OK, so it is time for me to start my first painting log. I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing, so be gentle lol.

The theme of the army is to be Warboss Clawz and his winter/xmas themed Waaagh. I am still in the very earliest stages of the project, and I expect my progress to be in bursts over the next year as I finish up my Master's thesis and begin a PhD get a job in the summer.

I know enough about myself to predict that I will have weeks-long periods with no work at all, weeks-long periods with incremental progress, and 3-4 day blocks of intense work, strung together in a mostly random order. I'll try to post every couple of weeks regardless of lack of progress (and as often as I can be bothered to post photos during times of porgress).

My biggest challenge will be remembering to take pictures and post them.

I know that feeling, that's how may progress goes as well.

Good Luck in building and painting your waaagh.

Good Luck in your studies as well

that sounds like you are a true Orc :)

also posts the progress of your ma-thesis. Am currently working on one myself, so perhaps we could give each other a kick in the xxx if we do too much painting and too little studying. What subject are you writing about?

I'll begin with some "Before" pictures. Most of my models were purchased as-is, assembled with mold lines still there, un-based.

Here is a group shot of almost everything I have, as of today. I still have 5 Boar Boyz and some strange old plastic Boyz and Grots soaking to strip the paint.


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This is a shot of NGs before I touched them.


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Here are some NGs, fanatics, and a character or two, de-based and on pins.


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Here are the Night Goblins all on pins with mold-lins removed. Still need to trim the hoods.


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Here are the Boyz. Some are choppa/shield, some are dual choppas, some are choppa only, and a bunch are in bits in the tin.


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Wolf Riders and Spider Riders. Expect major conversions for the wolf riders, not as much on the spiders.


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Squig hoppers and chariots.


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Here are some Reaper minis I'm going to work on. Will eventually be a Fanatic, a NG Boss on Giant Cave Squig, and a warmachine crew.


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Various warmachine crew, new and old (now I just need to scratch-build the machines).


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Boring - Squig herds in the blister, and another chariot on the sprue.


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Rare choices! Trolls, Doom Diver, and Giant.


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Here are a bunch of various characters, including Gorbad Ironclaw.


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Piggies! I'm gonna turn these into boars...


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These are the reason I must be ever-vigilant with my models. Jeffrey Lebowski (The Dude) and Victoria Beckham (Posh).

Electrical Engineering

I dont' have a title worked out yet, but in general I'm working on routing in wireless sensor networks. Specifically on the statistics of certain types of routing.

Here are some of my early results. A mix of encouraging and discouraging.

First, the good. Here are some super-blurry shots of the scultping I'm doing on the hoods of my Night Goblins (about 15-20% completed now). I haven't decided whether to do similar fur around the cuffs and cloak-bottoms or not. I probably will though. I obviously need to improve my camera-fu, with regard to close-ups.



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Here are a couple of test-models I did for snowtrolls.



Unfortunately, the scale is waaay off - they ended up giant-sized rather than troll-sized.

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whoah.....that is so not my cup of tea. I am a bit of a technical no-no.

I am more on the soft side of science ....archaeology :rolleyes:
Thesis is about Roman military finds from South-holland (a province of the Netherlands) and the mechanism of social change caused by the presence of the Roman army in the area, and the identity of local groups within the empire, and the role of army veterans in local communities.

But back on topic

Impressive hoard you got there, that will keep you busy for a while.
And yeah somehow Trolls are surprisingly small. I always misjudge their size as well when converting.

Am really curious on how the piggies will turn out

Well, I don't have any more pics to post, but I've been sitting indoors during my vacation to the rainiest desert of all time (Palm Springs CA) sculpting fur on the collars of my night goblins. I'm also messing around with two of the Animousity unit filler special models, setting one up as it came and converting the other into some fun things.

well good luck with all that lot of orcs. Ive got about just as much to paint up and it seems daunting, but also good fun at the same time. Best of luck to you :D

now thats something I would like to hear about. Im currently doing a degree (business Information Technology, not quite archaology/history) but am a big history buff (but prefer the Greek and Carthaginian empires), no part in thanks to my dad who happens to have an archaeology degree. But your title does sound intresting, especially since your basing it in the netherlands region

bloddforgedorcs

...@ BorkBork: also Solleveld? Near my place, Monster...
fun thesis (historian myself)

cheers,

Kees

Ok, a bit more NG sculpting done, and I've played a bit with some of the Animousity figures.

Here is another, slightly less blurry shot of the hood trim I'm doing. I've got about 60 done (including shamans and heroes and fanatics), and about 20 to go.

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Here is what I've done so far for the fanatic out of the Reaper goblin ninja and some NG and giant bits.

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These are some of the fun I"m having with the animousity orcs. This one is swinging the giant peasant like a club :)

I started work on a movement/display tray for the NGs last night, since I want to do the bases and the tray together. I'm super stoked about how it's turning out! I'll have some WIP pics up in about 10 hours from the time of this post.

