20081911:09
am
Da Weirdest ‘uv da Weird
"... OI! IZ YOU EVEN LISTENIN' TA ME, YA RUNTY GIT!? I'Z TALKIN TO YA!", the gibbering ork skull bellowed at the warphead.
Wurrzag da Weird growled and pulled his staff from the ground where it was staked, turning the disembodied ork head atop it to face him. "I'll listen to 'ya once youz has somefing' worth listnin' to, Naff!"
The skull snarled back at him, eye sockets and mouth flaring with bright green energy. "'Ow many timez 'ave I told ya not ta call me dat!?" the skull demanded in it's usual indignant tone.
Wurrzag simply shook his head at the bones, rolling his eyes behind his wooden mask. "Fine 'den, wot was yer name 'spozed to be, eh?", asked Wurrzag. The glow in the ork skull's eyes narrowed as it considered the question, before begrudgingly admitting, "I... can't 'memba."
Wurrzag let out a hearty laugh at the skull's expense. "You can neva' rememba, ya mangy git! Yer name iz Naff, cuz dat'z what I'z callin ya!"
The skull ceased talking, probably deep in thought as it tried to remember it's original name, and Wurrzag bathed in the silence. It was rare he could enjoy such a moment - ever since the day he discovered he could communicate with the dead by speaking to their skulls, his days had been filled with the ceaseless ranting and raving of orks who had been killed in one manner or another. Occasionally, his abilities were a boon - he could sometimes pry useful information from the corpses, such as what it was killed by, how many, and where. More often than not, though, a dead ork had very little of any use to say; the vast majority involved belligerent threats and indignant requests for a rematch with whatever killed it. Wurrzag could occasionally even speak to the skulls of other races, though this ability was intermittent and generally unhelpful, as he did not for example understand the flowing language of the eldar very well and many of the 'umies he was able to speak with were not interested in talking to a "Zee-noze" and went on and on about the human warboss, the "Empy-roar". Sometimes they would be screaming and hollering about something called a "warp" or horrible beasties, but Wurrzag had little interest in such things. He could sometimes tune the power out, but as the main warphead of Warboss Gargrim's army, he was constantly surrounded by throngs of orks that augmented his sensitivity to such things. Of course, Wurrzag was not one to complain, because it also meant he could blow things up with his lightnin' bolts as well as the biggest zzap gun.
Over the years, Wurrzag had encountered many a dead ork, from mighty warbosses to the smallest boy. Still, none were quite as interesting as the disembodied skull of Naff. When Wurrzag had discovered this ork's skull, it was perched on a ledge above a battle shooting lightning bolts from it's eyes down into the fight, completely oblivious to the fact that it had been slain and picked clean. Wurrzag had reasoned that Naff had formerly been a weirdboy himself, as it explained why the skull had suddenly come to life in his presence. The two orks, live and dead, amplified one another's abilities in close proximity, though Wurrzag's were reasonably superior due to the fact that he was still among the living. After Wurrzag discovered Naff's skull, he had installed it at the top of his weirdboy staff, nestled between trident-like lightning bolt glyphs banged out from copper on either side to help channel the additional Waaagh! energy. Wurrzag often conversed with Naff, though truthfully Naff was not very good company - he had little to no recollection of his life before being killed, such as his name, and more often than not forgot he was even dead.
Wurrzag stretched a bit, the chains shackled around his wrists and back clinking as he moved. He staked his staff back into the ground nearby without much argument from Naff. His minders shuffled warily, their tiny gretchin forms shrouded in robes, constantly watching Wurrzag. They were as much his prey as his keepers - the warphead had no doubt that if he so chose, he could wipe them all out before they had any clue as to what was happening. At the same time, though, they did tend to prove useful, helping to anchor him to the ground; in the middle of the battle, the surging Waaagh! energy had a tendency to pick Wurrzag up off the ground and fly him through the air. The warphead was not entirely sure as to the names of his grot minders, and took no effort to learn, as more often than not they got zzap-fried or flattened in battle anyway. Still, it was considered a privledge among the smaller greenskins to be chosen as one of the warphead's minderz.
