Kurgan Ironhead - Freebooterz Warlord, part 2

Kurgan Ironhead is the warlord of a fleet of Ork Freebooterz, currently exploring the Malfactus Rift area. His armada is scattered across a dozen systems, divided into small haphazard groups, all tasked with looking for trouble and stuff to loot.

Years ago he was the leader of the infamous Blood Axe warband known as Da Fifty Fiff Bad Redz Brigade, but the Fifty Fiff broke up when he became bored of the militaristic formalities he and the Bad Redz had always delighted in. He turned Freebooter and set off east, with a small group of Boyz who were loyal to him.

The Bad Redz Freebooterz had begun their adventures!

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I doubt I will be playing may games big enough to warrant using a proxy Ghazghkull Thraka, but I couldn't resist the offer of the Ork half of Prophecy of the Wolf, for less than the cost of the Ork Nobz and Mega Nobz. Ghaz was effectively free! It was then just a matter of deciding what to do with him.

Makari is still on my painting desk, but I hope to finish him in the next few days.

Edit (4th November 2020) took a little longer than I hoped but he's done now. 

Kurgan Ironhead - Freebooterz Warlord, part 1

It's Orktober!

I have had the amazing Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka kit, from the Prophecy of the Wolf box sat in my pile of sprues since I split the box with BlessedKnight (Lee) earlier in the year (it actually feels like it was last year... but that's 2020 for you!). 

I've been wanting to make him into a Freebooterz Warlord since I decided to re-start my Ork army (as Frebooterz instead of Blood Axes), so I had a pretty solid idea of what I wanted to do in terms of build. I was very much influenced by the way Kari Hernesniemi (Koltti from Ironsleet) stripped-down Abaddon the Despoiler to make his Chaos Space Marines Champion of the Red Corsairs.

So most of the "conversion" work so far has just been a case of missing things off from the Ghaz kit - I have only added a couple of components so far. I think he still needs a few details added: bones, feathers, trophies, etc. for the full post-apocalyptic techno-barbarian space pirate look. Maybe some wires coming out of his metal bonce too.

But I am happy with this as a solid start. I think the build is about 90% done.

Makari has just received a bigger base, a new Freebooterz icon (instead of the Goff one) and a wonky pile of scrap to stand on (to make the banner a bit more vertical, and less prone to falling over).

The big "toof" on his right shoulder is from the Mek Gunz kit. The skull-and-crossbones icon is from the Flash Gitz box. His head is the banner top from the Ironjawz Ardboyz kit. The vent on top of his backpack is from the Ork Bomma kit.

He's a big lad!

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Edit: WIP photos

Tor Megiddo "Grillet Box", part 3

Choking on the dirt and sand

Your former glories and all the stories

Dragged and washed with eager hands

But, oh oh your city lies in dust, my friend

- Siouxsie And The Banshees - Cities in Dust

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My Tor Megiddo / Underhive "Grillet Box" is completed!

I might return to it to add a few more details later but I am calling it done for now. I have plans for a second which I will sketch up and share soon (and I definitely want to make eight in total, so they are the same area as a Kill Team board! But that is a long-term project. I'll take it one at a time for now...) but I have other things I need to work on for a while at least.

We have a few campaigns for various systems/settings sketched out (and a Warcry campaign paused that we started before lockdown, that we will pick up again as soon as we can) before we return to Tor Megiddo, so I have time to work on other projects then come back to this one.

Tor Megiddo "Grillet Box", part 2

I love this stage, when the undercoat and zenithal colour bring all the separate components together and for the first time it starts to look a little like it did in my head when I was planning it. 

Now comes a lot of dry-brushing, a few spot-colours (stencilled numbers and hazard stripes), a bit of sponging, then many many washes for rust/dust/filth weathering effects. Finally some details like computer screens and buttons.

And I definitely want to make 7 more of them to use them as a Kill Team board.

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Update 27/09/2020: some colour!

For the "stencilled" number I googled "stencil 6" then stuck masking tape on my phone and traced the shape. I modified it a little to look more "industrial". I transferred the masking tape to a cutting board and used a scalpel to cut along the lines and lift out the waste parts. I added some more masking tape to strengthen the thinner parts and to make the whole mask wider to prevent over-spray.

I stuck the stencil onto the floor of the box then sprayed it lightly with Greyseer. When it was dry I peeled off the tape then tidied-up round the edges, and sponge-chipped, with Mechanicus Standard Grey. 

The yellow hazard stripes were painted freehand with Wraithbone then Nazdreg Yellow Contrast paint and the black stripes with Black Templar Contrast painted over the base grey colour.

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Update 28/09/2020: Rust!

I dry-brushed Ushabti Bone all over the whole thing. 

When that was dry the sponging and washes started... I've used Mourfang Brown and Fireslayer Orange so far; both thinned down to about 1 part paint with 10 parts water (up to maybe parts water 20 in places!). I think it needs more layers of washing, with different shades of orange and brown, and maybe some Nuln Oil and Agrax Earthshade too.

There's still quite a lot of work to do but I'm really happy with where it's going!

Tor Megiddo "Grillet Box", part 1

So, after enjoying making my Great Oubliette "Grillet Box" I couldn't help myself and started an underhive one (for Tor Megiddo mainly but also maybe as a Space Hulk interior).

It will be another display-box style backdrop that hopefully might grow to become an interlocking, modular, 3D gaming board with built-in backdrops. I would need at least 4 of them for it to be a playable, probably more.

So far it has A4-sized foamcore card back and base (8.3”x11.7”), square foamcore card sides (8.3”x8.3”), with an open front and top. There are doors in the centre of the back and sides, at two levels; ground and 5” high, so that if/when I put two or more boxes together the doors will be back-to-back.

I'm going to texture and paint it as rusty underhive (or space hulk) styled interiors. If I do get round to making more I will give each one a slightly different "base colour" beneath the chipping, weathering, rust and dust.

Update 20th September 2020:

Build completed, textures going on!