Teaser: it's powered by either batteries (during play) or a DC adapter (on display)...

Teaser from the future: I think the theme for basing my Orcs will be a line from Weird Al Yankovic's The Night Santa Went Crazy "You can't hardly walk around the North Pole without steppin' in reindeer guts."

Also, if anyone has any ideas on what tack I should take for my scratch-built rock lobba and spear chukkas, let 'er rip. I'm thinking Gingerbread House for the pump wagons, should I go with gingergread as building materials for lobbers and chukkas to, or is there something else I'm not thinking of that might work?

OK, here is what will soon be my first NG movement tray. Two more like it still to go lol.

The easy part first. The part the bases go in...



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Then comes the under-tray



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Here is how the tray sits on the under-tray


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Finally, here is the point of the whole thing


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The idea is that there will be tiny little lights popping up through holes in the tray. The gap between tray and under-tray is where the wires will hide, the bottom is open for access to the battery pack, and the back is open to get at the DC adapter plug.

Now that movement tray is going to look funky, I'm looking forward to it.

Cheers

Odd but interesting. Very Christmasy is that movement tray.

Definitely interesting, you have peaked my curiosity. Will the lights blink or will they be steady on?

Steady on. The blinking ones cost three times as much. :P

Wow that tray is gonna look great. I can't wait to see it finished. As for what to do in regards for the war machines. For a rock lobba I was thinking 2 trees with a giant slig wrapped around them. A troll pulling back the sling. And the ammunition snowballs :wub:

Skar (2c)

thats gonna be one set of bright orcs :lol: but sounding good though. Is this tray a one off or are you planning on doing a few of them?

bloodforgedorcs

I like your idea! Hope it's gonna be great.

Maybe you have wrote it somewhere, but then i don't have read it. Do you gonna put Snowflock on the bases (and maybe the shoulders and head). It will give a lot more an idea of Winter and Snowy dung. :rolleyes:

I have three strings of lights, and three planned units of NGs, so there will be three. It took me one evening (while watching TV) to put together what I have so far - including a fair deal of planning (which I kept notes of). I think that I should be able to finish this one (except for the final cosmetics of the snowy surface) in one more evening, but then the next two should take about half the time (one evening each). The wife is going to be working out of town for the next 2-1/2 weeks (driving her to the airport tomorrow), so my evening are suddenly going to be wide open...

I have some other types of lights (battery powered short strings of 10 traditional mini-lights, which are individually much larger than these tiny lights) that I might use to spruce up the big display tray for the whole army. I don't have a DC adapter for those ones, so it'll require batteries all the time, but for just the army display I don't think it will have to be on all that often.

I never thought of it in these terms before, but I suppose that since I'm an electrical engineer, there should be at least some of this sort of stuff in there. I'd especially like to figure out a way to get something moving in there... Something either ridiculously reliable or easily replaceable.

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@Skartooth: My wife recommended something similar, only firing off wrapped gifts (I have some from a craft store that are the right size). I hadn't thought of trees as the springs though, and I think that's what I'll do.

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The only sad part is that I'm really not that good of a painter, and I'm far more concerned about my conversions and constructions than the final look. I'm very much a base coat -> dip -> matte -> done kind of guy. I feel like I *should* care more about improving my painting, but the truth is I really don't lol. This is going to be my first attempt at basing beyond drybrushing sand green, as a matter of fact (I've owned a tub of static grass for 11 years but have never opened it and have no real idea what to do with it). Actually, this is also my first attempt with greenstuff beyond filling cracks, but that has already been going really well.

Anyway, here is my tentative schedule.

1) Finish these three trays, and do the bases at the same time to get a cohesive look.

2) Finish the last bits of sculpting on the NG unit (still doing the pom-poms on their *wait for it* toques and smooshing off the moons on the shields).

3) Build some unit fillers (of which I have several ideas, too bad about what's in store for poor Rudolph heh heh).

4) Paint these units before starting anything else (leaving projects half-finished is a personal bugbear).

4) Try not to even decide exactly what is next until this is done...

I'm going to do some experimenting with regards to snow. I have several things to try.

1) I've heard that water + white glue + baking soda can make a good go at snow.

2) I picked up a couple of tubs of white craft glitter. Not the super-fine metallic stuff that teenage girls sprinkle on their faces, but rather glossy white chunks. The size of each chunk is about half a goblin's finger, so it's pretty coarse.

3) I haven't really looked at traditional snow flock yet, but it's always an option.

I suspect that the baking soda will cover most of the bases, with bits of the glitter here and there to add some texture. That said, I have to try it out first.

If your not too fussed about the basing then why not try gluing on Citidal sand before undercoating. Leave the sand white and then dip, making sure you get the whole base dipped - not a problem if you glue them on to nails to hold on to. You can add flock, grass or extra pieces of slate stones on to it afterwards and it looks pretty good for the amount of work put in. Oh and yeah dont forget the snow!!!!!!!!

