Orcs! (With a 'C') part 2

For the past 2 weeks I have been scrambling to get my fantasy orcs completed by today, but I grossly underestimated post-workday burnout and other non-hobby related distractions. Never-the-less, I have made some progress! On the chariot I made quite a bit of progress but I will showcase that in it's own post. But I have made, what has got to be a speed record for me, quite a bit of progress on the spear regiment.

By the morning of May 24th this was where I was at with orcs.

I had spent a few evenings clipping the legs and bodies off of the sprues and cleaning off mold lines. Probably my least favorite thing about miniatures is mold lines. They are annoying to have to contend with and I always find one in the middle of painting the model that I've missed. They are my bane. Anyway, like I have shown in other blog posts, I add the gravel to my bases this early in the process. After taking some time to glue that on, it was time to go out to my deck for some priming action.

I had cleaned off the spears as well and primed them with bodies. The other components I left on the sprues and primed them as they were. Note the 'command' sprue, the one on the right, appears to be mangled?

My local, and now sadly gone, favorite gaming store that was around about 10 years ago received a box from their distributor that badly damaged and the owner gave me the box because he couldn't sell it.

Although that one sprue had a few bitz detached everything was there. One of the shield sprues was warped but no big deal. At the time I had no intention of playing WHFB I just figured I could use the bodies for 40k and just add on left over parts from a Orks boxed set. So I got this damaged box and it stayed in my mini-closet until recently.

 On May 26th I began the base coating stage by painting all the flesh in Dark Angel's green (actually the new version, 'Caliban green' I think it's called), and the weapons, teeth and base a dark brown color.

I also separated the left arms and heads. over the span of about a week I slowly applied Goblin Green, and the thinned yellow/green ink washes to all the orc skin.

This was the level the regiment was at as off June 9th. The black clothing was highlighted with a gray tone.

I am always tempted to just leave the heads off and paint a single eyeball on the neck stumps... :)

 By the evening of June 12th I had the heads on my fodder...um, troops, attached as well as their arms. I did this in a way that hope will make it so that they will rank-up properly. The only factor I've not accounted for is the shields I will be adding to these guys, so I hope I have provided enough room to accommodate them.

Last night I added Bleached Bone to the teeth (these models have teeth not just in their mouths but also hanging from necklaces, ear rings, etc.). and I used various browns to paint up the leather bits. As you might be able to spot on some of the arms, that I have also begun to paint the next highlight stage on the orc flesh.

Also I applied Tin Bitz to the spear heads, but each one was applied a different amount of this color. I intend to make the heads of these spears appear like old farm equipment, or weathered tools with must the edges highlighted in silver. Some will be rustier than others. Looking at the way these are sculpted and seeing how GW tends to paint these in their product shots, it doesn't make sense to me that these would be shiny and bright, but weathered more like and old hoe or a rake, but no less deadly in the hands of these brutes.

The early stages of the nasty spear heads.

So, I will not make today's deadline. Not possible I think. But I have still made decent progress and will continue to hammer out this army at this pace which I hope to carry over to the 40K orks. If I can just keep from coming home exhausted that is,,,;)