For the Ginger Dwarf: A Charity Painting Project in the 41st Millenium

Gamers are a lovely bunch of coconuts and the internet has made finding them easier. Some years ago, back when Dust was still called Tactics and actually had an active community in the UK, I had the pleasure of being part of a group of people promoting the game for fun in the four nations. Through that group I met a lovely soul who goes online by the name Voodoo Bob. Bob and I have never met but over the last few years we’ve had some good banter, especially on his Twitch streams. He is, I believe the expression is, good people.

Bob and his partner, Ginger Dwarf, have had a rough few years as she has been battling cancer. Over the time they’ve received a lot of support from Macmillan and last year Bob did two 24 hour streams to raise money for them. He recently announced that he is doing another one in a few weeks and will be playing Minecraft the whole time. They are using the stream as a chance to build a mega base as a monument to Ginger.

I knew I would be there in his chat and in the background mining for them but I wanted to find a way to do a little more. Like many people, I don’t have a lot to donate in terms of money but I can donate my time so I began sneaking.

I went to some wargaming communities I am part of and I floated the idea of a charity auction. Bob is a 40k man so I figured I would paint up a wee force and try to get some extra money donated for him and draw attention to his stream for extra on the day support. I also wanted to do it without Bob and Ginger knowing because surprising people is fun. Especially when they are many hours into a 24 hour slog and need a wee pick me up.

Two things happened. Firstly, someone on the Top Table Gaming Facebook group suggested a raffle instead of an auction so more people could afford to chip in. This is an idea I love as I never even look at auctions because I know I won’t have the money for it. A raffle just seems like a more inclusive way to go about things.

Secondly, Andy from Blackjack Legacy and Dominik, a member of the BJL Discord offered to donate models for the cause. Andy had already painted the space marine half of the Indomitus box saving me time as well as money. Dominik offered some extra marines and an impulsor tank. I don’t play 40k but he assured me they pair nicely with the Indomitus force.

Fantastic, now I just have to paint them to match Andy’s work…

Obviously, in normal circumstances, painting models to match a force would be a bit time consuming but perfectly doable. These aren’t normal circumstances though… the painted models are miles away at Blackjack HQ and the unpainted ones are here, north of the wall.

Oh, and I only have a week to paint them up.

Best get the recipe then! Andy sent me through the paint list and I already had all but one of them.

“I did them with an airbrush though and it might be hard to do it without” he said.

“Not a problem,” said I. “I bought one of those cheap ones you talked about in a video last year. It’ll be good to use it for something other than just priming.”

Dominik had built and primed the impulsor before offering it to me and then very kindly built the space marines before sending them on to save me some time. A quick bit of mould line checking, barrel drilling and mounting for painting and we were good to go. Time elapsed, about 30 minutes.

First instruction, prime black. Easy peasy. Mostly. Maybe I have the paint a bit thick, the airbrush isn’t loving it. It’s fine though, all done. Time for lunch and giving the compressor time to cool down. This is a cheap machine and so I don’t run it longer than 30 minutes to prevent overheating.

Next instruction is to hit them from underneath with Screamer Pink (GW). Okay, straight forward. Must remember to thin it more than the primer. Hmm, by the forth model, the airbrush is playing up again. Now I remember why I only prime with it when I have to! It’s just too cheap an airbrush and compressor to really cope more than a few minutes use at a time. Oh well, in for a penny as they say…

Third step, and the last one with the airbrush thankfully, zenithal Averland Sunset. Okay, this looks cool and there’s no way I’d have done it with a paintbrush but, in the name of the Emperor, am I glad to be done with the airbrush.

Next it’s time to pick up the paintbrush and work on the bits that really make a space marine pop.

The instructions were:

– shoulder trims painted Mephiston Red
– aquilla painted Khorne Red
– silver parts are Leadbelcher (I switched this with Gun Metal by Army Painter)
– pouches and belts etc are Abaddon Black.

Stopping these here. Until I have the original models in hand, I don’t want to put them on bases. Fingers crossed they won’t need many tweaks but it’s a waiting game.

Now to turn my attention to the tank Dominik sent me.

Now let’s be very clear before I say anything else. I hate this hover tank nonsense. I think they look dumb. I also normally don’t enjoy painting vehicles. This however was quite a lot of fun to paint.

Dominik sent it on to me primed and magnetised. Stage one was to airbrush Averland Sunset (GW)

Then in with some details.

GW paints: Mephiston Red, Abbadon Black, Retributor Gold, Moot Green, Pallid Wytch Flesh

Army Painter: Gun Metal

Pin wash on all the yellow sections Agrax Earthshade (which made me realise how much I would like to buy a proper lining brush at some point)

Over metallic sections, wash was Nuln Oil

Weathering is a good old sponge with Charred Brown (Vallejo) for yellow sections and Gun Metal for the metallics. I also went over the very edge of the tank with the Gun Metal for a properly beaten up look. Fists never back down so it makes sense to me that their vehicles will be hard-worn.

Last thing to do on them all is the basing. Andy has used the Geek Gaming Mars base ready for the models he is putting in. I have sworn to never use that crap again but needs must.

Last stage for the painting side of the project, basing them to match Andy’s Indomitus force that they’ll be mustering with. Thankfully I already had the Mars base ready mix from Geek Gaming which I had bought for Star Wars Legion.

As I said in my last post, I had sworn never to use this stuff again because it was such a nightmare to work with last time. It’s incredibly dusty, it stains everything it comes into contact with and can only be used if you seal it which is fine except it leaches colour when you do.

