Blue period and a shot across the bow

Nobby nobby nob nob.

Painting occurred this morning as I finished off the blue Nob I started last week.  Nothing extra special here, no new techniques or anything, just old fashioned painting.  On reflection that's not entirely accurate.  I picked up a pot of Gryphonne Sepia at the FLGS last night (along with a box of Demo Corps, but that's for another day) and put it to use on the skulls and wrist wrapping.  It strikes me as a lighter, browner Devlan Mud.  A while back there was a post on Lost Hemisphere, I think a Free Time Black Hole, with a throwaway comment about a trend at their FLGS of washing Gryphonne Sepia over a white base.  The result was a sort of bone look that I found quite nice, resolved to try out, and promptly forgot about.  Fast forward to my recent change of plans to make Menoth my "halo" painted faction, plus a need to use up all of a gift card, and I figured it was time to expand the wash collection.  In this limited application I think things will work out like I want them to, but it'll take an actual, full-scale application to be certain.  Perhaps the poor neglected Sir Ekkrion will get the cobwebs dusted off so I can try it out.  To continue with the new approaches on this model, I did a healthy application of Devlan Mud at the end, but left a couple of the blue areas (left shoulder, top of the klaw) untouched to create some contrast in what was otherwise a large expanse of blue.  I also painted up the base instead of leaving it alone like the rest of the Orks.  One of these days I'll ballast up the others, put some grass on this one, and get a coat of varnish on the newest additions.  Then I'll have an honest-to-Gork completely finished Ork.  Once I've put the Dullcote on of course.

Change of Pace

A little vacation from the Motherland.

After yesterday's musings about Orks, today I grabbed a handful and got to painting.  It's not often that I can start and finish a mini in a single day, let alone a group of them, but that's more or less what happened here.  I drop that qualifier in because the batch had been started already, but keeping with my usual style I re-painted just about every bit.  While I know that Orks are a motley bunch and having them be different colors would be thematic, I still like having a consistent shade through bunches, if not the whole army.  Speaking of coherency the Evil Sunz portion of the army isn't speaking to me at the moment, despite what I painted today.  Somehow having the single color (blue) on the Deathskull part works for me more than the dual color (red/yellow) of the Sunz.  My concept for the army would work just fine as a strictly Deathskull force and if I didn't already have most of a squad of Evil Sunz done (not to mention other partially painted bits) then I'd probably switch over to just blue.  Perhaps pulling all the boyz out as a group will make the different colors more appealing.  If I've lost you in this reminiscing, do check the tag cloud on the right sidebar.  I've covered this Orky speculation before, but it's been quite a while.

Year in Review

The year what was.

First things first, I've picked up a couple new followers recently, so howdy to the new folks.  Hope you enjoy the ride.

With the new year on the horizon, and since I see them popping up across the interwebs, I thought I'd take a look at what I've done this year.  Starting with models built would be appropriate, but I'm not entirely sure what was done this year and what was done in years past, so let's just skip ahead to painting.

Good news, bad news

Good news first: I've joined the 21st century and am posting from my new iPhone. The tiny keyboard is a bit of a pain, but it's nice to have the capability. The bad news is that between the phone and the newly constructed computer I've spent an awful lot of money lately. This is a sort of blessing in disguise though as I can put the hard clamps on hobby purchases until I make some good progress. A pair of lists, first projects that are on hold while my wallet recovers.

Blood Angels expansions
Ork expansions
Pretty much any additions to any GW armies
New systems, not that any were on the horizon

And a much shorter list of things that might still get funding:

Wrath
New Khador bits, especially Harkevich, Black Ivan, and Torch
Trollbloods, once I get the starter box finished

While the lists split neatly between GW and PP, this is a coincidence. I will admit to a recent resurgence of PP interest though. EV and I will be throwing down tomorrow so we'll see what that does in terms of interest. I've already made a half dozen lists with iBodger so the ideas are flowing, though I think I'll be returning to a previous theme. No links or pics this time as posting from the phone is already tedious.

