Blood Axes the second wave

Ok so to start with I finished up another eight new Blood Axe Slugga Boyz. Nine if you count the one that was being repaired (which I don't). This means I have seventeen Boyz finished including a Nob and three big shootaz. What's even better is that I learned a neat trick based on the diffused light BT mentioned. In the first pic of the new Boyz I just took the shot with as much natural light and as many light sources as I could but it still needed the flash. As you can see its clear enough but really bleached and overbright. Then I got an idea. If the flash was too bright why not just difuse it? SO after putting a small piece of masking tape over the flash I took the following pics which are, aside from som focus issues, much more what I had in mind for lighting levels.

Clear and fairly sharp with lots of detail but the colors much more closely resembling what the models look like in real life under normal lighting.

Obviously some are better than others and the bottom part of the 'filter' tended to slide up and let too much light out but I was able to fix that pretty easily by pushing it down again and retaking the shot. Digital is really great for the abundance of shots you can take while trying to get the best results.







Photography aside I am pretty happy with the boyz. Obviously I need to keep working on my skills since a fair bit of the line work on these guys is either too drastic or a bit sloppy. They are painted well beyond the minimum playable standard of course but that is hardly a claim to fame.

The above group shot was including the other painted Boyz just to get some pics of the mob as a whole so far.

Same here just a group shot of the mob.

I will finish up the remaining boyz for this mob and move on to the next over the next week or so. Goffs should go a LOT faster hehe. just prime..highlight...throw on some dags and checks and your good to go. Its near enough to make me go Goff. But not quite.

Good gaming folks. Please feel free to let me know what ya think.

P.S. If anyone knows how to move photos around in a post while you are creating it on this Blogger thing please let me know. I am trying to put up pics in a progressive sequence but if I accidentally delete one it get stuck up top. Thanks

I feel a bit bad about not having put up any pics for a few days. So here are a few of my trukk. This was actually hacked together back in the Gorkamorka days to accommodate more boyz than the original trukk model without getting so huge as to make it a ridiculously easy target. As Nick pointed out the newer models are a lot more interesting and beefy. I hope to pick up a few but will play with what I have or cobble together a truck from scratch out of the several old ones I had as well as some bulkheads ..tanks...random toys..what have you. The great thing about Orks for the conversion crazed Mek is that they do not have a neat and tidy style of design like some of the more stuck up armies out there. You really can go to town and as long as its Ded Hard and has lotz o' Dakka you are good to go...after all if its a vehicle it will probably get blasted to pieces on turn two at the latest.
This poor piece of wreckage seems to have lost its gun somewhere along the way though that is easily fixed.

As you may be able to tell I was experimenting with the different kinds of light available. Brendan had some good tips on multiple light sources and building a light box but at the moment I will have to make do until I can get a few bucks together for more lamps and such. I kind of like the pictures without the flash even though they don't show as much detail...or maybe BECAUSE they don't but they also tend to look more authentic and realistic. You only get flashbulb lighting conditions in life at public spectacles and in 40k probably when someone's plasma cannon overheats. It will be nice to have these pics up for when I do a new trukk so I can see the before and after. Meanwhile...enjoy this little piece of nostalgic conversion. Hey I just realized I can make the Ork Land Speeder I always wanted to and call it a dred kopta!! I better get some sleep first, once I get started it can be hard to stop...I don't really need ALL the old bikes (insert crazed laughter)

I am learning it's the details that take the most time. All the fiddling and fixing at the end of a model probably can take as much time as doing the highlights of any of the base colors. Guess this is why neatness counts throughout. My hand is not as steady as it once was, much like an athlete who has let himself go my painting skill and muscle memory have gone soft. With practice I am improving but my speed vs accuracy is the biggest hurdle. Much like archery, painting seems to be largely in the mind more than the hands. Visualizing your model is more important in many ways than actually being able to see it clearly since your hands don't use your eyes so much as your memory when painting. This is one of the reasons painting several of the same or very similar models at the same time is good because it is like getting out on the practice field and shooting over and over or if you are more academic in your metaphors like studying writing and reciting over and over to learn information.

Well I spent the whole morning yesterday ...or was it the day before? anyway...organizing my warhammer figures into some semblance of seperate games...armies...and thats about as far as it went. Still at least now if I need a model I know which bin to dig in. Got some work done on the boyz last night and should have five of them or more done tonight. A lot of what is giving me trouble is remembering how I painted the originals, getting my skills back in gear and getting into that groove where I can just rock on painting til its done and lose myself in the details.

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Yea I know this doesnt look as cool but I just could not get the template to look right. Bugger it. At least this is legible.

The Dawn of the Waaaagh....I actually got this by mistake but it looked nice and ominous so I thought it would make a good opening shot for the first post with pics. Eventually I will have proper terrain and such to put under the boyz but for now its just the dining room table.
For my first post I just wanted to put up what I have done so far. This is actually a really pathetic showing for playing the Orks for so long. In my defense I already painted two Ork armies before this...the first was stolen and the second became obsolete thanks to Brian Nelson and his magnificent re-imagining of what Orks should be.

The first few images are of my blood axe boyz who are the spiritual heart of the army. I tend to think of my Waaagh as a Blood Axe Waaagh even when it was a Kult of Speed. I have a LOT more models assembled and painted to minimum playable standard but I am only going to post models I consider finished to this Blog. I may occasionally post other models from other ranges but more likely I will put them on a separate blog since this is really all about my ORK WAAAGH or WAAARGH as it was originally known.

In the background you should be able to make out a TRUKK which was the personal transport in my 3rd and 4Th edition armies of Grokka Dedeye and his Nob bodyguard. I am still learning how to photograph models but I have learned that sport photography settings seem best.

For anyone who doesn't know the Blood Axe Orks are known for their sneaky and untrustworthy nature as they actually bother to use more human style tactics and equipment as a result of extensive exposure to the Empire of Mankind. The interpretations they put on some aspects of human warfare are a bit odd at times but they find Cammos and stolen tanks with really massive guns to be a lot of fun.

Another pic of the Boyz in their Cammos. I really enjoy the contrasts from the shadow grey and the black next to the boyz green skin. It also looks spanking cool on vehicles, mega armor and well just about anything. I was going to do an ALL blood axe boyz army but frankly when i put down two hundred plus orks it gets a bit confusing if they are all painted alike and back-plates are bit hard to pick out from two feet away. That being the case I will do massive mobs of each clan eventually and sub groups of specialists painted appropriately to the clan or just based on my whims. I will probably do Burnaz as Bloodaxes. Kommandos too.

Here are some of the Goff Ladz. The only Orks more 'traditional' than them are the Snakebite clan. So I suppose that would make feral and snakebite boyz akin to natives out in the jungles or Pre- Colombian Amerinds and the Goffs are the Conservatives of Ork Kultur. They appreciate the good old days when you just got as many boyz as you could and went and beat and shot anything that wasn't green and black until all there was was green and black and then you went ahead and beat and shot that till it walloped ya back.

This last image is of everyone that is currently finished...I will put up more images as I get more guys done. I will also post some better pics of vehicles and such when I get a chance.

Day 1

This blog is intended to allow me to put some information on my modelling and painting up on the web mostly for my own vanity and because a few other people are doing it and it looks like fun.