Still, being Scottish, I throw nothing away so I didn’t have to buy any for this project.

The Space Marines hadn’t come with bases so I found some 32mm mdf ones and prepped them more than usual. These marines came with pegs for their proper bases so aren’t the most stable without anchoring to the base. I pinned them and then covered the footprint with some tac.

Each marine was then labelled A-E and the bases marked. The impulsor tank just had the imprint of the hover stand marked as seen in the background of the photo.

Heading to the sink, a coat of pva went down and then they were left to set up for a while. I went back later and sealed them with watered down pva (and a skoosh of window cleaner for breaking surface tension). Knowing that the colour ran horribly last time I used this stuff, as the sealant was setting I sprinkled a little extra over the top of the areas that were already showing signs (particularly the rocks).

Then it was just a case of finding the tac, removing it and super-gluing everyone where they belong. The holes had been made right through the bases so it was easy to turn them over and see roughly where the tac should be. They definitely look a lot better than when I did my Legion minis. A quick run of Abbadon Black round the rims and we’re done.

This was also the moment I remembered that the original photo had no weathering on the marines… really glad I spent the extra time and effort weathering that tank for it to n0t match the army ?

The rest of the army isn’t here yet but it’s a comfort to know my side of things is ready to go as soon as they appear.

Turns out running a raffle is a pain in the arse online so I am going down the old fashioned route of buying a book of tickets and people can send the money via Paypal… now I know why people tend to stick to auctions!

Still haven’t quite managed to get everything all in one place but the raffle officially went live this evening so I thought I should post up the photos here. I’ve also put the text from the post below too. I don’t really expect anyone here to join in (though you are more than welcome!! please message me and we can sort it) but I’ve made this project so that when it is all finished on Saturday, I can show it to Bob and Ginger and let them see the kindness of strangers on the internet.

The Ginger Dwarf Charity Raffle

There are certain truths in this world. Cancer sucks is one of those. Gamers are wonderful people is another. Thirdly, surprises are fun and kindness makes the world go round. They are very different truths but all are important to what I’m about to say.

A good friend of mine, met through wargaming, and his partner have had a hellish time the last few years with her fighting cancer. They have had great support from Macmillan and he is doing a 24 hour charity stream this coming Friday to thank them. I wanted to do something a little more than just donate a wee bit of cash so with the help of Andy Burdis and his discord, we’ve put together a painted Imperial Fists army for Warhammer 40k. The goal is to sell as many tickets as we can and surprise Bob during his stream with the donation. Obviously this means we’ve only got a couple of days of ticket sales but I have full faith we can give him a nice boost (and someone can win a great looking army)!

Tickets for the raffle are £2 each and you just have to message me to buy them, payments through Paypal. I’ll keep ticket sales going until 9am Saturday 17th (UK time). Open to all, international included. Draw will take place at 10am. I have a book of 400 tickets folks, let’s see how many we can sell in 61 hours?

What a busy little 60 hours that was. When I went live with the raffle on Wednesday night I was hoping to raise £150-200. As I closed it this morning we had taken £270. People from three different communities put in donations (not all wanted tickets in the draw, just wanted to chip in which was something I hadn’t considered). Wargamers are great people; thank you to everyone from here at OTT/BOW, TopTable Gaming and Blackjack Legacy for joining in the fun.

As I have been writing this up, there was a top up donation to get us to £300.

This has been a wild little three weeks. What started as a silly idea and a spur of the moment couple of posts asking for advice turned into several acts of kindness, many hours of work, a pretty substantial prize, and a lovely donation for a very worthy charity.

From a personal hobby perspective, painting to match someone else’s paint scheme without seeing it in person was an interesting challenge. There are things I would have painted differently, stages I would have put in that weren’t there. Overall though, I’ve very happy with how they turned out. Sadly I won’t get to see them all together in person. As of the draw, the Indomitus part of the prize was still in Newcastle so we’ll just send on to the winner separately.

Sadly the stream that dictated the timeline for all this had to be delayed by a week. Managing to keep all of this secret from Bob and Ginger has been hard because I’m a blabbermouth but being able to surprise them next Saturday/Sunday with the generosity of gamers is an honour.

To Bob and Ginger,
This whole project was written up so that you could read it back in my future, your present. I know that things have been horrible for you and nothing any of us can do can change that for you, no matter how much we wish it could. Several of the people who have been involved in this have had their own run ins with that c**t Cancer. They wanted to pass on their love and appreciation for what you are going through and doing with your Macmillan fundraising. We might all be strangers but we are all human and we’re all sending you our very best wishes.
Lots of love and stuff,
Gorram

A small add on to this “completed” project. After the stream today, Bob and Ginger wanted this message passed on to everyone who bought tickets, donated or was otherwise involved:

I’ve just popped my head round to just say 2 simple words that don’t do justice for how me and my partner feel for how you guys have blown us away….
Thank you..

Hopefully you’ve caught on I’m VOODOO_BOB and my partner is Ginger_Dwarf…. I’ve still not gone to bed yet, because I felt it would be wrong to not reach out to folk first.
It’s near impossible to find silver linings in our situation. But rays of light lift our spirits… Knowing that others can get the help and counselling we’ve received from Macmillan because of your actions means so much to us… I’ve added the donation page so you can see how much you have helped raise so far. I hope this is OK.

Thank you,
2 lil words that don’t seem enough

VOODOO_BOB & GINGER_DWARF
aka Paul and Bev

https://gameheroes.macmillan.org.uk/fundraising/voodoo-bob2021