Becalmed on the hobby seas

A breeze sure would be nice.

Progress has been AWOL for the last week or two.  I'm not sure what the problem is exactly, I just know that the drive to sit and paint has waned to the point that I can barely bring myself to get the painting station set up, let alone do something with it.  Building the Ork Dread last week was a good time, yet the prospect of assembling yet more Ork Boys is less than thrilling.  What I'd like to do is put together an Honor Guard for the Blood Angels, but I still need to assemble some more bits for the load-out I have in mind.  There's also the matter of magnetizing, which is all but a must for something like an Honor Guard that has so many options.  Considering that I want to do each Honor Guard with unique heraldry, I'll need to come up with a way to have swappable arms that all share a single pair of shoulder pads which I have yet to figure out.  Lack of magnets is also a concern.

While I haven't gotten much done in terms of painting and modelling, I have been reading.  I just finished the third Horus Heresy book, Galaxy in Flames, the other day and was quite pleased with it.  This book is where the whole marine vs marine aspect of the series, which is the main thrust of it, gets rolling.  I had expected this to develop in the second book, and it did to a limited degree, but in the third book things really speed up.  I also picked up the Chaos Marine codex over the weekend and have started to dig into that as well.  I have a decent bit of Chaos marines in boxes here and there, but I don't plan on building an army in earnest any time soon, mostly because the units that catch my eye the most (Berserkers!) would lead to an army that plays much the same as the Blood Angels do.  What I'd really like to do is an army of recently turned Marines from various chapters.  One of the old Chaos codices had pictures of an army like this, perhaps an older incarnation of the Astral Claws, that were basically loyalist Marines with the aquillas painted over with big red Xs, but I haven't found that book again yet.

So what are my plans to break out of this funk?  I'm not too sure.  I still have Orks waiting for painting, so that's an option.  I also want to hammer away at some new lists, mostly for BAs but also taking another look at Grey Knights and maybe a Chaos list here and there.  In marginally related news, I got the dread blue screen of death on my computer this morning.  Hopefully I can get it resolved without too much hassle, but it's very possible that the funds I had earmarked for BA expansion and Trollbloods will be re-directed to getting my rig back in fighting shape.  Obviously I have access to other computers, but there's nothing like your own, especially when the main alternative is a Mac...

Dreadnaught Spotted

This guy dreads naught.

Being stuck in a painting quagmire where I just can't seem to make any headway, I decided to switch things up yesterday.  The result is the mostly completed Dread to the right.  There are still bits, bobs, and doodads to be applied, but the bulk of the work is done.  The kit was less intuitive to assemble than I anticipated, but years of modelling and Lego building have built the skills required to make diverse parts into a unified whole, even when the path to completion is not obvious.  I'm on the fence about adding in a boss pole/trophy rack.  It makes sense fluff-wise as the pilot of this contraption would want to make himself as flashy as possible, which would certainly include making his ride as tall as possible.  Adding a flimsy stick to the top of the model is not the most practical choice though, as it's tailor-made to bend and snap under any multitude of pressures.  I have some time to consider since the Dreads won't be making an appearance until the 750 point mark and since EV and I have yet to officially hit the 500 point line it's not a pressing matter.

What can you do with an hour? Or a Dethcopta?

Adjusting is the name of the game.

