Tag: miniature painting

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Deathskulls Orks Miniature painting Miniatures Warhammer 40k WIP it good

WIP it good: Orky proofs of concept

Ever since I built my first Ork — Moonkrumpa, the Warboss of my Waaagh! — on November 16, I’ve been nervous about actually painting my initial mob of Boyz.

Which sounds kind of silly after I’ve just spent nine months painting 2,200 points of Blood Angels, right? Especially considering that Orks are a faction for which folks regularly kitbash stuff out of toilet-paper tubes? Well, yeah…except that Orks require a lot of painting techniques with which I don’t have much experience, including some — like freehand — that I’ve assiduously avoided attempting.

Getting the Boyz up on the handles for the first time to work on their bases

But at the same time, I sensed that I was stalling. So I took stock of what, exactly, I was nervous about trying and then decided to see what shook loose while painting one Boy.

Texture paint drying on bases

Here’s the list:

  • Freehand checks and dags
  • Freehand glyphs
  • Getting skin right
  • War paint
  • Weathering
  • One shade of blue vs. several shades of blue
  • Mixing layers and drybrushing on the same figure
  • Not yet having a brand/spot color that identifies Moonkrumpa’s Megalootas as my Orks

That last one was the biggie. I’ve seen two fantastic examples of personalized Ork armies in White Dwarf, one Goff army where every Ork has a red stripe painted across one eye, and one Freebooterz army whose theme is “rust and hazard stripes.” Both are brilliantly simple choices, allowing room for creative expression and variations between models, and neither requires any real additional steps (green stuff, adding bits, etc.). I’ve had a few ideas, but none have felt like The One — and this is an important conceptual step for me.

So I went into my test Ork hoping that the big question mark would sort of shake loose as I painted — and figuring that even if it didn’t, I could resolve some of the other list items in the process.

Putting paint on my first Ork, one of Skrudd’s Krumpas

Freehand…yes?

A few months ago, I read a heartening comment (I can’t recall where) about freehand that was along these lines: People will respect your attempt at freehand even if it’s not great. To which I’d add, maybe more importantly, I will respect my attempt at freehand, even if it’s not great.

With that in mind, I tried freehanding the glyph for “krump.” (I used a Princeton Velvetouch #1 round for both glyphs.)

The “krump” glyph

That’s…not terrible! Separate the two elements a bit more, and it’d be totally serviceable. It looks like I tried, and didn’t just phone it in. What the heck, can I do “moon” so I can have moon + krump on Moonkrumpa’s banner pole?

The Naz glyph (“moon”)

Yes, apparently I can! Again, not going to win any Golden Demons here, but it gets the job done.

War paint…also yes?

Bolstering by not embarrassing myself with the glyphs, it hit me that my simplest idea for establishing “Waaagh! identity,” painting one hand white on every Ork (as white is a Deathskulls accent color), had a logical iteration that was better in every way: paint one hand blue.

It’s the Deathskulls’ primary color. There’s a Warhammer TV video that features Duncan doing blue Deathskulls war paint, so I have a guide. It fits their lore, as they often apply blue war paint before going to battle. And, for good measure, testing out blue war paint would also help me answer the question about mixing shades of blue on the same model.

Caledor Sky war paint and Macragge Blue helmet

Well, shit: check, check, and check in my book. Even with only base coats — no washes, highlights, or weathering — that reads as war paint, and the clear difference between that blue and the darker tone on his helmet feels like an appropriately Orky mismatch (it’s not like these guys are nipping down to Pottery Barn with fabric swatches to get the blue juuust right; they’re kicking the nearest Gretchin and shouting, “Oi, make dat blue or I’ll krump you.”).

And fuck my ass, I even like the blue hand. Really like it. I’m going to add it to the bits of lore I’ve written about my army: Moonkrumpa’s original tribe was the Blue Handz, and their tribal identifier became a mark of membership in his Waaagh!. This is seriously as big a moment for me as coming up with Moonkrumpa; it’s the missing piece of the puzzle that clears my path to painting Orks that feel like mine.

How’s the list looking now?

  • Freehand checks and dags
  • Freehand glyphs
  • Getting skin right
  • War paint
  • Weathering
  • One shade of blue vs. several shades of blue
  • Mixing layers and drybrushing on the same figure
  • Not yet having a brand/spot color that identifies Moonkrumpa’s Megalootas as my Orks

Based on how freehanding glyphs went, I’m no longer nervous about checks and dags, either. My first few won’t look great, but I’ll improve with practice and experience. Ditto weathering, which I may also get a crack at on my terrain before I try it on my Boyz.

