Fun With Space Orks!

 After last week's somewhat introspective post - thanks for your comments, guys - I decided to make some models that are both jolly and entirely lacking in self-awareness: old space orks.

I found an ancient tinboy model. Tinboys were robots that the orks built in mockery of their enemies: there were space marine, eldar and squat versions. This is the eldar one, which is why it's got a head shaped like a banana. Given that my warband has a vaguely Bad Moon feel, it had to have a yellow head. The blue on the body is like that of my craftworld. One of the arms fell off and had to be repositioned, but is still not very sturdy. I really enjoyed painting this!

Then we've got two plastic orks from the old set. They're not the best miniatures, to be honest. The weird crouching posture of the orks is very strong in these guys, and the ridged armour they wear (some kind of flak jackets?) isn't much good for detail or freehanding. 

However, to my surprise, the detail on the shouting ork head from the plastic set is excellent, especially for its time, and was a pleasure to paint. The ork carrying the rusty chest (a piece of loot) on his shoulders is a sort of conversion. His left hand, which is steadying the chest, had very little detail at all and looked like an over mitt, so I painted the fingers and claws on in freehand. A nice pair of low-lives to flesh out the squad.

And finally we've got a metal bloke with a shoulder-mounted flamer. This model was alright, but his weapon was surprisingly detailed. He was really difficult to photograph.

This isn't the whole unit, but it contains most of these scurvy dogs and freebooters. The more of these models I paint, the more I like them. I can see why GW chose to make its orks bigger and more bestial, but I think something was lost along the way. 

New year, new weird creature!

 And so we reach the start of another year. Here is the best miniature that I did in 2024:

In 2024, I did some of my favourite conversions and miniatures. I feel that I got steadily better and was able to put out things that I'd not really expected. I made more classic Eldar (including finishing the harlequins, which I'm pleased about), and had a lot of fun converting various weirdos for Stargrave and Silver Bayonet. I did two Mordheim gangs, which were fun projects. And yet...

I'm getting a bit tired. I am a member of the miniature-making and Oldhammer communities, I suppose, because I miniatures and some of them are old. But I don't feel part of any community, really. At times it feels as if I make another model, enjoy the process of doing so, and then put it away for good. It seems as though I'm just chucking stuff out there onto this blog and onto Instagram and then... that's it, really.

To be clear, I'm not holding myself out as either a great artist or someone who needs/wants/deserves any sort of "clout" in this hobby. I'm an acceptable painter and converter. But I'm starting to get the same feeling from this as I got from self-publishing three fantasy novels: nothing really changes. Blogs and communities don't organically grow anymore (if they ever did). A post that would have got one response two years ago still gets one response. Everything feels rather static.

The obvious answer is "join a gaming club, play some games", but I'm not sure about that. I've met enough powergamers and Space Marine fanboys to be put off playing against people I don't really know. There comes a point where the comedy genius of saying "Heresy!" all the time fades.

So I don't know what I'll do over the next year. I'd like to keep on making things, but I'd like to do something more. Whether that involves playing any games, I don't know. Perhaps I'll try to do some other form of art. We shall see.

*

Anyhow, here's my first model of 2025. I found a load of bits that, with some clay and green stuff, fitted together (sort of!). The body and legs come from a Warmachine Cryx model, the head is a GW plastic squig, the knight is a Perry Miniatures medieval knight, and the tail is just green stuff. Together, they made a weird stumpy animal somewhere between a chicken and a deep-sea fish. 

An instagram commenter suggested that it looked quite like one of Brian Froud's creatures for Labyrinth, which made me think that it needed a whimsical paint job. I started with a red body for the steed and steel armour, with some brass bits, but this felt a bit too sinister and chaos-like, so I introduced some green and blue to the scheme. I also made a little carrot out of green stuff to dangle from the end of the lance. I imagine this is how the rider gets his weird steed to move.

Knight Armiger (and an angry farmer)

 It's been both really busy and pretty quiet here, what with Christmas and the surrounding chaos. I've had chunks of rushing out to do stuff followed by bouts of free time. I've been using that free time to finally make and paint an imperial knight armiger that I've had lying around for about three years.

Back in 2022, I made this:

While the first model was converted to fit into my Chaos marine army, I thought it would be nice to build the other armiger in the style of my knightly space marines. That would involve lots of heraldry in jolly colours. The large base meant that I'd be able to make a little diorama, to give the impression that something is going on down there.

I used foamboard and clay to put some different heights on the base. I found a Frostgrave plastic soldier and a metal dog from Warlord Games, and stuck them on. The dog is chasing the titan, clearly annoyed by it, and the yokel chap is either saying hello or shouting at the titan to get off his land. 

Otherwise, the titan is pretty much as it came out of the box. I sculpted a little banner over its head, with the pilot's name on it - this is Sir Ewain - but that's it. This took a lot of time, and there are elements that I'm not all that happy about, but overall I really like it. 

It's quite silly but I like the idea of having something interesting going on around the machine. I'm tempted to get some more of these knight models - probably a bad idea, as I've got a lot of other things to get on with. Still, at lease I've finally found a use for that axe and tree stump!

