Ork Ork Ork Ork Ork Ork Ork Ork Ork Ork Ork Ork Ork

The end of Orktober is upon us. I didn’t get the whole Combat Patrol box painted but I’m very happy with what did get done. 16 out of the 20 boys are done (missing some basing materials but with the post being what it is these days, that’ll be what it’ll be.

This army (not including the Kommandos for Kill Team) was originally bought over the last couple of years to paint up but got stalled by FOFU (Fear of Forking Up). I knew in my head how I wanted them to look but not how to get them there. I wanted a Freebooters army with lots of individual looking minis.I have a bunch of bits bought to convert in the future but getting this batch done, vanilla though they may be, was a first step.

When it came to paint schemes I knew I wanted bright and colourful units that would be identifiable but also look cohesive. Whether my love of bright colours or my love of third wave ska came first, I’ll never know but there is a deep rooted place in my heart for the album covers of cds I played to death twenty+ years ago.

So these boys (and more to come in the future) and themed around Less Than Jake’s Losing Streak cover. The purple colour was harder to get a handle on than I was expecting but I’m pretty happy with how they all came out.

I also managed to finish off the Kommando Kill Team that has been sitting less than half done for four months on the hobby desk. For some reason I didn’t do a matching base for the big guy when I made the rest of them but I can’t be bothered to do it now. I’d say I’ll come back and do it in the future but we’re all hobbyists here, we all know I won’t.

Orktober goal was the 25 miniatures in the Combat Patrol box and instead I got 28 orks done. That’ll do Gorram, that’ll do. Time to take a few weeks off Orks and make some headway on the other big army projects but I should be back with more before Christmas.

Bit of a distraction from the Combat Patrol box, I went back to the Kill Team Kommandos that I started back in June? July? Time is a flat circle. Still not finished and not as green in the light of day as they appear in these photos.

As mentioned at the end of the previous post, I’ve been having some health issues recently that have thrown hobby out the window a bit. I’ve added to them this week by managing to pick up Covid so who knows how much I’ll get done.

Today was sunny and dry though so, coughing my guts up behind my mask, I went out to to a quick prime. Black and then a grey in a spray can zenithal.

These are some of many boyz so quicker is better. Contrast for the base skin layer then

Can you tell what I noticed at this moment? I’ll give you a second.

Correct.

I forgot to drill gun barrels. All of them. Sigh.

Started to do metals but realised that should be a later stage so just put down black over guns and boots. Now I need to crawl into bed and watch more Murder She Wrote

I have an embarrassing number of unpainted orks. And part built orks. And part painted orks. Or orcs.

Now I’m not going to lie, at one point in time, they were going to be a 40k army and they are mainly modern GW kits. There are some bits from Spellcrow and Kromlech in there and at some point in the future, when I have such a thing as spare cash, I’d love to add in some old ork models from through the years but that is a far future plan.

My brain likes to come up with big plans and think them through in intricate detail as a mental distraction during the day. I really enjoy it. Unfortunately it means that by the time I come to actually build and paint, half of my excitement has been spent and now I’m just frustrated they aren’t done already. I wish I could stop doing it but it’s just how my brain goblins work. It’s the same reason that most of my RPG campaign fizzle out before they properly get started – by the time we get to the table, I’m thought out the campaign and challenged all the parts I was aiming at.

At this point this army is just a pile of unfinished intimidation in the cupboard. If I actually looked at the numbers it probably isn’t as large as I think it is but right now it is the orky elephant in the room. As we all know, the best way to eat an elephant is…

The brain goblins respond pretty well to breaking bigger projects down into smaller parts and then just focusing on them for a short but intense period. It is one of the reasons I take part in the DK30 a couple of times a year. There will be another one which overlaps with this first month of the project but it is on an unrelated subject so shouldn’t get in the way.

If breaking this project down into chunks is the plan then Orktober seemed like a fine time to start. I grabbed one of the mid-sized boxes and figure that getting them mostly* done in the month is an achievable goal.

*mostly because I don’t actually have a paint scheme planned for anything heavier than infantry right now but that might change as inspiration comes back.

So this is a couple of nights progress from the last week. I had some unexpected health stuff come up that stopped me working on it quite as much as I’d hoped but it has been enjoyable building these new Boyz. I had been hoping to get them primed today but the Scottish weather has been, well October-ish. Instead I’ll probably finish building the rest of the box and then switch to brush on primer if we don’t get a break in the howling wind or torrential rain.

The main thing though is it is started. First bite of the leg taken.