Sam's Orcs - The Savagery Begins (209pts)

So it begins. And banging straight out the gate is the man (orc?) himself, Ugg Bonekrakka and a couple of the Beastie Boyz.

So to tally it up:

- 1 x savage orc warlord on boar, with shield : 159pts

- 2 x savage orc boars boyz : 50pts

Total : 209pts.

Bit of a small month volume wise, but still waiting for a few things in the post and a nice gentle reintroduction to actually painting stuff.

For the scheme I wanted to keep things fairly simple and instead rely on max vibrancy. To that effect I wanted the brightest green possible for the orcs, in fact shading aside the darkest green panted on the skin was Moot Green (time to get your sunglasses out). To contrast I wanted to use old skool red wood, again relatively bright, and a light blue grey for the stone. From there I kept to complimentary colours for the furs, leather and metal.

For now I've gone with the same lion colour fur on their clothing, I imagine it as some kind of rite of passage into the Beastie Boyz, having to best a lion bare handed. But for other units though, I might mix it up, ala the boars.

Speaking of the boars, I wanted to keep a uniform colour for the fleshy bits, tusk etc., and then chuck all thoughts of uniformity out the window for the fur. I definitely like how its turned out so I plan to continue it on the rest, although I may run out of schemes. Off the top of my head I've got at least another 5 ideas though, so fingers crossed I'll be good.

One very busy model

Although savage orcs are known for their tattoos and war paint, I decided not to indulge. Mostly this is because the sculpts are already really busy and most of the places to put some details like that are already covered with rings and trinkets. This is especially true on the Big Boss, his fur cape is one of the busiest things I've ever painted. That being said I was originally thinking to do simple tattoos, things like patterns of dots and zags in black and white, which I may yet experiment with, but for now I'm happy without.

Basing wise, I wasn't quite brave enough to do Goblin Green to the max, but I wanted an appropriate homage. So a dirt base covered with tufts and a mix of bright and dark static grass, finished with an olive green edge. I'll be knocking out a movement tray for them to similar effect at some point during the challenge.

I have to say I'm pretty happy with the challenge so far, I've been really enjoying getting back into painting. Especially if I can paint with some eye watering 90s vibes.

On once more to the story/theme of the force, this time introducing the shaman, Grog Mindbenda to continue the plot.

Grog's Blowin' Off Steam

Ugg was clearly daft, Grog had known it for some time, but the brute was nie on unkillable. Mork how he’d tried! The levels of shroom powder he’d put into that stuntie brew they'd nicked would’ve killed a rhinox. He'd even chosen the stuntie stuff becoz it’d hide the flavor better. But no, Ugg had drunk the lot then demanded he make more to share wiv da boyz. He’d had to kick gobbos around for the rest of the week gathering shroomz for another batch. Then just to make it worse, da git had only gone an run down into some hummie gaff kracked a bunch of skullz and brought back another lot of brew. An somehow dis lot had a bunch of stuntie brew wiv it too. Grog hadn’t believed it!. When a couple of da Beastie Boyz rolled it over to his hut, he woz so livid he would’ve straight up brain bursta’d the pair of them if Ugg hadn’t been standing there, grinning from ear to ear and tellin’ him all about wot he found. For Gork’s sake hummies were even dafter that Ugg! Who wiv there brains not leakin out stored stuntie brew instead of bloody well drinking it! As soon as Ugg left, he’d blasted the nearest gobbo and kicked another one down the well. As if he hadn’t had enough trouble gatherin’ the shroomz for the last batch! He’d ‘ave to think of something else or Mork’s Foot he’d be beating gobbos for weeks just to keep the boyz from braining each other. 

For some time he sat in his hut, fuming. The hours passed as he tried to think of something, anything, but every time he looked over at the barrels they just sat there, the stoopid stuntie wordz chiseled round the rims givin’ ‘im the ol' stink eye. If there was anything Grog hated more than Ugg, it was stunties!... well that and lazy gobbos!... and of course bad shroomz! (The little uns that looked exactly like the good shroomz until he’d already taken ‘em and BAM! He'd wake up days later in the middle of the forest using a couple of gobbos as clubz for his favorite drum!)... oh and that one bloody toof at the back of his mouth that wobbled a bit... Come to think of it there were a lot of things he hated more than Ugg, but that didn’t make him feel any better about the situation. 

He realised he'd been pacing up and down and decided to go sit back down, this time in his favourite chair, the one wiv da good furs. It was well away from the barrels and more importantly facing the other way. But still it didn't work, he couldn't stop fuming. He even took a couple of deathcapps to try take his mind off it, but all that did was cause him to accidentally blow a hole in his roof. 

It was just as he was poking his staff into the thatch, inspecting the damage, that he had an idea, it was a little bit cunnin’, and very brutal, or woz it the other way round? Nevamind, it was an idea. For the first time since he’d set eyes on those stuntie roonz that mornin' a toofy smile crept its way across his face. He knew exactly wot to do about Ugg. If it worked it’d be brilliant, two gobbos wiv one rock as they say. Sure he'd have to knock up some more of dat brew, a lot more in fact, and that would mean goin' on some more raidz, but the boyz were always 'appy to do that. And once he'd done dat he'd pay a visit to the Broken Peak and lure out an old friend to give him the helpin' hand he needed. He sat back down feeling very pleased with himself, not even caring about the thatch that was tangled in amongst his best furs and scratching at his skin. At long last things were beginning to look up... (especially wiv a hole in the roof)

Not sure I'll manage to get a side story out every month, but I've still got a few ideas yet...

And on a side note, my daughter got hyped watching me paint and wanted to have a go. So we painted this chap together.

Thanks to AdamH for the model as this guy and a whole bunch more horrors were a wonderful present from him.