Working on some Blood Axe boyz recently I couldn’t resist using some of the classic Space Ork plastic heads.
These are literally some of the first models I bought at the beginning of the 1990’s when getting into all this jazz.
It’s great value, giving the budding modeler and painter 36 test subjects to paint to a PRO-PAINTED standard. It was great as you got lots of weapons and shoulder pads and equipment to personalize them.
And here they are in all their glory with the studio paint jobs, and they looked pretty damn cool to the eyes of 13 year old me!
So I took some of those old heads and the shoulder pads and so we have…..
They are part of a larger unit of 10 Blood Axe boyz, which will feature in the army I plan to play some new 40k with later in the year.
Technically this is part 2 of this previous WIP post….
So I took that old WIP and decided to do something with it. While it looks a bit ugly, once the basic proportions on the limbs are OK, we can build on top of it with fresh detail.
Midway through – brown stuff is used to structure the form usually building up in a couple of sessions.
I had a rough idea in mind for this guy rather than a specific design. As it shapes up it tends to inform the next things added and so on. I knew I wanted to have separate hands for later weapon and shield options.
Bizaza Jaguar Knight
The Jaguar Knights are a cult of proven warriors dedicated to the Jaguar god. Apprenticeship is open to any regular Bizaza warriors who have proven themselves by taking 4 high status warrior captives in battle to honour the gods in worthy sacrifice and of course, to stop the sky falling on everyone’s heads.
They dress in elaborate costumes crafted from the big cats bodies, believing that the wild spirit of the Jaguar God will posses them in battle and bring deadly ruin to their enemies.
In the army they fulfill the role of elite light infantry. They employ a light shield slung on the forearm for protection while they shower opponents with atlatl darts. When the situation calls for close work they switch to clubs and macuahuitl.
He will appear in a future KS this year with some buddies.
Conversion of a Marauder Witch Elf for the #makeatrish painting competition on The Oldhammer Community Facebook page. I choose a small subject for this one as I didn’t really have loads of time to lavish on it and I certainly wanted to contribute something in my style as Trish Carden is a major influence on my work and certainly a great pioneer in miniature but particularly monster sculpting.
Marauding Dark Elf Female
I have taken a stock witch elf model, which came from friend Curis over at Ninjabread. The unfortunate lady was missing her right hand, so I replaced it with a plastic dark elf hand and rigged her into a sword and marauder plastic shield pose.
Juvenile Treeman
I sculpted a juvenile Treeman onto the shield loosely based on Trish’s iconic Treeman design. I chose this as it’s the model that really illuminated for me just what an awesome miniature designer she is. I have modeled to look like it’s been nailed there by our fair lady to discourage whoever is shooting those arrows.
I glued some modeling sponge to the tops of the branch arms to give some nice green colour and texture to the model and which really makes the treeman pop.
The little leaves are from birch tree seeds. They are lovely things to work with. I enhanced the colours simply by using red, green or brown glazes on top of them.
Finally, there is a hedgehog on the base and she has surely ruined it’s rest with all her nasty doings!
Recently I have been filled with desire to work on an old bucket list project of mine, a nicely painted Epic 40,000 force of orks.
Epic 40,000 Ork Snakebite Clan
I intend to play some games with them using the open source NetEpic rules (with some house rules tweaks to it to get rid of the templates as they tend to slow up the game and effectively reduce the available table space).
At 24 stands, the Snakebites are the most numerous Clan, with Goffs in 2nd place at 23!
Working on some scenic items to build up the battlezone thematically alongside the army would be ideal also.
Boss Nobz
To begin with, I decided that I would work on a Snakebite Clan as I have never in all my time painted a single Snakebite, and now I would paint 105 of them at 6/7mm (Epic scale is in fact a bit wobbly with sizes often dramatically different for infantry models – your average person would probably never notice it anyway).
Snakebite Boarboyz
As the Snakebites are supposed to be staunch traditionalists, I wanted them to have a lot of browns, green and metal with a smattering of primary spot colours – like classic fantasy orcs really.
Da Snakebite Boyz
The banners were done by carefully cutting out GW Ork transfer sheets to fit. The Nobz got a bit more attention than the boyz. I converted the Epic Ork Warlord to carry a power klaw cut from an Ork dreadnought. In game terms you have 4 identical stands but to my mind the whole Ork Clan should have the Warboss as the focal point, so there he is!
Snakebite Warboss and Nobz Bodyguard
As there are not a huge variety of models available, I decided that I would make my Snakebites unique by sculpting a special Ork to represent them.
My first 6mm sculpt of an Ork – clearly I am influenced by Aly Morrison’s large head Marauder Space Orks (Trish Carden made the ones with the Normal sized heads for the record)
I did a quick and dirty casting in lead from this – the detail is not quite as crisp as the original but more than adequate to express the idea in miniature.
While I was working on him, I started working on an Ork for when I get around to doing the Goff Clan. I think he is adorable so far <3.
Back on the Brian Nelson/Kev Adams influenced mode for this guy
So that’s a solid 600 points of stuff to begin with. I am looking to add some Squiggoths to this lot and perhaps some Stompas (as they move at about the same speed as the infantry).
This is the Sea Elemental from our upcoming “Terrors from the Deep” project.
The most excellent old style illustration was done by Mustapha @ Spevna Studio. It is drawn from the perspective of a sailor who has witnesses these monstrosities. Mus has a lovely woodcut feel to his work so we were very pleased to have a project that suited to his talents.
The initial design and sculpt was done by Doti. She took the classic Sea Elemental theme and added…seawater vomit. You can easily imagine sailors getting swept off the decks in a torrent of…..GROOOOLLSSSHHHHHCCCCCssssss.
Presenting my Slannesh cultists – at least the ones that I have finished anyway.
Cenobites direct the faithful servants of Slannesh
I wanted to do this for a looooong time, so it was great to finally get to them. These are chaos sorcerers with some high tech weapons attached to they can have some fun in the far future.
They are super nice guys and naturally they are now wearing their last victims.
Fallen Guardsmen with Ex-Imperial Preacher – Kill! Maim! Burn!
Before you commit to the life of a cenobite, why not try out the lifestyle in the Cult Militant. See if you have a vocation for sociopathic ultraviolence.
Daemons of Slannesh – Fiend, Daemonette and Greater Daemon
The Classic set of Citadel Slanneshi Daemons are perfect for small skirmish games.
I had to do some conversion work on the Greater Daemon, she is really a composite of a couple of greater daemons rather than a stock model. I sculpted the rearmost leg from Green Stuff.
Rogue Psyker – Pyrokinetic
This rouge psyker invariably accompanies this warband. He is a classic armless metal Bratt model from Confrontation. I have used the Soldiers of the Empire set to add the arms. The force rod is simply a halberd cut strategically and carefully filed to flat ends.
TheOttoVonBismark 
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