I have a hunch that skin and mixing layers/drybrushing will sort themselves out, too. Skin is basically cloth, and there’s an excellent article in White Dwarf #454 to use as a step-by-step reference.

Skrudd and half of his Boyz with their green, blue, and brass base coats done (plus some other random colors)

So all in all, I’m feeling pretty good about my list, much less nervous about painting these Orks — and downright excited to see how they turn out. Sometimes you just gotta paint it and see what happens.

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Miniature painting Miniatures Painting tools Terrain Warhammer 40k

Battlezone: Manufactorum terrain color guide and painting steps

After assembling, priming/base-coating, and doing the initial wash on my Manufactorum terrain pieces, I tucked into the next steps — and realized it was time for a guide to those steps, and the colors I’m using, so that Future Martin can replicate it all on the next batch.

Chipping away at some terrain following the steps in this guide (walls and floors are finished except for weathering; metal, windows, and all small details remain)

Warhammer TV reference videos

My primary guide is an excellent video on painting this exact terrain. I’m mixing in some of what Duncan does in this video about Imperialis terrain, too. For weathering, Duncan covers rust (second half) and Nihilakh Oxide in two other videos.

These videos are a tremendous resource and I love that GW makes them available. There’s no way I could approach the finished quality I want in my terrain without them.

Painting steps

Terrain is a different animal, so it requires different steps in a different order. This looks like a million steps, but it’s really quite a relaxing painting process; I’ve just broken it down, for my own benefit, because the process is different than the one I’ve spent the last nine months employing on my Blood Angels.

From step 2, floors: both have been shaded, and the one on the right has been drybrushed as well

Step 1 basically takes the bulk of the terrain piece — the stone elements — to completion, which is done to avoid messily washing and drybrushing other stuff the wrong colors. Step 2 does the same for the floors, and so on. The final step, number 7, involves weathering that goes back over many of the areas completed in 1-6 — and apart from varnish, it’s genuinely the last step.

“Don’t overdo it” is my mantra for most of the steps. It’s easy to want the whole building to look super-grimy at the shading stage — and forget that there’s grime and character still to come, at later stages.

  1. Walls:
    1. Wraithbone spray, primer and base coat in one
    2. Seraphim Sepia wash almost everywhere; err on the side of “everywhere,” not “almost”
    3. Agrax Earthshade pin wash along the “bands” of the pillars, plus randomly anywhere else that would have gotten especially dirty while these buildings were in use (or weathered after they became ruins), notably under doors and junction boxes, as well as along conduits — and throw in some random spots, too
    4. Drybrush all Wraithbone areas with Tyrant Skull, in a circular motion; this is designed to go everywhere
    5. Then a lighter Praxeti White drybrush over that, in circular motions, pressing lightly and just hitting the high points
  2. Floors: Bung Leadbelcher into the holes in the floor (which hits the pipes and suggests that the floors are metal gratings with a coat of paint over them) > Mechanicus Standard Grey on the flat parts of the floor and the entire underside > Agrax Earthshade > Dawnstone drybrush the flat sections of the floor in circular motions (skip the underside) > lighter drybrush with Celestra Grey along the edges and major cracks
  3. Bare metal: Leadbelcher > Agrax Earthshade > Ironbreaker drybrush > Necron Compound drybrush
  4. Red metal (doors, windows, tanks, accents): Khorne Red > Nuln Oil > Wazdakka Red drybrush > very light Squig Orange drybrush
  5. Red pipes: Khorne Red > Nuln Oil > Wazdakka Red drybrush
  6. Bronze: Warplock Bronze > Agrax Earthshade > Brass Scorpion drybrush
  7. Cog Mechanicus:
    1. White: Corax White > Apothecary White contrast paint > Praxeti White drybrush
    2. Black: Corvus Black > Basilicum Grey contrast paint > Eshin Grey drybrush > light Dawnstone drybrush
    3. Eye: Khorne Red > Evil Sunz Scarlet
  8. Other little details (wires, etc.): Base coat in a single color (Averland Sunset, Macragge Blue, etc.) and vary these choices across the buildings (especially duplicates!); it sounds like heresy, but these truly don’t need any follow-up coats/layers/etc.
  9. Weathering:
    1. Chipping and damage: Sponge on Rhinox Hide, focusing on the blasted edges and torn-away elements, but also randomly putting it everywhere that feels right
    2. Rust: Thinned-down Skrag Brown > thinned-down Fire Dragon Bright
    3. Verdigris: Nihilakh Oxide in the crevices on bronze elements

This guide is written for the walls, but it applies to the pipes, sacred radiators, and whatnot as well. The only real changes are obvious stuff, like applying the Agrax Earthshade pin wash to different parts of the pipes.