I am amazed by your vigilance in making light up movement trays! Great idea, can't wait to see more!

OK, got the lights in.

First is a halfway progress shot. I used Mighty Putty (thank you Bill Mays) to hold the lights in place.


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I put some strips of tin on top - I forgot about that before gluing on the balsa wood. The next two will have solid sheets of tin over the whole thing (I have the plastic cut and the tin glued on, but that's as far as they go so far).


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Finally, here it is with the lights on. I still need to do the edges before it's done.


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I did these while watching the Naked Gun marathon lol. There's something funny about OJ Simpson being dragged under a bus. It was also funny in 1988, but a different kind of funny.

I have just taken one more picture, to establish the scale of lights I'm using. Here are my lights, a standard string mini-light, and a gobbo on a ruler. The scale is inches on the top and cm on the bottom.

the trays are looking really good. Its gonna look great when theirs a fully painted unit on them :D

i think the conversions on the trays are going to enhance the unit loads as it is so I would'nt worry too much about the painting if i were you, you're obviously a very skilled converter which i for one envy you for :D

bloodforgedorcs

OK, yet more WIP shots of these dang movement trays. Had a really productive evening yesterday (Friday nights get a bit weird when you're married and 34 and your wife is out of town - that's Special Hobby Time in my world).

First, here is a series "so close I can almost taste it" shots of the prototype. At this point I had not yet filled in the cracks with putty. The second and third trays were assembled with a bit more precision and planning (kind of the point of a prototype) and will have fewer strange angles and cracks.

I have now filled the cracks in entirely, I'm just waiting for the putty to dry enough to file is smooth. At that point I'll bluetack over the lights, plug, and battery pack and spray it white.

In this first one you can see the slot that the battery cover case can slide out from.



Here's the notch for getting at the DC adapter plug.



Here is the battery case access in the bottom.



And one more shot of the top/front



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While waiting for various stages to dry, I've been working on the other two trays in a single batch. Here is a shot of everything so far (including the puttied cracks on the prototype, but it's too far out to see the detail):



And here's a closer in shot of just one set. I've attached the battery pack in a much better way for these trays, and I put metal sheeting on from step 1. The metal sheeting may have been a mistake, as it made drilling the holes much more difficult (the slight warping of the metal had a tendency to break glue bonds, especially with the smaller pieces of wood edges). I think in the future I'd actually go back to the prototype technique of metal strips after-the-fact.



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Up next:

1) I think I might try a thin brushed-on layer of white glue over the base of the prototype to level out the bottom (I think that the raised metal strips will still be really obvious once painted).

2) Putty the lights into the bases for the second and third trays, assemble, and trim.

3) Bluetack and spray the prototype, and flock it all the way to finished before even spraying the second and third.

Got these two done. Still have to do the edges on the new trays...

Two pictures, one dark and one bright.






Unfortunately, I just ran out of glue. :P Early night for me I think. I'm watching the hockey game, but my team is so bad there's no point really...

Blimy those movement trays are coming along really well. Such a brilliant idea and very well executed. Can't wait to see em when they are finished. Especially with the models in/on them.

Skar (2c)

moving very nicely, they will look great bud

No pics, but I finished all the GS for the whole lot of NGs. Hood trim, pom-poms, and smooshing out the details on the shields.

I'm out of glue, and the store doesn't have any stock so I'm gonna have to shop around, but I want to build my unit fillers and finish up the final details on the movement trays before I paint these guys.

OK, got to a different store, got a different brand of glue (about 80% as good as my favourite kind). Also picked up a couple of half-sprues of gnoblars and goblins.

Started work on my unit fillers. First one is a stack of gobbos sticking the carrot nose on a snowman. Will look better once it's on the base of course.


Here is the beginnings of a reindeer roating on a spit.


And here is the staff of a NG shaman.


Will probably work on finishing up the edges on the movement trays tonight. Wow, am I ever productive when the wife is out of town lol.

This is an amazing thread. Those trays are simply stunning.....what will you come up with next?

Fantastic stuff, mate. The snowman and the gobbos are great. That made me laugh. I really like how the top git is "putting the carrot in with authority". Ha ha ha.

Goomb

Well, I had a few days of no work for a family emergency. And then when I went back to my project, I realized that the cracks and gaps were driving me bonkers. So, I evened it all out over a couple of hours. They are now officially ready for basing treatment.

I'm still experimenting with how to do the basing.

Those bases are mighty impressive! Great work :D


What sort of effect are you after for the bases?

Patchy snow, and dead leaves underneath. I think I have the mix of components I want, just a couple more test bases.

Sounds good :) Looking forward to seeing them!

Got the sand on the tray (and enough bases to fill it, not shown here).

Needs some cleaning up once it's dry of course, then on to the snow.