Had another game of Warhammer Quest on Tuesday.  This time our party was successful in spite of losing the Barbarian in the second room.  Quest remains a brutal game, but perhaps not unworkable.  Throughout the game I was considering house rules on the number of extra events via power dice.  Limiting it to one at a time was my first thought, but on reflection I think that might be a bit much.  Two at a time is intriguing as it allows for problems to compound on each other, potentially 3 events at a time if you get two extra events while dealing with the standard room event, while not overwhelming the party with 4+ events in a row.  I've had some horrific power rolls in these latest games, so 4+ is neither impossible nor terribly rare.  Since more events take longer to do, which leads to more power rolls and more potential extra events, once the ball starts rolling it soon becomes unwieldy.  Next time around I may start tweaking and seeing how it works.  NGF also asked a question that had me stumped.  We did the good gamer thing for dinner: ordered pizza.  Said pizza arrived when we still had (potentially) 5 rooms to go, so we hurried along to the finish to avoid mixing pizza and cardboard tiles/cards.  NGF remarked on the length of the game, around 2.5 hours including dicking around time.  This is pretty standard for gaming and I told him as much, and in return he asked if there was anything that took around an hour.  This is where I'm stumped.  I have a few ideas, mostly combat patrol/40k in 40 minutes and battlebox Warmahordes.  Neither of those options represents the parent game well, though battlebox games aren't far off, so I'd like to find something that's a better fit.  I want something that is based around minis, something that requires collecting and painting which will eliminate most boardgames.  I'd also like something that doesn't take a full-sized (6x4) table to play and something that requires little to no terrain.  Not too much to ask for, right?

In other news I saw a post about lots of orks on 3++ this morning, one that reminded me of another post I had seen on fester 40k a while ago.  I have 6 Dethcoptas, mostly in pieces, none of which is a lock to ever see the table.  At the same time I have a single rocket buggy, and a trak at that, which is featured in every ork list I've written.  Since these examples look so nice, and I have a surplus of coptas with a deficit of buggies, I'm thinking I'll convert up at least 3 of the coptas into buggies.  I would change them all over if the base Dethcopta model wasn't so nice, plus there's always the chance that FAQs and new editions will make the coptas more attractive than buggies.  I have 3 buggies already, two wheeled shootas and one trakked rokkit, so I may do two conversions with trakks and one with wheels to make two coherent squadrons.  Of course if I did all of the coptas I have I'd be maxed out on rokkit buggies, which would be nice.  Plus I can always get more copta models via AoBR, Ebay, or something similar.  They should be pretty cheap.  I also think I'm gonna take a pass on converting the AoBR boys.  They should only be about half of the Slugga boys and they aren't all the same model, just similar poses, so hopefully they blend in well enough and everything looks nice.

All About the Benjamins

There's been lots of news on the GW front of late, new materials and new prices.  I'm still undecided on a bile-filled rant about abusing your customers and a more moderate, everything-is-more-expensive approach.  The end result is likely to be less GW purchases, but considering I have the bulk of my two armies already this isn't much of a change.  My BA foundation is broad and solid in terms of infantry and I have more than a few vehicles, though none in great quantity beyond old Rhinos, so any additions are going to be small and specialized (hello Honor Guard/Vanguard Vets).  The orks are in much the same position.  I think I need one of the new bikers, a dread, a box of kans, and maybe some rokkit launchas to hit my 1750 list, so that's another small investment.  GKs didn't get an increase (yet), but having no non-HQ models and having yet to settle on a list means they're a possible future purchase, but not one that's just waiting it's turn in the money queue.  Of course I really should be working through my backlog and not adding new toys anyway, but we all know how well that goes in the hobby.  There's also other game systems to take into account.  These issues are a little closer to the front than usual because of the GW increase, but also because I just got my tax returns.  Considering I've painted a bunch of orks since the last time I got something new, I feel comfortable with growing some force, even if I haven't decided on which one yet.  If only Men-O-War or Iron Fang Pikemen were out in plastic so I didn't have to deal with all that metal then it'd be a harder choice, though I hear pictures of Bombardiers are in the leaked photos for Wrath so perhaps there is hope on the horizon.

Shoota Boys Finished

Last batch of shootas, pre-varnish.

Does what it says in the title.  While the Nob isn't done, due to the assembly line snafu from last week, all the boys are finished and varnished.  I haven't decided yet if I want to base the squad, now that it's finished, or wait until the whole force is ready and do it in one shot, but I'm leaning towards doing a basing batch when I get the Nob and Mek done.  Coincidentally, those are the next two orks in line for the brush.  A Warmachine solo or caster may slot in before I keep the tide rolling, though I'm feeling very comfortable painting orks now so I may try to capitalize on that.  The slow grow project I'm doing with EV theoretically starts this month, so I don't have too long for a diversion, but even if I take a couple days to do something different I think I can finish in time.  I'm past halfway with this newest finished group, and most of the remaining orks are painted to some degree.  I'll probably end up painting over the existing layers, but then again I might find something useful.

