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Greetings Terrans, I hope this finds you well! I have more Wolf Time goodness to share today, and it’s a fairly long post, so grab a coffee & strap in!

First up I have more PA ork guards to show you – very similar to my last post, these guys all have the armour, (and in some cases arms), sculpted over an original metal Ork. You’ll probably notice that there are only eight in this group – don’t worry, I haven’t gone mad… these guys are posted singly on the top floor of Kulo’s Castle rather than formed up in squads on the lower level:

So far so good, right? However, only having eight of these guys was bothering me… There will be life, (and games), after Wolf Time, and not having full five-Ork squads is just irritating, so I decided to tackle two more PA Orks at the same time & paint them with future squad membership in mind. Looking back over the campaign, games 1, 2 & 3 all have a named Ork leader, and all of them are in Power Armour. Long story short, I picked the two that best fit in with the PA ork guards and painted them accordingly. I reckon these guys were causing trouble at HQ, so Governor Kulo posted them to the remote stations to get them out of the way… (Governor Kulo is a paranoid Ork – insecure in his leadership and seeing plots everywhere… often with good reason!)

So first up we have Alug – he’s the Ork in charge of Station 1:

From the Book of the Astronomican: “Alug is a neurotic Ork with a mean streak as wide as a highway. He dislikes the technicians, or ‘boffins’ as he contemptuously calls them. When the attack begins, Alug is sulking in his hut. He is armed and equipped as follows:

Power armour. Heavy Bolter. Hand Flamer. 2 suspensors (to off-set weight of bolter)”

Alug is a pretty straight forward loadout – I used one of the classic PA Orks, and did some light conversion work on the weapons to make the Bolter look ‘heavy’, and to turn the weird pointy-finger gun into something that looks like it could be a flamer… It’s not just the Jokaero that can make digital weapons! A fuel tank was added around back to sell the finger-flamer idea further:

 

And here’s Alug with his bros from the Castle:

 

Next up we have Kalug – the boss for Station Three:

“Kalug was originally an engineer with the Ork fleet and still prides himself on his technical expertise. As the game begins, Commander Kalug is engaged in one of his favourite pastimes: taking “Sally” (his specially modified heavy plasma gun) apart and trying to put it back together again. Unfortunately, Kalug hasn’t quite worked out how to perform this complicated operation…

The weapon cannot be used until it has been reassembled. To reassemble the weapon successfully, Kalug must spend the whole turn in his hut. At the end of the turn, roll 1D6. If you score a 6, Kalug has managed to get Sally back together. Kalug can spend as many turns as you wish trying to reassemble his weapon, roll at the end of each turn to determine success. Kalug is armed and equipped as follows:

Power armour. Bolt gun. Bolt pistol. Chainsword.

Plus

Heavy plasma gun (‘Sally’). 4 suspensors to off-set weight. Targeter.”

So Kalug is a bit more complicated than Alug – not least because the Ork player can choose whether to keep trying for that 6 and play him with ‘Sally’, or can skip it & just get him into the fight without the big gun…

I started with another classic PA Ork and modelled him without the heavy plasma, just converting him to carry a chainsword & sculpting on a snazzy bolt pistol:

I then converted a Gretchin to carry ‘Sally’ – a fun little addition, that allows me the flexibility to play him with or without the big girl:

Interesting point – I recently had a conversation with Wudugast about plasma guns having drilled barrels or focusing lenses. This old gun certainly looked like it was intended to have a lens of some sort, so I painted it as such.

Anyhow, here’s Kalug with his castle-based cronies:

 

Having painted up Alug and Kalug, I couldn’t very well leave out the third field commander could I! So here he is – Zymot Thrallgash, the Commander of Station 2:

“Zymot is dead keen on “technoll’ji” and spends hours looking over the shoulders of the technicians. He likes to surround himself with all manner of gadgets, flashing lights and the latest in Ork know-what. When the attack begins, Zymot is in the generator room getting in the way of the technicians and asking helpful questions like “What happens if it blows up then?” Zymot arms and equipment are as follows:

Power armour. Conversion field. Plasma gun with targeter. Hand flamer. Power glove. Jump-pack.”