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Deathskulls Orks Miniature painting Miniatures Warhammer 40k

Deathskulls Ork base color guide

The other night I painted the rocks on my first Orks’ bases…and realized that after ~9 months painting grey rocks on grey Blood Angels bases, I’d painted these rocks grey. Time for a color guide, and in this case time to test some shading options.

Testing time

First I grabbed a larger rock and primed it.

“I got a rock.” — Charlie Brown

The rocks on my Blood Angels’ bases are grey with brown undertones/shadows, and a bit lighter than the lightest part of the landscape. I could see doing my Orks’ rocks as grey, too, but my instinct says to go for a brown that’s lighter and more bleached-out than the underlying landscape. So: Zandri Dust for the base coat.

So next I tried three different shades on my rock — Agrax Earthshade, Reikland Fleshshade, and Seraphim Sepia (in that order, left to right) — with a Screaming Skull drybrush over that:

“I got a rok wiv stripes on it.” — Moonkrumpa

Reikland is right out (too red), but I’m torn between Agrax and Seraphim. Agrax matches the terrain better, but Seraphim contrasts with it better. “Contrast without looking dumb” is what I’m after, so I think Seraphim Sepia is the winner.

Update: After washing and drybrushing my first batch of Orks’ landscape, the rocks didn’t have nearly as much contrast as I would have liked. I drybrushed them again in Praxeti White, which is brighter than Screaming Skull, and that did the trick. The guide below uses the correct color.

Deathskulls Ork base color guide

Moonkrumpa’s Megalootas are thundering across dry, flat badlands on some anonymous, soon-to-be-devastated world (washes in italics, as always):

  • Terrain: Armageddon Dust > Agrax Earthshade > Tyrant Skull drybrush
  • Rocks: Zandri Dust > Seraphim Sepia > Praxeti White drybrush
  • Skulls: Corax White > Agrax Earthshade > Corax White drybrush
  • Tufts: Army Painter swamp, winter, or both

I may also randomly vary the rocks, even using grey/brown/white like I did on my Angels, with the idea being that the Megalootas are a much larger force and therefore spread over a wider area with more natural variation in its terrain. Not sure about that yet.

I’m going to keep the ground clutter to a minimum on these guys, so that should mostly cover it.

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Miniature painting Miniatures Painting tools Terrain Warhammer 40k WIP it good

WIP it good: Manufactorum terrain

On Sunday morning, I picked up where I’d left off with my terrain on Saturday: Wraithbone done, all-over Seraphim Sepia wash. Next up was a pin wash with Agrax Earthshade.

The pin wash is subtle, but I like the effect. Both of these pieces have had their all-over Seraphim Sepia wash, but the one on the right has had some grimy areas pin-washed with Agrax:

Before (left) and after (right)

I used a cheap #5 brush for the pin washes.

Pin-washed sacred pipes
Dang but I love this terrain! The sculpts are great
Bunging Leadbelcher into the holes in the flooring

I was a bit nervous about doing a full-coverage drybrush over my precious washes…but it turned out to be no biggie. And as the video notes, it looks quite subtle at first but it does actually make a difference.

I used my giant flat-edged 5/8 brush (the cheap one I used for the washes) for this messy, brush-killing job.

Pre-drybrush on the left, post-drybrush on the right

My buildings are noticeably darker than the ones in the video at this stage, which I think comes down to the thinned vs. straight wash. I dig it. Next up, a lighter drybrush with Praxeti White, same brush and same circular motions.

This is subtle, too, but in this case I’m just not that confident in my technique. Both the amount of paint and the weight of my brushing make a difference, and I’m not there yet in terms of experience — but even so, it’s a nice effect.

Praxeti White drybrush on the left half, but not on the right half (yet)

And that’s the stone done! (Except for, maybe, a final weathering step of some sort.) Warhammer TV didn’t steer me wrong: two washes and two layers of drybrushing really does tidy things up and produce an organic, lifelike weathered stone — and surprisingly quickly, too.

