Bad Moon Mega Armor Orks (Part 3)

The Bad Moon rises.

When I wrote Part 2 I was under the delusional spell that the leader of  the pack, represented by the Nazdreg miniature from the end of 40k 2nd edition, was completed. However while completing the painting on the Bad moon Warphead it became apparent that I had somehow skipped the final color step on the yellow areas of the model. Bad Moon Yellow is the highlight color that I use for these chaps -and I totally missed it! (It is literally named after them! Ugh!)

Bad Moon Yellow highlight is complete.

As I did with the Warphead, I used Bloodletter in a few spots to provide a bit more tonal depth to the yellow areas. After a few touch-ups using Sunburst Yellow I finally capped it off with a Bad Moon Yellow highlight.

And the banner pole was finished also. 

I moved on to the other Meganobz, the first step being to paint blue into the black areas. Then I focused on the guns before moving onto the yellow areas where I applied Bad Moon Yellow highlights.

Progessing slowly...

Got a bit more work to do on these gits however, so we shall have to see how far I can manage to get by Part 4...

Bad Moon Mega Armor Orks (Part 2)

I have been slowly making progress on these original Mega-Armored Ork Nobz since I last posted about them. In order to just get through with this, I chose to break away the leader of these meganobz and just get him done. And with exception to his banner pole, he pretty much is now done.

The (mostly) finished Nazdreg miniature.

The miniature of Nazdreg, of which I discussed at length in the previous Bad Moon post, seemed to have attracted the most attention from me. After getting his paint job up to a certain level I pinned and glued his arms into position.

Nazdreg, right after his arms were pinned.

And over the course of like three weeks my available hobby time was greatly diminished, and I could only manage to dab some paint on here and there.

A dabbing session.

Eventually I dabbed on enough to get this guy mostly finished. In this pic I had finally settled on what color to paint his awesome shoota. I wanted to paint his gun yellow but it would have not looked right with his arm being yellow also so chose a weird sort of  'safety orange' color for parts of the weapon. I think this has turned out well.

You can dance ...if you want too.

This is from that era when the GW Design Studio had an uncontrollable urge to slap a skull on every part of every miniature, and old Nazdreg here was no exception. I painted the one on his knee a traditional bone color and some of the snaller ones were painted in a rusty/bronze. The glyphs on his shoulder also got the bronze simply because I was too indecisive on how to paint them. Traditionally ork glyphs are colored in contrasting colors but usually they are all a different from one another. Often this looks like a mess too me, so I feel that the solution to tone that mess done worked out very well.

"Skulls for da...wait ah sec..."

I thought the base needed something other than rocks and rubble, and It occurred to me that a marine helmet/head would be the nature choice. My recent work on the base for my Waaagh Plane incorporated elements of a destroyed Ultramarines bike, however there still too many Dark Angel players locally to not take advantage of the opportunity to take the piss out of 'em. So I painted up a spare head/helmet for use as a grisly trophy.

Another Dark Angel headed  for glory.

Using a bit of sponge, a liberal application of Blood for the Blood God paint was applied onto the bottom of the marine helm and in the area near where the head rests on the ground. The power claw got some too, perhaps suggesting that the corpse of this Astartes is mangled far worse than the evidence would show...

"Blood for the Blood God! Oy, did I really just say that?!"

Next up is his back pole and some grass on the base and this model will be done. Then the other three gits need their paint. Slowly, but surely, I will get there...

Bad Moon Mega Armor Orks (Part 1)

This is a unit of orks in mega armor (armour) that I have been keen on finishing for a very long time now. The first model here was finished about 20 years ago in the late '90s. That model is below. I was pleased with how it turned out and had always hoped to replicate his paint job however some of the paints I used at the time are no longer available. I was pleased with it, and I feel it still holds up well.Although a few years ago I extended his base onto a terminator sized base. I still like these miniatures. Yeah, I agree, they aren't as bulked out and awesome as the later versions, but I figure the Bad Moons can afford the miniaturization of technology.

The first completed Bad Moon Mega Armor Ork. 

In fact the rest of this mob has been placed onto larger bases also. This happened circa 2009-2010-ish prior to start of this blog, and for one reason or another I have left them alone. But they were placed back into the queue when I started working on my Bad Moon ork dreadnought this past Dreadtober. I was very pleased with how that project turned out and I have been keen to finish these guys ever since.

The whole mob, in it's unassembled glory.

The leader of this mob is represented by the old Nazdreg Ug Urdgrub miniature. I will discuss this model more below, but for now here are some stage-by-stage pics.  In this first pic I had decided that there was too much black paint on it and added some more yellow areas. I base coated these areas in Fiery Orange.

The Nob, with additional basecoats. 

Here he is with Sunburst Yellow applied over the Fiery Orange. His flesh is done now too and I am about to start on highlights to the yellow and black areas.

Progressing along nicely...

All of the other boys have had their bases completed, including the original chap from the '90s, who is now done again. Note that this ork's flesh is more pale than the others. I have pretty much perfected my ork flesh paint scheme and don't want to deviate from it on the rest of this unit, so this one ork will just have to stand out a bit. To be truthful, I am not too sure exactly how I got this look on him so many years ago, but I suspect that I added white to Bilious Green instead of the Sunburst Yellow that I do now.

Done again!

As with the Nob, the other three boyz have their flesh done and it is time to start on highlights and detailing. We'll see how far this gets in part 2.

Progress continues...

Ok, now back to the old Nazdreg Ug Urdgrub miniature: Nazdreg is the Bad Moon Warlord and is simply a bad-ass. His entry in the 2nd Edition Ork Codex describes him as "rich, ostentatious, over indulgent, and overweight." and that Nazdreg "is easily the most cunning and intelligent battlefield commander the Bad Moons have ever had." It goes on further to describe his massive space hulk warship  as well. Truly he is something special and unique in the 40K universe. And the John Blanche art that accompanied this entry surely set the expectation that if a miniature were to be made of him, that he would be massive.

Nazdreg by John Blanche. 

 Seriously, really take a minute to go over that picture and take in all that detail. Study those weapons.  Count the moons! Try to find his head! Note also that he is kneeling in that illustration as well, further implying that this would be a massive model on the table top. But instead, released in the waning days of 3rd edition, we got this:

From the GW catalog. 

OK, It's an alright model of an Ork Nob in this style of armor, but a horrible and woefully underwhelming model of Nazdreg when compared to the Blanche illustration. I couldn't take it seriously at the time of release, and when the orks got a size boost in 3rd ed this model was just...wanting. So, a generic Nob he became to me then and will remain so now.

And still I dream of a proper Nazdreg...