Yet another troll, and a weird magic lady

 This week, I had a go at a couple of nice fantasy miniatures. First up is another troll, based on the Warhammer Stone Troggoths kit. Because you don't get enough legs, I used a cheap Reaper Bones troll to provide some legs, and then trimmed them and sculpted over them to fit the look I was going for. This terrible picture shows how much of the troll is GW's.

Because the Reaper legs are very rubbery, I added a resin barrel for extra support, pinned to his bum.

And here he is with paint. I really like these models. They've got lots of good details and great facial expressions. This guy looks both dim and suspicious, as if he thinks that something is up, but can't work out what.

And now for another weird model. Privateer Press have made some bad miniatures (mainly a long time ago), some great ones and quite a lot that I don't really find very interesting. One of their factions is the Grymkin, which seem to be Halloween-based and leave me very cold (as does most of Halloween).

However, I saw a few of their models in a sale, and one of them was this: Lady Karianna Rose, who seems to be a wizardly type who looks after a mob of small imp-like creatures. I thought it was a terrific model, full of detail, and immediately bought it.

I don't think I've painted such a lot of fiddly detail for a long time. She's an excellent sculpt but tricky to paint properly, and guaranteed to chip. I quickly took a picture before the paint fell off. It's quite hard to make out all the details, but basically she's wearing battered clothes and holding one imp while two others tug at her skirts.

It's nice to paint a model that I particularly like, and to try to do a good job of it, even if it doesn't photograph very well. 

Space Civilians and Big Red Soldiers

 Even more random space people! This time, however, they're not based on Stargrave models. 

I've always liked the idea of making civilians and passers-by, either as objectives for games or just people to have standing around. When models aren't carrying guns, you can have all sorts of interesting poses. Here we've got a weird little alien dude, who started off as a Bolt Action Russian soldier. The soldier had huge boots - I think they had extra insulation - which I removed to make him shorter. He then got arms and a drum from a Perry Miniatures Afghan sprue, and a Stargrave head. I don't know if he's an annoying alien child or some kind of little priest.

The robot (I think of her as Sassbot, owing to her pose) is a Mantic Games Dreadball referee, with a new pointing hand from a WW2 sprue. She's fairly crisp for a Mantic model, and looks pleasingly silly.

Then we've got some soldiers. A few years ago, I quickly painted some baddies for the solo game Hardwired (well worth a look). These are plastic soldiers from Warlord Games' odd sci-fi wargame Beyond the Gates of Antares. It never appealed to me as a game, but it had a few interesting sculpts. I dug them out and tidied up the painting a bit.

Anyhow, these guys have the advantage of being taller and bulkier than humans without looking like Space Marines. Ironically, the colour scheme I gave them reminds me of one of GW's marine chapters: the Blood Ravens or Doom Budgies or something like that. The painting is a bit rough and ready, but they'll make good heavily-armoured villains.

I do have a vague plan with all of these models. I've got the Stargrave rules and a one-player campaign, and I thought that I might have a go at it during the Christmas break. It looks like pretty good fun.

Even More Stargrave Weirdos!

 This week, I painted a couple more of the Howling Banshees. I could actually make the unit up to 10 strong, but the two models I've got are duplicates, and it might look a bit odd. Given that these are unlikely to see combat, they look fine for now.

Anyhow, I didn't take any photos of them (they look a heck of a lot like the models in the last post!) but I did make some more Stargrave people.

These guys are made from old English Civil War models and a Frostgrave Ghost Archipelago crewman.

Here they are with paint. I also painted a bog-standard Stargrave mercenary (the third guy along), although I added a head from the Crewman sprue. 

The two on the left were based on English Civil War models. The guy on the left has a slightly ninja-ish feel, and I painted him in bright colours to suggest that his clothes are made of some synthetic fibre. The shape of the models, especially the baggy trousers and long socks/boots/puttees, reminded me of an rich, old-fashioned hunter, so I painted the second guy in muted colours. Perhaps he's off hunting grouse with his machine gun, which is a terrible plan for a load of reasons.

The third guy is pretty standard. I just wanted bright colours. The chap on the far right happened to have a really nice pose. I painted him as if he's been wearing formal clothes - with a cummberbund! - and has drawn a pistol to deal with rival spies.

I also took the opportunity to photograph some of the random scumbags that I've assembled, mainly based on the Stargrave Scavengers 1 models. I imagine they're a bunch of feral survivalists/cultists/yokels/guerillas/cannibals, or something like that. 

These guys are purely made from the Scavengers 1 frame:

These models are made with the Scavengers 1 frame, with other bits from North Star Games:

And these guys are made of bits from North Star and other (mainly historical) companies:

 I don't play many games, and I'm more interested in making random little guys than assembling a massive army (even my Eldar force is pretty small, at the end of the day), and I'm happy doing that. I've got a couple of bigger projects that I'd like to do over the Christmas holidays, which should be fun. 

All the Howling Banshees!

 Here are the rest of the Howling Banshees. I painted the exarch in the style of the old GW unit from the 1990s, by reversing a lot of the colours. I also added a couple more troopers. 

I'm a big fan of these models. I've got a couple more, but for now this will do, since it's a legal unit (actually, in 2rd edition 40k, it would be a legal unit with three models!). Right then, what's next?