Next up, Mechanicus Standard Grey on the floors (top and bottom), applied with an inexpensive flat-edged #5 brush.

Floors mostly base-coated, above and below

That’s where I ran out of steam for the night, after a pleasant Sunday spent almost entirely working on this terrain or futzing with my Orks’ basing colors. Next terrain-painting session, I’ll finish the edges and borders on the floors, wash them, drybrush them, and then move back to the walls to work on details.

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Blood Angels Space Marines Finished miniatures Miniature painting Miniatures Warhammer 40k

I finished my first Warhammer 40k army!

On November 20, 2020, I finished my first-ever 2,000-point Warhammer 40k army. I waited until this morning to take pictures of it, and even now I still can’t quite believe I finished it.

My first 40k army, 2,000 points of Blood Angels

I’ve dabbled in miniature-painting since I was a kid, and generally didn’t enjoy it (I saw it as a means to an end, which was the wrong philosophical approach), but until this year I wouldn’t have considered myself a miniature painter. When I finished painting my Space Hulk set, something I’ve wanted to since I was about 10 years old, that was a watershed moment.

I rolled right into painting this army — something else I’ve wanted to do since I was a little kid, and always thought was out of reach for a variety of reasons — and have kept that streak up ever since. From the day I assembled my first Blood Angel, Sergeant Karios, to the day I varnished Squad Caedes, this 2,000-point army took me 255 days to complete (March 10-November 20).

Along the way, I became a miniature painter. Not, I want to emphasize, an amazing miniature painter. But I’m proud of my work on these little dudes, and more importantly I’m enjoying this hobby as a hobby in its own right. From a mindfulness perspective, this is the right approach to painting.

My full army — everything I painted from March 10-November 20, 2,210 points with WYSIWYG wargear (9th Edition)

What else happened along the way? I assembled, primed, and partially painted another ~700 points of Blood Angels. I started a Deathskulls Ork army, Moonkrumpa’s Megalootas. And I listened to a 10 awesome 40k audiobooks (which I love to do while I paint).

I started with two by Guy Haley, both narrated by Gareth Armstrong, that seemed thematically appropriate: Dante and The Devastation of Baal. Then I listened to eight more by Dan Abnett, all narrated by Toby Longworth: First and Only, Xenos, Hereticus, The Magos, Ghostmaker, Necropolis, Honour Guard, and Brothers of the Snake, plus most of Ravenor (which is still underway).

My Blood Angels force deployed on the plains of Armageddon

Because I built my initial army list under 8th Edition rules, things changed when 9th Edition came out. I dropped 10 fully painted minis from my force, and added a squad of five — so I’ve actually finished 2,210 points of Blood Angels, not just the 2,000 in my list.

As a rough, conservative ballpark, it takes me five hours to finish a single Marine-sized model — that’s from gray plastic on the sprue to varnished and ready for play. Some take an hour or two longer; the small ones take less time; the tanks and Dreads take a lot longer. But that translates to a minimum of 290 hours of hobby work. Six hours a mini is probably a more accurate estimate, and that’s 348 hours of work.

It has been an absolute blast.

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Blood Angels Space Marines Finished miniatures Lightbox photos Miniature painting Miniatures Warhammer 40k

And then there were none: Squad Caedes complete

Thanks to changes in point values (most of my Marines got more expensive) and unit classifications (my Scouts went from troops to elites), I had to drop a painted unit of Sternguard from my army, and replace half of the already-painted Squad Karios with another five tactical Marines, in order to bring my list into line with 9th Edition rules.

That left the five battle-brothers of Squad Caedes as the final unit I needed to paint in order to have my first-ever 40k army.

And now they’re done! I’ve finished my army!

Affirmative, brother-sergeant

Squad Caedes moves across the plains of Armageddon

The boards in the Battlezone: Manufactorum sets (Vertigus, in this case) make for great photo backdrops. I can’t wait to shoot my whole army on one of these, with terrain!

Squad Caedes, 2nd Company, 2nd Squad
Rear view

I’ll gather my entire force for a group photo or two in a future post. For now, a deep breath, a pause, and a shift to painting Deathskulls Orks and terrain pieces.

As I sit here writing this, I kind of can’t believe I finished my army.

But it just hit me that while I was a bit worried this moment would sap my momentum, when I finished I immediately built some Manufactorum terrain and primed some Ork Boyz, so I’d have stuff teed up to work on tomorrow — without even thinking about it. Minis every day, it’s a good feeling.