Wurrzag spotted Big Boss Gargrim lumbering up the incline to the top of the cliff where the warpboy was standing, the ground rumbling beneath the giant warboss as he approached. The warboss' personal grot attendant, Urk, scampered at his heels, miraculously avoiding getting stepped on as it followed the enormous greenskin. Though Wurrzag was big, even compared to a normal Nob, he found himself dwarfed by the giant form of the Warboss as Gargrim reached the top.
"Yer, boss?", inquired Wurrzag expectantly, looking at the hulking form of the bigger ork.
"You'z did good in dat last scrap we 'ad against da panzee eldars, Weird", the warboss rumbled approvingly at the warphead. "Da boyz specially liked watchin' you blast down dat flyin' 'fing, and Booma'z already 'ard at work tryin' ta tear da gunz offa it 'fer woteva 'e'z workin' on now. I'z got a reward 'fer ya."
The warboss held out one massive, machine-powered fist and opened his hand, dropping the dismembered head and upper torso of a farseer onto the ground before the warphead. "Dis' one 'ad plenty ta say while it was kickin' about, so maybe you'z can get somefing' useful from 'em", the Warboss suggested. Gargrim turned and began walking down the hill and away from the warphead, yelling over his shoulder, "If'n you find out anyfing good, let me know, eh?"
Wurrzag did not answer, instead kneeling down close to the remains of the farseer. His eyes flared a bright green behind his rough-carved wooden mask, and his minders shuffled nervously. The gems on the farseer's helmet began to glow and pulse a deep violet in return, the visor's eyes lit up in an unnatural way. "Right. Wot's you, 'den?", inquired Wurrzag curiously.
The farseer suddenly shuddered to motion, writhing about for a moment before going still. The labored voice of an eldar began to pour into the air, from everywhere and nowhere at once. "What... sorcery is this!?" cried the voice, as though in pain. Wurrzag had difficulties understanding the flowing eldar language, but communicating with the dead gave him some degree of understanding all the same, as the sound was accompanied with feelings and images. Before Wurrzag could say anything in kind, the voice began to scream, and Wurrzag saw flashes of alien visions in his head - twisted, gibbering, monstrous looking beasts that could only have been from the depths of some horrible place where even the toothiest squigs would not go.
Suddenly, the gems on the helmet all shattered at once, and with one last heave the eldar went still.
"Er... woops", muttered Wurrzag, frowning behind his mask. "Dat alwayz seems to 'appen wif' dem panzee eldar. Ah well."
Wurrzag gave the remains one last look over for any good trinkets or shiny bits to add to his collection, and then sent the body rolling down the hill with a swift kick. He turned around and walked back up to where he had planted Naff in the ground.
"Wot wuz all 'dat about, Weird?", asked Naff. Though it was impossible for an ork skull to look curious, Naff's expression was probably fairly close. "Me 'ead aches now, an' I didn't even get ta see wot you wuz doin!"
Wurrzag let out a chuckle, uprooting Naff from the ground. "Nuffin' good, ya runt. Let'z go see if we can't blow somefing up, eh?"
The two orks turned and began the walk down the hill.
2008127:33
am
Zzap! Frazzle! Waaaagh!
I've spent a good long while fiddling with Wurrzag, even to the point where I was trying to paint the cracks in the base with a syringe. (It's impossible!) However, I'm reasonably satisfied with the effect, so I thought I'd share some pictures. It's the sort of thing that looks okay in person, but I think comes out better through photography.
The next few shots were taking with a longer exposure setting, so they're a bit darker, but they show the colors a bit better as well.
And my favorite:
He's been submitted to CoolMiniOrNot.com, and there's some slightly different pictures of his finalized paintjob there, so I encourage you guys to go have a look and vote. 
2008118:52
am
Making ropes
Much like the power cable video, this tutorial utilizes floral wire in a slightly different manner, wrapping it with a power tool to create tightly coiled ropes that fit perfectly on a miniature model. It sure beats twisting them together by hand, as the results tend to be much more uniform, and it saves a lot of time.
