+ inload: Orks, Space Marines and some old friends +

+ Orks on the painting desk +

Various greenskins start to get their paint on.

+ A rather broken painting session saw me block in the clothing and armour of three orks and a couple of grots. With this in place, I'm moving on to the more enjoyable task of painting skin. +

+ As usual, I like to get some variety in skintones in a force; but I want to balance that against speed – I've got a game scheduled against the Crimson Fists of Bob_Hunk in (yikes) three weeks' time – so the solution is to use paint remaining on the palette to slap on the runts. The picture above shows what a difference application can make: the grinning ork on the right and the grot on the left are painted using the same mixes; the only difference is that I use smooth, blended application for the grots, and textural scumbling and feathering for the orks to create the impression of rougher, leathery skin. +

+ This pict-capture's a good illustration of the freewheeling approach to painting I'm using here – they're all at different stages, including one with (oddly) just his teeth done. +

+ Gathered forces of the Imperium +

+ The Alien Wars project +

+ What started out as a quick way to paint up the Dark Imperium boxed set has taken on a bit of a life of its own. The Rogue Trader/Nova Terra Interregnum setting is proving a gumbo of juicy ideas, and has quickly expanded to encompass lots of 'orphan' models – those that I bought on a whim or was given, and have had no big project to use them on. +

Blood Angels, Imperial Guardsmen and Squat Throngsmen

 + The Alien Wars project is proving not to be just an aesthetic thing, but a great excuse to dig through my pile of lead, tin, resin and plastic. The 'skirmishy' nature of the forces – very small groups; sometimes just two or three – makes painting more of a pleasure. It seems to fit me very well. +

+ The picture above shows what would make a rather lovely Rogue Trader force in itself – a varied mix of models that need only a sentence or two to tie 'em together. Does the picture above suggest a story to you? +

The Blood Angels are ticking over.

+ As you might have noticed over the past few inloads, I've been on a building and background spree recently – the two seem to go together; as there's plenty of time to think while you're in the flow of chopping, gluing and sculpting. The Blood Angels deserved a bit more time in the sun (after all, this started as 'their' project), so I've cracked on with a couple more.

+ Tallowlands +

...and, rather apropos of nothing, here are three dwarfs. They're the Forge World pack, kindly picked up by Lucifer 216 on a recent trip to Warhammer World. They'll make a lovely addition to the Throng of Nog. The sculpts are lovely, though I could resist reducing the slayer's (leftmost here) hunchback. As with the orks above, I trimmed the neck so I could set the head up a little higher. This meant resculpting a little hair, and also giving him some structure around the middle – somewhere normally covered by the beard. He's got a stocky little abdomen now.