And finally, I’ve gotta close with the last WIP shot for my first army, Squad Caedes heading into highlights:

The last WIP photo I took before finishing this army
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Blood Angels Space Marines Miniature painting Miniatures Warhammer 40k WIP it good

WIP it good: bases and undersides for Squad Ariete, and my 400th post

This is my 400th post on Yore! I considered prepping something specific for the big 400, but decided that this post was more on-brand: it’s about miniatures, it involves some trial and error, and it’s a work-in-progress post full of photos. That’s where my head’s at these days, so it works pretty well for this milestone. Thanks for reading Yore, and here’s to the next 400!

Assault Bike bases

Because of how low the undercarriage is on the Assault Bike models, I changed up my basing approach for Squad Ariete. It worked pretty well, but I definitely learned some things I can roll into my next set of bikes.

Can you see what I forgot to do on these?

Basing differently threw me off enough that I forgot to prime my rocks.

Rocks all finished up, awaiting texture paint
I tried to sculpt in the kicked-up “hills” formed by the bike’s passage, as well as vague tire tread impressions
Texture paint done
Blue-Tack worked well, but it took me some time to figure out how to get it off

Like price tag stickers, the best tool for removing Blue-Tack (which sets up sticky and soft in this context, rather than staying in firm balls) was a blob of Blue-Tack. Once I figured that out, it was easy to get the rest of it off.

Testing my tire placement
The first layer paint to fall in service of my Blood Angels army: Evil Sunz Scarlet
Some touch-ups needed

To my surprise, 5/6 of the tires turned out pretty well on the first try. They matched their “slots” on the base, no unpainted areas were visible, and they looked natural. Not perfect, but not too shabby. The only one that was off was the one propped on the rock; a quick prime/base coat/highlight and it was squared away.

The smear of dust/dirt on the base of the rock (visible in the fourth photo above) was my attempt at modeling the dirt left behind by the front tire as it traveled up the rock, but it didn’t work at all. It was too realistic compared to the rest of the miniature (which, notably, features clean tires without any dust/weathering), but not realistic enough to read as what it was supposed to be.

So I scraped it off with my hobby knife, re-washed and re-drybrushed the rock where it had been, and now it’s set.

Squad Ariete, 3rd Company, 10th Squad, now fully based with finished undersides

These guys are now getting set to one side so I can focus on finishing up the final squad in my initial 2,000-point army, Caedes. When I pick them up again, they should be much easier to paint as I’ll actually be able to fit them into my painting handles.

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Deathskulls Orks Miniature painting Miniatures Terrain Warhammer 40k

Trying out two ideas on Brother Test-Mech

My first 40k scenery just arrived, the absolutely massive Vertigus set. I’ve been kicking around the idea of Zandri Dust for the stone and Khorne Red for the metal, the former coming from a Warhammer TV video aimed at the Kill Team Imperialis terrain (rather than this Manufactorum set) and the latter being the studio color for this set. But I wasn’t sure how it’d look — a job for Brother Test-Mech!

Spray-painting the base coat is going to be a must for this much scenery!

I did two panels of his skirt armor in Zandri Dust, bracketing one in Khorne Red. Neither is the final color either of those would be (no wash, no drybrush, etc.), but this should be in the ballpark.

Zandri/Khorne/Zandri

I like it, but I’m not completely sold. How about Zandri/Leadbelcher?

Nope!

Yeah, that’s not enough contrast — and it’s the color I’d expect, which is less fun than an unexpected one.

Literally as I was writing this post, I found a Warhammer TV how-to for this exact terrain, which told me what color to swap for the studio-recommended base coat: Wraithbone, which comes in spray form. There’s more steps in the floors than I’d like (easily replaced with “bung on some Mechanicus” from the other video), and a different recipe for the red, but seeing “aged white stone” in action sold me on the white/red/metal scheme.

Oi, dat’s mine

While I had him out, I figured I’d try another half-baked idea: Having my Deathskulls Orks mark their looted wargear by sloppily painting over Space Marine colors and heraldry. As it happens, most of Brother Test-Mech’s painted bits are dark red, so I half-drybrushed, half sloppily painted it with Macragge Blue.

Hmm

That…kind of looks like ass. I can’t decide if it’s an Orky amount of ass or too much ass. I’m not loving it, in any case. This idea’s going back in the oven to bake a little longer.

