Greetings fellow Greenskins.

As you may have noticed this is my first post so I will tell you a little about myself and my plans for my army before the good stuff (pics).

I am a twenty something male just getting back into this wonderfull hobby, I last played back in my very early teens, upon a recent clear out i stumbled across my old minis, was shocked by the horrific paint jobs and decided to touch them up a bit in order to sell them (shock horror)

Fast forward a few months and i am again thouraghly addicted to the little guys and looking to start an army proper.

So, why Orcs and Goblins?
Well at first it was actually skaven that really grabbed me but after painting 40 or so clanrats and facing the prospect of another 100 i began to lose all interest and painting seemed like a chore.
On a whim i painted up a couple of old gobbos from my previous collection and came to the realisation that i would only be able to build an army in which each individual mini interested me, or else the painting would become boring fast.

Anyway, that is the plan for this army, to have each unit comprised of 'individual' minis; no two exactly the same, hopefully this will add to the disorganized rabble look that suits an O&G army. (Even though it will probably turn out impossible for the bigger units, its something to aim for)

So, when is a snotling not a snotling?



When he is on a 20mm base of course!







I do plan on adding a fair quantity of normal sized gobbos to bring this unit up to 30/40 strong, and better represent the stat line. Also the bases are not yet finished as i figure grass should be added after varnishing?

I will use the smaller snotlings for swarms or have two to a base if in the goblin units, i also had this idea:





Again the base is not quite finished, incidently if anyone could recomend a good brush on matt varnish it would be much appreciated - these metal minis chip so easily..

Last of all a sneak peek at whats in store for future updates, some classic gobbo goodness:





Lots of old minis here, most from the 80s or 90s i really love the old metal night goblins, not sure how I will bring this unit up to strength though, they seem to go for obscene amounts on ebay and i figure i will need at least 30...

Well thats it for now, next updates will probably be in a few days (i have based most of the night gobbos and am recently unemployed so lots of painting time)

PS Do let me know if the pics work/are the right size i have never posted on a forum before so its all new to me.

Thanks for Reading
GG

Welcome aboard!

I love the start of the Snotling Goblin units! Really great work you've got going on, and the mixture of models will look very fun and unique. And soooo many cool old models you've got! Are those tiny Squigs actually models, or did you make them out of greenstuff? They're absolutely adorable :wub:

I can't help you out with varnish advice, as my last army was all-plastic, so I've never actually used it. I can tell you though that your pictures are pretty much the perfect size for an army log (at least in my opinion). Big enough to show off the detail, but small enough that they don't overwhelm the page.

Looking forward to more updates!

Welcome aboard ^^ I really like this project, and the first unit is sooo cool ^^ I love the choice of models and I'm waiting for some more snotling goodness :D

welcome,

great start......looks like i will have one more blog to follow!

Welcome to Da Warpath! :)

And about the gobbos...:

IIIIIIHIHIHAAHIII! :lol: Those old metal minis are so cute. Yes I said it, cartoony gobbos are cute. And those little squigglies too! Really solid paintjobs, they make the minis look very sneaky and gobbo-like. Really looking forward to more, this is great stuff!

Theo

Welcome to da warpath mate :yarr!:

Lovely miniatures. Looks like something I'm going to enjoy following :)

Welcome to da warpath.
Looking forward to seeing the models painted up. :wub: the snotling squig herd.

This is a great idea, a lot of the Snottling models are easily the size of goblins and look great on 20mm bases. I'm looking forward to seeing how you come along with the ambitious plan of having no two models the same, as this is very tricky especially with the availability of the Battle for Skull Pass night goblins which I always find very tempting when I'm looking to increase my unit sizes.

I really like your gnarly goblin standard bearer with blue boots is he from the wolf chariot kit?

Keep up the good work!

Great use of snotlings! I especially like the ones with baby squigs. Look forward to seeing more old skool minis getting painted. :)

As to varnish, I just use spray. Mine is Humbrol. You have to be careful not to spray too close or point it for too long (short bursts only). But otherwise seems to work well.

Can I be a party popper and point out that some of those snotlings are goblins...

Hello Again!

First of all I would like to say a massive thank you to everyone who has posted, its made me feel really welcome and has given me a real urge to crack on with this army.