2008117:02
am
Making power cables
This video tutorial covers how to make items like power cables out of floral wire, which is a metal wire that is commonly used by florists to string up supports for all varieties of plants. It's readily available at craft stores like Michaels and the likes, and can also occasionally be located at hobby stores or garden centers. It's a great material for any hobbyist to have!
20081010:59
am
Now with more rock!
It's been a mighty busy day.
I started myself off this morning by washing the shield drone down to a decent, dingy greyish color that I felt much more comfortable with.
I then began to paint the fanatics. While I think they look pretty good, they are such a giant pain in the ass to paint. Their details are modelled terribly - there are no gaps, for example, between the arms and the body, just big hunks of shaped plastic that I assume one is supposed to paint black, and the chains are one-piece molded rubbish in some places. I was fortunate in picking a dark color for their robes, because anything other than black or dark grey would look terrible with how these models are made. Really poor quality on GW's part, but they fit the model well enough, so I guess it evens out.
The base was proving problematic around the middle of the day, though. I thought I could just use the new washes over a khaki color to achieve a nice little desert effect on it, but they've proven a bit unreliable as far as that goes. I think part of it is that there's very little surface detail on the rocks for the washes to grab onto, and partly because they're positioned at angles, so the wash pools in an unusual manner in unusual places.
To fix this, I grabbed my drybrush and a khaki color and started generously drybrushing it over the entire thing. Then, I grabbed some bleached bone and drybrushed around the edges and any details like cracks or the likes. Finally, I thinned out the Citadel Devlan Mud Wash even more to something like 3:1 wash to water and started very carefully reapplying it over the base. The results of this second try are a lot more pleasing, and I was happy with it, so I went ahead and blacked out the 'rim' of the base after it had dried.
Also, I took this one photo for giggles, but I have to post it because I love how it came out. I basically dimmed all of the lights around where I was shooting, and set the camera for something absurd like a 30 second exposure, and walked away. The shot that came out was actually truer colors than most of my others, which shocked the hell out of me. Not to mention it looked awesome cause the eyes glowed hard in the dark.
Untouched, aside from scaling and watermarking. I may start taking pictures in a slightly dimmer light.
All that aside, though, there's only a couple things needing to be done. There's a few details on the grots (like knives sheathed in little spots around their belts) that need to be picked out in a different color, and I wouldn't mind putting some checkered lines across their robes...
... Not to mention the OSL which I was considering. The whole 'green glow from the cracks' thing. I'm at the point now where I am afraid of doing that because I've both never done it before and I really don't want to screw the model up any! I may work up the nerve for it later - right now, I'm painting the old base I made for this model up in the hopes that I can use it as a test piece and try to figure out how it should all work. We'll see, though...
2008910:14
am
Change of staff
Aaand some work on the staff this evening. Honestly, it's... okay. I tried to do black wraps on the staff between the metallic bits, but I don't think it came out that well (or clearly!). I figured if I did brown wraps, and then put copper wire overtop of it, the wire would be impossible to make out against the rest of the staff very clearly.
I also couldn't pick a color for the lightning bits on either side of the skull, so instead I figured copper made the most sense for them, since it might help conduct Waaagh energy a bit better. The skull is okay, though I'm still trying to figure out how to do them with the new washes without making them look too dirty. For the purposes of this, the skulls all looking a bit charred on the warphead makes sense, since he does tend to zap-fry enemies, but in future I would like it if they looked a bit neater.
At the opposite end of the spectrum is the tau drone on the back of the staff. I wasn't quite sure what to do with it, so I went ahead and just picked a random color to detail the rim. I wanted to sort've paint a glyph or something inside the white center, and a lightning bolt made the most sense at the time, but I think it looks kind've weak. (Not to mention off-center!) Still trying to make up my mind if I want to leave it as-is or not, since going over that with white again would be a monumental pain in the ass and I still wouldn't know what to put in its place.