Zymot has quite a tricky loadout, and was probably the most involved conversion of the three field commanders. I again started with a classic PA Ork, and added a resin jump pack from Spellcrow (ironically, a Space Wolves item that they chucked in for free with another order). I changed his main gun for a plasma piece & cabled that to his eye (targeter), and also added to the detail sculpted on the back of the power glove to make it look more flamer-like:

 

Completing Alug, Zymot and Kalug is a cool milestone in the project, as I can now field all the Ork forces from games 1, 2 & 3! I’ve been looking forward to being able to say that for quite a while, so I thought I’d mark the occasion with some team photos:

Game 1 – Alug & co.

 

Game 2 – Zymot & co.

 

Game 3 – Kalug & co.

 

Phew, that’s it for this week, that just leaves me with the named characters from Kulo’s Castle to paint, and the Orks are done! I’ll hopefully make some good progress this week, and of course, it’s Salute on the weekend… Exciting times! Catch you all soon dudes, be excellent to each other :-)

Armoured Orks pt.1

25 Monday Mar 2019

Posted by in OldHammer, Scuplting, Wolf Time

≈ 41 Comments

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Greetings Terrans, how goes it? All good I hope :-) I’m really excited to be sharing this post with you today – I am finally on the home stretch with the Wolf Time Ork project, and we’re getting to the really really interesting bit… the mythical ‘Guards with power armour & chainswords’! Now, some of you might be wondering what the big deal is – maybe you’re only dipping in to this project recently, or maybe (like me) your memory is more suited to remembering how much damage a Heavy Bolter does in RT* than what you had for breakfast… Either way, I’ll offer a quick recap.

One of the guiding principles of this whole project has been WYSIWYG** – I cut myself some slack with the difference between flak or mesh armour, but I wanted every knife, bolt pistol, grenade, hand flamer etc. correctly represented on every miniature***  I also wanted to use period models as much as humanly possible & avoid the later ‘Ere we Go’ minis with plastic arms… (a couple of these slightly later minis did find their way in for some of the characters, but not too many.)

The problem is that many of the loadouts specified in the campaign pack never existed in miniature form, or were only represented in a couple of models. The Skumbos (bolt pistol & sword) are a good example of the latter condition – there were a couple of minis that suited, but not enough to do a full 25 without chronic duplication. The ‘power armour/bolter/chainsword’ combo is an example of the former… there simply wasn’t a period mini that represented that load out at all. In both cases, my approach has been to attempt to sculpt what I needed – proper Old School :-)

I’ve been showing you the skumbos over the last couple of months – they have loads of sculpted details like pistols, scraps of armour, swords & scabbards etc. All in all, quite a lot of effort… However, the Guards were a whole different level of work – we’re talking 18 full ‘over-sculpts’ of power armour, 3rd party chainswords, bionics, the odd gun-arm… basically this involved hours and hours of sculpting in and around other bits and pieces – hence the excitement in getting some paint on them! Here are the first two squads – Red and Orange:

 

And here are some closer views in pairs:

That last pair was the squad leaders – they get a hand flamer each as well as the bolter. The orange guy is the only ‘as is’ power armoured mini in the whole group but he still needed his hand flamer sculpted on. Note his chainsword is actually part of his gun-arm.

 

I also thought it might be fun to compare a Skumbo, a Boy and a Guard as well – I’ve accidentally managed to get quite a pleasing range of sizes:

 

And one final shot of all 10 Guards together:

 

So there we are – 10 down, 8 to go. Are they perfect? No, of course not – they are lumpen and misshapen, rough and ready. Some have worked better than others, and some are frankly ridiculous. Was it easy? Hell no – sculpting is bloody difficult and time consuming, but I learned so much through doing this… I think it’s fair to say that while my sculpting is still pretty meh, it did improve a lot through this process, and I’m certainly a lot more confident pushing putty now than I was before.

But the most important question is do they work? Well, I’m hardly in a position to be objective about this, but I really think they do. They look big & heavy, they look well ‘ard, and they look like they warrant a 4+ save… They look like the classic end-of-level uber-henchie, and they look ready to crump some Marines…

In that sense, I think I’m calling these a complete success :-)

 

*D4 Damage(r) – if you knew this, and if you can’t say D4 Damage without adding the ‘r’ and immediately following with ‘power to the people’ or ‘with the ill behaviour’ then I may actually be in love with you.

**What You See Is What You Get – your model is a true representation of the army list.

***One sneaky Boy is passing his Heavy Bolter off as a regular one… I’m allowing this because the Heavy B is tiny, and because I can’t handle perfection. Sorry Paul.