You know, for details.

I feel the best about this batch.  While the extra layer of highlights meant they took more time than the previous groups, I think the results are well worth it.  This batch still painted up quickly in terms of time spent painting though those hours took longer to accumulate than some of the earlier batches.  I knocked out the blacks and whites this afternoon, plus red eyes and a few details.  I tried out a new Vallejo paint, Heavy Ochre.  It's a warm brown similar to Snakebite Leather.  The Heavy paints are Vallejo's version of the GW Foundation paints, and their Iyanden Darksun works beautifully.  The Heavy Ochre, not so much.  Brown is typically a strong pigment, so I figured that this one should cover anything on the first pass.  Turns out that this paint covers worse than most of the yellows I've used, let alone browns.  The color was too brown for what I wanted, namely basecoating assault marine helmets, and considering the poor performance it may start to gather dust in the paint bin.  Seeing this group after the washes from last time had plenty of time to dry, I think the Sepia wash may be darker than the Umber.  Devlan Mud looked a little darker going on, but I think the Sepia dried darker in the end.  Still love the Mud though.  On the further horizon I'm looking at converting 30+ AoBR orks for slugga boys, something I'm not really looking forward to.  I think I'd like doing five, maybe ten, but with a number the size of the one confronting me the prospect of cutting arms, repositioning them, and then green stuffing to make it look right is daunting.  Factor in that I've never really done much more than a weapon swap and the picture becomes grimmer still.  It will be a good chance to learn something new though, plus I'm sure I'll enjoy it while I'm doing it, but looking at it is not so fun.  It is a few weeks off though, and between now and then are dreads, kans, and bikers.  Hopefully I hit it at full speed.

Green Tide rolls slowly on

The rest look like this guy.

The painting was good this afternoon.  I got a couple hours in and as a result the latest batch of Orks is almost finished.  I did the blues and metals today, copper and silver.  I tried out the Vallejo Sepia wash on the metals.  My first impression is that it's darker than the Umber wash, but that would be the opposite of what I anticipated.  I'll do a side by side test in the next batch.  One of the nice things about painting a horde of Orks is that you can play around with the painting style without worrying that differences will look weird.  A Blood Angel in maroon armor would stand out, whereas Orks in different colors and hues just adds to the character of the army.  I ended up doing an extra highlight of blue.  I felt bad about taking the extra time instead of leaving well enough alone, but I was having a good time painting blue Ork faces and that's the point of the whole process.  The extra time paid off, and this batch is the best thus far as a result.  I've probably put 5-6 hours into this group so far, and I should be done in another hour or two.  My pace for this batch looks like it should be around an hour per model, which seems like a good enough number.  All I have left to do is the blacks and whites, plus red for the eyes.  I'm considering a brown/leather for straps and boots, but that would break up the palette I've established in the other batches.  Then again, that could be a good color to use across both Evil Suns and Dethskulls, so perhaps it's worth pursuing.  If it doesn't work out then at least the offending Orks can hide in the masses.

Throwing it against the wall

Today's Theme: Vallejo Umber Wash.

I had a couple high-concept ideas for this post, Worthy Topics to address.  What I've ended up with is yet another wasted afternoon on the interwebs with nothing to show for it.  As such, I'm plunging in.  I may get to those ideas some time, but for now I'm doing what I know: painting rundown.  Once again I had somewhat more than modest plans for painting yesterday, plans which were scuttled.  I did manage to avoid a complete loss on the day though and got in about two hours worth of quality painting time.  I got the skin finished on the third batch of Shootas, along with an initial layer of blue.  About halfway through the batch I realized I had forgotten to add the Nob to the assembly line, so he's lagging behind the rest.  The Nob's skin is washed and ready for actual painting, so when I get to it I can just get going.  This snafu may turn out to be a blessing as I'll be able to spend a little extra time on the Nob without holding up the rest of the group.  Come to think of it, I may just lump him in with the Big Mek.  Then again I have some new plans for said Mek, but more on that later.

