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.