Enough talk:
I also got a start on painting the grots' robes, which I hope to make a very dark grey/black with checker trim on spots.
200887:29
pm
A different kind of greenskin
I managed to get my fiancé Kim painting at Gamesday back in June, and to try and encourage her interest in the hobby I tracked down and bought her a pair of Reaper Killer Frogs. She and I spent an afternoon painting together while I worked on Wurrzag, and at the end of the day she had this very tidy killer frog to show for her efforts! I thought it'd be fun to share with all of you:
She's done a great job with this little guy, and I'm very happy that she enjoys painting with me.
Edit: July 18, 2008
It's been a little while since Kim last painted with me, but since I had company over to game with, she kept herself busy with us by painting the frogs up some more. I have to say, her results are really something special:
She highlighted their bellies with a nice whiter color, and did a lot more work on their details. They're really awesome - the jumping one in particular came out really nice, especially the water on his base and his mouth.
So proud!
200877:08
pm
More feral by the minute
More painting progress on Wurrzag, though truth be told it feels a bit sloppy. I broke down a bit towards the end there, on the spot behind where the ball and chain hang from his waist. I couldn't figure out what most of the details in that area were supposed to BE on that orginal model. They're not modelled particularly clearly, largely because on the stock model you have a grot hanging off the weirdboy right at that spot. Eventually I just figured the unknowns would get painted brown so they'd blend in with his cloak.
He's at what I would call a tabletop standard, at least, so I'm happy with 'em so far.
I have no idea how to paint his staff right now. I was going to do boltgun metal for the staff's rod itself and copper for the wires, but I don't quite know what to do with the glyphy sides around the skull. The tau shield drone will probably be pretty stock looking (tau-ish tan), with the addition of some sort of glyph painted onto the smooth inner part.
Right now I'm thinking the staff's lightning bolt parts need to be done up in a red or yellow. Leaning towards red, because I hate painting yellows.
Anyway, I'd love feedback.
200879:03
am
An ork of color
I've been painting Wurrzag, though slowly, because I've also been playing the greenskin campaign in DoW: Soulstorm. There's a lot still to do, but we're getting there.
I'm mostly trying to get the basics on him, but it's a pain in the rear because there's so many nooks and crannies that I have to get at! I would have loved to be able to paint him in separate pieces, but I guess I'll deal with 'em as best I can.
Wurrzag himself is maybe 1/3 done. The grots and base haven't even been started yet. Ugh!
200858:37
am
Done makin’ em weird
So Wurrzag is, as far as I can see, done.
I went ahead and added two chains coming out of his back, from the big coil the stock weirdboys all come with. I left them both dangling in the air. One of them has a charred grot hand and forearm hanging from it, still gripping tight onto the chain. I sculpted the extra forearm with a bone sticking out of it just so I can make sure it's obviously intended to be a missing limb.
The other shorter chain has a bell I salvaged off of the original warphead staff's chain.
They're small details, and thus sort've hard to make out in the photos, but there you go. I rounded off the front of the base with the addition of a fried marine skull to help fill the empty space. I hollowed out a power armor helmet, cut away a bit of one side, stuck a skull inside, and viola, instant zzap-fried marine. It'll be fun to paint the skull inside a nice charred color just to sell the point.
I think it's time to prime and paint.
I want the base to glow, but that's obviously not going to happen via the use of LEDs, so I've decided upon trying to paint OSL with this to some tiny degree. I want to paint a bright green light glowing out from the depths of the cracks in the base, and maybe include some light green ambiance on the grots and Wurrzag's lower half. Thing is, I really have no idea how to do this, so I would appreciate help! I've seen a couple tutorials for OSL previously, but I'm not so sure I know what I'm doing.
I'm more concerned about the order things have to be painted in than anything. For example, I'm priming the piece white. After that, should the first thing I work on be the bright green in the recesses, or should I paint the whole thing up first and do OSL afterwards? Can you achieve an OSL effect with bright green by just making thin washes of something like Scorpion Green and repeatedly applying it to a particular area? Give me a hand here.
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