Construction ahead

WIP and flash, but a bad picture is better than no picture.

It took me a while, but I found my bag of modeling tools today.  With those in hand, plus EV calling out my "Winter Guard Deathstar" for motivation, I set about assembling a handful of minis today.  Irusk and two Rocketeers broke free of their blisters and stood on their own bases today, making my Deathstar fully operational with the full complement of Rocketeers.  Irusk is no slouch either.  I made a PK Nob and spied a bunch of bits for the next one which will be a replacement for the Nob currently intended to lead the 'Ard Boys.  The Nob joined the Big Mek, but not his force field, on the painting stick.  Finally I had a random Elven mage mini along with a pair of Dark Elf cheerleaders from Blood Bowl.  Everything got their bases plugged with green stuff, ballasting, and priming.  After that I varnished the latest batch of Shootas.  Next on the painting table will be the remainder of the 23 strong unit of Shootas: 5 regular lads, a big shoota, a rokkit launcha, and a PK Nob.  Having a whole squad done will be nice, plus I already have a start on the Slugga mob.  This initial batch of Orks is most of the infantry, so when I finish the 54th Ork I'll be halfway done with the first step.  In closing, I did up a couple of Grey Knight lists the other night, but didn't find anything I really liked.  I settled on a list with Psyflemen, Purifiers in Psybacks, regular Terminators, and a Librarian.  I like most of it except that it doesn't have many scoring units (3) or troops (15) and those units are walking.  I could swap the Purifiers for Strike Squads, but the savings in points don't match the loss in ability even considering that the Strike Squads are scoring units.  I still haven't found a list with a Dreadknight that I like, though I keep looking for one. 

Little post

The part stands for the whole.

While some of my plans for the day fell through, in the end it's mostly been a success.  This morning I decided to build two Nobs, then prime them and the Mek so all the Orks would be ready for painting at any time.  I brought along a whole box of stuff to accomplish this so I'd have everything I needed.  I had basing materials, models, a batch of new paints to go in the paint carrier, and my priming gear.  As I hit the highway I realize I've forgotten my bag of hobby tools, making most of the box riding next to me useless.  Fortunately I had planned to build and prime after finishing the batch of Shootas and I had everything I needed for that task.  I did the metals and dotted the eyes red today, and after a wash they might be finished.  I'd like to go back and reinforce the black, maybe highlight it, and do a final pass for details.  I'd also like to finish painting these Orks so I can get on to painting more Orks.  Considering this batch looks good as is, or will after a wash on the metals, I may just carry on into a new group.  Calling these done puts me at 25/54 for my 500 point list.  None of their bases are finished, but I'm planning to do all that at once, or at worst in two large batches.  I want to take another look at how EV is doing his so that my army matches his and the board, ensuring optimal realism.  Of course the black band on the base will break the immersion, but these things happen.

Green, White, and Blue

The horde advances.

While I haven't had many painting sessions lately, and the ones I've had have been brief, I'm still making some good progress with the latest batch of Orks.  I just have blacks and metals left to do, plus red eyes and bases.  I'm happy with how the faces have turned out, but the other blue areas can look better.  What I'd like to do is add another layer between the basecoat and the highlight, but speed is a factor in this project.  It looks like EV will have his 500 points worth done in a week or two, so we'll probably give this thing an official start in May.  I have 15 Orks finished, save basing, plus these 10 and another 15-20 that are half painted as well.  I need to make another Nob still and the Big Mek needs priming, but everything else is primed or better.  I hope to finish this batch tomorrow and maybe get a start on another group, or perhaps build that Nob and maybe some boys and then prime the lot so everything I need for the first list is ready for painting.  I'm at 15/54 which means I'll need to average about a model per day, something I think I've pondered before.  The painting feels like it's going faster, plus most of the models have a start of some sort on them, so I think I should be fine to hit the end of May.  What I'd really like to do is paint up another mob of Dethskull Sluggas so I can keep with the one clan instead of mixing in Evil Suns.  This plan would involve using models intended to be 'Ard Boys as regular Slugga troops and I think I want to put a little more time into them, maybe with some checkers on their armor plates.  This approach will obviously take more time than painting regular boys, so I may plow ahead with the Evil Suns and then paint the Dethskulls if I have time left. 

