From the workbench of the esteemed Horati0nosebl0wer

For others to play with color as well here’s my list of paints used. I was going to list it in the What’re You Painting Now forum but thought it’d be better here. Less clutter for the forum makes for happy community members.

Armor/shield
Base: VMC Azure
Wash 1: Army Painter Purple Tone
Wash 2: P3 Blue Ink
Shadow: Reaper Midnight Blue
Highlight: Reaper Ghost White

Sword
Shadow: Reaper Midnight Blue
Base: VMC Med Sea Grey
Highlight: VMC Sky Grey

*I airbrushed the two sides to each face in opposing directions to get the sheen effect. I might’ve been able to do something like that for the shield as well for gradation.

Gold bits
Base: VMC Medium Flesh
Highlight: Reaper Golden Highlight

Tabard
Base: VMC Medium Flesh
Highlight: Reaper Linen White

Belt/Gloves
Base: VMC Saddle Brown
Highlight: Reaper Redstone Highlight

All things not armor or were gold got a wash in Citadel Reikland Fleshshade before bringing back up to highlights

The mini may be a little shiny because I had just recently hit it with Testor’s Dullcote and it was drying

Tired of sitting here and looking at the figure I swear I need to send to my brother I finally get on to painting Bjorn (02607) from Reaper. I didn’t like the unstable base so I mounted it on a 30mm slotta and sculpted over it for effect.

After a white priming I hit it with a watered down non-waterproof sepia ink from Higgins (used for calligraphy). I then hit it lightly with a Higgins waterproof turquoise ink. I’ve been slacking for a while and I want to say I also used Reaper’s Blue liner on it as well to tone down the green elements but I don’t recall offhand.

I got home from work, sat at my desk and started painting with a couple of short breaks. I’m burnt out for tonight and I’ll be settling in for some rest now. I forget all the paints I used as I grabbed and went so apologies to those curious beyond the basecoat for the armor.

I put up the mini to the Orktober and the WAYPN threads but here I wanted to put info on what went on during the piece.

It started with the basing as a simple 40mm from GW just wasn’t going to work. There needed to be more liveliness to the mini so a resin base and kitbashing the environment began. I put down a few scrap bits of plasticard with appropriate distressing, Golden acrylic pumice medium and shell casings from Secret Weapon minis.

I lost the magazine for the ‘Evy Shoota and built one to not end up with an obvious void in the weapon. Plasticard again saved me with the help of some Milliput Black.

The only other special things were in the painting from there on out. The metal junk and boss pole both got weathered after washes in brown and purple. The Big Choppa and shoulder armor with the checkered pattern had a few steps of paint. There was an initial metal layer followed by a gloss coat, chip medium and then the final checkers. The masking of the checks was a bit of a pain with the airbrush and I did overspray onto one of the pistols. The wear on the ‘painted’ metal was done by wetting the chip medium and then pulling at the paint layers over it.

I’m glad I’m done as this is a good step on the path for competing in future. Build better bases and the minis will spring to life with paint.

After finishing out Orktober I had my next project box set up for this witch. Overall I am quite happy to put another figure in my display case and even more so to show off to everybody here my skills and get feedback.

I have a setup for things to work on put aside in Chessex dice cases to keep parts together and keep an assembly line of sorts for projects. I had already decided on this as I had the figure and I had just lucked into finding a random Sack O’ Skulls at a gaming store while on a visit an hour from my home.

Going through the painting wasn’t bad until I got to the last leg of painting and messed the face up terribly (by my standards). I stripped the face with a toothbrush after masking the rest of the body with tape (leading to a great pun on the weekender thread) and revisiting the area with brush on primer.

With all this I have ended work on another piece and look forward now to the namesake piece next which will become my avatar.