First of all I will answer peoples questions then show the pics of what else i have done (dont get your hopes up it really isent much)

The 'Squiglets' as i hearby christen them are really easy to make. First find some plastic goblin heads (I used mostly the old plastic night goblin ones) that have crazy looking grins, then cut away the rest of the face. Add greenstuff to create the body. To do the eyes I found it was easiest to use an old pen with the 'inky bit' taken out, so you are left with a tiny hollow tube, this makes the depression around the eye and the eyeball itself in one easy go.
Also if you leave some of the chin intact, when you turn it upside down you get a nice top lip (hope that makes sense)

Someone asked about the standard bearer, I think it is from the chariot model, though I cant actually recall ever having the chariot :huh: If anyone has any ideas of what to put on the top of the pole, let me know (Im thinking a big skull or something)

In terms of having no two models the same, well, lets just say I may have been a bit over-enthusiastic there. (though I can still dream, right)

Anyway here are a couple of pics as promised:





As you can see i have started on the night goblins, the guy on the right of the second pic is a normal goblin and will join the first unit i posted bringing them up to 20 (my first 'legal' unit, :D )

Looking at the pics I can see some mistakes so consider them WIP (sure is nothing like blowing your minis up to twice there real size to help you spot the flaws) I apologise in advance for pic quality, will try and get my bros camera with a proper macro setting for next time.

Again the basing is not finished but i did pick up some varnish yesterday (and the new army book) so hopefully next time I post I will have some finished minis to show.

Well thats it for now, once again thanks to all who replied.

Till next time, GG :yarr!:

Edit: sorry for the massive first pic, i cant seem to resize it at the mo, will try later.

Those are actually my favourite night goblins of all time, they're so characterful and funny ^^ too bad I have only the "finger" one xD
I like the gritty skintone you're using :)

Nice, Cool models and really well painted! I really like the way you paint metal, how did you do it?

Wazoo

Greetings once again

Real life (and skyrim) have unfortunatly left me with little painting time but I have made some progress with the night goblins so thought I would give you lovely people a quick update.

@ Wazoo - I somehow completly missed your post so apologies for not replying sooner, the metal is real simple to do, base of boltgun metal, drybrush/stipple of macharius solar orange ( I sometimes use a bit of vermin brown also), wash with devlan mud and chainmail for the scratches/ edges, I think the thinner you can make the scratches the better it looks. If doing a larger area I sometimes do a layer of boltgun metal scratches aswell.

The better pics i promised last time are not gonna happen im afraid, I managed to drop my bros camera within about 2 mins of using it, breaking the lense, so yeah, not likely hes going to let me borrow it anytime soon (its not the first time this has happened :blush: )

Anyway here is the best i could do, (I placed the netters at the back so they dont block the view of the rest of the unit, will usually go in the second rank I reckon)









Not sure why one of these came out so much brighter, it was done with the same setup at the same time, took about 20 more photos but couldent seem to replicate it, ah well.

I have another 4 netters, 5 clubbers and another standard bearer to boost their numbers a bit higher, I think I will also sculpt some hoods and robes on a few snotlings for a bit more variation.

The robes may get another highlight at some point, in some lights it looks fine but in others they seem a bit flat. At the moment i just want to build up numbers as fast as possible.

I also have 9 fanatics:



As I only need 3 the others will also be added to the unit to help with the crazed, shroom addled goblin feel I want to achieve.

I want to make some filler with this guy but I am not sure what he should be setting fire to, let me know if you have any ideas:



The next pic is just to show you the insane scale creep over 2 years between the clubbers and the regular night goblins:



I really like the jester guy on the right, will probs use him as a shaman but was also thinking he could work as a BSB, kinda like the tribes 'mascot' if you will.

Last of all 3 more goblins to add to my first unit, nothing special but thought I would add them anyway:



Thats it for now, in the pipeline are: 3 trolls, 10 wolf riders, 1 Pump wagon, My warboss (old skarsnik model), more snotlings/squiglets and some orcs.

I wanted to do an all goblin army but having now read the army book and realising the sheer quantity of goblins I would need I decided I might have to include at least one unit of orcs simply to fill up the core points.