The close-up example.

In various other news, hopefully my Warstore order arrived today or will tomorrow.  I'm looking at adding a pair of Dreads at 750 while maxing out the second boys squad, though Kans are also a consideration.  I have one Dread in the order and will see what that kit is like before I choose between the two walkers.  They'll all be part of the horde eventually, it's just a question of in what order.  I was reading a post at 3++ today where a commenter said that psybolt ammo didn't work on psycannons.  My first thought was "Of course it does," but I didn't see any counter-comments about it.  I grab my GK book and find that the comment is right, psycannons don't get to use psybolts.  At first I was bummed as I lost theoretical S8 psycannon shots, but I'm thinking maybe it's a good thing.  Now I'll save some points by not giving the squads the ammo, so I'm thinking about a list that has a Terminator core with Purifiers in Razorbacks and Riflemen Dreads.  This is the same idea as before except with Psybolted Razorbacks instead of Rhinos.  This also means the list will play different with the Razorbacks rushing to deploy their contents and then lending supporting fire, instead of a moving bunker approach.  Not having psybolted psycannons means the Riflemen are even more important as I'll lost a lot of theoretical S8 psycannon shots.  Fortunately psybolts work on autocannons and heavy bolters, bumping them both up a level in terms of Instant Death.  I'll have to see what such a list looks like.  I liked the one I had before, but it lacked the Dreads and had lots of Terminator Psycannons instead.  A new list is liable to have less Terminators, but it might also avoid the problem of Paladins having 2 psycannons per 5 troops, while the GK Terminators boxes only come with a single psycannon per 5.  Maybe I can squeeze in a Dreadknight too...

The horde takes shape

Roll tide roll.

On a whim yesterday I decided to pull out the Orks needed for my prospective 500 point list, just to see what they look like.  Despite counting a number of times, I still wasn't convinced I had all the models to fill the list out.  Turns out I don't, but the power klaw Nob that I'm missing I already knew about, so it's almost like I'm not missing anything at all.  I grouped all the lads up, using a stunt Ork for the absent Mek and the to-be-made Nob, and took a nice family photo.  What pleased me most about this exercise was that all but 8 of the 53 minis have some color of non-primer on them.  I also found that with a bare minimum of repainting I can field a Dethskull slugga mob.  I'm on the fence about this as it's something I'd like to get done, but considering how much progress has already been made on the Evil Suns mob, and how much I have left to do on the whole batch, this may not be feasible.

It's a small, green world

This is what I call a successful morning.

Because this part of the post goes with the picture it gets to kick things off.  This has been a productive day in terms of volume, if not in finished product.  On the heels of thinking that I should figure out what kind of Orks I have built, and what I still need to build, I combined some of my Ork boxes today.  The storage system for my Orks is complicated, or used to be.  I had two boxes, one for models with some form of paint and one for models devoid of paint.  This morning I switched it up a little and put all the infantry in one box and all the vehicles in another.  While doing so, I discovered that I have enough to fill out a 500(ish) point list, provided that I switch the mob sizes of the sluggas and shootas and that I build another power klaw Nob.  It makes a bit more sense to have a full sized slugga mob in retrospect, so this all has worked out for the best.  I based all the unprimed models, plus the painted ones that are finished.  The spray cans came next, primer for the bare plastics and varnish for the painted ones.  While I would prefer to base things before they get primed, having things already painted and unbased makes that a little tough.  I used a bit less water than usual when mixing the glue, so hopefully the ballast will stick better in this batch.  I also hope that the varnish will keep the ballast in place on the painted ones so I can actually paint the bases instead of just wiping the ballast off with a brush.  Time will tell.

