Ork mob in a week (and a day)

 

In a bit of a departure from the usual Scrivsland fare I decided a few weeks ago that I ought to start playing Warhammer 40K after seeing a few great looking games at the club. In other "all the cool kids are doing it" news I also purchased about fifteen Citadel contrast paints.

Warboss in Mega Armour

As a starter for the force, I picked up Combat Patrol: Orks from Firestorm Games and another unit of Boyz from eBay. 

It was then off on vacation for a week in Cornwall where hopefully I'd be able to paint up a small force for some games. 

Ork Boyz - 1

For the initial unit of Boyz I painted I tested out the contrast paints over a primer of grey auto-primer, washed with VMC Black Grey  and then drybrushed with VMC Ivory. 

Initial thoughts on the Contrast Paints are mixed. Some of them are excellent, others are completely underwhelming, take the Gryph Charger grey, honestly, I've had pisses with more pigment in them. 

Ork Boyz - 2

The Ork Flesh is woeful too. I thought that I should maybe not have done the undercoat the way I did so I tried painting Ork Flesh off of a light cream base, that was even worse! The Ork skin tones here are me working up off the Ork Flesh with VMC Flat Green with subsequent lighter layers.

There are no metallic paints in the range, so all weapons and armour were done in Black Templar, for the guns and stik-bombs I did a hard edge highlight in off white, but for the armour and bladed weapons I wanted a rusty effect for that added risk of tetanus. 

Ork Boyz - 3

I've had a lot of practice with rust on my recent Gaslands paint jobs, working up from the Black Templar, I added a thin layer of VMC Gunmetal Grey, added some VMC Saddle Brown to that for another layer then a couple of progressive highlights with more VMC Orange added to the mix.

On the second batch of Boyz I decided to go with a primer of VMC Grey surface primer that is a very light coloured basecoat, I did not apply a wash at all and instead went straight for it with the Contrast Paints. I'll not be doing this method again, I was not that impressed with the previous result but think those came out much worse.

The Contrast browns especially came out much worse than over a gradient basecoat and are really patchy.

Deffkopters

For the vehicles, to keep the theme, I wanted to do a dilapidated rusty look on these so from a grey primer I added a wash of black and then applied a mix of VMC Gunmetal Grey and VMC Saddle Brown, then added successive patches with more and more VMC Clear Orange.

Once the rusting was done the areas to be 'painted' were blocked in with VMC Pale Sand and the rest painted with contrast paints. Again, lesson learned since, before doing the contrast paints the areas to be painted need a wash of black or very dark grey so that the contrast paints get shaded from below.

The bottom pair of arms on the Deff Dredd are not glued on so that I can choose between Big Shoota, Rokitt Launcher, Burna or more close combat weapons.

Everything but one unit of Boyz was painted during the stay in the converted barn in Cornwall with the last unit of Boyz being cranked out on the Sunday after we arrived home. I've already got a unit of Gretchin pretty much completed too.

First game is against Sam on Thursday, I'll hopefully be able to post a report of the mayhem!