( for some reason the pics are massive at the moment even though on photobucket they have been resized, if they are still like that tonight I will try again, hopefully they will catch up soon)

Comment and critisism much appreciated :)

Thats all folks
S

THIS!

nuff said!! :yarr!:

This army is shaping up in an awesome way! So many old models together painted well is a real treat to see.

As for models you asked about, I would have the firebug goblins just lighting another gobbo's robes on fire while he's lokking the other way. Simple but effective. And the jester could work as a BSB or a Shaman. Depends on which one you can find a different model that works well for. Jester can be the other one!

I love seeing all those classic gobbo models being painted up so very nice. keep up the good work (:

Thank you to everyone who replied to the last update, really helps motivate me to paint more stuff :)

Started work on the stone trolls yesterday, in my opinion these guys have got to be some of my favorite models GW has ever produced, here are the pics of the first one:









About half way through painting this guy I decided that the scales were too bright and was very close to stripping him and starting over, then I thought I would use him as a practice model to get the skintone right, the skin went well so I thought I would try and save him by re-highlighting the scales, by the end I had painted each individual scale no less than 4 times, took :badgobbo: long.

I would really appreciate some constructive critism of this guy, they are probs going to be the biggest things in my army (except the giant) so I want them to be something special, in particular do you think the scales are too bright? and what do you think of the hands? I wasent really very happy with them.

Thanks once again for everyone who has posted,

GG :)

I like him! The scales are good, but I would say that you should brighten the in-between parts (the thin strips between the scales), so that they don't stand out too much...

Wazoo

The troll is excellent, I'm really tempted to use this scheme :D

Thanks for the comments guys, Wazoo I think you are right about the 'in between bits', I have already basecoated the other two in the same colour so I figure I will probably have to make the scales a bit darker, might actually try a purpley colour on the next one, might be kinda cool if they are all slightly different, Ill get some more pics up when they are done sometime next week :)

As promised the trolls are now finished (apart from the basing).

I really enjoyed painting these guys, as you will see I decided to give each one a slightly different colour scheme which definitely made them more interesting to do, was also a nice break from painting green...

Most importantly though I think I learnt a lot from them, doing the different colours certainly pushed me out of my comfort zone and they are the biggest things I have ever painted.

At some point I will pick up the other variations as I would really like to run a unit of 6, I also want to do one in grey and maybe even try one in terracotta though I need to do some more rank and file first.

Anyway here are the pics:



You can see the different colour schemes better from behind, I think the two blue ones look more different in real life though :



I personally think the purple one is my favorite.

Thought I would do a quick army shot of everything I have so far, mostly my old collection but ive also been picking up orcs of ebay for the last few weeks:



I reckon ive painted about 25% at the moment so still a way to go yet..

I have also decided to try and stick to my original rule of having no two minis the same, sure it will take a while but I think it will look awesome when its done and will keep the painting interesting.

I was browsing stuffoflegends the other day and noticed many of the old minis were named, since then ive been having crazy fantasies about being able to name each and every model...(not sure if this would be over the top, though I think it would make writing the background fluff quite interesting).

Thats it for now, next up will be either orcs or wolf riders, probs do a character as well, as always I really do appreciate peoples comments and critisism so thankyou in advance :)

Take it easy, GG

Wow, those Trolls are gorgeous! Only thing I would say is to try and add something to their bases. Such a big open patch of brown is just begging for something to go on it, even if just a bit of flock or static grass.

Those trolls look awesome.

Cheers,
G

Very cool trolls! I particularly like the purple one!

Wazoo

I saved those troll pics to my computer, great stuff!

Thanks for all the comments on the trolls guys, I spent a lot of time on them so its good to know people like them :)

@ Noisy Assasin - Dont worry, none of the bases are finished yet, gonna add some static grass and probs some mushrooms/flowers/leaves here and there to liven things up a bit.

Managed to get some wolf riders done this week, I feel like I may have rushed these a bit which I now regret. When I started them I dident really like the wolves and had just seen those lovely new 40k ones so found it hard to really get 'excited' about painting them, now they are done though I think they actually look pretty cool and fit quite well with the rest of my army.

They were also a real pain to prep, so much flash that at times it felt like I wasent just removing mouldlines so much as actually carving whole areas of the model.. :angry:

Here the pics:









As you can see I only have eight at the moment, will at some point convert a standard bearer and musician to bring them up to ten.