I was rooting around in my collection of minis and pulled out the second Ork Warboss with Big Choppa I had intended to paint for Orktober. I had bought it through eBay and cleaned it up from the dismal primer work it was caked in. The bosspole was missing which wasn’t a problem as it has allowed me to get into some kitbashing. I’m always interested in how to make the figure more interesting. Normally this falls to the basing aspects since I don’t play large army games and I try to limit the amount of figures I pick up for different games. I say normally and admit freely that Malifaux is one that I find myself purchasing figures of factions I don’t play.

Here I cut a length of rod slightly longer than that of the regular pole as I figured what I wanted to build would end up as a larger emblem than the ones for the missing section. I subdivided a second in order to build the “arms” to the sides and fixed them with JB Weld (an industrial epoxy) as I’ve gotten rid of my old soldering iron due to moving. I then took a rotary tool and gouged out the remnants of the pole on the pack and set the pole in with more JB Weld. The mechanical for that needed to hold was done and it was time for artistic fun to begin.

I drew out a rough sketch of an ork face before  adding a second layer to it after the deciding it was too boring and needed some depth. The rivets on it also came from this observation. The crux of the pole looked piss poor in detail as compared to what was taking shape so I added a riveted join to make it look purposeful. I’ve got a number of resin skulls lying about in my bits bin so I thought that might be cool as trophies for a warboss. Also looking in the bits collection I had spiked chains from Reaper minis that I had not used from a purchase I meant for a pirate themed display. Onto the pole they went to include some of the flash.

There is more work to be done on the pole in general but this is a WIP while playing around on a painting break.

With all that done and looking back to the first warboss the urge to make a good base was obvious. With plasticard odds and ends I modeled the forms and glued bits together. I slapped down textured plastic/brass scrap and used a file to add scratches to bring out later in paint. Yet again more rivets were added because orks need rivets. I had spare wire I picked up from the side of the road and added a length to act as cable. With that all done I put down a layer of Golden Coarse Pumice aggregate to give the texture of gravel/soil.There’s a small pipe that comes out of the base that I actually drilled into the resin to make appear deeper which will be in later installments.

Overall this is how I break up my painting lulls. Paint like a madman, kitbash like a fool.. It keeps me motivated to show off to everyone like you.

Looking over filters for the spray booth after some time doing airbrush work and caking the most recent one with overspray I got to thinking about how well it actually works. Thankfully I have been able to pick the brain of an associate at work who does HVAC work and learned about filtration more so than just looking at the Internet.

I picked up a 3M 1200 filter (rated at MERV 11) that measured 16″ x 25″ x 1″ cheap from a local box store and took a pair of metal shears I’ve kept for larger sheets of brass to cut the interior wire mesh. This is a significant upgrade from the refill filters (rated about MERV 5) that you see advertised for use with the spray booth on sites like Amazon or specific hobby sites. I’ve used the cardboard sections at either end to retain the support integrity but I was left with the interior that lacked it. I turned to my 5 minute epoxy and some balsa strip I generally use for base building and light terrain pieces to create supports.

Generally I’d say that might be overkill but if you do work indoors and might not be able to vent out its a help to air quality. I don’t know how much the draw of the fan will be affected but I’ll see soon enough. I might invest in building a spray booth using a fan motor with squirrel cage and plywood. Seeing the upgrade from my plastic portable unit, like many other people have, it would be easier than shelling out the $330 (approx) for a Benchvent BV300S-D.

So I’ve gotten a little burned out with painting. I’ve gone a little further than I should’ve in order to maintain a good pace for hobby work and I’ve had to take a breather and build. normally this just takes the form of puttering about with bases but this time I felt that there was more work needed on the warboss. Since building the bosspole was fun I revisited it and threw caution to the wind. I’ve got more detail work to do but here’s the WIP after playing with bits of stuff I’ve ordered from retailers on eBay. I’m pretty sad, however, to find there is a marked difference in scale between the warboss and regular orks. Bosses be bigger than your average greasy green slobbering nob. That being said I’ll have to improvise with sculpting bodies for future kitbash projects as stress relief.