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Deathskulls Orks Miniature painting Miniatures Painting tools Warhammer 40k

Into the badlands: testing an Orky base recipe

I’m pretty sure I’ll like the basing recipe I’m using for my Deathskulls Orks, which comes straight from White Dwarf #161 (also the source of the recipe I use for my Blood Angels), but a bit less certain about the tufts. So I figured I’d do up a test base and see how it looks.

Armageddon Dust base coat

Fresh and creamy

I use the skinny end of the Citadel texture spreader for Astrogranite Debris, which is much thicker than this stuff. For Armageddon Dust, I’m liking the wide, flexible end — it smears on really easily.

Dry and ready for shading

No surprise, I guess, but this stuff dries much faster than Astrogranite Debris. There’s a chunky version of the Armageddon color, Armageddon Dunes, but I wanted the flatter bases on these guys to contrast with the hillier ones on my Blood Angels. With less aggregate in the mix, it dries faster.

Agrax Earthshade wash

Taken after the wash had mostly dried

It looks much too dark now, but I remember that stage from my “plains of Armageddon” bases. Until it’s drybrushed, it ain’t gonna look right.

This dries quickly, too — so quickly that I think I might be able to take a base from bare plastic to finished in a single day, rather than needing 1-2 overnight drying sessions like I do with my Blood Angels’ bases.

Tyrant Skull drybrush

Not too shabby!

Mine looks a bit darker than GW’s, but close enough — and I like the look.

Right after I took this photo, I realized that I’d never primed this base. D’oh! That probably explains why it looks darker: it’s riding on black, not white.

Baneblade base edge

That’ll do, Baneblade

Ignoring the crappiness of the edge (no primer…), that looks solid! Same tonal step-down as the grey-to-grey shift between Astrogranite Debris and Dawnstone on Sergeant Dolos’ base, which is exactly what I was after.

Army Painter tuft options

My brain said swamp tufts would look good; kind of a mix of green and brown. I like the contrast between my Angels’ gray bases and pale brown tufts, so brown/badlands bases with green tufts — though deliberately not bright, heavy, or totally green — seemed like a good route.

But I also wanted to try Army Painter’s winter tufts, which look more badlands-y — and look like they could pair well with swamp tufts. A mix of grasses could be nifty.

Swamp tuft
Winter tuft

They’re quite similar, as both are pale brown and black — just with the swamp tuft replacing some of the winter tuft’s brown with a splash of green.

I showed this test base to my wife, Alysia, and she said she had trouble telling the two tufts apart at arm’s length. I totally agree — in fact, I routinely forgot which one was which while writing this post.

Winter (left) and swamp (right) tufts

Gun to my head, I’d pick the swap tufts — my original idea — because they do stand out more clearly from the terrain.

But I like them both, and I like them together. Unlike my Blood Angels, who are fighting their way across a plain that has been leached of all life, my Orks are on a normal planet — so it makes sense that the grass might not all be the same color. Unless one definitively looks better with an actual Ork standing next to it, I’ll probably just use both types at random.

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Deathskulls Orks Miniatures Warhammer 40k

And so it begins: Orks incoming

My first Ork kit, Lootas/Burnas, arrived, along with my Deathskulls and Orky paints!

Lootas, my four basing colors, and the mini-rack for my Orky paints

My main paint rack is full, so I’ve filled up my sidecar rack with Ork-specific paints.

Codex: Orks, 8th Edition

My Codex came in the mail, and I’ve had a chance to read all the parts of it that interested me most. I know I’ll need to replace it sometime in the next few months when the 9th Edition version comes out, but that’s fine; I need the lore and imagination fuel now.

I’ve also hit the point in my BattleScribe musings where I need to start firming up my initial army list. For example, I didn’t realize that Lootas, Killa Kans, Deff Dreads, and Mek Gunz were all Heavy Support units, only three of which can be fielded at Strike Force strength. I like all four of those kits, so I’d been planning to stick all four into my initial army.

So I’m noodling, trying to balance my favorite units visually against a fuzzy sense of what Deathskulls might be like to play — and deliberately trying not to learn too much about their rules, so I’ll still paint my first 2,000 points largely based on the Rule of Cool (which is my preferred approach). I’m also jotting down army notes, conversion ideas, and other details on my dedicated page for this army.

This is a fun stage of the process, and at the moment I’m only lacking the core concept for my Warboss. Once that shakes loose, things should start to click into place.