The cheque pattern on the bosses axe was my first attempt at a freehand pattern and I have to say I found it really hard, I think it came out better from behind as I over weathered the front a bit. If anyone has any tips on how they do it let me know (Im thinking next time I might 'cheat' and use a fine tipped pen or something).

One last thing if anyone has used army painter 'meadow flowers', how much do you get in a pack? enough for a rank, a unit or an army? If anyone knows of any other good flowers/leaves/tufts it would be much appreciated as Im ordering some basing materials next week.

Thanks for reading and as always comments and critisism are most welcome. :)

Till next time GG :yarr!:

(Edit - Ignore the wolves in the first pic, for some reason they look really weird to me, I also think the fur looks better in real life, actually goes from a dark tone underneath to almost pure bleached bone on top, dosent seem to have come out very well in the pics though... sigh)

oh man you make those trolls look good :o

I feel exactly the same way :lol:

you unit is looking really good though. The old riders are brilliant :yarr!:

Superb work om the trolls, they're wonderful ^^
and great paintjob on the wolves :D and I know how you feel about the fenrisian wolf, they will be in my army for sure u.u

Those are some pretty cool old models (I think this is going to be a recurring thing for me to say!). Those wolves look almost like boars in their snouts, and the riders have soo much character.

Glad to hear that you're going to be doing more with the bases. As far as tufts go, I actually like the ones that GW makes, although they are pretty expensive. Other than that I use all natural materials. It's easy to rip up a leaf into little tiny leaves, and twigs and dead grass makes for good sticks and dead plants. I also bought some dyed reindeer moss from a craft shop and that makes good dead undergrowth or reddish bushes with leaves attached. Other source of leaves and small plants is your spice cabinet. So many different shapes, sizes and colors!

Edit: Just realized that Army Painter is the GW line. If the flowers are anything like the tufts, you should get enough for a couple of regiments in each pack (as long as they are scattered and not all over everything)

Very nice wolf riders! I like them!

Wazoo

Oh boy has it really been 3 months since the last update? :blush: How time flies...

Yet again real life has meant that progress on this army is not happening as fast as I would like , but I have got a few things painted, without further ado, here they are...

The start of a unit of orcs:



Probs rushed these guys a little, for some reason I just prefer painting goblins...

Another 5 orcs (there is another spear armed one just out of shot) cant remember exactly which company makes these, just that they are kev adams sculpts I think. Still need to do some shields for them sometime.



I decided to give these orcs skin an extra highlight, I think it looks better but I am still not sure how much better, and I fear I may still be using my paint a little too thick, sigh, just trying to find that elusive balance between time and quality at the moment. Anyway thats 15 orcs all together, just the front rank to go.



Another 10 Goblins, Ill add these to the goblin/snotling unit, once I have done another 10 I will get up a pic of the whole unit - should be 50 strong by then.

From a slightly different angle:



Again some of these guys are kev adams sculpts, some are just old GW ones.

Next up is a pic showing some of my basing experiments, still undecided about the flowers but I will almost certainly be using the grass tufts, just got to find the perfect colour. Also the start of my squig herd..



Time for a couple of WIPS, first up an undercoated night goblin shaman:



Was going to do this guy for the competition but a little late now me thinks. Real easy conversion; a gnoblar trappers body and a 40k grot head and greenstuff. The rock will be painted as a big chunk of warpstone.

This next one is my very much WIP Mangler squig, I wanted to go down a different route from the usual oversized squigs and I figure there must be some pretty crazy creatures in the deep dark mushroom filled caves of the night goblins so Im going to use this instead:





I should note here that it was simply impossible to take a photo in which the pose dident look a bit off, these where the best of a bad bunch.



He is (or will be) a crazed fungus troll or SquigTroll if you will. No idea what the arms are from as he was picked up of ebay a little while back, the head is from a chaos troll and the body is stone troll. I take no credit for the general idea, but I did re-position the arms/legs and will do a fair amount of green stuff work to make him my own (and there is a LOT of sculpting to be done). I will be interested in what people think as he is somewhat different to the usual mangler squig concept. (but hopefully looks as deranged as the real thing).