My modest week's progress

What I've done today.

It's been a lethargic week for me.  I've had plenty of time to paint but not the motivation to set my stuff up.  Instead I've made a few poor lists, which I won't subject you to, and some actual modeling today.  I meant to get out the brushes this morning but I found myself making objective markers instead.  Nothing special, just barrels and tank traps, but they're better than the total lack of markers I currently have.  I also decided that Strakhov had lingered in his blister long enough, so I cleaned him up and put him together.  A bit of digging produced another blister, this time with a Kustom Force Field toting Big Mek.  Considering this ork is the center of my forthcoming army I figured it was well past time for me to get him assembled and on his way to painting.  I've glued down little slate bits as you can see in the photo, and I'll get them ballasted too when the glue has had a bit of time to dry.

Campaign ideas

Google returns this for "campaign ideas."

My job is many things, but exciting is not one of them.  This is unfortunate as I'm often bored stupid, but nice in that I have time to ponder and rough in ideas for things like 40k campaigns.  Taking the broad strokes EV and I discussed, namely a webway portal, I laid out the six levels of points we'll be playing and tried to lay a story on top of them that roughly follows the expansions I have planned.  To refresh your memories, the basic idea for my Orks starts with a Big Mek and some boys, then progresses through more boys, walkers, a biker Warboss, bikers, trukk boys, and buggies, in roughly that order.  What I came up with is Ork-centric, but at least it's a place to start.

Painting, Metal, Contemplation

Mmmm, nice green skin.

I'm taking a three-pronged approach to posting today.  First up is the painting recap.  I finally managed to get a decent bit of time in painting yesterday.  Of the boys I have assembled, about half of them are painted to some degree.  I scooped up a bunch of those a few days back with the intention of painting them and made good on that at last.  With the models in differing stages of completion, I decided to treat any existing paint as a base coat and work up from it.  I started at the only sensible place: the skin.  Ork skin is almost soothing to paint somehow.  It all seems to line up naturally with areas for highlighting and shading being obvious, a pleasant change from doing power armor that all but requires a cheat sheet for me to figure out.  Half of the batch looked like it had a heavy green inking over a Goblin Green base, while the other half looked more like a Goblin Green drybrush over a black base.  I started with the first half, which was the darker of the two, and went to town with the Goblin Green.  When they were done, I rolled on into the second half as well to firm up the existing green on them and to try and make the two groups look as similar as possible.  Plus, I like doing ork skin.  After finishing with that shade I got out the Snot Green and made with the highlighting.  In both cases I was trying to cruise along at a rapid pace, content to hit most of what I aimed for and a little splash damage as well instead of trying to get each line and plate done just right.  I'm happy with the results, at least for the moment, and the time invested to do the ten orks was about the same as doing the initial red on 3-4 Blood Angels.  Quite the improvement.  I'm considering a wash or two, either Thrakka Green or the ever-present Devlan Mud, as I think the boys might be a little bright.  Taking a couple days to consider won't hurt anyone, and it'll be that long before I have another good painting opportunity.  I feel a little odd doing Evil Suns boys when my initial batch of orks should all be Deathskulls, but they were already started in Evil Suns colors so I'm just going with it.  I can whack together some fluffy justification later if I really need to.

Change of plans

I was going to see if I could finish off the post-game considerations I did from my last game with EV, chronicled in my first ever video battle report, but as I was cruising the interwebs today I found something that I really like.  Heroes of Armageddon is a charity project in the same vein as the Storm Wardens of last year.  This year four "celebrity" painters will be doing armies from the what I believe is the third war for Amageddon, though I don't have my books handy to be certain.  Codex: Armageddon came out at the high tide of my gaming, at least in terms of games played, and concerns a lot of things that I like about 40k (Orks and Blood Angels).  I really liked the seasonal feel of the codex, much like how PP does the leagues for Warmachine, and I always wished GW would do more things like it.  They seem to have moved away from that idea sadly, but it's been on my mind lately while considering orks and now I see this project pop up.