Thats about it for now, next up I want to finish the orc and goblin/night goblin units
so that the core is out of the way and I can move on to the 'fun' stuff. :yarr!:

As always all comments/critisims are much appreciated. :)

Well, Thats All Folks

GG

Edit: Changed the name of the blog to reflect the fact it is no longer just goblins. :)

Squiggly Troll a Mangler is pure gold! Make sure you add some mushrooms growing out of his brain and you should be good to go :P

And, like always, I love seeing all these old models come together. It'll be a truly epic and unique army when you're done.

Remarkable work on those classic looking orcs, I LOVE the skin tone. I like the night goblin conversion and the Troll is a freaking awesome idea xD

Great painting! If those are rushed then I wish I had a pinpoint of your talent in my painting hand! LOL

:) Thanks for the comments guys,

@NoisyAssasin - Definatly going to use that mushroom idea, I was just thinking he needed something to make him more orc and gobliney, shrooms growing out of his head/back is exactly what I was looking for, Thanks :)

@Thitanium Prince - Glad you like them, if your interested the skintone is Gretchin Green, Thraka green wash, re-highlight with GG, then another highlight with Vallejo Heavy Khaki, final highlight is VHK and a little bleached bone though I often just leave it at the VHK. No idea what that is in the new paints though..

@Guru_Swami - Cheers man, compliments are always appreciated, its all just practice though, 9 months ago anything I painted looked like the work of a mad 5 year old :blush:

Anyway probs be a little while before the next update, just got to decide what to do next, I mean, I know logically I should do some rank and file but that mangler troll is calling to me, then there is the pump wagons, the giant, some squigs and a couple of trolls just sitting there, not to mention the drunken snotlings I based last night... :D

Needless to say, I will be kept busy with this army for a little while yet. :)

Cheers,
GG

Loving the squiggly troll. I can just picture it ripping through units with those massive claws.
I like the painting on the orcs, but i cant help thinking they all look a bit like shrek.

Great squiglets, I have to say you have just made the 100 or so extra goblin heads in my bits box so much more attractive to me. Thanks for the great idea.

Your army is comming along nicely cant wait for more :D

Lol, you are not the first to mention this, I fear they will forever be remembered as the "Shrorcs" sigh....

Anyway, havent got a huge amount done recently, but enough for an update methinks...

(EDIT: for some reason some of the pics have not re-sized or cropped at the time of posting, this has happend before and I think it just takes photobucket a couple of hours to catch up, if they appear massive, come back later :) )

I will start with a nasty skulker as he is one of my favorite minis I have painted so far:



Kev adams sculpt from mannequin (sp?) minatures.

Next the NG shaman from my last post, despite being a character he probably has a slightly worse paintjob than most of my rank and file, I feel I kinda screwed the warpstone with the white lines but not quite enough to make me re do it :badgobbo: ah well here he is:



Next an old standard bearer who will be a normal goblin:



And with that ends the decent pics Im afraid, the above ones where taken using my bros SLR 'proper' camera, Im afraid the rest where taken using my bog standard compact digital.

Some new recruits:



And something a bit more special, some snotling 'doubles', spent a little longer on these guys as I really like the sculpts, so much character:







I feel rather lucky to have these guys as I think they are quite rare now, I am also pretty sure I have the other piggy back pair somewhere, which I believe completes the 'set' :) I especially like the mooners and the drunks :wub:

Now time for the main event, the completed goblin unit from my first post at the start of the blog, well almost complete, bar the top of the standard, the unit champion is also a stand in and will be likely be replaced, here they are:



From the top:



The snotling with the sling in the middle of this next one is actually the first model I painted from this army, he is the one that started this madness.... :D





And some more:



The painting is actually of a more varied standard than the pics show, I like to think I am gradually improving, bar one or two anomalies (Im looking at you NG shaman)



Last one, promise:



Thats it for now, I think the next update will be a squiggy one, both of the smaller and larger kind... I reckon I have already put about 2 hours of sculpting work into the mangler from my previous update, so yeah, he has changed quite a bit. :D

Of course I may always get distracted by something else...

Thanks for reading, I look forward to any comments/ideas/critism

Till next time, GG

I didn't realize there were so many different faces of goblins. Those are very nice!